Eugenics in the United States – Wikipedia

Review of the topic

Eugenics, the set of beliefs and practices which aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population,[2][3] played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States from the late 19th century into the mid-20th century.[4] The cause became increasingly promoted by intellectuals of the Progressive Era.[5][6]

While ostensibly about improving genetic quality, it has been argued that eugenics was more about preserving the position of the dominant groups in the population. Scholarly research has determined that people who found themselves targets of the eugenics movement were those who were seen as unfit for societythe poor, the disabled, the mentally ill, and specific communities of colorand a disproportionate number of those who fell victim to eugenicists' sterilization initiatives were women who were identified as African American, Hispanic, or Native American.[7][8] As a result, the United States' eugenics movement is now generally associated with racist and nativist elements, as the movement was to some extent a reaction to demographic and population changes, as well as concerns over the economy and social well-being, rather than scientific genetics.[9][8]

The American eugenics movement was rooted in the biological determinist ideas of Sir Francis Galton, which originated in the 1880s. In 1883, Sir Francis Galton first used the word eugenics to describe scientifically, the biological improvement of genes in human races and the concept of being "well-born".[10] He believed that differences in a person's ability were acquired primarily through genetics and that eugenics could be implemented through selective breeding in order for the human race to improve in its overall quality, therefore allowing for humans to direct their own evolution.[11] In the US, eugenics was largely supported after the discovery of Mendel's law lead to a widespread interest in the idea of breeding for specific traits.[12] Galton studied the upper classes of Britain, and arrived at the conclusion that their social positions could be attributed to a superior genetic makeup.[13] American eugenicists tended to believe in the genetic superiority of Nordic, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon peoples, supported strict immigration and anti-miscegenation laws, and supported the forcible sterilization of the poor, disabled and "immoral."[14]

The American eugenics movement received extensive funding from various corporate foundations including the Carnegie Institution, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Harriman railroad fortune.[15] In 1906, J.H. Kellogg provided funding to help found the Race Betterment Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan.[13] The Eugenics Record Office (ERO) was founded in Cold Spring Harbor, New York in 1911 by the renowned biologist Charles B. Davenport, using money from both the Harriman railroad fortune and the Carnegie Institution.[16] As late as the 1920s, the ERO was one of the leading organizations in the American eugenics movement.[13][17] In years to come, the ERO and the American Eugenics Society collected a mass of family pedigrees and provided training for eugenics field workers who were sent to analyze individuals at various institutions, such as mental hospitals and orphanage institutions, across the United States.[18] Eugenicists such as Davenport, the psychologist Henry H. Goddard, Harry H. Laughlin, and the conservationist Madison Grant (all of whom were well-respected during their time) began to lobby for various solutions to the problem of the "unfit."[16] Davenport favored immigration restriction and sterilization as primary methods; Goddard favored segregation in his The Kallikak Family; Grant favored all of the above and more, even entertaining the idea of extermination.[19]

By 1910, there was a large and dynamic network of scientists, reformers, and professionals engaged in national eugenics projects and actively promoting eugenic legislation. The American Breeder's Association, the first eugenic body in the U.S., expanded in 1906 to include a specific eugenics committee under the direction of Charles B. Davenport.[20][21] The ABA was formed specifically to "investigate and report on heredity in the human race, and emphasize the value of superior blood and the menace to society of inferior blood."[22] Membership included Alexander Graham Bell,[23] Stanford president David Starr Jordan and Luther Burbank.[24][25] The American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality was one of the first organizations to begin investigating infant mortality rates in terms of eugenics.[26] They promoted government intervention in attempts to promote the health of future citizens.[27][verification needed]

Several feminist reformers advocated an agenda of eugenic legal reform. The National Federation of Women's Clubs, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and the National League of Women Voters were among the variety of state and local feminist organizations that at some point lobbied for eugenic reforms.[28] One of the most prominent feminists to champion the eugenic agenda was Margaret Sanger, the leader of the American birth control movement and founder of Planned Parenthood. Sanger saw birth control as a means to prevent unwanted children from being born into a disadvantaged life, and incorporated the language of eugenics to advance the movement.[29][30] Sanger also sought to discourage the reproduction of persons who, it was believed, would pass on mental disease or serious physical defects.[31] In these cases, she approved of the use of sterilization.[29] In Sanger's opinion, it was individual women (if able-bodied) and not the state who should determine whether or not to have a child.[32][33]

