The Use Of Sterilization Of Minorities By Supporting The Eugenics Movement

Eugenics is the pseudoscience of obtaining desired traits in a population through controlled repopulation, specifically by preventing those deemed “unfit” by “Nordic stereotypes” from breeding. Most modern day Americans do not realize the origins of eugenics, which was planted by Charles Darwin and Sir Francis Galton and bloomed in America, and what effect it had on the attempt to create a master race in Nazi Germany. America played a very influential role in German eugenics by collaboration between scientists and funding from American corporations. The negative connotation associated with this science is usually directed towards the scientists of the Holocaust under Adolf Hitler, and not towards American scientists who also partook in horrific experiments and performed inhumane acts as well. This is absurd when you consider that the United States was the backbone of the eugenics movement internationally and only developed a negative perspective of the research when it became affiliated with the holocaust and the troubling actions of Nazi Germany.

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.

call in telephone poll, that 49% supported sterilization of the mentally ill. Other people feel

Hansen and king go over several reason why eugenics became popular in the United States but not in the United Kingdom. Supporter of eugenics in England were mostly focused on people with mental illness and mental disorders. Though there were many supporters of eugenics, the idea did not catch on. One of the reasons being the European connection with the Nazis and their system of eugenics on people with mental illness in addition to people of other races and religions.

There are many events that happened in the 20th Century that overlap each other and some are results of previous events. Two specific events that were interesting and were as a result of one another, were the Eugenics movement in the early 20th century and the Disability Rights Movement in the 1960s.

Eugenics is the social construction of the human race by controlling reproduction. “Reducing the number of unfit people the term refers to the effort to improve a human population by either encouraging the reproduction of desired traits or preventing the reproduction of undesirable one” (Bethel University). The eugenics movement in America support laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage, family planning, sterilization of the poor, disabled and education about human reproduction. They are in favor of reproduction among those thought to be the most genetically fit with characteristics such as hardworking, intelligent and physically fit. On the other had the movement discourage reproduction of the unfit considered to have

Starting in the late 19th century, American philosophers, theorists, and scientists began experimenting and theorizing the idea of eugenics. Derived from Darwinian theories and the extensive works of Gregor Mendel, eugenics is known as a set of practices aimed at enhancing the human genome into sameness. Edwin Black’s “War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race” looks at the horrific background of eugenics, the ones who supported it, and the twisted ends it came to. This source, along with the two others, brings light to the awful means pursued to obtain a brilliant, but illogical and immoral goal of sameness. Overall, a negative vibe is shown through these sources.

In late nineteenth century on into the early twentieth century America was going through a change. A change may in society thought was for the best. Slavery was ending, and the upper class was worried about the estimated four million African Americans and immigrants introducing themselves in the economy with little or no education. These people were worried the overload in population would negatively affect the economy they have worked so hard to create. It was felt something had to be done to prevent the impregnation of “bad genes” into the American community. Eugenics seemed to offer that solution. Eugenics still implements their version of “population control” and/or “family-planning” in our society today and we don’t even know it. We play along and support without even knowing why we’re playing along or what we are supporting. To help open the eyes of the majority, we need to go back in time and show how the “Eugenics Movement” started. How the country we love so much, did not love us back and how the support of this movement is stronger today than when it started.

Eugenics profoundly impacted the culture of the twentieth century. Coined in 1893 by Sir Francis Galton, it studied the heredity and selection of favorable traits. Born out of the social tumults of the late nineteenth century, it represented the Western elite’s attempt to protect itself from so called “inferior” cultures of the colonies and “new wave” immigration.

Beginning in the late 19th century, eugenics was a social and health reform movement aimed at refining the genetic quality of the human population. Although the apparent goal of the movement was improving the human race, a desire to preserve white middle and upper class power also existed. This is evident in the policies implemented, as the unfit were confined to institutions and stringent marriage laws were established. Even more aggressive measures were applied in the Progressive Era. As immigration increased and the birthrate of Anglo-Americans declined in the 20th century, compulsory sterilization of the unfit was constructed to combat the threatened merit of society.

Social injustice or inequality would have thought to have been a thing of the past. Yet, there are some countries who still practice this in a form called eugenics. Eugenics is “the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding” in order to achieve the social hierarchy said country desires (The Definition of Eugenics). As extreme and of the past as this sounds, this action is happening all over the world and even right under the United States nose. South America is still practicing eugenics in today’s society and enforces it through many means. It is unfortunate that social injustice along with eugenics is still a problem and not many people know about it. Many parallels can be drawn from the late twentieth century/ modern day South America to that of the Jim Crowe era within the United States. The eugenics that are taking place in South America are they drive for lighter skin citizens while disregarding those who have darker skin. This “disregarding” comes from fewer opportunities within the education system and jobs. This not a new thing however, social injustice has been dating back since colonial times and has continued to the present. Eugenics in South America is a problem in today’s society and should be addressed in a global matter to expect a change.

The idea of eugenics was first introduced by Sir Francis Galton, who believed that the breeding of two wealthy and successful members of society would produce a child superior to that of two members of the lower class. This assumption was based on the idea that genes for success or particular excellence were present in our DNA, which is passed from parent to child. Despite the blatant lack of research, two men, Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Jon Alfred Mjoen, played to the white supremacists' desires and claimed that white genes were inherently superior to other races, and with this base formed the first eugenics society. The American Eugenics Movement attempted to unethically obliterate the rising tide of lower classes by immorally

"She has Daddy's eyes and Mommy's heroin habit", read one billboard advertising female sterility for drug addicted women. There are hundreds of thousands of children born to drug-addicted mothers each year. Many of these children are born with health issues and some only live a short time after birth. In an effort to combat the issues potential children born to drug-addict women may suffer, Barbara Harris founded Project Prevention formerly known as C.R.A.C.K (Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity). The organization offers drug-addicted women $300 to undergo sterilization. Project Prevention has been compared to the eugenic sterilization program that was active during the last nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The eugenics sterilization

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 roots of eugenics can be traced back to Britain in the early 1880’s when Sir Francis Galton generated the term from the Greek word for “well-born”. He defined eugenics as the science of improving stock, whether human or animal. According to the American Eugenics Movement, today’s study of eugenics has many similarities to studies done in the early 20th century. Back then, “Eugenics was, quite literally, an effort to breed better human beings – by encouraging the reproduction of people with "good" genes and discouraging those with "bad" genes.” (www.eugenicsarchive.org) According to Merriam-Webster, the modern day definition of eugenics is, a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of