DebateLabKIT/deepa2-corpus · Datasets at Hugging Face

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not have a permanent university position must fear not merely
personal attack, but also the diminished opportunity to pursue
an academic career. The events in Hamburg cast a cloud over
the prospects of university posts opening up in these fields. If
there are no posts to be obtained, graduate students will avoid
working on questions of applied ethics, for there is no sense in
studying matters that offer no prospect of employment. There
is even a danger that in order to avoid controversy, analytic
philosophy as a whole will suffer a setback. At the present time,
a large number of new university positions are being created in
the universities of the former German Democratic Republic.
Philosophers interested in analytic philosophy are concerned
that these positions may all go to philosophers working on less
sensitive subjects, for example, to those who concentrate on
historical studies, or to followers of Habermas who have generally
kept quiet about these sensitive ethical issues and about
the obstacles to debating them in Germany today.
Germans of course are still struggling to deal with their past,
and the German past is one which comes close to defying rational
understanding. There is, however, a peculiar tone of fanaticism
about some sections of the German debate over
353
Appendix
euthanasia that goes beyond normal opposition to Nazism, and
instead begins to seem like the very mentality that made Nazism
possible. To see this attitude at work, let us look not at euthanasia,
but at an issue that is, for the Germans, closely related
to it and just as firmly taboo: the issue of eugenics. Because the
Nazis practiced eugenics, anything in any way related to genetic
engineering in Germany is now smeared with Nazi associations.
This attack embraces the rejection of prenatal diagnosis, when
followed by selective abortion of fetuses with Down's syndrome,
spina bifida, or other defects, and even leads to criticism of
genetic counseling designed to avoid the conception of children
with genetic defects. It has also led to the German parliament
unanimously passing a law that prohibits all non-therapeutic
experimentation on the human embryo. The British parliament,
by contrast, recently passed by substantial majorities in both
chambers a law that allows nontherapeutic embryo experimentation
up to fourteen days after fertilization.
To understand how bizarre this situation is, readers in
English-speaking countries must remind themselves that this
opposition comes not, as it would in our countries, from rightwing
conservative and religious groups, but from the left. Since
women's organizations are prominent among the opposition to
anything that smacks of eugenics, and also are in the forefront
of the movement to defend the right to abortion, the issue of
prenatal diagnosis gives rise to an obvious problem in German
feminist circles. The accepted solution seems to be that a woman
should have the right to an abortion, but not to an abortion
based on accurate information about the future life-prospects
of the fetus she is carrying. 20
20 Gennan feminists who read Franz Christoph's recent book (see note 17,
above) may reconsider their support for his position; for he leaves no doubt
that he is opposed to granting women a right to decide about abortion. For
Christoph, 'Abortion decisions are always decisions about whether a life is
worthy of being lived; the child does not fit into the woman's present life-
354
Appendix
The rationale for this view is, at least, consistent with the
rationale for opposition to euthanasia: it is the idea that no one
should ever judge one life to be less worth living than another.
To accept prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion, or even to
select genetic counseling aimed at avoiding the conception of
infants with extreme genetic abnormalities, is seen as judging
that some lives are less worth living than others. To this the
more militant groups of disabled people take offense; it suggests,
they maintain, that they should not have been allowed to come
into existence, and thus denies their right to life.
This is, of course, a fallacy. It is one thing to hold that we
may justifiably take steps to ensure that 'the children we bring
into the world do not face appalling obstacles to living a minimally
decent life, and a quite different thing to deny to a living
person who wants to go on living the right to do just that. If
the suggestion, on the other hand, is that whenever we seek to
avoid having severely disabled children, we are improperly
judging one kind of life to be worse than another, we can reply
that such judgments are both necessary and proper. To argue
otherwise would seem to suggest that if we break a leg, we
should not get it mended, because in doing so we judge the
plans. Or: the social situation is unsatisfactory. Or: the woman holds that
she is only able to bear a healthy child. Whether one likes it or not: with
the last example, the woman who wants an abortion confinns an objectively
negative social value judgment against the handicapped' (p. 13), There is
more along these lines, all in a style well-suited for quotation in the pamphlets
of the anti· abortion movement.
This is, at least, more honest than the evasive maneuvering of Oliver
Tolmein, who states in the foreword to his Geschiitztes Leben that to discuss
the significance of the feminist concept of self-detennination in the context
of prenatal diagnosis and abortion would take him 'by far' beyond the
bounds of his theme (p. 9). Odd, since the crux of his vitriolic attack on all
who advocate euthanasia (an attack that includes, on the very first page of
the book, a statement that it is necessary to disrupt seminars on the issue)
is that those who advocate euthanasia are committed to valuing some human
lives as not worth living,
355
Appendix
lives of those with crippled legs to be less worth living than our
own.21 For people to believe such a fallacious argument is bad
enough; what is really frightening, however, is that people believe

not have a permanent university position must fear not merely

personal attack, but also the diminished opportunity to pursue

an academic career. The events in Hamburg cast a cloud over

the prospects of university posts opening up in these fields. If

there are no posts to be obtained, graduate students will avoid

working on questions of applied ethics, for there is no sense in

studying matters that offer no prospect of employment. There

is even a danger that in order to avoid controversy, analytic

philosophy as a whole will suffer a setback. At the present time,

a large number of new university positions are being created in

the universities of the former German Democratic Republic.