In the Deep South, women's associations played an important role in rallying support for eugenic legal reform. Eugenicists recognized the political and social influence of southern clubwomen in their communities, and used them to help implement eugenics across the region.[34] Between 1915 and 1920, federated women's clubs in every state of the Deep South had a critical role in establishing public eugenic institutions that were segregated by sex.[35] For example, the Legislative Committee of the Florida State Federation of Women's Clubs successfully lobbied to institute a eugenic institution for the mentally retarded that was segregated by sex.[36] Their aim was to separate mentally retarded men and women in order to prevent them from breeding more "feebleminded" individuals.

Public acceptance in the U.S. led to various state legislatures working to establish eugenic initiatives. Beginning with Connecticut in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws with eugenic criteria, prohibiting anyone who was "epileptic, imbecile or feeble-minded"[37] from marrying.[38] The first state to introduce a compulsory sterilization bill was Michigan in 1897 although the proposed law failed to garner enough votes by legislators to be adopted, it did set the stage for other sterilization bills.[39] Eight years later, Pennsylvania's state legislators passed a sterilization bill that was vetoed by the governor.[40] Indiana became the first state to enact sterilization legislation in 1907,[41] followed closely by Washington, California, and Connecticut in 1909.[42][43][44] Sterilization rates across the country were relatively low (California being the sole exception) until the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, which upheld under the U.S. Constitution the forced sterilization of patients at a Virginia home for those who were seen as mentally retarded.[45]

In the late 19th century, many scientists, who were concerned about the population leaning too far away from the favored "Anglo-Saxon superiority" due to a rise in immigration from Europe, partnered with other interest groups to implement immigration laws that could be justified on the basis of genetics.[46] After the 1890 U.S. census, people began to believe that immigrants who were of Nordic or Anglo-Saxon ancestry were greatly favored over Southern and Eastern Europeans, specifically Jews (a diasporic, Middle Eastern people), who were seen by some eugenicists, like Harry Laughlin, to be genetically inferior.[46] During the early 20th century as the United States and Canada began to receive higher numbers of immigrants, influential eugenicists like Lothrop Stoddard and Laughlin (who was appointed as an expert witness for the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in 1920) presented arguments that these immigrants would pollute the national gene pool if their numbers went unrestricted.[47][48]

In 1921, a temporary measure was passed to slowdown the open door on immigration. The Immigration Restriction League was the first American entity to be closely associated with eugenics and was founded in 1894 by three recent Harvard graduates. The overall goal of the League was to prevent what they perceived as inferior races from diluting "the superior American racial stock" (those who were of the upper-class Anglo-Saxon heritage), and they began working to have stricter anti-immigration laws in the United States.[49] The League lobbied for a literacy test for immigrants as they attempted to enter the United States, based on the belief that literacy rates were low among "inferior races".[46] Eugenicists believed that immigrants were often degenerate, had low IQs, and were afflicted with shiftlessness, alcoholism and insubordination. According to Eugenicists, all of these problems were transmitted through genes. Literacy test bills were vetoed by presidents in 1897, 1913 and 1915; eventually, President Wilson's second veto was overruled by Congress in 1917.[50]

With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, eugenicists for the first time played an important role in the Congressional debate as expert advisers on the threat of "inferior stock" from eastern and southern Europe.[51][52] The new act, inspired by the eugenic belief in the racial superiority of "old stock" white Americans as members of the "Nordic race" (a form of white supremacy), strengthened the position of existing laws prohibiting race-mixing.[53] Whereas Anglo-Saxon and Nordic people were seen as the most desirable immigrants, the Chinese and Japanese were seen as the least desirable and were largely banned from entering the U.S as a result of the immigration act.[53][54] In addition to the immigration act, eugenic considerations also lay behind the adoption of incest laws in much of the U.S. and were used to justify many anti-miscegenation laws.[55]

