Eugenics: Involuntary Sterilization Debate

In Pages 11 and 12 in Laura Hildebrand's book Unbroken she talks about eugenics in the way that America was infatuated with eugenics. Eugenics promised strengthening of the human race by taking out people that were unfit. One of the tools of eugenics was sterilization which were procedures that rendered people unable to reproduce . when Louie the main character of Laura's book, was around his teenage years the state in which he lived California, Was overwhelmed with eugenics and ended up sterilizing around 20,000 people. As you can see why Louie, a troubled teenager, who never really was the type to make the honor roll, had a minority background, and was a notorious troublemaker may have had a reason to fear his life. Once he realized what he was risking he

In the state of Kansas between 1913 and 1961, Kansas practiced forced sterilization on mentally unstable women.” In addition to laws regarding sterilization, several marriage restriction bills were proposed in Kansas as part of the eugenics movement. Although they were never enacted as state law, marriage bills were proposed in 1915, 1917, and 1927, demonstrating the popularity of eugenic ideals.” (University of Vermont…Kansas). Dr. F. Hoyt Pilcher performed 150 sterilization in the Kansas State Home of the Feebleminded. Between the years 1913 and 1916 there were 1,274 women sterilized in Kansas. In the year 1921, sterilization in Kansas was at its all-time lowest. Between the years 1950 and 1963, sterilization in Kansas was at its peak. It is

Eugenics is a taboo science, but back in 1883 it was a modern advancement, discovered by Francis Galton (Carlson). Galton’s original mission was to improve humanity by encouraging the best and healthiest couples to simply have more children; Galton created positive eugenics (Carlson). However, with the positive comes the inevitable negative. Negative Eugenics was more set on preventing the least able from reproducing, in order to preserve the fitness of the

The eugenics movement began in the 20th century by a man named Francis Galton. As the cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton believed that eugenics was a moral philosophy to improve humanity by encouraging the ablest and healthiest people to have more children (Carlson). This Galtonian ideal of eugenics is often thought of as positive eugenics. Eugenics can be defined as the outgrowth of human heredity aimed at "improving" the quality of the human stock (Allen and Bird). At the other end of the spectrum is what can be classified as negative eugenics and is presently in disrepute. Negative eugenics entails selective breeding in which the least able from the population is taken out of the reproduction pool to preserve humanity's best traits.

The eugenics movement in the United States beginning in the late 19th century and extending to the mid 20th century was a biosocial movement, which advocated procedures to improve the genetic composition of the American population. This essay will examine how eugenic ideologies influenced public and social policy in the United States between 1880 and 1950. The essay will first discuss the background of eugenics and how the eugenics movement gained momentum in the United States. Secondly, it will look at the various organisations associated with eugenics, that lobbied for legislations that aligned with their beliefs. Thirdly, it will consider how the advocating of the various eugenic organisations caused eugenic ideologies to become normalised in American society. Lastly, it will study the numerous policies established in different States that were formed based on eugenic principles.

When one chooses to write on a matter that seems to have been laid to rest decades ago their burden extensively lies not in trying to argue for their position, rather in showing the relevance of their position. This paper attempts to do both of these things when it comes to non-consensual sterilizations of women, specifically disabled women. A practice prominent in the 20th century, this paper examines coerced sterilizations from a feminist care ethics perspective and ultimately concludes that paternalistic arguments for this practice are in fact eugenic arguments, and thus renders coerced tubal litigations as unethical. Although neo-eugenics is starting to gain a number of followers for its genetic benefits, this is but a misconception of

The science of eugenics was widely used during the 20th century in the United States to strategically eliminate the reproductive rights of women who were deemed inferior on the social ladder (“What is Eugenics?”). Some women of color, women with disabilities, and women from lower financial classes were sterilized for permanent birth control, and sometimes without their consent or knowledge (“What is Eugenics?”). The eugenics movement was aimed to promote selective human features in order to increase those with intelligence, good health, physical characteristics, and class. Currently, the recent controversy of human genetic engineering has scientist concerned that it will become the new eugenics. Sterilizing women as a precaution to prevent the overpopulation of unfavorable offspring would go against Jonathan Swift’s equal treatment of all humans, Benjamin Franklin’s hopes for human ethics in science, and be a direct violation to the natural born rights of all humans. Also, the controversial practice of human genetic modification to restrict reproduction rights only to people of desirable traits is unethical because it promotes racial cleansing.