Philosophers interested in analytic philosophy are concerned

that these positions may all go to philosophers working on less

sensitive subjects, for example, to those who concentrate on

historical studies, or to followers of Habermas who have generally

kept quiet about these sensitive ethical issues and about

the obstacles to debating them in Germany today.

Germans of course are still struggling to deal with their past,

and the German past is one which comes close to defying rational

understanding. There is, however, a peculiar tone of fanaticism

about some sections of the German debate over

353

Appendix

euthanasia that goes beyond normal opposition to Nazism, and

instead begins to seem like the very mentality that made Nazism

possible. To see this attitude at work, let us look not at euthanasia,

but at an issue that is, for the Germans, closely related

to it and just as firmly taboo: the issue of eugenics. Because the

Nazis practiced eugenics, anything in any way related to genetic

engineering in Germany is now smeared with Nazi associations.

This attack embraces the rejection of prenatal diagnosis, when

followed by selective abortion of fetuses with Down's syndrome,

spina bifida, or other defects, and even leads to criticism of

genetic counseling designed to avoid the conception of children

with genetic defects. It has also led to the German parliament

unanimously passing a law that prohibits all non-therapeutic

experimentation on the human embryo. The British parliament,

by contrast, recently passed by substantial majorities in both

chambers a law that allows nontherapeutic embryo experimentation

up to fourteen days after fertilization.

To understand how bizarre this situation is, readers in

English-speaking countries must remind themselves that this

opposition comes not, as it would in our countries, from rightwing

conservative and religious groups, but from the left. Since

women's organizations are prominent among the opposition to

anything that smacks of eugenics, and also are in the forefront

of the movement to defend the right to abortion, the issue of

prenatal diagnosis gives rise to an obvious problem in German

feminist circles. The accepted solution seems to be that a woman

should have the right to an abortion, but not to an abortion

based on accurate information about the future life-prospects

of the fetus she is carrying. 20

20 Gennan feminists who read Franz Christoph's recent book (see note 17,

above) may reconsider their support for his position; for he leaves no doubt

that he is opposed to granting women a right to decide about abortion. For

Christoph, 'Abortion decisions are always decisions about whether a life is

worthy of being lived; the child does not fit into the woman's present life-

354

Appendix

The rationale for this view is, at least, consistent with the

rationale for opposition to euthanasia: it is the idea that no one

should ever judge one life to be less worth living than another.

To accept prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion, or even to

select genetic counseling aimed at avoiding the conception of

infants with extreme genetic abnormalities, is seen as judging

that some lives are less worth living than others. To this the

more militant groups of disabled people take offense; it suggests,

they maintain, that they should not have been allowed to come

into existence, and thus denies their right to life.

This is, of course, a fallacy. It is one thing to hold that we

may justifiably take steps to ensure that 'the children we bring

into the world do not face appalling obstacles to living a minimally

decent life, and a quite different thing to deny to a living

person who wants to go on living the right to do just that. If

the suggestion, on the other hand, is that whenever we seek to

avoid having severely disabled children, we are improperly

judging one kind of life to be worse than another, we can reply

that such judgments are both necessary and proper. To argue

otherwise would seem to suggest that if we break a leg, we

should not get it mended, because in doing so we judge the

plans. Or: the social situation is unsatisfactory. Or: the woman holds that

she is only able to bear a healthy child. Whether one likes it or not: with

the last example, the woman who wants an abortion confinns an objectively

negative social value judgment against the handicapped' (p. 13), There is

more along these lines, all in a style well-suited for quotation in the pamphlets

of the anti· abortion movement.

This is, at least, more honest than the evasive maneuvering of Oliver

Tolmein, who states in the foreword to his Geschiitztes Leben that to discuss

the significance of the feminist concept of self-detennination in the context

of prenatal diagnosis and abortion would take him 'by far' beyond the

bounds of his theme (p. 9). Odd, since the crux of his vitriolic attack on all

who advocate euthanasia (an attack that includes, on the very first page of

the book, a statement that it is necessary to disrupt seminars on the issue)

is that those who advocate euthanasia are committed to valuing some human

lives as not worth living,

355

Appendix

lives of those with crippled legs to be less worth living than our

own.21 For people to believe such a fallacious argument is bad

enough; what is really frightening, however, is that people believe