Both class and race factored into the eugenic definitions of "fit" and "unfit." By using intelligence testing, American eugenicists asserted that social mobility was indicative of one's genetic fitness.[56] This reaffirmed the existing class and racial hierarchies and explained why the upper-to-middle class was predominantly white. Middle-to-upper class status was a marker of "superior strains."[36] In contrast, eugenicists believed poverty to be a characteristic of genetic inferiority, which meant that those deemed "unfit" were predominantly of the lower classes.[36]

Because class status designated some more fit than others, eugenicists treated upper and lower-class women differently. Positive eugenicists, who promoted procreation among the fittest in society, encouraged middle-class women to bear more children. Between 1900 and 1960, eugenicists appealed to middle class white women to become more "family minded," and to help better the race.[57] To this end, eugenicists often denied middle and upper-class women sterilization and birth control.[58] However, since poverty was associated with prostitution and "mental idiocy," women of the lower classes were the first to be deemed "unfit" and "promiscuous."[36]

In the 19th century, based on a view of Lamarckism, it was believed that the damage done to people by diseases could be inherited and therefore, through eugenics, these diseases could be eradicated. This belief was carried into the 20th century as public health measures were taken to improve health with the hope that such measures would result in better health of future generations.[citation needed]

A 1911 Carnegie Institute report explored eighteen methods for removing defective genetic attributes; the eighth method was euthanasia.[15] Though the most commonly suggested method of euthanasia was to set up local gas chambers,[15] many in the eugenics movement did not believe that Americans were ready to implement a large-scale euthanasia program, so many doctors came up with alternative ways of subtly implementing eugenic euthanasia in various medical institutions.[15] For example, a mental institution in Lincoln, Illinois fed its incoming patients milk infected with tuberculosis (reasoning that genetically fit individuals would be resistant), resulting in 3040% annual death rates.[15] Other doctors practiced euthanasia through various forms of lethal neglect.[15]

In the 1930s, there was a wave of portrayals of eugenic "mercy killings" in American film, newspapers, and magazines. In 1931, the Illinois Homeopathic Medicine Association began lobbying for the right to euthanize "imbeciles" and other defectives.[59] A few years later, in 1938, the Euthanasia Society of America was founded.[60] However, despite this, euthanasia saw marginal support in the U.S., motivating people to turn to forced segregation and sterilization programs as a means for keeping the "unfit" from reproducing.[15]

Mary deGormo, a former teacher, was the first person to combine ideas about health and intelligence standards with competitions at state fairs, in the form of baby contests.[61] She developed the first such contest, the "Scientific Baby Contest" for the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport, in 1908.[62] She saw these contests as a contribution to the "social efficiency" movement, which was advocating for the standardization of all aspects of American life as a means of increasing efficiency.[26] DeGarmo was assisted by Doctor Jacob Bodenheimer, a pediatrician who helped her develop grading sheets for contestants, which combined physical measurements with standardized measurements of intelligence.[63]

The contest spread to other U.S. states in the early 20th century. In Indiana, for example, Ada Estelle Schweitzer, a eugenics advocate and director of the Indiana State Board of Health's Division of Child and Infant Hygiene, organized and supervised the state's Better Baby contests at the Indiana State Fair from 1920 to 1932. It was among the fair's most popular events. During the contest's first year at the fair, a total of 78 babies were examined; in 1925 the total reached 885. Contestants peaked at 1,301 infants in 1930, and the following year the number of entrants was capped at 1,200. Although the specific impact of the contests was difficult to assess, statistics helped to support Schweitzer's claims that the contests helped reduce infant mortality.[64][65]

The contest intended to educate the public about raising healthy children at a time when approximately 10% of children died in their first year of life.[66] However, its exclusionary practices reinforced social class and racial discrimination. In Indiana, for example, the contestants were limited to white infants; African-American and immigrant children were barred from the competition for ribbons and cash prizes. In addition, the scoring was biased toward white, middle-class babies.[67][68] The contest procedure included recording each child's health history, as well as evaluations of each contestant's physical and mental health and overall development using medical professionals. Using a process similar to the one introduced at the Louisiana State Fair, and contest guidelines that the AMA and U.S. Children's Bureau recommended, scoring for each contestant began with 1,000 points. Deductions were made for defects, including a child's measurements below a designated average. The contestant with the most points was declared the winner.[69][65][70]

