Eugenics by ishaneecj

CONTENTS Origins of Eugenics Eugenics in the US Nazi Eugenics Brave New Eugenics India and Eugenics

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL Some animals are more equal than the others // -George Orwell in Animal Farm

ORIGINS OF EUGENICS Eugenics is the science of improving a population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. It was introduced in the 1880s by Sir Francis Galton, the father of modern statistics. Galton pioneered the use of pedigrees, twin studies, and statistical correlation for the purpose of using that knowledge â&#x20AC;&#x153;to improve the breed of man.â&#x20AC;? After the turn of the century, eugenics developed into a world-wide movement led by scientists and scholars in diverse fields, funded by wealthy philanthropists, and supported by statesmen. Eugenics played an important and, at times, central role in the political, social, and intellectual history of many diverse peoples and nations. Some of Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best and brightest promoted eugenics as settled science and necessary for the preservation of society. Eugenics was popularised in the in the United States in the 1890s. 7

Eugenics is the science of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits. It aims to reduce human suffering by “breeding out” disease, disabilities and undesirable characteristics from the human population. Early supporters of eugenics believed people inherited mental illness, criminal tendencies and even poverty, and that these conditions could be “bred out” of the gene pool. Eugenics encouraged people of so called superior, healthy stock to reproduce and discouraged reproduction of the mentally challenged or anyone who fell outside the social norm.

Some of America’s best and brightest promoted eugenics as settled science and necessary for the preservation of society. Eugenics was popularised in the in the United States in the 1890s. High school and college textbooks from the 1920s through the 1940s often had chapters touting the scientific progress to be made from applying eugenic principles to the population. Many early scientific journals focusing on heredity in plants and lower organisms were published by eugenicists and included “scientific” articles on human eugenics-promoting studies of heredity. When eugenics fell out of favour after World War II, most references to eugenics were removed from textbooks and subsequent editions of relevant journals.

“Society has no business to permit degenerates to produce their kind” -Teddy Roosevelt

athens sparta

Man’s quest for a perfect society is well documented. In The Republic, Plato (c. 400 B.C.) set forth his attempt to mathematically analyse genetic inheritance. He theorised that human reproduction should be monitored and controlled by the state to improve the human race- yet he was intuitive enough to know that the public would not accept this type of government control. In Sparta as well as Athens, the city elders inspected the newborns to ensure that only the strong survived, and the weak were left to die. The Fourth Table of the Twelve Tables of Roman Law (c. 450 B.C.) stated that deformed children would be put to death. Ancient Judaism and Christianity, and by the 4th century European law, religion, and medicine rejected the intentional killing of an infant. The concept of positive eugenics to produce better humans has existed since Plato suggested selective mating to produce a guardian class. In Sparta, every Spartan child was inspected by the council of elders, the Gerousia, which determined if the child was fit to live. In the earlier years of ancient Rome, a Roman father was forced to kill his child if they were physically disabled. Among the ancient Germanic tribes, people who were cowardly, unwarlike or “stained with abominable vices” were put to death, usually by being drowned in swamps. The first formal eugenics is a legal provision against the birth of inferior human beings, made in Western European culture by the Christian Council of Agde in 506, which forbade marriage between cousins. 11

EUGENICS IN THE US The eugenics movement took root in the United States in the early 1900‘s, led by Charles Davenport, a prominent biologist, and Harry Laughlin, a former teacher and principal interested in breeding. In 1910, Davenport founded the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) at Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory on Long Island “to improve the natural, physical, mental, and qualities of the human family”. Laughlin was the first director. Field workers for the ERO collected many different forms of “data”, including family pedigrees depicting the inheritance of physical, mental, and moral traits. They were particularly interested in the inheritance of “undesirable” traits. The ERO remained active for three decades. 13

The English eugenics movement, championed by Galton, promoted eugenics through selective breeding for positive traits. The idea of a modern project of improving the human population through a statistical understanding of heredity used to encourage good breeding was originally developed by Francis Galton and, initially, was closely linked to Darwinism and his theory of natural selection. Galton had read his half-cousin Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, which sought to explain the development of plant and animal species, and desired to apply it to humans. Based on his biographical studies, Galton believed that desirable human qualities were hereditary traits embedded in genes. Darwin strongly disagreed with this elaboration of Galton’s theory. With the introduction of genetics, eugenics became associated with genetic determinism, the belief that human character is entirely or in the majority caused by genes, unaffected by education or living conditions. Many of the early geneticists were not Darwinians, and evolution theory was not needed for eugenics policies based on genetic determinism. In contrast, the eugenics movement in the US quickly focused on eliminating and reducing negative traits. Not surprisingly, “undesirable” traits were concentrated in poor, uneducated, and minority populations. Eugenics was notoriously classified as a “bad science”.

