“Every Child a Wanted Child” is the long-time slogan from the Planned Parenthood/National Organization for Women crowd. It’s also the rationale behind a top bioethicist’s belief that the government should pressure people with low IQs to get sterilized.

Dr. Michael Ruse is director of the history and philosophy of science program at Florida State University, and the author of several acclaimed books on Charles Darwin. In the Washington Post last week, Ruse reviewed Better for All the World, a new book by journalist Harry Bruinius that indicts the forced-sterilization policies of more than 30 states throughout most of the 20th century. Toward the end of his article, Ruse got around to endorsing the idea of state-sponsored sterilization: “Consider a case . . . of a woman with an IQ of 71–just about the level that even today’s Supreme Court thinks makes a person incompetent–who had eight children out of wedlock. Is it absolutely wrong if the state says, ‘Get sterilized or we will keep you out of society until you are past reproductive age’? I keep thinking of all of those kids. Even if they are not genetically inferior, I doubt very much that they are going to have the warm, nurturing upbringing I have tried to give my children.”

Dr. Ruse’s policy prescription is ambiguous. It’s not clear how those who refuse to be sterilized would be barred from society. Would the state throw them into jail or mental hospitals, or merely (for example) forbid them to drive?

It is clear, in any case, that the Party of Death has barged across another moral line. In the past, they justified support for unfettered abortion, human cloning, and even infanticide for the severely ill partly on libertarian grounds (albeit corrupt ones): The state wasn’t killing the unwanted; individuals were. Now one of its members doesn’t mind if the government starts interfering with the supposedly sacrosanct “reproductive freedom.”

Ruse’s endorsement of state-sanctioned sterilization is, admittedly, a minority view among progressives. Even Salon, in its review of Brunius’s book, condemned the practice. But Ruse’s rationale is chillingly similar to something on the Planned Parenthood website. In a list of nine reasons why abortions have to remain legal, here’s Planned Parenthood’s reason number eight: “If women are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, the result is unwanted children. Everyone knows they are among society’s most tragic cases, often uncared-for, unloved, brutalized, and abandoned. When they grow up, these children are often seriously disadvantaged, and sometimes inclined toward brutal behavior to others. This is not good for children, for families, or for the country. Children need love and families who want and will care for them.”

Publicly, pro-choice leaders are extremely unlikely to countenance Ruse’s scheme to weed out the unwanted. But they should recognize that they share many of his philosophic assumptions–starting with the idea that unwanted children deserve not affection (from somebody, even if it’s not the biological parents) but rather steps to ensure they never see the light of day.

– Mark Stricherz is working on a book, due out next year, about how and why the post-1968 Democratic party cut its ties with Catholics and the white working class. He also keeps a weblog at www.InFrontOfYourNose.com .