In my Personal and Community Health class, I learned that this heinous act called eugenics was carried upon women, especially to the poor and minority and how a large part of eugenics was built on racism and nativism. Women were subjected to as a mean to reduce their birth rate since eugenists believed that minorities like African-Americans were the inferior race and a way to save money, from welfare and other programs set to help the needy. In order to reduce the money spent on the welfare programs, women were sterilized so they would have fewer children to support. Despite the introduction and growth of birth control and other forms of contraception in the later

Depending on who is in power politically at a given time, certain people in society are vulnerable to abuse. This author will focus on the topic of forced sterilization in America, as there are certain people in this country that are still coerced and forced into sterilization.

Sir Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, was a British Eugenics professional. His ideology was that Eugenics should be used to keep the “Survival of the Fittest” going. Defects are passed down through generation after generation by means of defective genetics (“Forced Sterilization”). People believed plant and animal genes can be improved through Natural Selection, they believe the same could be done with humans. The reproduction of the considered unfit was too high compared to that of the fit reproduction. Contamination might be caused by imbeciles in the human race. If not cut from reproduction they could lower the “quality” of the race. Western and North

In the 19th century progressive era the idea of eugenics began to take form and became a widely-spread political, scientific, and social movement. Throughout history there have been numerous political leaders and scientist who have sought to alter the human race to design a purer society. The thoughts of purifying humans can be mostly commonly associated with the Holocaust which was one of the lowest points in the history of civilization. Similarly, in ideas The Eugenics Movement focused on mitigating undesirable traits from generation to generation. The idea that improvement of human kind like breeding can’t be left up to nature, but with the use of the eugenics program it would better society. By sterilizing the mentally ill and feeble minded, eugenicists goals were to better public health, restrict immigration, and regulate reproduction. In these efforts, the movement sought to isolate the pure American genes and save them from being tainted by bad genes.

The process of Eugenics did not really come about in America until the 1900s, when it was introduced by Charles Davenport and Harry Laughlin. Davenport was a very prominent biologist and Laughlin was a former principal that was interested in breeding. Eugenics was accepted because the majority of society believes that it would prompt a more peaceful and powerful future. Scientifically, many people believed that Eugenics was beneficial because it was viewed as a way to improve humanity. There was a fear that the lesser than people would have more children than the more intelligent or adequate people, this fear was temporarily put to rest by eugenics. There were two forms of eugenics, which can be broken down into positive and negative. The positive aspect was to promote adequate people to try to have more

The theory of Eugenics can be dated back all the way to 400 B.C. but was not popularized until the mid-1800s by an English scientist, Francis Galton. He researched and published the theory that aimed to improve the genetic quality of the human population through selective breeding (NC Office of Archives and History). As the half-cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton applied the Darwinism science (survival of the fittest) to heredity characteristics. Two types of Eugenics stemmed from the theory, positive and negative. Positive eugenics is encouraging the “best” people in the society based on financial and personal features to have more children while negative eugenics is picking people with flaws and defects from the population

The term and concept of Eugenics was introduced into our society dating back to the year 1883, by Francis Galton, cousin of Darwin (Harvard Law Review, 2004). Since that year, throughout history and into our current time the study and debate surrounding Eugenics has taken many forms, but controversy as society developed a better understanding of its concept, has grown in epic proportions. Today we are subjected to constant debates of the pros and cons of Eugenics and its study and use in healthcare today. Discussed in the following pages will be the definition and application of Eugenics, and how Eugenics has developed the debate regarding the pros and cons of its use in the healthcare industry, and how these debates have tested the ethics of healthcare and its professionals in many ways.

Sterilization has been a way for the government to exert control and has been throughout history. On a global level, sterilization has been used but most practices have been abolished in the 20th century as they the impacts of such a practice was discovered.. The United States abolished sterilization in the 1950s as they had used it is as a means to control individuals that were considered inferior or dangerous. Eugenics, the practice of removing all social problems by eradicating the ability to reproduce of those who are disabled, was accepted as Americans cbelieved that it helped ‘clean the gene pool.’ Despite this belief, the United States ultimately outlawed the practice. In contrast, Australia allows the