>Oxford Languages defines eugenics as "the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable."
So, for abortion to be a eugenics project, they should be arranged by some central governing body - a "board of eugenics" or "baby optimization committee" if you will - and not simply done by the choice of each pregnant person. Maybe you could argue that a high-level propaganda campaign could have the same effect, but that's beyond the realm of the legislative or judicial branches of government, and possibly beyond government entirely.
I think the biggest implication of any type of abortion being outlawed is that it subjects all pregnant people to the potential violence of the state on behalf of anyone close enough to know about their pregnancy. Add to this the massive grey areas introduced by the base rate of miscarriage, drugs that can be used for multiple things including abortion, what defines a threat to the life of the mother, and you've got a recipe for endless justifications for violations of privacy, bodily autonomy, and completely arbitrary prosecutions of uterus-havers.
There is no requirement for Government to be involved in eugenics given the definition I quoted -- you put that forward as assumed, but you recognize that it can happen beyond government entirely.
I would suggest that eugenics could also happen at a local level. Specifically for the only argument I am making here, a mother deciding not to have a child that is likely to have Down Syndrome.
This is an example of non-government enforced hyper local eugenics that is currently seen as okay but maybe in 50 to 100 years may be seen as barbaric the way that we currently see the idea of aborting babies based on the color of their skin.
As another commenter noted, the reasons that some people choose to abort their children would likely be cheered as a good example of eugenics in practice from the perspective of a historical eugenics loving evil caricature of your choice. If we're being charitable, we might term this "accidental eugenics".
Given what you have written, I believe I may presume that we are both on the same page that you would potentially be upset if the government forced people to get abortions for eugenics purposes as well, but perhaps I am wrong on that.
Regardless, I am not making any arguments for or against abortion here; rather, I am arguing first that there is some necessary overlap between abortion and eugenics and second that our current view of which kinds of eugenics are acceptable may be found to be distasteful to people in the future who are even more progressive than ourselves.
So, for abortion to be a eugenics project, they should be arranged by some central governing body - a "board of eugenics" or "baby optimization committee" if you will - and not simply done by the choice of each pregnant person. Maybe you could argue that a high-level propaganda campaign could have the same effect, but that's beyond the realm of the legislative or judicial branches of government, and possibly beyond government entirely.
I think the biggest implication of any type of abortion being outlawed is that it subjects all pregnant people to the potential violence of the state on behalf of anyone close enough to know about their pregnancy. Add to this the massive grey areas introduced by the base rate of miscarriage, drugs that can be used for multiple things including abortion, what defines a threat to the life of the mother, and you've got a recipe for endless justifications for violations of privacy, bodily autonomy, and completely arbitrary prosecutions of uterus-havers.