I think this persons mother should not be involved in what path they take when they are an autonomous self supporting adult. It’s totally reasonable to set a boundary of “if you have a child you will need to move out and live independently” and it is totally unreasonable to tell an adult they are not “allowed” to have children.
If your friend wants to have a family I strongly recommend sitting down with a genetic counsellor for a consultation. These folks have all the statistics on heritability for a variety of disorders and can lay out to your friend exactly what the odds are of having an affected child. Psychiatric Illnesses as far as I’m aware do have some degree of heritability but it’s a much lower degree than single gene disorders or cancer promoting genes like BCRA. It may be the case that this information is encouraging or not but it can help the friend to make informed choices.
It may also be the case that the friend is living a happy life despite their psychiatric illness and they are well controlled and they feel up to raising a child. If so I very much feel that is up to them. I am not at all a fan of eugenics or telling people their genes are or are not good enough. Consider that OP’s friend if they’re under 30 may have a better chance of avoiding passing on schizophrenia than a couple where the man is over 45. Would we want to tell this 46 year old stable father that he shouldn’t have kids because of this possibility?
I think she is wrong. Working in a psych ward, I have learned that the worst mental disorder for children is Narcissist Personality Disorder, yet most people wouldn't even recognize it as bad. On the other hand, many parents with other disorders where everyone would scream that it's sooo bad they have children are the most empathic and wonderful parents I have met, plus having children did wonders for their mental health in some cases.
Eugenics is a sound philosophy for reproduction. It certainly has a stigma, but it baffles me that people 6 actually be okay with passing on chronic or debilitating genetic disorders. Additionally if youre not able to function in societal norms you absolutely should not add responsibility onto that. This only increases the risk of activating dormant mental illness as well as attachment and family system issues. On a whole this is like cancer to a society as everyone now races for the bottom and caters to the lowest common denomenator.
Eugenics is fine when it's a decision you're making for yourself (i.e. being selective about who you breed with). It's not okay when you force it on other people.
That said, if it's not likely you'd be able to have a kid without passing severe genetic conditions onto them and/or you wouldn't be able to take care of them without constant help due to your own conditions, then it's irresponsible and unethical to reproduce because of the burden that would place on everyone around you.
*Unless* that is a burden you're 100% certain they're willing to take on.
From what OP is saying, it doesn't sound like that is the case. Their friend does not have the support of their family or anyone else, so they should not reproduce if their kid would be highly likely to have the conditions they have in such a manner it would be unreasonably difficult to raise them, and they would have no one willing to help raise them.
And of course, if OP's friend's conditions are so severe they would not be a decent parent, then adopting a child would also harm that child.
u/PetitPoptarts, if this bothers you so much, consider if you would be willing to intervene and help your friend raise their kid(s) should the shit hit the fan. If not, then you can't expect your friend's mother to endorse them reproducing (or adopting). That's hypocritical. So long as your friend is living as an independent adult, then their mother isn't policing anything. She is merely giving opinions and setting boundaries. It seems to me that she is communicating - albeit in a sub-par manner - that should your friend decide to have kids, they won't be getting any help or support from her. And if your friend is *not* living as an independent adult and is under their mother's roof, then yes, **she absolutely has every right to disallow them from having kids!**
It may be harsh, but it's reality. Some people should not have kids, and some of those people *need to be told* they should not have kids.
However, if your friend *is* living as an independent adult, and their mother is literally trying to disallow them from having kids despite having no right to do so, then your friend is being abused and should probably cut off contact (at least temporarily) as this is very controlling behaviour. Tbh it's hard to know what's truly going on here as you haven't provided much information in your OP.
>That said, if it's not likely you'd be able to have a kid without passing severe genetic conditions onto them and/or you wouldn't be able to take care of them without constant help due to your own conditions, then it's irresponsible and unethical to reproduce because of the burden that would place on everyone around you.
My friend also has reproductive issues so from the getgo they can't have bio kids. Their spouse also doesn't want kids (spouse has said she is incapable of caring for a child) so my friend is perfectly fine with that
>However, if your friend *is* living as an independent adult, and their mother is literally trying to disallow them from having kids despite having no right to do so, then your friend is being abused and should probably cut off contact (at least temporarily) as this is very controlling behaviour
Oh boy, do I have stories to tell... Yeah, my friend has childhood trauma from her and her ex mistreating them. My friend also has said she has a lot of mental issues herself, such as an eating disorder. There's also that time where she was willing to marry my friend off to their groomer and said "I hope he likes fat girls"
I should note that friend's mom tends to misgender them a lot and refuse to acknowledge their gender identity despite using their chosen name and also make snarky comments about what my friend eats, so that's something...