poverty

weak race

addicted uneducated diseased THEIR FAULT THEY HAVE BAD GENES, IS ALL. 17

Eugenics was not only the purview of academics, and it became a popular social movement that peaked in the 1920s and 30s. During this period, the American Eugenics Society was founded. Members competed in “fitter family” and “better baby” competitions at fairs and exhibitions for the most wellbred children. Movies and books promoting eugenic principles were popular. Hollywood helped to legitimise euthanasia. A 1917 advertisement for The Black Stork proclaimed, “Kill Defectives, Save the Nation”. Based on a true story, it is depicted as heroic– a doctor that allowed a syphilitic infant to die after convincing the child’s parents that it was better to spare society one more outcast.

euthanesia /yoo•tha•nay•sha/

n. the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease.

Euthanasia has been described by eugenicists as the painless killing of an unworthy life. The Breeder’s Report listed 10 solutions to the problems of the unfit. Point eight was euthanasia.

One institution in Lincoln, Illinois, fed its TB patients milk from tubercular cows, believing that the eugenically strong would be immune.

Fortunately, eugenic breeders believed American society was not ready to implement an organised lethal solution. However, many mental institutions and doctors practiced passive euthanasia on their own.

The result was death of 40% patients. Other doctors at mental institutions engaged in lethal neglect.

The ideas of the eugenics movement quickly made their way into American public policy. For instance, the ERO proposed to authorise the sterilisation of “socially inadequate” individuals, people who were maintained at public expense. The costs of caring for such individuals could be saved by preventing their birth. 20

Margaret Sanger, well-known as the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a proponent of negative eugenics, that is, reducing reproduction by those considered unfit. She believed that birth control was the fundamental element of eugenics. Sanger founded the Birth Control League in 1917. The name was changed to Planned Parenthood in 1942. In her 1922 book, The Pivot of Civilisation, Sanger criticised philanthropy, as it tends to perpetuate â&#x20AC;&#x153;human waste.â&#x20AC;? She also advocated mandatory IQ testing for the lower classes and the issuance of governmenWt approved parenthood permits as a prerequisite to having a child.

In 1914, Harry Laughlin published a Model Eugenic Sterilisation Law that would authorise sterilisation of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;socially inadequate,â&#x20AC;? that is, those supported in institutions or maintained wholly or in part at public expense. He and his supporters reasoned that sterilisation was cost-effective: segregation for life cost some $25,000 and sterilisation a mere $150. In an attempt to prevent these groups from propagating, eugenicists helped drive legislation for their forced sterilisation. The first state to enact a sterilisation law was Indiana in 1907, quickly followed by California and 28 other states by 1931. These laws resulted in the forced sterilisation of over 64,000 people in the United States.Â

At first, sterilisation efforts focused on the disabled but later grew to include people whose only “crime” was poverty. These sterilisation programs found legal support in the Supreme Court. Virginia sought to sterilise Carrie Buck for promiscuity as evidenced by her giving birth to a baby out of wedlock (some suggest she was raped). In ruling against Buck, Supreme Court Justice Wendell Holmes opined, “It is better for the world, if society can prevent those who are unfit from continuing their kind.” This decision legitimised the various sterilisation laws in the United States. California’s program was so robust that the Nazi’s turned to California for advice in perfecting their own efforts.

NAZI EUGENICS The scientific reputation of eugenics started to decline in the 1930s, a time when Ernst Rüdin used it as a justification for the racial policies of Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler had praised and incorporated eugenic ideas in Mein Kampf in 1925 and emulated eugenic legislation for the sterilisation of “defectives” that had been pioneered in the United States once he took power. Some common early 20th century eugenics methods involved classifying individuals and their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, deaf, disabled, promiscuous women, homosexuals, and racial groups (such as the Roma and Jews) as “degenerate” or “unfit”, and therefore led to segregation, institutionalisation, sterilisation, euthanasia, and even mass murder. The Hadamar Clinic was a mental hospital in the German town of Hadamar used by the Nazi-controlled German government as the site of Action T4. 25

The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenicswas founded in 1927. Hartheim Euthanasia Centre was also part of the euthanasia programme where the Nazis killed individuals they deemed disabled. The first method used involved transporting patients by buses in which the engine exhaust gases were passed into the interior of the buses, and so killed the passengers. Gas chambers were developed later and used pure carbon monoxide gas to kill the patients. In its early years, and during the Nazi era, the Clinic was strongly associated with theories of eugenics and racial hygiene advocated by its leading theorists Fritz Lenz and Eugen Fischer, and by its director Otmar von Verschuer. After the Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws in

1935, it became compulsory for both marriage partners to be tested for hereditary diseases in order to preserve the “racial purity” of the Aryans. Everyone was encouraged to carefully evaluate his or her prospective marriage partner eugenically during courtship. Members of the SS were cautioned to carefully interview prospective marriage partners to make sure they had no family history of hereditary disease or insanity, but to do this carefully so as not to hurt the feelings of the prospective fiancee and, if it became necessary to reject her for eugenic reasons, to do it tactfully and not cause her any offence. Hitler proudly admitted to following the laws of several American states that allowed for the prevention of reproduction of the “unfit”.

