Euthanasia, Abortion And Tech

Democracy 4
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Think about it, why did healthcare technology advance so fast? In my view it was because people weren’t allowed to end their lives. If people are not allowed to end their lives, there’s a pressure for new tech and new ways to keep them alive. Would we have had defibrillators, dialysis, etc. as early as we did, if we simply allowed people to die or end their lives? I imagine that there would be lower pressure to develop these new life-saving technologies and drugs if euthanasia were freely available (or a let them die attitude were present).

Similarly, think about abortion. Prior to when abortion was legal, the first incubator was invented in the late nineteenth century (the more modern ones in the '60s), post-abortion legalization in the US (1973 onwards) how many new ways of keeping newborns alive have been invented? I mean outside of birth suppression methods such as comprehensive sex-ed and contraceptives and such.

Will it be that in the future, with post-euthanasia legalization there will be lower pressure to develop new tech to keep people alive for longer?

This is of course, merely a spur of the moment epiphany which I had, I have not looked at any studies related to this at the moment, but could it be that at the highest levels of abortion and euthanasia legalization there could be a negative impact on technology?

In my cursory overview of google results, I have not immediately found any studies which have investigated the impact of euthanasia and abortion on technology, there are 1-2 which I saw which came up in the search results on the impact of technology on abortion, but as far as I saw (about 10 pages in), there were no results specifically about the impact of tech on euthanasia let alone the impact of euthanasia on tech. Perhaps nobody has investigated this link as it’s politically explosive, and academia is dominated by liberals? There was a similar suppression of studies in Universities about the impact of detransition and retransition on Transgender folks, as it was deemed too politically explosive atleast in the UK. Who knows what other research is either buried or suppressed due to its explosivity? I’m not saying that such research is suppressed, but that it could be (on the impact of abortion and euthanasia on care tech).

Is there similar research which is suppressed about abortion and euthanasia regret (or their impact on
care tech), just because it might go against an established liberal narrative?

  1. Detransition - Wikipedia

You can check the links referenced to get an idea on the kind of potential suppression that I am talking about.

It could also be that nobody has looked into this link [of course that would also make me ask, why hasn’t anyone looked into this link(?)].

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Firstly, on the case of euthanasia, I get what you mean but I don’t think it is true. I think that most people want to get as old as possible. I live in the Netherlands which was the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia and it has been legal since 2002. Currently euthanasia is legal for everyone older than 12 (but they are working on also legalizing it for children under 12) who is incurably sick and hopelessly and unbearably suffering. This means that people with end stage cancer and dementia can get euthanized if they want but according to statistics still only about 10% of people with end stage cancer get euthanized, and for dementia it is only about 1% of people. Apparently the far majority of people still try to live as long as possible even though their situation is hopeless. And also you say that people are not allowed to end their lives but it is not like people who really want to die listen to that anyways, they will just commit suicide. Euthanasia gives these people a nice and respectful way to say goodbye to their families in person (instead of leaving a suicide note) and die in a peaceful and painless way. So, I think the idea that euthanasia decreases the demand for new life extending healthcare technologies is not true.

Secondly, nothing personal or so but I don’t understand what you are saying about abortion and I think it is straight up ridiculous and very very stupid. I think legalization of abortion even increases the demand for new life saving technologies for newborns. Abortion means that woman can end unwanted pregnancies, this means that nowadays in countries where abortion is legal almost all babies are wanted by their parents (because if they weren’t they would have been aborted). This makes the death of a newborn even more painful and traumatizing for the parents so it should be prevented at all cost. And just in general, the death of a newborn baby is always horrible no matter if the baby was wanted or not. So, the idea that abortion decreases the need develop new technologies to save newborns is just insane.

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It’s currently my view, but since I have not found any studies backing up or rejecting my hypothesis, I can’t say whether my view is right or wrong. It was merely an epiphany and it currently stands as a hypothesis. Who knows what the impact of abortion and euthanasia is on tech? It hasn’t been looked into as far as I know.

In the absence of research, I would like to see the impact of abortion and euthanasia on tech studied, since there is a dearth of studies.

As for the more emotive part of your answer, well, all I can say is, you do think what I am saying is ridiculous, stupid or insane, but that shouldn’t stop it from being studied at some point, hopefully.

I can’t comment on the trauma or regret which people feel about abortion and euthanasia, I’m sure some people do feel it (atleast in the case of abortion, can’t say about euthanasia, the families may certainly feel regret).

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The reason there are no studies regarding your hypothesis is probably because it is an insane hypothesis.

Firstly, when euthanasia were to be completely legalized it is not like every old and sick person suddenly requests to be euthanized. Euthanasia is really a last resort for when no other treatment works anymore. However, if a new effective treatment which could safe their lifes were to be developed, of course these people would take that new treatment instead of requesting to be euthanized. So instead of euthanasia slowing the development of new technologies, it is probably the other way around where new technologies will decrease the demand of euthanasia.

Secondly, if abortion were to be completely legalized it wouldn’t mean that hordes of pregnant women would suddenly start aborting their babies. No there would still be a shit ton of new babies being born every year. And there would still be a just as much demand to prevent as many of these babies from dying at birth. Also, look at the statistics, infant mortality is still decreasing in almost all countries where abortion is legal. And again an example from the netherlands. Abortion was legalized in 1984 but since the year 2000 infant mortality has dropped by 30%, mainly because of improved healthcare technologies. So even though abortion is legal, there is still a huge demand to safe babies from dying.

Lastly, the fact that it hasn’t been researched probably also has nothing to do with your claim that academia is too “liberal”. Conservative think tanks and conservative politicians would do anything to try and make euthanasia and abortion look as bad as possible so if there was genuine reason to believe abortion and euthanasia affected technological development these conservative organizations and people would put millions into funding the researches concerning this subject.

I really think your hypothesis just doesn’t make sense. Euthanasia and abortion don’t affect technological development. And if they did, their effects would be so insignificant that researching it would be useless.

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I think you should read my post carefully. It’s not as insane and useless as you’re implying.

But if that is your view, I find it non-constructive, and it isn’t a debate starter, so it’s best that we leave it here.