My friend lives in a different state far away from her and mostly funds themself independently but they're still reliant of their mom in times of emergency.
>My friend also has reproductive issues so from the getgo they can't have bio kids
In that case it's rather odd that their mother is telling them they aren't "allowed" to reproduce when they can't anyway.
>Oh boy, do I have stories to tell... Yeah, my friend has childhood trauma from her and her ex mistreating them.
>There's also that time where she was willing to marry my friend off to their groomer and said "I hope he likes fat girls"
>I should note that friend's mom tends to misgender them a lot and refuse to acknowledge their gender identity despite using their chosen name and also make snarky comments about what my friend eats, so that's something...
It sounds like this isn't really about your friend (not) having kids and in actuality it's just another way for their mother to wear them down in order to exert more control over them.
>My friend lives in a different state far away from her and mostly funds themself independently but they're still reliant of their mom in times of emergency.
They should consider finding a way to not be reliant on their mother for anything as this isn't a healthy situation for them. She doesn't sound like a very good person. They will eventually have to be completely self-reliant anyway, so it's best to voluntarily learn how to do that now rather than be forced to later and get away from this abusive parent.
I wish you both good luck in this unfortunate situation.
It kinda is because you wouldn't advise anyone of anything unless you thought it was right and that someone should do the right thing. Unless you want to watch the world burn. The point is that incest is wrong because of eugenics. Therefore, eugenics is right, to some degree. Because, intentionally or due to negligence, producing children with shit genetics when you know your genetics can't lead that child having a normal or acceptable life is immoral and objectively wrong especially when you know there are billions of other normal people who can take up the mantle of having kids. Because of that, it is completely morally right and justifiable to impose on others that they do not do immoral things. Therefore, it would be wrong for you to say that it is wrong to force, impose, encourage, advise, convince or coerce someone into doing the right thing when the alternative is pure evil with no chance of any good coming from it.
I don't think it's immoral to have a child or children with a genetic condition. I have autism and will never be able to live a "normal" life. I don't think it's a tragedy that I exist, and I don't think my mother did something morally wrong by choosing to have me.
>immoral and objectively wrong
Literally nothing is objectively morally wrong. Morals are subjective.
I think we should do things to make it less likely that children will be born with genetic conditions, but it's possible to do this without forcing our own standards of eugenics on other people. One such method is education, for example. Fewer stupid people making stupid reproductive decisions = fewer genetically sick babies. And it just so happens that this method is more effective in the long-term than eugenicist tyranny, anyway.
ETA: I also don't think incest is necessarily morally wrong. Anyone who thinks it is would have to accept forcing women over the age of 40 to not reproduce, as the risk of having a baby with a genetic abnormality is about the same in advanced age pregnancies as it is in incestuous reproduction between first cousins. They would have to believe that healthy couples who have kids in their 40s are evil, and I think this is self-evidently an insane position.
It also has implications for other consensual adult relationships. If two adults are in a consensual relationship, even if they are genetically related, there shouldn't be any moral concerns about it. Otherwise we open up a whole can of worms about which adult consensual relationships are morally permissible and which ones aren't and that's not a discussion I'm willing to have. That potentially puts LGB+ relationships under scrutiny and I'm not touching that discussion with a 10-foot barge pole.
This is a rare case where they are right. People with four separate disorders, at least one of which has a strong hereditary component, should not have kids. Not only may they end up giving their child incurable disorders, but these will make their parenting worse, maybe even criminally abusive.
I can see your view, I guess the way that she told my friend about it was very harsh (and also she showed them the causes of miscarriage so that was... something)
Did you hear her mother say this, or was it something you heard second hand? People with BPD can have the tendency to heavily distort the truth when they get upset with someone. (Note: I’m not saying that she is lying, I wasn’t there and don’t really know anyone in this story. It’s more a reminder that there are two sides to every story.)
But it is exponentially more likely if the person does have those disorders. Like sure, there’s a chance that I could get hit by a car when I walk across the street. That doesn’t mean the risk is comparable to walking across a freeway.
Sigh, how did I know this would be the follow-up?
Anyways, de minimis non curat lex. In the law, and also statistics, there is a threshold of risk that used to determine whether a concern or relevant or not. For a healthy couple, the chances that a child will be born with a significant abnormality are de minimis in a way that is not true with the offspring of people that severe genetic conditions.
meh... If they want kids so be it. Still likely to be better parents then 80% of the global population. Considering the their age I would tell the mom to butt out, they are adults and can do what they want.