EU GE NI CS

Negative eugenics by provision of information: * Advocacy for sexual abstinence. * Sex education in schools. * School-based clinics. * Promoting the use of contraception. * Emergency contraception. * Research for better contraceptives. * VoluntaryÂ sterilization. * Abortion.

Positive Eugenics * Financial incentives to have children. * Selective incentives for childbearing. * Taxation of the childless. * Ethical obligations of the elite. * Eugenic immigration. * Licences for parenthood.

Negative eugenics by incentives, coercion and compulsion. * Incentives for sterilization. * Incentives for women on welfare to use contraceptions. * Payments for sterilization in developing countries. * Curtailment of benefits to welfare mothers. * Compulsory sterilizationÂ of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;mentally retardedâ&#x20AC;?. * Compulsory sterilization of criminals. 29

BRAVE NEW EUGENICS Mention of the movement to improve human genetics’ known as “eugenics” today evokes myriad horrors, including its association with forced sterilisation, American racism, and Nazism. But over a century after the beginning of the eugenics movement, scientist are carefully dipping back into the controversial research that looks at the influence genes have on certain behavioural characteristics—such as intelligence, the likelihood of going to university, and even the amount of time a teen spends on social media. The field slowly morphed into a field of science now known as human behavioural genetics—a field of science where researchers explore how genetics influences human behaviour. US behavioural geneticist David Lykken is a notable example. In 1998, Lykken advocated for a so-called “parenting license.” He argued that couples interested in having children should need to get a license, but those 31

who were unmarried, unemployed, or disabled would be denied. “The licensure of parenthood is the only real solution to the problem of sociopathy and crime,” Lykken noted in his infamous paper. In the last decade, however, a new approach to genetic research has been on the rise, one that argues for understanding its role in social mobility as a way to achieve greater equality. A recent study published in the journal of Psychological Science last week tested the role genetics plays in parent-child association in education attainment. Researchers found, as in previous studies, that the likelihood of a child going on to higher education is heavily influenced by their parents’ education. The argument being that parents who have been to university can provide more support in the early secondary years and advice when their child is applying for university—the new study indicates that genetics may also play a role. Until now, “Genetics is largely ignored in this dialogue,” said Ziada Ayorech, the lead author of a recent study. Ayorech, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London. The other researchers looked at a sample of more than 6,000 families with identical and non-identical twins in the UK. They categorized the families into four groups:

stably uneducated: neither parent nor offspring went to university

stably educated: families where parents and offspring both went to university

upwardly mobile:

downwardly mobile:

parents did not go to university, but their offspring did.

parents did go to university, but offspring didn’t

The families that had the highest level of education had the highest polygenic scores. The lowest score was found in the families where the parents and children did not have higher education. The researchers were keen to stress that genetics doesn’t work in isolation from socioeconomic factors. Finding genetic influence on something that is traditionally seen as an environmental measure should highlight the fact that genes and environment are working together, Ayorech says. Even if something is highly genetically driven, it doesn’t mean genes are the only factor. In a scenario where equal educational support has been provided for everyone, children’s outcomes will still vary. “If anybody was talking about genetics with policy implications, they were doing it for inequality, and these authors are trying to use it towards equality.”, Ayorech noted. 33

In 2003, genetic screening was commonly used. Genetic screening of potential parents allows physicians to screen for as many as 400 hereditary conditions. Post-pregnancy screening to predict certain conditions in the foetus is widely available and has become routine. Moving closer to a eugenic frame of mind, is pre-implantation genetic screening. Here, embryonic samples are examined before uterine implantation. Here the lab can diagnose chromosomal 34

structural disorders, 3,000 “Mendelian diseases.” due to a single gene only. Then only healthy embryos are implanted. This transfer is a technique to enhance fertility, not to specifically diagnose or modify the embryo. Here, the transferred material (proteins, RNA, small molecules, and organelles) belonging to a healthy ovum is transferred to an egg of the woman with fertility problems. One type of genetic engineering is already in use. Somatic modification adds genes to the somatic cells. Somatic cells make up organs like skin, liver, heart, lungs, etc., and these cells vary from one another. This type of genetic therapy attempts to repair or treat diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, down syndrome, atherosclerotic heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer disease, and cancer. Here, the changes are not passed along to descendants. The purpose of germ-line modification is to enhance a person’s genes. These changes would be passed along to the person’s offspring. This is considered a line that science should not cross. Can genomic medicine be framed as 21st-century century eugenics? Germ-line modification may start with good intentions & be used to modify embryos not for health reasons, but for the sake of “improvement” or “designer babies.” Look how quickly we have moved from disease screening to preemptive abortions or “saviour” siblings. You decide. 35