Standardization through scientific judgment was a topic that was very serious in the eyes of the scientific community, but has often been downplayed as just a popular fad or trend. Nevertheless, a lot of time, effort, and money was put into these contests and their scientific backing, which would influence cultural ideas as well as local and state government practices.[71]

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People promoted eugenics by hosting "Better Baby" contests and the proceeds would go to its anti-lynching campaign.[72]

First appearing in 1920 at the Kansas Free Fair, "Fitter Families for Future Firesides" competitions continued all the way up to World War II. Mary T. Watts and Dr. Florence Brown Sherbon,[73][74] both initiators of the Better Baby Contests in Iowa, took the idea of positive eugenics for babies and combined it with a determinist concept of biology to come up with fitter family competitions.[75]

There were several different categories that families were judged in: size of the family, overall attractiveness, and health of the family, all of which helped to determine the likelihood of having healthy children. These competitions were simply a continuation of the Better Baby contests that promoted certain physical and mental qualities.[76][77] At the time, it was believed that certain behavioral qualities were inherited from one's parents. This led to the addition of several judging categories including: generosity, self-sacrificing, and quality of familial bonds. Additionally, there were negative features that were judged: selfishness, jealousy, suspiciousness, high-temperedness, and cruelty. Feeblemindedness, alcoholism, and paralysis were few among other traits that were included as physical traits to be judged when looking at family lineage.[78]

Doctors and specialists from the community would offer their time to judge these competitions, which were originally sponsored by the Red Cross.[78] The winners of these competitions were given a Bronze Medal as well as champion cups called "Capper Medals." The cups were named after then-Governor and Senator, Arthur Capper and he would present them to "Grade A individuals".[79]

The perks of entering into the contests were that the competitions provided a way for families to get a free health check-up by a doctor as well as some of the pride and prestige that came from winning the competitions.[78]

By 1925 the Eugenics Records Office was distributing standardized forms for judging eugenically fit families, which were used in contests in several U.S. states.[80]

In 1907, Indiana passed the first eugenics-based compulsory sterilization law in the world. Thirty U.S. states would soon follow their lead.[81][82] Although the law was overturned by the Indiana Supreme Court in 1921,[83] in the 1927 case Buck v. Bell, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924, allowing for the compulsory sterilization of patients of state mental institutions.[84]

The number of sterilizations performed per year increased until another Supreme Court case, Skinner v. Oklahoma, 1942, which ruled that under the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, laws that permitted the compulsory sterilization of criminals were unconstitutional if these laws treated similar crimes differently.[85] Although Skinner determined that the right to procreate was a fundamental right under the constitution, the case did not denounce sterilization laws, because its analysis was based on the equal protection of criminal defendants specifically, therefore leaving those seen as "social undesirables"the poor, the disabled, and various ethnic groupsas targets of compulsory sterilization.[7] Therefore, though compulsory sterilization is now considered an abuse of human rights, Buck v. Bell has never been overturned, and Virginia specifically did not repeal its sterilization law until 1974.[86]

Men and women were compulsorily sterilized for different reasons. Men were sterilized to treat their aggression and to eliminate their criminal behavior, while women were sterilized to control the results of their sexuality.[87] Since women bore children, eugenicists held women more accountable than men for the reproduction of the less "desirable" members of society.[87] Eugenicists therefore predominantly targeted women in their efforts to regulate the birth rate, to "protect" white racial health, and weed out the "defectives" of society.[87]

The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States.[88] Beginning around 1930, there was a steady increase in the percentage of women sterilized, and in a few states only young women were sterilized. A 1937 Fortune magazine poll found that 2/3 of respondents supported eugenic sterilization of "mental defectives", 63% supported sterilization of criminals, and only 15% opposed both.[89][90] From 1930 to the 1960s, sterilizations were performed on many more institutionalized women than men.[91] By 1961, 61 percent of the 62,162 total eugenic sterilizations in the United States were performed on women.[91] A favorable report on the results of sterilization in California, the state that conducted the most sterilizations (20,000 of the 60,000 that occurred between 1909 and 1960),[24] was published in 1929 in book form by the biologist Paul Popenoe and was widely cited by the Nazi government as evidence that wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane.[92][93]

