A mental exercise I think every young activist should consider is to reconcile this: some people make bad parents. Sometimes they have kids with the sole intent of molding new humans into their image, sometimes they have kids as a form of retirement planning, sometimes it happens on accident and they donât want kids at all. Sometimes theyâre bigots, and would disown, abuse, or abandon their children at the first sign of queer inclinations or a defective chromosome. Itâs true, then, that some people shouldnât be parents.
Now consider that trying to apply this concept to politics and law has created some of the most heinous crimes against humanity in the history of eugenics. Itâs no exaggeration that many nazis and white supremacists use the exact same phrase, except where we might say âchild abusers shouldnât have childrenâ they would say it of black and indigenous populations as well as the disabled. Many victims of such forced sterilization programs are still alive today.
The takeaway, I would hope, would be:
Under no circumstances can we allow human rights be legislated away. Those rights will often go to bad people, but thatâs the point of human rights; you will have to protect the inalienable human rights of bad people if you are to believe in them at all. The ability to take those rights away is far more dangerous than any individual it might affect, and is therefore not an ability we can leave on the table for anyone.
There is a lot of ambiguity in the word âshouldâ, leaving room for both âin an ideal world this wouldnât happenâ and âin this world we have a duty to take action such that it does notâ. Be mindful of how you use it, and how others might be using it in different contexts.