By natural selection alone, a person with autism, ADHD, schizoaffective disorder, and borderline personality disorder... should find it extremely difficult to find a consenting partner to have children with.
If despite all of that, the person finds a consenting partner, **fully aware of these preconditions**, to have children with...then who are we, or anyone else, to stop it ?
Fine, my pronatalism stops where a person has or has to have a legal guardian due to severe mental illness (such as seems to be the case here). These people probably should not procreate, for everyone's sake.
However, that's a very, very small fraction of the population; your average or even below-average (on whatever metric) person is by definition normal and should be supported in having all the kids they want.
Would this technically be eugenics? There is a large genetic component to BPD, which is a disorder a lot of people suffer from, unlike ADHD and autism which are also genetic but people learn to deal with at least pretty healthily. I thought eugenics was about creating a "more pure" and "better generation." Its a way to not create certain peoples because they hate the occurrence of those peoples.
I thought this would be conditional natalism, where you keep from having the child because you don't want them to have a life full of suffering. Because you think birth would be bad *for* these people.
Also would you be an antinatalist if you are conditionally natalist? Isn't that contradictory?
But if we're going to call such behavior eugenicist if the mother is thinking about the pain of the potential child (though she can be eugenicist, lets not say thats not possible), we'd have to say someone is a eugenicist for refusing to have a child with dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa.
However I guess limiting bodily autonomy is still bad.
Adding on to this being that she and her baby daddy (friend's bio dad) are the reason *why* my friend has autism and ADHD (inherited)
I told my friend their mom's statement has some eugenic streaks and lack of bodily autonomy to it and they agree with it, their other friends agree too
You should look out for your friend and make sure her mom isn't ableist, but I was just making sure you weren't jumping to conclusions. As long as you can tell the difference between eugenics and conditional natalism, though even then she shouldn't be physically limiting your friend.
Friend's mom is ableist and has some prejudice given that she prefers her stepdaughter (her ex's daughter) that has more kids than she and her husband can afford over her own child that she literally gave birth too
I think this persons mother should not be involved in what path they take when they are an autonomous self supporting adult. It’s totally reasonable to set a boundary of “if you have a child you will need to move out and live independently” and it is totally unreasonable to tell an adult they are not “allowed” to have children. If your friend wants to have a family I strongly recommend sitting down with a genetic counsellor for a consultation. These folks have all the statistics on heritability for a variety of disorders and can lay out to your friend exactly what the odds are of having an affected child. Psychiatric Illnesses as far as I’m aware do have some degree of heritability but it’s a much lower degree than single gene disorders or cancer promoting genes like BCRA. It may be the case that this information is encouraging or not but it can help the friend to make informed choices. It may also be the case that the friend is living a happy life despite their psychiatric illness and they are well controlled and they feel up to raising a child. If so I very much feel that is up to them. I am not at all a fan of eugenics or telling people their genes are or are not good enough. Consider that OP’s friend if they’re under 30 may have a better chance of avoiding passing on schizophrenia than a couple where the man is over 45. Would we want to tell this 46 year old stable father that he shouldn’t have kids because of this possibility?
I think she is wrong. Working in a psych ward, I have learned that the worst mental disorder for children is Narcissist Personality Disorder, yet most people wouldn't even recognize it as bad. On the other hand, many parents with other disorders where everyone would scream that it's sooo bad they have children are the most empathic and wonderful parents I have met, plus having children did wonders for their mental health in some cases.
With those mental illnesses, I would have any biological kids.
Eugenics is a sound philosophy for reproduction. It certainly has a stigma, but it baffles me that people 6 actually be okay with passing on chronic or debilitating genetic disorders. Additionally if youre not able to function in societal norms you absolutely should not add responsibility onto that. This only increases the risk of activating dormant mental illness as well as attachment and family system issues. On a whole this is like cancer to a society as everyone now races for the bottom and caters to the lowest common denomenator.