After World War II, eugenics and eugenic organizations began to revise their standards of reproductive fitness to reflect contemporary social concerns of the later half of the 20th century, notably concerns over welfare, Mexican immigration, overpopulation, civil rights, and sexual revolution, and gave way to what has been termed neo-eugenics.[94] Neo-eugenicists like Clarence Gamble, an affluent researcher at Harvard Medical school and a founder of public birth control clinics, revived the eugenics movement in the United States through sterilization. Supporters of this revival of eugenic sterilizations believed that they would bring an end to social issues such as poverty and mental illness while also saving taxpayer money and boost the economy.[95] Whereas eugenic sterilization programs before World War II were mostly conducted on prisoners or patients in mental hospitals, after the war, compulsory sterilizations were targeted at poor people and minorities.[95] As a result of these new sterilization initiatives, though most scholars agree that there were over 64,000 known cases of eugenic sterilization in the U.S. by 1963, no one knows for certain how many compulsory sterilizations occurred between the late 1960s to 1970s, though it is estimated that at least 80,000 may have been conducted.[96] A large number of those who were targets of coerced sterilizations in the later half of the century were African-American, Hispanic, and Native American women.

Early proponents of the eugenics movement included not only influential white Americans but also several proponent African-American intellectuals such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Thomas Wyatt Turner, and many academics at Tuskegee University, Howard University, and Hampton University.[72] However, unlike many white eugenicists, these black intellectuals believed the best African Americans were as good as the best White Americans, and "The Talented Tenth" of all races should mix.[72] Indeed, Du Bois believed "only fit blacks should procreate to eradicate the race's heritage of moral iniquity."[97]

With the support of leaders like Du Bois, efforts were made in the early 20th century to control the reproduction of the country's black population; one of the most visible initiatives was Margaret Sanger's 1939 proposal, The Negro Project.[16] That year, Sanger, Florence Rose, her assistant, and Mary Woodward Reinhardt, then secretary of the new Birth Control Federation of America (BCFA), drafted a report on "Birth Control and the Negro."[16] In this report, they stated that African Americans were the group with "the greatest economic, health and social problems," were largely illiterate and "still breed carelessly and disastrously," a line taken from W.E.B. DuBois' article in the June 1932 Birth Control Review.[16] The Project often sought after prominent African-American leaders to spread knowledge regarding birth control and the perceived positive effects it would have on the African-American community, such as poverty and the lack of education.[98] Sanger particularly sought out black ministers from the South to serve as leaders in the Project in the hopes of countering any ideas that the project was a strategic attempt to eradicate the black population.[16] However, despite Sanger's best efforts, white medical scientists took control over the initiative, and with the Negro Project receiving praise from white leaders and eugenicists, many of Sanger's opponents, both during the creation of the Project and years after, saw her work as an attempt to terminate African Americans.[16][98]

Opposition to initiatives to control reproduction within the African-American community grew in the 1960s, particularly after President Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1965, announced the establishment of federal funding of birth control used on the poor.[46] In the 1960's, many African Americans throughout the country took the government's decision to fund birth-control clinics as an attempt to limit the growth of the black population and along with it, the increased political power that black Americans were fighting to acquire.[46] Scholars have stated that African Americans' fear about their reproductive health and ability was rooted in history as under U.S. slavery, enslaved women were often coerced or forced to have children to increase a plantation owner's wealth.[46][99] Therefore, many African Americans, particularly those in the Black Power Movement, saw birth control, and federal support of the Pill, as equivalent to black genocide, declaring it as such at the 1967 Black Power Conference.[46]

Federal funding for birth control went alongside family planning initiatives that were a part of state welfare programs. These initiatives, in addition to advocating the use of the Pill, supported sterilization as a means of curbing the number of people receiving welfare and control the reproduction of 'unfit' women.[94] The 1950s and 1960s were the height of the sterilization abuse that African-American women as a group experienced at the hands of the white medical establishment.[46] During this period, the sterilization of African-American women largely took place in the South and assumed two forms: the sterilization of poor unwed black mothers, and "Mississippi appendectomies."[94] Under these "Mississippi appendectomies," women who went to the hospital to give birth, or for some other medical treatment, often found themselves incapable of having more children upon leaving the hospital due to unnecessary hysterectomies performed on them by southern medical students.[46][100] By the 1970s, the coerced sterilization of women of color spread from the South to the rest of the country through federal family planning and under the guise of voluntary contraceptive surgery as physicians began to require their patients to sign consent forms to surgeries they did not want or understand.[94]

