Eugenics in the US

Implementation of Eugenics in the US

-Immigration restrictions -Compulsory sterilization -Euthanasia -Organizations ---Better Baby Contests ---Fitter Family for Future ---American Eugenics Society ---North Carolina Eugenics Board

Promotional Voluntary Eugenics

Eugenics is voluntary practiced and promoted to the general population, but not officially mandated. This is a form of non-state enforced eugenics, using a liberal or democratic approach, which was mostly seen in the 1900s. Example: Better Baby contests

Better Baby Contests & Fitter Family for Future

First Better Baby Contest (aka "Scientific Baby Contest") was at the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport in 1908. First "Fitter Families" competition took place at the Kansas Free Fair in 1920 Judging and Categories Doctors and specialists from the community would offer their time to judge these competitions, which were originally sponsored by the Red Cross

The Purpose of Eugenics

Higher reproduction of people with desired traits would be "positive eugenics" Reduced reproduction of people with less-desired or undesired traits would be "negative eugenics" "Fit" vs "Unfit" individuals

Julian Huxley

Huxley argued that the principle goal of eugenics in the short term should be to ensure than mentally defective individuals cease having children. He advocated in particular for: -Prohibition of marriage of the unfit -Segregation of institutions containing degenerate individuals -Sterilization of the unfit

Compulsory Sterilization

In 1907, Indiana passed the first eugenics-based compulsory sterilization law in the world The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the US

Justification for Modern Eugenics

In his 2002 paper "Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children," Julian Savulescu argues for the selection of children not just based on health, but also on traits like intelligence and gender. He insists that this is not eugenics, which, remember, means "good birth." Instead, Savulescu calls this attempt to have the best children a "private enterprise" based solely on parental choice.

New Perspectives: Modern Eugenics

Less government involvement, modern eugenics "benign" as a result Advocating for private choices, parents decide to have "best children": -IVF -Genetic counseling -Selective abortion

Real Effects of Eugenics

Mara Hvistendahl's book "Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men" -163 million girls in Asia are "missing" (aborted because of lack of Y chromosome) "The sum of these individual choices has magnified the prejudice against girls, making the lives of women who survive the womb worse, not better." -Rebecca Taylor, "How Modern Eugenics Discounts Human Dignity" Eugenics masks the social inequalities that discriminate against underprivileged bodies There is also a prejudice against disabled bodies who are seen as "defective" Despite a study that shows 99% of adults with Down Syndrome report being happy, a statistic that would likely never be duplicated in the 'normal' adult population, 90% of children with Down Syndrome are aborted.

Coded Language

Medical professionals who talk about eugenic abortions or Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) as if they were procedures to cure or eliminate disease. They are just attempts at making sure no one with genetic disease is born. Parents still create offspring with genetic abnormalities; these potential children are just thrown in the trash or aborted in favor of those considered "disease-free."

Euthanasia Programs

One of the methods that was commonly suggested to get rid of "inferior" populations was euthanasia. A 1911 Carnegie Institute report mentioned euthanasia as one of its recommended "solutions" to the problem of cleansing society of unfit genetic attributes. Example: Lincoln, IL

What is Eugenics?

The science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics A "good birth" defined by white supremacist ideologies

Private Eugenics

Practiced voluntarily by individuals and groups, but not promoted to the general population Example: Prenatal diagnosis

Three Methods of Eugenics Application

Private Eugenics Promotional Voluntary Eugenics Authoritarian Eugenics

UNESCO

The first General Conference took place from November 19 to December 10, 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to the post of Director-General. He contended, in the 1946 publication, that UNESCO's goals included "international peace and security, collaboration among the nations, and human welfare" as well as "the furtherance of the democratic principles of the dignity, equality and mutual respect of men, as well as respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms affirmed in the Charter of the United Nations."

Authoritarian Eugenics

The government mandates eugenics program and institutions and applies them in the state. Examples: Apartheid and Nazi Germany