Wow, this is a fascinating and powerful ID the Future podcast. Biologist Ray Bohlin speaks with pediatric neurosurgeon Michael Egnor about recently expressed views by evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne on euthanizing handicapped newborn children. Download the episode here, or listen to it here.

It’s another instance where evolutionists spin theories — in this case, a monstrous one in the field of bioethics — devoid of personal experience, while doctors and engineers look on in something ranging from bemusement to, in this case, horror. Dr. Egnor, in contrast to Dr. Coyne, has worked with, operated on, and helped many children with the conditions that Coyne thinks should justify killing them. Coyne draws an analogy to putting sick dogs and cats “to sleep,” something many of us have sadly had to do with pets. Egnor explains why the comparison fails. I was going to say, as if such a thing needed to be explained. But obviously it does.

Dr. Egnor and Dr. Bohlin review some of the historical background to euthanasia, including the T4 program that proved to be too much even for Nazi Germany, which, after taking 70,273 lives at facilities such as Hadamar, abandoned it in 1941. In a chilling detail, Egnor notes that the program included an anonymous tip line for informers to call up the government and rat out handicapped neighbors whose lives they judged to be not worth living.

Photo: Gas chamber, Hadamar Euthanasia Center, by Frank Winkelmann (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.