Though it is unknown the exact number of African-American women who were sterilized throughout the country in the 20th century, records from a few states offer some estimates. In the state of North Carolina, which was seen as having the most aggressive eugenics program out of the 32 states that had one,[101] during the 45-year reign of the North Carolina Eugenics Board, from 1929 to 1974, a disproportionate number of those who were targeted for forced or coerced sterilization were black and female, with almost all being poor.[102] Of the 7,600 women who were sterilized by the state between the years of 1933 and 1973, about 5,000 were African American.[7] In light of this history, North Carolina became the first state to offer compensation to surviving victims of compulsory sterilization.[102] Additionally, whereas African Americans made up just over 1% of California's population, they accounted for at least 4% of the total number of sterilization operations conducted by the state between 1909 and 1979.[103] Overall, according to one 1989 study, 31.6% of African American women without a high school diploma were sterilized while only 14.5% of white women of the same educational status were sterilized.[7]

In 1972, United States Senate committee testimony brought to light that at least 2,000 involuntary sterilizations had been performed on poor black women without their consent or knowledge.[104] An investigation revealed that the surgeries were all performed in the South, and were all performed on black women with multiple children who were receiving welfare.[104] Testimony revealed that many of these women were threatened with an end to their welfare benefits unless they consented to sterilization.[104] These surgeries were instances of sterilization abuse, a term applied to any sterilization performed without the consent or knowledge of the recipient, or in which the recipient is pressured into accepting the surgery. Because the funds used to carry out the surgeries came from the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, the sterilization abuse raised suspicions, especially among members of the black community, that "federal programs were underwriting eugenicists who wanted to impose their views about population quality on minorities and poor women."[105]

Despite this investigation, it was not until 1973 that the issue of sterilization abuse was brought to media attention. On June 14, 1973, two black girls, Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Relf, ages fourteen and twelve, respectively, were sterilized without their knowledge in Alabama by the Montgomery Community Action Committee, an OEO-financed organization.[94][103] The summer of that year, the Relf girls sued the government agencies and individuals responsible for their sterilization.[94] As the case was being pursued, it was discovered that the girls' mother, who could not read, unwittingly approved the operations, signing an 'X' on the release forms; Mrs. Relf had believed that she was signing a form authorizing her daughters to receive Depo-Provera injections, a form of birth control.[94] In light of the 1974 case of Relf v. Weinberger, named after Minnie Lee and Mary Alice's older sister, Katie, who had narrowly escaped also being sterilized, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) were ordered to establish new guidelines for its government sterilization policy.[94] By 1979, the new guidelines finally addressed the concern over informed consent, determined that minors under the age of 21 and those with severe mental impairments who could not give consent would not be sterilized, and articulated the provision that doctors could no longer claim that a woman's refusal to be sterilized would result in her being denied welfare benefits.[94]

The 20th century demarcated a time in which compulsory sterilization heavily navigated its way into primarily Latinx communities, against Latina women. Locations such as Puerto Rico and Los Angeles, California were found to have had large amounts of their female population coerced into sterilization procedures without quality and necessary informed consent nor full awareness of the procedure.

Between the span of the 1930s to the 1970s, nearly one-third of the female population in Puerto Rico was sterilized; at the time, this was the highest rate of sterilization in the world.[106] Some viewed sterilization as a means of rectifying the country's poverty and unemployment rates. Following legalization of the procedure in 1937 a U.S. government endorsed initiative saw health department officials advocating for sterilization in rural parts of the island. Sterilized women were also encouraged to join the workforce, in particular the textile and clothing related industries. The procedure was so common that it was often referred to solely as "la operacin", garnering a documentary referenced by the same name.[106] This intentional targeting of Latinx communities exemplifies the strategic placement of racial eugenics in modern history. This targeting is also inclusive of those with disabilities and those from marginalized populations, which Puerto Rico is not the only example of this trend.

