The history of harmful eugenic practices, spurring from the Nazi implementations of discrimination towards biologically inferior people has given eugenics a negative stigma (1,Kitcher, 190). Genetic testing, as Kitcher sees it through a minimalistic perspective, should be restrained to aiding future children with extremely low qualities of life (2,Kitcher, 190). He believes that genetic engineering should only be used to avoid disease and illness serving the role of creating a healthier human race. He promotes laissez-faire eugenics, a “hands off” concept that corresponds to three components of eugenic practice, discrimination, coercion and division of traits. It holds the underlying works of genetic testing, accurate information, open access, and freedom of choice. Laissez-faire eugenics promises to enhance reproductive freedom preventing early child death due to genetic disease (3,Kitcher, 198). However there are dangers in Laissez-faire that Kitcher wants to avoid. The first is the historical tendency of population control, eugenics can go from avoiding suffering, to catering to a set of social values that will cause the practice of genetics to become prejudiced, insensitive and superficial. The second is that prenatal testing will become limited to the upper class, leaving the lower class with fewer options, creating biologically driven social barriers. Furthermore the decay of disability support systems due to prenatal testing can lead to an increased pressure to eliminate those unfit for society (4,Kitcher, 214).
Kitcher introduces Utopian eugenics, as a solution that improves the quality of an embryonic life. He envisions a world where education is used to enlighten peoples understanding of molecular genetics and allows t...
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...of eugenics to create tailored humans with customized characteristics.
The eugenic decision-making that drives all aspects of life in Gattaca strays from the basic principles of determinism. While the advancement of genetic technology should allow for more power and freedoms to express an individuals own values and experiences like Kitcher and Stock imagine, in Gattaca social pressures drive eugenic decisions. The film illustrates actual possibilities of how human life and human societies may operate if responsible eugenics isn’t practiced. It is human nature to advance and adapt to our changing environments, improvements in technology are merely new means of doing so. But as humans we embody ethical values and morals that will always influence our decisions. As a culture influenced by our inherent biology, who is to say that our culture will not remold our biology?
The eugenics movement started in the early 1900s and was adopted by doctors and the general public during the 1920s. The movement aimed to create a better society through the monitoring of genetic traits through selective heredity. Over time, eugenics took on two different views. Supporters of positive eugenics believed in promoting childbearing by a class who was “genetically superior.” On the contrary, proponents of negative eugenics tried to monitor society’s flaws through the sterilization of the “inferior.”
The American Eugenics Movement was led by Charles Davenport and was a social agenda to breed out undesirable traits with an aim of racial purification. Eugenics was a used to breed out the worst and weakest to improve the genetic composition of the human race, and advocated for selective breeding to achieve this. The science of eugenics rested on simple mendelian genetics, which was a mistake because they were assuming complex behaviors could be reduced to simple mendelian genes. After Nazi Germany adopted the ideas behind the American eugenics movement to promote the Aryan race, the eugenics movement was completely discredited.
Galton, David J., and Clare J. Galton. "Francis Galton: And Eugenics Today." Journal of Medical Ethics, 24.2 (1998): 99-101. JSTOR. Web. 8 Mar. 2010.
In the motion picture Gattaca directed by Andrew Niccol questions the ability of allowing genetic potential, calculated by birth, to establish the fate of an individual. The determination of a person’s destiny proved impossible and preposterous as mankind were defined by their capability to make decisions on their own concerning their future. The film exhibits the problems in a genetically engineered society. Development of science technologies has advanced exceedingly to the extent where immediately after birth an infant’s destiny can be identified just by taking a blood sample. This gives a glimpse at the person’s future and the opportunity to discriminate: ‘…no longer determined by social status or the colour of your skin. We now have discrimination down to a science’. Society in Gattaca was divided into two classes valids and in-valids.
Eugenics has been an increasingly popular concept in recent films and texts. The presence of eugenics in these films and texts has caused people to believe that eugenics could be helpful in society. The idea that the perfect person can be created or modified is simply irrational. Each individual person’s qualities are created by their surroundings as they grow up. In Always With Us, Howard Horwitz wishes that the eugenics movement in the United States never had gathered steam. The negative aspects of eugenics that Horowitz discusses are noticeable in works such as Gattaca, A Brave New World, and The Blade Runner. The notion that eugenics is a positive for society limits individuals’ potential by predetermining what they can achieve. By predetermining
To choose for their children, the world’s wealthy class will soon have options such as tall, pretty, athletic, intelligent, blue eyes, and blonde hair. Occasionally referred to as similar to “the eugenics of Hitler’s Third Reich” (“Designer Babies” n.p.), the new genetics technology is causing differences in people’s opinions, despite altering DNA before implantation is “just around the corner.” (Thadani n.p.). A recent advance in genetically altering embryos coined “designer babies” produces controversy about the morality of this process.
