Eugenics,Then and Now

CatholicExchange.com ^ | 10-07-06 | Ken Concannon

[Salvation]

by Ken Concannon

Other Articles by Ken Concannon

Eugenics,Then and Now

10/07/06

		One of the sorriest episodes in the 230-year history of our country is the eugenics craze that swept through America in the early decades of the last century. Endorsed by the intellectual elite and our most prominent citizens, the eugenics movement was responsible for racial, class and ethnic intolerance as well as civil rights violations that would be totally unconscionable in today’s politically correct American culture.
In This Article... They Breed Horses, Don’t They? By Any Other Name An Attack on People of Color

They Breed Horses, Don’t They?

Yet we rarely write about it, don’t talk about it, and, as best I can tell, Hollywood has never dramatized the horror of eugenic influence on our society when the craze was at its peak 80 years ago. My guess is the average American never heard of the eugenics movement. Why is that? I suspect it’s because eugenics, operating under a variety of names, is still very much alive and well in our society.

Eugenics was a term invented during the 19th century by an Englishman, Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin. Galton believed that much of the world’s societal problems — criminal activity, sexual promiscuity, even poverty — were inherited traits passed from one generation of unfortunates to another. Using statistical data to prove his theories, he argued that the weaker classes were reproducing themselves at faster rates than responsible citizens, and that if we didn’t do something about them their alarming fecundity would soon weaken the human race.

To stem the tide of rapidly reproducing unfortunates, Galton argued that the same techniques used to produce thoroughbred horses and efficient hunting dogs should be applied to the human race. Fortunately for the British, Galton’s eugenic theories did not fall on fertile soil in his native land, but across the Atlantic, American scientists and social reformers took Galton’s eugenics pronouncements very, very seriously.

By Any Other Name

Alarmed by the influx of non-Nordic immigrants to our shores, by rising crime rates and growing slums in American cities, many in the American “better classes” fell for the new “science” hook, line and sinker. The result was a 1924 immigration act designed to keep non-Nordic types from our shores, laws in 30 states that permitted the forced sterilization of so-called “feebleminded” unfortunates who found themselves wards of those states, the awful 1927 Buck v. Bell Supreme Court decision that affirmed the constitutionality of the sterilization laws, and a stain on the American soul that has yet to disappear.

Thanks to the enthusiastic embrace of eugenics by the Nazis prior to and during World War II, very few Americans and no politicians dare refer to themselves as supporters of eugenic theory these days. But though the word is rarely spoken, eugenic by-products, ranging from the positive to the very negative, are still very much a part of our culture.

On the positive side, eugenicists were the first to look for hereditary causes for diseases like alcoholism, cancer and Huntington’s chorea. Francis Galton’s statistical methodology, including development of the bell curve, revolutionized scientific research in a variety of disciplines.

On the “jury is still out” side, eugenicists were the first to think of intelligence testing. Of course, their reason for the testing was to determine whom to sterilize. Their targets were “morons.” “Moron” was a term first employed by the eugenicist Henry Goddard to distinguish “idiots” (people so retarded they couldn’t talk) and “imbeciles” (adults who functioned at the level of a 4-year-old) from seemingly normal adults with a mental age raging from 7 to 12 years old. Eugenicists believed that “morons,” while passing for normal, were incapable of making intelligent life choices, especially on matters related to procreation.

An Attack on People of Color

On the negative side, the Buck v. Bell decision, according to Harry Bruinius in his excellent book, Better for All the World, has never been overturned. In fact, following World War II, after many states had repealed their sterilization laws, a number of lawsuits were filed by the victims of those laws. None of them succeeded, thanks to Buck v. Bell.

Still on the negative side, eugenic thinking has permeated the abortion movement from its earliest days. Planned Parenthood, founded by the raving eugenicist, Margaret Sanger, targeted black neighborhoods for her “family planning” clinics 80 years ago, and her evil empire has been doing it ever since. This is probably why African-American women account for a disproportionately large share of all abortions performed in this country, and why the focus of Planned Parenthood’s international “family planning” efforts are Third-World countries.

Inherent in this country’s concerns about overpopulation, in the growing euthanasia movement, and in the “unwanted child” rhetoric of the abortion industry, is the eugenic concept that the world would be a better place if the most unfortunate among us were not in it. That is a very unfortunate worldview.


Ken Concannon is a freelance writer from All Saints Parish in Manassas, Virginia.

(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)

[Bigg Red]

...not some hybrid pig-human monster...

&&
Must you bring MoHamHead into this?

[GoLightly]

This may get me in alot of trouble, but I feel that there is nothing wrong with Eugenics.

Who would you put in charge?

[Coleus]

The so-called devout Catholic and evangelical republicans and most democrats in congress, spent more on planned parenthood during the 6 yrs. of the Bush admin. than all 8 of the clintoon admin. It's over $1 billion for Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood, H.R. 3010, which appropriated 283,000,000 in 2006 for Planned Barrenhood and absolutely nothing to crisis pregnancy centers.

http://opa.osophs.dhhs.gov/titlex/ofp-funding-history.html

Who provided the funds to PP to work against South Dakota's anti-abortion bill? The same devout Catholics and evangelicals in congress who vote for Title X year after year. Congressman George Bush wrote the Title X bill in 1969, it was signed by Nixon and to this day, the republicans still vote to fund Title X to this day. Don't let them deceive you.

[unspun]

Title X should be stuck in all our Rep's' and Senators' faces.

[Coleus]

They vote for it year-after-year and then go give speeches at political, church and right-to-life conventions about the horrors of the enemy--planned parenthood.

