As someone who is pro-choice, I think we need to have an important discussion. You can be pro-choice but also anti-eugenics, and I think a lot of people see abortion as a black and white subject where if you're against any form of abortion. I say this because I've had multiple other pro-choice people get mad at me for questioning this.
(Note: This person got banned for this post. Don't support this crap.)
In light of recent events, abortion posts have been popping up more. And that's a good thing! But that being said, there is something we need to address in our movement. I've noticed a lot of people are saying "Women should unconditionally have the right to choose what they do with their bodies.", and that's valid! The state shouldn't have control over people's bodies. But that being said, there's a specific way in which people are supporting that, and we need to talk about it. People have been using abortion to support eugenics, specifically, a lot of people are trying to say it isn't eugenics to abort a fetus solely because the mother sees their traits as undesirable (traits like skin color, genetic condition like autism, etc).
I have seen multiple pro-choice advocates state that since women should have access to an abortion unconditionally, it's okay if the sole purpose that someone gets an abortion is that they were already planning on having the child, but then out of nowhere get their child screened, discover that they might have undesirable genes (being black or autistic), and then decide to get the abortion for that reason.
Not only is this hateful, denying births to a protected minority group because they're part of said minority group is eugenics. This has been practiced by governments before as racial eugenics. It's no different if it's practiced by individuals. The point of it being bad isn't "the government is doing it", the point of it is that eugenics is bad.
I think we need to talk about this because as leftists, we lean towards pro-choice arguments because our goal is social justice. Pro-choice arguments generally talk about situations where the pregnancy was always unwanted, and that's good, but we need to talk about situations where it was wanted from the beginning and then changed because of hate.
Now before anyone says it: No, abortion is not eugenics. Pro-lifers, fuck off. Don't use this to support your beliefs.
Another thing I see a lot of pro-choicers say is that "It isn't eugenics because it isn't being forced by the government / It is not a coordinated attempt by the state to wipe out an entire group"
Eugenics is neither of those things. A coordinated attempt to wipe out a protected class is genocide. Eugenics is an ideology. Think of it like fascism. Just like fascism, it started in Europe. It spread about in the UK and got us posters like these, supporting the idea of not having 'mentally defective' children (it then changed to be about race too).
This did lead to genocidal policies in the United States, where the US forced sterilizations on disabled people and enacted similar policies, but it also had general hateful policies like the Immigration Act of 1924, which barred immigrants based on race. Eventually, Nazi Germany picked it up but even then, it wasn't used to justify killing entire groups until later. At first, it was just about denying births to protected classes because they were deemed flawed, such as preventing births of disabled people and ethnic minorities. (It should also be mentioned that eugenics used to be about superiority and aborting fetuses just because they're 'unfit', but in modern times that is not always the case)
Why am I mentioning this? Because it seems like a lot of people have flawed perceptions on what eugenics is, and that's really bad because it leads to people accidentally supporting eugenics by claiming what they're supporting isn't eugenics.
I have seen a lot of people say this isn't a form of eugenics because it's being done by an individual and not the state. Well, the thing about that is eugenics was advertised as an individual choice, as a self directed thing. This is not to mention eugenics is an ideology, and ideologies can be practiced by anyone.
Lastly, I want to state that this is not about the fetus. This is about eugenics being bad, and that we shouldn't normalize it in leftist circles. We can't say we're fighting for social justice when we're normalizing eugenics talk. This is about minority groups. We can be pro-choice and anti-eugenics at the same time. But I feel like for a lot of people, they refuse to see what has been practiced as eugenics on a state level as eugenics when it's practiced by an individual. And for others, they hold "Women have the right to choose no matter what" so strongly that they're willing to put minority groups in the line of fire just to get that point across.
This is not okay, no matter what. This is not okay. This only goes to make us look bad. I've seen so many pro-lifers using this against us and I am tired of it. Stop giving them ammunition.