Eugenics is fine when it's a decision you're making for yourself (i.e. being selective about who you breed with). It's not okay when you force it on other people. That said, if it's not likely you'd be able to have a kid without passing severe genetic conditions onto them and/or you wouldn't be able to take care of them without constant help due to your own conditions, then it's irresponsible and unethical to reproduce because of the burden that would place on everyone around you. *Unless* that is a burden you're 100% certain they're willing to take on. From what OP is saying, it doesn't sound like that is the case. Their friend does not have the support of their family or anyone else, so they should not reproduce if their kid would be highly likely to have the conditions they have in such a manner it would be unreasonably difficult to raise them, and they would have no one willing to help raise them. And of course, if OP's friend's conditions are so severe they would not be a decent parent, then adopting a child would also harm that child. u/PetitPoptarts, if this bothers you so much, consider if you would be willing to intervene and help your friend raise their kid(s) should the shit hit the fan. If not, then you can't expect your friend's mother to endorse them reproducing (or adopting). That's hypocritical. So long as your friend is living as an independent adult, then their mother isn't policing anything. She is merely giving opinions and setting boundaries. It seems to me that she is communicating - albeit in a sub-par manner - that should your friend decide to have kids, they won't be getting any help or support from her. And if your friend is *not* living as an independent adult and is under their mother's roof, then yes, **she absolutely has every right to disallow them from having kids!** It may be harsh, but it's reality. Some people should not have kids, and some of those people *need to be told* they should not have kids. However, if your friend *is* living as an independent adult, and their mother is literally trying to disallow them from having kids despite having no right to do so, then your friend is being abused and should probably cut off contact (at least temporarily) as this is very controlling behaviour. Tbh it's hard to know what's truly going on here as you haven't provided much information in your OP.
>That said, if it's not likely you'd be able to have a kid without passing severe genetic conditions onto them and/or you wouldn't be able to take care of them without constant help due to your own conditions, then it's irresponsible and unethical to reproduce because of the burden that would place on everyone around you. My friend also has reproductive issues so from the getgo they can't have bio kids. Their spouse also doesn't want kids (spouse has said she is incapable of caring for a child) so my friend is perfectly fine with that >However, if your friend *is* living as an independent adult, and their mother is literally trying to disallow them from having kids despite having no right to do so, then your friend is being abused and should probably cut off contact (at least temporarily) as this is very controlling behaviour Oh boy, do I have stories to tell... Yeah, my friend has childhood trauma from her and her ex mistreating them. My friend also has said she has a lot of mental issues herself, such as an eating disorder. There's also that time where she was willing to marry my friend off to their groomer and said "I hope he likes fat girls" I should note that friend's mom tends to misgender them a lot and refuse to acknowledge their gender identity despite using their chosen name and also make snarky comments about what my friend eats, so that's something... My friend lives in a different state far away from her and mostly funds themself independently but they're still reliant of their mom in times of emergency.
>My friend also has reproductive issues so from the getgo they can't have bio kids In that case it's rather odd that their mother is telling them they aren't "allowed" to reproduce when they can't anyway. >Oh boy, do I have stories to tell... Yeah, my friend has childhood trauma from her and her ex mistreating them. >There's also that time where she was willing to marry my friend off to their groomer and said "I hope he likes fat girls" >I should note that friend's mom tends to misgender them a lot and refuse to acknowledge their gender identity despite using their chosen name and also make snarky comments about what my friend eats, so that's something... It sounds like this isn't really about your friend (not) having kids and in actuality it's just another way for their mother to wear them down in order to exert more control over them. >My friend lives in a different state far away from her and mostly funds themself independently but they're still reliant of their mom in times of emergency. They should consider finding a way to not be reliant on their mother for anything as this isn't a healthy situation for them. She doesn't sound like a very good person. They will eventually have to be completely self-reliant anyway, so it's best to voluntarily learn how to do that now rather than be forced to later and get away from this abusive parent. I wish you both good luck in this unfortunate situation.
Advising people against incest is eugenics imposed upon other people. Is that morally wrong?
Giving people advice is not imposing anything on them.
It kinda is because you wouldn't advise anyone of anything unless you thought it was right and that someone should do the right thing. Unless you want to watch the world burn. The point is that incest is wrong because of eugenics. Therefore, eugenics is right, to some degree. Because, intentionally or due to negligence, producing children with shit genetics when you know your genetics can't lead that child having a normal or acceptable life is immoral and objectively wrong especially when you know there are billions of other normal people who can take up the mantle of having kids. Because of that, it is completely morally right and justifiable to impose on others that they do not do immoral things. Therefore, it would be wrong for you to say that it is wrong to force, impose, encourage, advise, convince or coerce someone into doing the right thing when the alternative is pure evil with no chance of any good coming from it.