How could they keep a straight face and look us in the eyes while saying that? Satan is the master deceiver and satan uses men to do his work. Since 1994, $billions have been appropriated to a racist, baby-killing organization that fights every pro-life bill introduced and it's "pro-life", religious people appropriating the money.

The republican majority could have passed a spending bill just for Title X, they have the power, procedure and law to do it--they never have.

[DBrow]

See my post #11, her "Plan for Peace".

I hope you were joking about the camps, that is something the world does not need.

[redgolum]

You are correct.

Read "War Against the Weak" by E. Black. He is (was) a liberal, who had to face some of the sacred assumptions of his creed. He had the honesty to at least look at it directly.

[maryz]

I didn't recall ever hearing of the book, so I googled it -- looks powerful! I'll have to get it.

Thanks for the reference.

[hocndoc]

I'm convinced that all of our children, both those in our arms and our children of the future, are human, even the ones who may not be Homo sapiens. For those who believe in the Creator, it should be simple: you can't divide the image of G_d?

My husband joked about breeding the short people (his term: "squatty bodies" out of the family by marrying me back when we were teens. There's really nothing wrong with looking at and considering how to help our children, as long as no one dies for it.

( As a moral issue - proven to be correct by social science - I do believe that it's best for the family and the children for procreation to take place within marriage of a man and woman. As a practical matter, isn't the fact that such a large proportion of our children are being raised outside this traditional family a form of accidental, social eugenics?)

The good news is that no one has ever been able to clone a human being that lives beyond the first few cell divisions. The bad news is that Hwang of South Korea used over 2200 human eggs, that the attempts are ongoing in the UK and at Harvard. Probably in California, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Texas, too. Who knows? The next "tweak" to the science may be the key to allowing New Jersey and California to open their cloned human embryo "greenhouses."

Each of these embryos that are created appear normal for one or two divisions. They are organized, with a top/bottom, right/left, front/back axes, just like the "naturally" generated embryo from in vitro fertilization.

Unfortunately, California's Proposition 71 mandates that $3 Billion go into "regenerative medicine," and that much of it go for cloning and embryonic stem cell research. And New Jersey law is written to allow the gestation of embryos, as long as no live person is produced. Now, let's see. What is the current definition of "person"?

The immediate, urgent, problem - is that children are being harmed at very young ages. And beyond the life issue: we don't know what we're doing, because the basic research in animals was not done first.

Instead, scientists and doctors rushed to be the first to publish, and justified much of what they have done by appealing to our compassion. It's hard for the most pro-life mother or father to protest actions that are sold as giving other mothers and fathers the children they so desperately crave.

The result: hundreds of thousands of the brothers and children of these children who are now in their parent's arms, are themselves in frozen limbo. They were created in harm's way, and are coveted by researchers who would disassemble them for their parts.

However, there are thousands of children who were begun by IVF. They are just now beginning to have children of their own.

There was some debate about whether to allow research that changed the genetic inheritance that will be passed on to the children of these children. Since the research is largely unregulated - and has never been paid for with federal funds - some private labs and universities using private funds are going ahead with attempts to change the germ line of embryos. Two examples:

1. The little boys born from a technique that places sperm that can't swim in the cytoplasm of the egg are turning out to have immotile sperm themselves.
2. There are at least 2 little girls who have two mothers: the woman who bore them had defective mitochondria in the cytoplasm, so the embryos created from her and her husband were fused with an egg that had had the nucleus removed.

[Texas Jack]

There is a series of DVD movies titled "The Occult History of the Third Reich" that go into detail about how the Nazi's used the teachings of Galton - Eugenics - coupled with Nordic Mythology and the then present-day "New Age" movement to basically create religious justification for Hitler's actions.

I rented them from Netflix, but I also think that they are being sold online. Very enlightening.

[hocndoc]

I've expanded my post, with links, on my blog at
LifeEthics:
http://www.lifeethics.org/www.lifeethics.org/2006/10/will-they-be-human.html

[Irish_Thatcherite]

This is probably why African-American women account for a disproportionately large share of all abortions performed in this country, and why the focus of Planned Parenthood’s international “family planning” efforts are Third-World countries.

And the left calls conservatives racist!

[Tax-chick]

And the left calls conservatives racist!

It's easier than thinking.

[socialismisinsidious]

There's really nothing wrong with looking at and considering how to help our children, as long as no one dies for it.

I would add to that: as long as no one dies or has their freedom infringed upon for it.
Of course the problem is that eugenics too easily becomes an 'ends justifies the means/for your own good' tool. The other problem is that eugenics relies upon subjective evaluation, the presumption of undesirable/desirable traits and the assumption (at least at this point) that said traits are inherited.

[Irish_Thatcherite]

I remember reading some far-left website about the X-Case Ruling over here - they kept referring to pro-lifers as 'bigots'!

[Tax-chick]

They live in a fantasy world.

[Irish_Thatcherite]

Yeah, only trouble is large section of the West's population is following them in their fantasy!

[hocndoc]

Yes, freedom of the one(s) you're changing forever must be a consideration. That's where judgement comes in.

C. S. Lewis likened eugenics to making everyone of the future our slaves. Or making us all slaves of Nature as we attempt to control Nature.

But my opinion is that "Nature" is the Creator, Who has a hand in everything. I'll admit that some of the transhumanists and skeptics such as Michael Schumer might call this magical thinking, but that's the base of how I live and think.

[Salvation]

Reminds me of the book, The Stepford Wives. (Talk about scary!)

[tang-soo]

Please go to this FR link here and sign the peitition to stop partial birth abortion.