Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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I chose to look at a Supreme Court case buck
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vs Bell from 1927 which is pretty fascinating.
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It's about forced sterilization and it was very much wrapped
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up in the politics of eugenics and then that movement
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in the United States, there's a whole history of how
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eugenics was utilized as a tool to stop immigration and
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to uphold the power of the anglo section population.
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Um and how buck vs Bell fits into that movement,
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but I'll try and stick just to the facts and
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the ethical issues of this case.
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So back in the 1920s, it was normal for poor
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Children to be sent to live with middle class families
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under the assumption that this would be better for their
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upbringing. There was a girl named Carrie buck who was
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sent to live with a family who treated her really
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badly and she was actually raped by a family member
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while she was there, she became pregnant.
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And rather than take responsibility for the situation, the family
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had her deemed feebleminded and epileptic and sent to an
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institution And her mother at eight month old daughter were
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also deemed feebleminded.
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At that time, the state of Virginia had just passed
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a law allowing for sterilization and they wanted to test
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it in front of the Supreme Court.
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So they had carry act as a plaintiff in front
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of the Supreme Court and they eventually ruled against her
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8-1 for her to be forcibly sterilized.
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She had a lawyer that was appointed for her that
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basically made sure she that she would lose.
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And this set a precedent that Enabled 60-70,000 forced sterilizations
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right up through the 1970s.
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And although it's taboo now, there are still cases of
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forced sterilization happening and being reported in the United States.
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The most glaring ethical issue in this case is the
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right to reproductive autonomy and the government's role in that
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decision, based on prevailing attitudes about genetics at the time,
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consequential ists would have argued that the benefit to society
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and the gene pool of forced sterilization would have outweighed
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a person's right to reproduce.
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That's the entire rationale for eugenics in general.
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But it wouldn't hold true for consequential lists of today
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because there's common agreement now that eugenics is a flawed
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premise. The judge who wrote the majority opinion in the
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case said it is better for all of the world
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if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime
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or to let them starve for their imbecility.
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Society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing
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their kind.
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So that's the rationale for for why it's better to
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forcibly sterilize someone.
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And it's and it's uh, for society, it's better than
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taking away a person's right to reproduce.
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There's also the paternalistic idea that sterilization is the best
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thing to do for someone the most humane for people
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minded person.
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Um, feminists would point out the fact that the majority
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of people who were sterilized during this time were women
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and especially poor women and those who had Children out
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of wedlock.
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From a content perspective for sterilization shouldn't happen is morally
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wrong because it treats people as a means to an
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end in this case, um and improved gene pool eugenics
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in in general would be unacceptable for con because it
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goes against the categorical imperative by treating a group of
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people differently and breaching their right to autonomy.
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Kant would also argue that robbing a person of their
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right to reproduce would inhibit their pursuit of moral enlightenment.
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An interesting thing was that the one judge who dissented
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was a catholic.
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And Catholics opposed for sterilization first because it's a moral
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obligation to reproduce in the catholic tradition, but also because
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they have Catholics have a rule based moral code where
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the interest of the family supersedes the interests of society
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and where it's wrong to violate a person's body who
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hasn't committed any wrongdoing.
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Yeah, Right.
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Another ethical issue was informed consent and truth telling many
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of the people who were sterilized in Virginia as a
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result of this ruling, relied too about it.
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We're not told at all.
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They were either too young.
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They were convinced they were getting an appendectomy or some
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other surgery and many live their entire lives, never knowing
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that they couldn't reproduce, trying to have families and never
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being able to and one could make the argument that
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it was morally wrong to deny their spouses of the
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right to reproduce because their spouses entered into marriages with
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these people who were sterilized never knowing that they wouldn't
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be able to have families for themselves.
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Yeah. There's the issue of mental health diagnosis at that
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time in the United States of feebleminded diagnosis carried the
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very real threat of institutionalization and sterilization which are both
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ethically dubious practices and for that reason, any testing that
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would result in diagnosis should have special consideration paid to
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the potential for bias.
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In this case, the evaluation of Carrie buck was brief
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or non existent because the real goal of the whole
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process was just to remove her and protect the reputation
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of her rapist.
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Mhm. There's the issue of conflict of interest and what
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the moral intent was in this case.