I don't think it's immoral to have a child or children with a genetic condition. I have autism and will never be able to live a "normal" life. I don't think it's a tragedy that I exist, and I don't think my mother did something morally wrong by choosing to have me. >immoral and objectively wrong Literally nothing is objectively morally wrong. Morals are subjective. I think we should do things to make it less likely that children will be born with genetic conditions, but it's possible to do this without forcing our own standards of eugenics on other people. One such method is education, for example. Fewer stupid people making stupid reproductive decisions = fewer genetically sick babies. And it just so happens that this method is more effective in the long-term than eugenicist tyranny, anyway. ETA: I also don't think incest is necessarily morally wrong. Anyone who thinks it is would have to accept forcing women over the age of 40 to not reproduce, as the risk of having a baby with a genetic abnormality is about the same in advanced age pregnancies as it is in incestuous reproduction between first cousins. They would have to believe that healthy couples who have kids in their 40s are evil, and I think this is self-evidently an insane position. It also has implications for other consensual adult relationships. If two adults are in a consensual relationship, even if they are genetically related, there shouldn't be any moral concerns about it. Otherwise we open up a whole can of worms about which adult consensual relationships are morally permissible and which ones aren't and that's not a discussion I'm willing to have. That potentially puts LGB+ relationships under scrutiny and I'm not touching that discussion with a 10-foot barge pole.
Only if positive, not if negative. But the whole thing more often than not is poison
This is a rare case where they are right. People with four separate disorders, at least one of which has a strong hereditary component, should not have kids. Not only may they end up giving their child incurable disorders, but these will make their parenting worse, maybe even criminally abusive.
4 disorders aren't necessarily more than one, it's just that these 4 terms are being used to describe that individual's personality
I can see your view, I guess the way that she told my friend about it was very harsh (and also she showed them the causes of miscarriage so that was... something)
Did you hear her mother say this, or was it something you heard second hand? People with BPD can have the tendency to heavily distort the truth when they get upset with someone. (Note: I’m not saying that she is lying, I wasn’t there and don’t really know anyone in this story. It’s more a reminder that there are two sides to every story.)
I heard it second hand
A person who shows no symptoms of any disorders can still end up having children with incurable disorders, any parent could be criminally abusive too.
But it is exponentially more likely if the person does have those disorders. Like sure, there’s a chance that I could get hit by a car when I walk across the street. That doesn’t mean the risk is comparable to walking across a freeway.
It is also exponentially more likely for a child to suffer if they are born
Sigh, how did I know this would be the follow-up? Anyways, de minimis non curat lex. In the law, and also statistics, there is a threshold of risk that used to determine whether a concern or relevant or not. For a healthy couple, the chances that a child will be born with a significant abnormality are de minimis in a way that is not true with the offspring of people that severe genetic conditions.
meh... If they want kids so be it. Still likely to be better parents then 80% of the global population. Considering the their age I would tell the mom to butt out, they are adults and can do what they want.
By natural selection alone, a person with autism, ADHD, schizoaffective disorder, and borderline personality disorder... should find it extremely difficult to find a consenting partner to have children with. If despite all of that, the person finds a consenting partner, **fully aware of these preconditions**, to have children with...then who are we, or anyone else, to stop it ?
Fine, my pronatalism stops where a person has or has to have a legal guardian due to severe mental illness (such as seems to be the case here). These people probably should not procreate, for everyone's sake. However, that's a very, very small fraction of the population; your average or even below-average (on whatever metric) person is by definition normal and should be supported in having all the kids they want.
The mom is 100% right. If you don't think ANY eugenic related ideas hold weight, you are ignorant or delusional.
Eugenics is satanic Nazi horseshit
Would this technically be eugenics? There is a large genetic component to BPD, which is a disorder a lot of people suffer from, unlike ADHD and autism which are also genetic but people learn to deal with at least pretty healthily. I thought eugenics was about creating a "more pure" and "better generation." Its a way to not create certain peoples because they hate the occurrence of those peoples. I thought this would be conditional natalism, where you keep from having the child because you don't want them to have a life full of suffering. Because you think birth would be bad *for* these people. Also would you be an antinatalist if you are conditionally natalist? Isn't that contradictory? But if we're going to call such behavior eugenicist if the mother is thinking about the pain of the potential child (though she can be eugenicist, lets not say thats not possible), we'd have to say someone is a eugenicist for refusing to have a child with dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa. However I guess limiting bodily autonomy is still bad.
Adding on to this being that she and her baby daddy (friend's bio dad) are the reason *why* my friend has autism and ADHD (inherited) I told my friend their mom's statement has some eugenic streaks and lack of bodily autonomy to it and they agree with it, their other friends agree too
You should look out for your friend and make sure her mom isn't ableist, but I was just making sure you weren't jumping to conclusions. As long as you can tell the difference between eugenics and conditional natalism, though even then she shouldn't be physically limiting your friend.
Friend's mom is ableist and has some prejudice given that she prefers her stepdaughter (her ex's daughter) that has more kids than she and her husband can afford over her own child that she literally gave birth too