History Of Eugenics

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In North America today, society continues to face a detrimental issue surrounding race; the stigma related to race has been slowly improving, yet there is still a somewhat collective mindset of human beings that insist on superiority. Modern racism, as compared to the past racism which is so heavily embedded in world history, is much subtler and in some cases a subconscious decision people find themselves coming to. Consequently, eugenics is a practice that can be traced all the way through history to the present. Eugenics, “the idea of manipulating human production to improve the species [that] has been traced back to Plato’s Republic,” (Barnett, 2004 p.1742) has been a deluded attempt in maintaining control over millions of people throughout …show more content…

163). Almost immediately, these discoveries caused an even larger rift in society; people became obsessed with the idea of superiority and the idea of “bettering society” came to be fairly quickly. As Coutts & McCarrick (1995) point out, Galton, the cousin of Darwin, embraced the idea of survival of the fittest; this mindset was soon adopted by a vast amount of people throughout society. Initially, there were two branches of eugenics: positive and negative. Barnett (2004), explains that “negative eugenics aimed to eliminate, through sterilization or segregation, those deemed physically, mentally, or morally “undesirable”” (p.1742). The negative side of this science, gained popularity so rapidly in fact, according to Gilchrist (1904) “France was the only country, with the exception of a small section of America,” (p.492) where eugenics was not practiced in a harmful way. On the other hand, “positive eugenics encouraged the reproduction of the intelligent, the healthy, and the successful, and tended to be voluntarist,” according to Barnett (2004). While eugenics may have initially been intended to be used with the best intentions, the ethical and moral violations various different countries and societies encouraged has left a scar on the …show more content…

According to Selgelid (2014), “the eugenically-motivated Nazi program of ‘‘Racial Hygiene’’ included a sterilization program that was initially inspired by, and modelled after, the California sterilization program,” (p.5). It is evident, the barbaric practice of this type of racism has occurred all around the world at various times in history. Specifically, “the Nazis… [passed the] 1933 Law for Prevention of Defective Progeny… [and] sterilized a total of 400,000 persons” (Selgelid, 2014, p.5). The moral ineptitude of past governments and dictators has resulted in societies embracing superiority over each other. While Nazi Germany may be one of the largest scale operations to date, there have been numerous all around the world. For example, Coutts’ & McCormick’s research (1995) showed that in 1995 China passed a law requiring “premarital checkups to determine whether either partner carries "genetic diseases of a serious nature," infectious diseases (AIDS, gonorrhoea, syphilis, and leprosy), or a "relevant mental disease.”” (p.165). The popularity of eugenics has certainly died out over time, however, the massive role it played in history has heavily influenced the tenor of beliefs in current society and modern

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