Quote:
Originally Posted by tame_deuces
Once you invoke the word "immoral" like Dawkins have done here, these positions are not the same. I doubt many of those who choose abortion would view not terminating as "immoral".
Dawkins quote does smack of eugenics. A geneticist should know this is fairly bad.
Yeah, this is right. It is one thing to suggest someone have an abortion, it is another thing to say that it would be immoral
not to have an abortion. Also, like you say, Dawkins should know better. He is probably the most famous defender of evolution and atheism in the world (at least in the English-speaking world). As such, whether he likes it or not, people look at him as a representative of those viewpoints, and when he says these kinds of stupid things he makes all of us look bad.
I'll also point out that this is not a simple logical consequence of Dawkins's utilitarian axioms. Derek Parfit, who teaches at Oxford as well, identified a major dilemma (known as the "
Repugnant Conclusion") with utilitarianism around exactly these kinds of issues in the early 80's. Essentially, if our goal is to increase happiness, then on some ways of summing up happiness we have a moral obligation to have as many children as possible as doing so would increase the aggregate sum of happiness in the world.