In The Case Against Perfection, Sandel warns us of the dangers that genetic engineering, steroids, and hormones poses to society and the natural order. According to Sandel, this type of control, especially in non-medical settings, violates a respect for life that should be ingrained in all of us. Life is something difficult to predict, something that shouldn’t bend to our every single will and desire. Genetic engineering, and the like, presents an egregious violation of this respect. According to Sandel, this violation serves only to reverse the human march of progress. Sandel weaves a well-balanced argument in his book. The issue of eugenic technology is most definitely not black or white. According to him, the aspects of modification can be applied selectively, so long as it doesn’t violate the respect for life society should hold closely.
...ne starts life with an equal chance of health and success. Yet, gene therapy can also be thought of as a straight route towards a dark outlook, where perfection is the first priority, genes are seen as the ultimate puppeteer, and personal freedom to thrive based on one’s self isn’t believed to exist. With the emergence of each new technological discovery comes the emergence of each new ethical debate, and one day, each viewpoint on this momentous issue may be able to find a bit of truth in the other. Eventually, our society may reach a compromise on gene therapy.
The Web. 27 May 2014. The "Eugenics" - "The. Dictionary.com. The World of the. Dictionary.com, n.d. -. Web.
The Human Genome Project is the largest scientific endeavor undertaken since the Manhattan Project, and, as with the Manhattan Project, the completion of the Human Genome Project has brought to surface many moral and ethical issues concerning the use of the knowledge gained from the project. Although genetic tests for certain diseases have been available for 15 years (Ridley, 1999), the completion of the Human Genome Project will certainly lead to an exponential increase in the number of genetic tests available. Therefore, before genetic testing becomes a routine part of a visit to a doctor's office, the two main questions at the heart of the controversy surrounding genetic testing must be addressed: When should genetic testing be used? And who should have access to the results of genetic tests? As I intend to show, genetic tests should only be used for treatable diseases, and individuals should have the freedom to decide who has access to their test results.
In today’s world, people are learning a great deal in the rapidly growing and developing fields of science and technology. Almost each day, an individual can see or hear about new discoveries and advances in these fields of study. One science that is rapidly progressing is genetic testing; a valuable science that promotes prevention efforts for genetically susceptible people and provides new strategies for disease management. Unnaturally, and morally wrong, genetic testing is a controversial science that manipulates human ethics. Although genetic testing has enormous advantages, the uncertainties of genetic testing will depreciate our quality of life, and thereby result in psychological burden, discrimination, and abortion.
Savulescu, Julian. “Genetic Interventions and the Ethics of Human Beings.” Readings in the Philosophy of Technology. Ed. David Kaplan. 2nd ed. Lanham: Roman & Littlefield, 2009. 417-430.
When created in 1923, the American Eugenics Society exemplified an air of reform with a seemingly positive purpose, however this cannot be further from the truth. In reality, the society polluted the air with myths of weeding out imperfections with the Galtonian ideal, the breeding of the fittest (Carison). The founder of the society, Charles Davensport , preached that those who are imperfect should be eliminated(Marks). From the school desk to the pulpit, the fallacies of the eugenics movement were forced into society. Preachers often encouraged the best to marry the best while biology professors would encourage DNA testing to find out ones fate (Selden). A...
Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development, is the book in which Sir Francis Galton first mentioned the term eugenics. In the book he says that “humans believe that humans were disrupting evolution in maintaining the weak and sickly through social welfare programs, mental institutions and the like.”
Eugenics began to dynamically thrive after the rediscovery of Mendel's theory in 1900. He argued that the biological make up of organisms are formed by certain aspects, later identified with genes (Kevles). The dispute that the gene pool was a very important factor in reproduction led to the action of picking out only the “desirable” individuals. Through lab work, reports, and articles from scientist it was assumed that every individu...