The Historical Origins Of Modern Eugenics

Future eugenicists can extort their knowledge and use it to their advantage. Eugenics is an interesting subject that is co-dependent on society; the future holds great possibilities for acknowledgment in this field of science.

Eugenics, derived from the Greek word eugenes meaning well born, is defined as the study or belief that by encouraging people with good genetic traits to reproduce and discourage those people with less desirable traits the human race can benefit. There were certain groups of people who were affected by these sterilization laws, including people that were mentally disabled or ill and those from socially unacceptable areas of life, that were adopted in 32 states starting in the 1930’s. These sterilizations were done on over 350,000 people in the span eleven years between 1934 and 1945 (Kaelber), leading the United States into one of the darkest parts of our history.

In the twentieth century, the eugenics movement assembled a powerful coalition of progressives, intellectuals, and professionals to advocate an agenda of eugenic legal reform. This agenda centered on the belief that many undesirable traits are hereditary and that the government should be permitted to remove those traits from the racial stock. Those who were mentally disabled or ill, or belonged to socially disadvantaged groups were the main targets for the movement. C.W. Saleeby once stated

Eugenics is a set of beliefs that aim to better the human genetics for future generations . In the early 20th century scientists set out to advance the human race by killing off people who were labeled as an undesirable.This process was headed by the Eugenics Records Office which was government funded. They were in charge of in the sterilization of the “undesirables”. This group of people mostly consisted of the mentally retarded, criminals, and the feeble minded. However different ethnic groups people were brought into the fray without choice. This process continued until WWll when Adolf Hitler justified his malicious purge by using eugenics. Before it's end the eugenics was supported by 33 states and claimed over 65,000 lives.

From evaluating the history that eugenics has imposed, its negative practice has been marked in ways of unrighteous holocaust and genocides worldwide. The word “eugenics” has been worldly defined and seen as the destruction of undesirable traits, in all reality people. However, the practice of altering or ridding of specific genes or minority group has changed through the evolution of time. Subcategorizing, eugenics has modernized and has advanced to the use of prenatal screenings, intentional selective breeding within agriculture, gene therapy, and possible human genetic engineering. Both articles that will be discussed, centralizes around the idea of genome sequencing. Specifically by focusing on the discovery of specific variant traits

Eugenics is very controversial. It is important to be informed on the subject to avoid making rash and hasty decisions on whether or not it is right or wrong. It is up to each individual to gain the knowledge necessary to determine the moral correctness or incorrectness of any topic. Often decisions are made without information to back them up. You must understand the term before understanding the action. In this way, we must understand eugenics in a general sense and in detail. We must start with defining the term eugenics.

Graham J Baker explains in his article the effects and views of the christian community on the eugenics movement in the United states and Britain. Graham Baker, is the vice president of the Global Leadership Development at Nielsen, which is an organization that seeks to shape future business leaders with extensive training in creative and critical thinking process. Graham Baker reports that when christians participated in supporting the eugenics movement most of them were criticized, and told that they were abandoning their beliefs for secular values. This article will be useful in showing the multiple perspectives between christians, and their differing views on eugenics. It will also be useful for explaining the eugenic movement in some of the most advanced genetically technological areas of the world.

Eugenics is the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable hereditary characteristics. The eugenics movement was prominent in American history. It was backed by many influential members and organizations, ranging from the Carnegie Institute to John D. Rockefeller. It was studied in prominent institutions such as Harvard and Cornell, and it laid the groundwork for the Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Intelligence testing was used as a criteria to enforce the eugenics movement in which thousands of individuals were sterilized for being “feeble minded.”

Eugenics is a so-called “science” that claims that certain traits can be selected for by controlling what kind of people are allowed to reproduce and thus lead to an improvement of the human race. Much of eugenics is based the idea that the root causes of many of problems people had such as “poverty, feeble-mindedness-including manic depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, rebelliousness, criminality, nomadness, prostitution” were all caused by genetics and thus preventing the people who had these traits or illnesses from reproducing would prevent their children from having these illnesses and thus would improve society. (Cheney) Oliver Wendell Holmes summed up the idea of eugenics quite well when he (and all but one justice) ruled that forced

Eugenics is the belief and practice of improving the human population. Its ugly reputation is known throughout history as the practice that removes a human’s right to make any choices over their own bodies. Though it is an ancient practice, the idea was popularised by misinterpretations of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. The idea of the sanctity of life was removed and Judeo-Christian morality was replaced with human morality. Society became aware of the struggle for existence and started to class people into categories of fit or unfit. Many lost the right to choose to have offspring. Hitler was influenced greatly by the early eugenics movement, sterilising thousands and killing millions, in the name of human improvement.

To begin, eugenics is ‘the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage’. Eugenicist Julian Huxley claimed that eugenics could alter our inborn qualities and the selection of different genetic types. To sell the idea of eugenics, it was presented as a method to manipulate one’s environment so that the individual would be regarded as the ‘highest’. Particularly, it was accepted in Nazi Germany since it would improve future generations . Ultimately, eugenics and sterilization was a predictable fix to the inferiority that weakened and diluted the ‘pure’ German race

New eugenics, is the ideology which advocates the use of reproductive and genetic technologies where the choice of enhancing human characteristics and capacities is left to the individual preferences of parents acting as consumers, rather than the public health polices of the state (NCBI pg. 2).

To understand the cultural circumstances that eugenics was born from, we must understand what was happening to create this unbelievably antihuman science. After the Civil War, the economy was at an impasse. The ever-fluid change that was taking place in the US took hold until WWI. As the economic state was on an uncertain path, the social irregularity between different segments of society became more visible.

Although Eugenics is seen as a negative and invalid theory for the improvement of the human race, these reproduction requirements are constant factors within sexual selection and the doctors’ recommendation of aborting a baby, proving their relevance in the survival of the human race.

Taken from the Greek word eugenes meaning ‘good in stock’ the term ‘eugenics’ was coined in 1883 By Francis Galton (1822-1911). Today it is defined by the OED as ‘Pertaining or adapted to the production of fine offspring, esp. in the human race.’ We will attempt to explain what eugenics was within in the context of its time and how it was to be applied to humans. We will also attempt to identify who its supporters were and the many different reasons why the eugenic doctrine appealed to them.