Abstract
Although it is often taken for granted that eugenics is odious, exactly what makes it so is far from obvious. The existence of considerable interpretative flexibility is evident in the disparate policy lessons for contemporary reproductive genetics (or “reprogenetics”) that have been derived from essentially the same set of historical facts. In this paper, I will show how different—indeed, diametrically-opposed—morals have been drawn from the history of eugenics and link these contrasting messages both to different underlying conceptions of what constitutes the central wrong of eugenics and differing degrees of enthusiasm for reprogenetic technologies. I will then argue that, for several reasons, the history of eugenics simply cannot provide the kind of direct guidance that many participants in current debates would like. Although the history does have implications for policy, the insights to be gleaned are both subtle and indirect.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Both thought that character and temperament could be read from the body, but phrenologists were concerned with conformations of the skull and physiognomists with bodily and especially facial characteristics more generally.
Lee M. Silver, a biophysicist who teaches in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, originally coined the term “reprogenetics” to denote the convergence of genetic and reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization. It is typically employed broadly to include research and interventions involving both gametes and embryos (Knowles and Kaebnick 2007, p. ix).
In his insightful essay on sterilization in Sweden, Torbjörn Tännsjö (1998, pp. 240) notes that there are at least three quite different and indeed inconsistent objections to sterilization policy, and that depending on which one is accepted, we will condemn different agents in the past and also favor different policy recommendations for the future.
Michael Sandel (2004) also remarks on the underlying assumption that voluntary choices “are not really eugenic--at least not in the pejorative sense. To remove the coercion […] is to remove the very thing that makes eugenic policies repugnant.”
They seem to have established a beachhead of sorts at the University of Oxford, where philosopher Nick Bostrom, who co-founded the World Transhumanist Association or WTA (renamed Humanity + in 2008), directs The Future of Humanity Institute. (Bostrom is also affiliated with the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, directed by fellow reprogenetic enthusisast Julian Savulescu).
The distinction between “transhumanism” and “posthumanism” is not always clear, but typically transhumans are considered to have capacities somewhere between those of unaugmented humans and greatly enhanced posthumans.
Tom Shakespeare (2006, pp. 85–88), who is himself a disability-rights activist, provides an excellent critique of a tendency among activists to equate contemporary reproductive practices with Nazi programs.
Typical of this genre is “Margaret Sanger, Sterilization, and the Swastika” (Richmond 1997), where the link between Sanger and Nazism is made by identifying institutions for eugenical segregation as concentration camps and Sanger’s views with those of contributors to her journal, even after she had resigned as its editor.
Sanger is also featured on creationist websites, where she is identified not only with eugenics but Darwinism. For example, see Bergman 2008.
Allan Brandt (2006) provides a thoughtful analysis of both the strengths and limitations of policy-relevant history.
References
Agar, N. (2004). Liberal eugenics: In defense of human enhancement. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
Appiah, K. A. (2010). The honor code: How moral revolutions happen. New York: W.W. Norton.
Appleyard, B. (1999). Brave new worlds: Genetics and the human experience. London: HarperCollins.
Bergman, J. (2008). Birth control leader Margaret Sanger: Darwinist, racist and eugenicist. Journal of Creation, 22(3), 62–67.
Brandt, A. (2006). From analysis to advocacy: Crossing boundaries as a historian of health policy. In F. Huisman & J. H. Warner (Eds.), Locating medical history: The stories and their meanings. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Buchanan, A., Brock, D. W., Daniels, N., & Wikler, D. (2000). From chance to choice: genetics and justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Caplan, A. L. (2000). What is morally wrong with eugenics? In P. R. Sloan (Ed.), Controlling our destinies: Historical, philosophical, ethical, and theological perspectives on the human genome project (pp. 209–222). Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press.
Cowan, R. S. (2008). Heredity and hope: The case for genetic screening. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Epstein, C. J. (2003). Is modern genetics the new eugenics? Presidential address delivered at the 2003 annual clinical genetics meeting of the American College of Medical Genetics, San Diego, CA. Reprinted in Genetics in Medicine, 5(6), 469–475.
Erler, A. (2010). Eugenics or ‘reprogenetics’: Call it what you will, but let’s do it, Practical Ethics: Ethics in the News (Feb. 24). http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2010/02/eugenics-or-reprogenetics-call-it-what-you-will-but-lets-do-it/ Accessed 25 Sept. 2011.
Glover, J. (2006). Choosing children: Genes, disability, and design. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Green, R. M. (2007). Babies by design: The ethics of genetic choice. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Harris, J. (2007). Enhancing evolution: The ethical case for making better people. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hilliard, M. T. (2010). The new eugenics: Eliminating the ‘undesirable’ by prenatal diagnosis. http://home.catholicweb.com/odccw/files/The_New_Eugenics.pdf. Accessed 9 Jan. 2012.
Hughes, J. (2004). Do Transhumanists Advocate Eugenics? http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/more/66/. (27 April). Accessed on 17 Sept. 2011.