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Carrie buck's lawyer that was appointed to her was the
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former chairman of the institution that she was committed to.
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Who obviously wanted the practice of forced sterilization to be
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able to happen.
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And in this context, Kerry wasn't receiving real representation and
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she was being used again as a means for a
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political end.
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Um Kant would argue that this is morally unjust because
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it's also not something that would be universally upheld for
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everybody. Yeah.
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And then stepping back to eugenics in general, there's the
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idea of genetic determinism, that a person's genes determine a
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person's characteristics and abilities.
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And I know we're supposed to be skeptical of slippery
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slope arguments, but I think where it comes to um
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this, it's safe to say that history has shown that
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it's accurate.
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That when you're pursuing activity is trying to alter a
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population's gene pool, it could very reasonably lead to genocide.
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And it did because who decides what characteristics are favorable?
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How do you remove bias?
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It leaves the door open for politics and power dynamics
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and stigmatization.
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Um because picking which characteristics are desirable and undesirable will
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eventually be harmful.
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Um, and in contemporary times, genetic determinism is still an
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idea that's around today, but it's no longer used in
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the eugenics capacity.
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Obviously it's now more about disease diagnosis and treatment, um,
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and has less ethical issues.
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Although we read about, you know, if the research taking
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place has ethical issues sometimes.
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Okay, Um as a Supreme Court case, this would set
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a precedent that would affect similar cases in the future
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and ultimately again did lead to 60 or 70,000 forced
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sterilizations. Um, and history confirms that the eugenics movement influenced
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the Nazi Party's believe structure.
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So in a way upholding this law had an influence
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on hundreds of thousands of forced sterilizations and deaths.
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In terms of contemporary issues, there are still some judges
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who offer trades for shorter sentences.
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So they say if you agree to go on birth
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control or shorten your will shorten your sentence, which is
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a form of coerced sterilization In 2020, there was a
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case that exposed that immigrants and ice detention centers along
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the Mexico border, we're having hysterectomy is performed without their
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knowledge, which is similar.
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The Britney Spears conservatorship is basically the exact same thing
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that's happening here.
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Her family had her um diagnosed as mentally unfit.
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And so her father and her family took over her
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entire affairs and they're making her stay on birth control,
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which is the parallel to this case.
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So she can't make her own reproductive health decisions as
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a result of having been diagnosed mentally incapacitated.
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Um, and the last kind of the last similarity is
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um, looking at the case from the fact that this
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case, so that there was categorically, you know, for sterilization
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says that there's categorically characteristics that are better than others.
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And we'd like to cleanse the gene pool.
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Um and when you look at it from that perspective,
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you can think about the case of designer babies and
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gene editing for disease treatment.
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So we're doing it now, we're doing gene editing, but
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we're just not necessarily taking away anyone's rights while we
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do it.
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Yeah, so my thoughts on this, thinking about john Rawls
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veil of ignorance which says that moral decisions should be
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made as they were ignorant of life circumstances of anyone
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involved. I don't believe that any of the justices on
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the Supreme Court actually imagined a world in which they
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could have been in a similar circumstance to carry a
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book. There was an incredible amount of bias in this
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ruling. I don't often agree with Kant, but I'm with
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him on this one in this case.
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It comes down to motivation by forcing the detainment and
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sterilization on carrie buck.
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She was used as a means to multiple ends.
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It had nothing to do with her own well being.
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It was namely for her family of her rapist to
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discredit and expel her from their lives and for the
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state of Virginia to achieve legal legitimization of therefore sterilization
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tactic in their eugenics processes, practices.
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They're now protections around mental health diagnosis.
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The United Nations has um, has a code where a
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person's mental illness shall never be diagnosed based on political,
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economic or social status, membership of cultural, racial, basically, you
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can't have discrimination in mental health diagnosis.
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Um, as I discussed earlier, the main opposing argument in
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this case is uh the utilitarian argument that for sterilization
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would lead eventually to less suffering on the whole because
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of a cleansed gene pool.
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But I think again, history has shown that attempts to
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clarify the gene pool have resulted in quite a lot
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of suffering around the world.
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So I hope my classmates have a chance to watch
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my presentation and learn a bit about how bioethics, politics
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and public policy intertwine.
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And I look forward to comments.
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Thanks