6,200,000 4,000,000 100,000 700 356 36

INDIA AND EUGENICS The death of 15 women at two state-run sterilisation camps in Chhattisgarh has put a spotlight on India’s dark history of botched sterilisations. The drive to sterilise began in the 1970s when, encouraged by loans amounting to tens of millions of dollars from the World Bank, the Swedish International Development Authority and the UN Population Fund, India embarked on an ambitious population control programme. During the 1975 Emergency - when civil liberties were suspended -Sanjay Gandhi began what was described by many as a “gruesome” campaign to sterilise poor men. There were reports of police cordoning off villages and virtually dragging men to surgery. An astonishing 6.2 million Indian men were sterilised in just a year, which was “15 times the number of people sterilised by the Nazis”, according to science journalist Mara Hvistendahl. 37

6,200,000 4,000,000 100,000 700 356 38

Two thousand men died from botched operations. “India has a dark history of state-sponsored population control, often with eugenic aims - targeting the poor and underprivileged,” Ms Hvistendahl told me. “The women’s tragic deaths show that it still happens.” Since family planning efforts began in the 1970s, India has focused its population control efforts on women, even though, as scientists say, sterilisations are easier to perform in men. “This may be because women are deemed less likely to protest,” says Ms Hvistendahl. India carried out nearly 4 million sterilisations during 2013-2014, according to official figures. Less than 100,000 of these surgeries were done on men. More than 700 deaths were reported due to botched surgeries between 2009 and 2012. There were 356 reported cases of complications arising out of the surgeries. Though the government has adopted a raft of standards for conducting safe sterilisations, a haste to meet high state-mandated quotas has often led to botched operations and deaths. Women have died from forced sterilisations in China where population control was institutionalised since the 1980s. “But the conditions in Indian sterilisation camps sound worse,” says Ms Hvistendahl. There have been reports of the appalling quality of tubectomies for many years now, and authorities still don’t seem to realise that it is a reproductive health concern. 39

6,200,000 men were sterilised in just a year

4,000,000 sterilisationsÂ during 2013-2014, according to official figures.

100,000 of these sterilizations were done on men.

700

deathsÂ were reported due to botched surgeries between 2009 and 2012.

356

cases of complications arising out of surgeries. 40

And the shoddy surgeries continue, risking the lives of these poor women. The health wing of the Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has an astonishing plan to use eugenics to help dark-skinned Indians produce fair and lovely children. The Garbh Vigyan Sanskar (pregnancy science culture) project claims to use a combination of Ayurvedic herbs and practices, dietary regulation, and other prescriptions to “purify” the sperm and eggs of interested potential parents and create uttam santati—perfect progeny—with light skin and a high IQ, according to a report in The Indian Express newspaper. The plan was launched in Gujarat over a decade ago and currently, there are 10 branches that promote the service in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, and more are expected to open up in Uttar Pradesh. “Ayurveda has all the details about how we can get the desired physical and mental qualities of babies. IQ is developed during the sixth month of pregnancy. If the mother undergoes specific procedures, like what to eat, listen and read, the desired IQ can be achieved. Thus, we can get a desired, customised baby,” Karishma Mohandas Narwani, the national convener of the project. “Our main objective is to make a samarth Bharat (strong India) and our target is to have thousands of such babies by 2020,” she added. The project claims to be able to repair genes to prevent “defects” from being passed on, and says it has helped produce 450 super-babies so far. 41

According to Narwani, the RSS’s health wing has already organised a number of seminars and counselling sessions to promote the project in Delhi and Mumbai, as well as in towns such as Udupi in Karnataka and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

On May 07, the Calcutta high court permitted the group to hold a session in Kolkata, without taking any money from clients, as many as 50 couples had reportedly signed up to attend. The group’s plan is to offer such sessions and services in every state of the country by 2020.

“The parents may have lower IQ, with a poor educational background, but their baby can be extremely bright,” Hitesh Jani, the national convener of the RSS’s health wing, the Arogya Bharati- “If the proper procedure is followed, babies of dark-skinned parents with lesser height can have fair complexion and grow taller.” 42

It’s in line with the RSS’s dedicated, decades-long project to “purify” the country, making India a nation for a very specific type of Hindu Indian.

It also fits with the Hindu right’s historical appreciation for the efforts of Hitler in Nazi Germany. In the 1930s, as that country embarked on a horrifying and destructive project to improve the stock of population and create an Aryan super-race, a number of Indians, who identified as Aryan descendants, roundly supported and celebrated Hitler’s eugenics project.