Hume, J. (1996). Disability, feminism and eugenics: Who has the right to decide who should or should not inhabit the world.” http://www.wwda.org.au/eugen.htm. Accessed 5 Oct. 2011.
ICTA [International Center for Technology Assessment]. (2011). Human biotechnology: The age of the “new eugenics.” http://www.icta.org/biotech/index.cfm. Accessed 28 Sept. 2011.
Kevles, D. J. (1995). In the name of eugenics: Genetics and the uses of human heredity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kitcher, P. (1997). The lives to come: The genetic revolution and human possibilities. New York: Free Press.
Knowles, L. P., & Kaebnick, G. E. (2007). Reprogenetics: Law, policy, and ethical issues. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Levine, P., & Bashford, A. (2010). Introduction: Eugenics in the modern world. In A. Bashford & P. Levine (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the history of eugenics (pp. 3–24). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lombardo, P. (2008). Three generations, no imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and buck v. Bell. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Margaret Sanger Papers Project. (2002–2003). The Sanger-Hitler equation. (Winter). http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/secure/newsletter/articles/sanger-hitler_equation.html. Accessed 4 Oct. 2011.
Meehan, M. (2009). Triumph of eugenics in prenatal testing. Part I. How it happened, Human Life. Review, 35(3), 28–40.
Neumayr, G. (2005). The new eugenics. The American Spectator (June), 22–25. http://www.hum.utah.edu/~bbenham/2510%20Spring%2009/Neumyer-The%20new%20eugenics.pdf. Accessed 28 Sept. 2011.
Paul, D. B. (1995). Controlling human heredity: 1865 to the present. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
Pence, G. E. (2000). Maximize parental choice. In G. Stock & J. Campbell (Eds.), Engineering the Human Germline: An Exploration of the Science and Ethics of Altering the Genes We Pass on to Our Children (pp. 111–113). New York: Oxford University Press.
Richmond, M. (1997). Margaret Sanger, sterilization, and the swastika. Address to the New History Society, New York City (Jan. 17). The Ethical Spectacle 3(9). http://www.spectacle.org/997/richmond.html. Accessed 4 Oct. 2011.
Rosenberg, C. E. (2007). The new enchantment: Genetics, medicine, and society, Our Present Complaint: American Medicine, Then and Now (pp. 96–112). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, on 101, 107.
Rothschild, J. (2005). The dream of the perfect child. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Sandel, M. J. (2004). The case against perfection. The Atlantic (April), 293(3), 51–62.
Savulescu, J. (2005). New breeds of humans: The moral obligation to enhance”. Reproductive BioMedicine Online, 10(Supp 1), 36–39.
Savulescu, J., & Kahane, G. (2009). The moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life”. Bioethics, 23(5), 274–290.
Schmalz, V. (2006). Casual eugenics: Prenatal screening has become a death sentence for the disabled, Catholic World Report (Aug/Sept), 18-22. http://www.webparish.com/prolife/documents/CasualEugenics.pdf. Accessed 28 Sept. 2011.
Shakespeare, T. (2006). Disability rights and wrongs. New York: Routledge.
Silver, L. M. (2000). Reprogenetics: How reproductive and genetic technologies will be combined to provide new opportunities for people to reach their reproductive goals. In G. Stock & J. Campbell (Eds.), Engineering the human Germline: An exploration of the science and ethics of altering the genes we pass on to our children (pp. 57–72). New York: Oxford University Press.
Smith, W. (2008). Politically correct eugenics, Weekly Standard 13(28). Available at: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/915cuzel.asp.
Stock, G. (2002). Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Stock, G. & Campbell, J. (Eds.) (2000). Engineering the Human Germline: An Exploration of the Science and Ethics of Altering the Genes We Pass on to Our Children. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sutherland, J. (2005). The ideas interview: Julian Savulescu. Eugenics need not be Nazi, and drugs in sport are good, Oxford’s leading ethicist tells John Sutherland. The Guardian (9 October). http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/oct/10/genetics.research. Accessed 22 Sept. 2011.
Tännsjö, T. (1998). Compulsory sterilisation in Sweden. Bioethics, 12(3), 236–249.
Tough, P. (2011). The Poverty Clinic, New Yorker (21 March), 25–32.
Wikler, D. (1999). Can we learn from eugenics? Journal of Medical Ethics, 25, 183–194.
Will, G. F. (2005). Eugenics by abortion, Washington Post (14 April), A27.
Young, N. (2005). Autism prenatal testing. [Interview with Bonnie Ventura]. http://www.aspergianpride.com/prenatal.shtml. Accessed 28 Sept. 2011.
Acknowledgments
A small amount of material in this essay originally appeared in “On Drawing Lessons from the History of Eugenics,” in Lori P. Knowles and Gregory E. Kaebnick, eds., Reprogenetics: Law, Policy, and Ethical Issues, copyright 2007 by The Johns Hopkins University Press, reprinted by permission of the publisher. The author would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Paul, D.B. What Was Wrong with Eugenics? Conflicting Narratives and Disputed Interpretations. Sci & Educ 23, 259–271 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-012-9556-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-012-9556-3