Eugenics did not serve as the only reason for the disproportionate rates of sterilization in the Puerto Rican community. Contraceptive trials were inducted in the 1950s towards Puerto Rican women. John Rock and Gregory Pincus were the two men spearheading the human trials of oral contraceptives. In 1954, the decision was made to conduct the clinical experiment in Puerto Rico, citing the island's large network of birth control clinics and lack of anti-birth control laws, which was in contrast to the United States' thorough cultural and religious opposition to the reproductive service.[107] The decision to conduct the trials in this community was also motivated by the structural implications of supremacy and colonialism. Rock and Pincus monopolized off of the primarily poor and uneducated background of these women, countering that if they "could follow the Pill regimen, then women anywhere in the world could too."[107] These women were purposely ill-informed of the oral contraceptives presence; the researchers only reported that the drug, which was administered at a much higher dosage than what birth control is prescribed at today, was to prevent pregnancy, not that it was tied to a clinical trial in order to jump start oral contraceptive access in America through FDA approval.

In California, by the year 1964, a total of 20,108 people were sterilized, making that the largest amount in all of the United States.[108] It is an important note that during this period in California's population demographic, the total individuals sterilized was disproportionately inclusive of Mexican, Mexican-American, and Chicana women. Andrea Estrada, a UC Santa Barbara affiliate, said:

Beginning in 1909 and continuing for 70 years, California led the country in the number of sterilization procedures performed on men and women, often without their full knowledge and consent. Approximately 20,000 sterilizations took place in state institutions, comprising one-third of the total number performed in the 32 states where such action was legal.[109]

In 1966, Nancy Hernandez was the first one to reach National and public attention and resulted in protests on women's rights and reproductive rights across the country. Her story was published in Rebecca Kluchin's book, Fit to be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950-1980.[110]

Cases such as Madrigal v. Quilligan, a class action suit regarding forced or coerced postpartum sterilization of Latina women following cesarean sections, helped bring to light the widespread abuse of sterilization supported by federal funds. The case's plaintiffs were 10 sterilized women of Los Angeles County Hospital who elected to come forward with their stories. Although a grim reality, No ms bebs is a documentary that offers an emotional and candid storytelling of the Madrigal v. Quilligan case on behalf of Latina women whom were direct recipients of the coerced sterilization of the Los Angeles' hospital. The judge's ruling sided with the County Hospital, but an aftermath of the case resulted in the accessibility of multiple language informed consent forms.

These stories, among many others, serve as backbones for not only the reproductive justice movement that we see today, but a better understanding and recognition of the Chicana feminism movement in contrast to white feminism's perception of reproductive rights.

An estimated 40% of Native American women (60,00070,000 women) and 10% of Native American men in the United States underwent sterilization in the 1970s.[111] A General Accounting Office (GAO) report in 1976 found that 3,406 Native American women, 3,000 of which were of childbearing age,[112] were sterilized by the Indian Health Service (IHS) in Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and South Dakota from 1973 to 1976.[113][114][115] The GAO report did not conclude any instances of coerced sterilization, but called for the reform of IHS and contract doctors' processes of obtaining informed consent for sterilization procedures.[113] The IHS informed consent processes examined by the GAO did not comply with a 1974 ruling of the U.S. District Court that "any individual contemplating sterilization should be advised orally at the outset that at no time could federal benefits be withdrawn because of failure to agree to sterilization."[114]

In examining individual cases and testimonies of Native American women, scholars have found that IHS and contract physicians recommended sterilization to Native American women as the appropriate form of birth control, failing to present potential alternatives and to explain the irreversible nature of sterilization, and threatened that refusal of the procedure would result in the women losing their children and/or federal benefits.[111][113][114] Scholars also identified language barriers in informed consent processes as the absence of interpreters for Native American women hindered them from fully understanding the sterilization procedure and its implications, in some cases.[114] Scholars have cited physicians' individual paternalism and beliefs about the population control of poor communities and welfare recipients and the opportunity for financial gain as possible motivations for performing sterilizations on Native American women.[113][114][115]

Native American women and activists mobilized in the 1970s across the United States to combat the coerced sterilization of Native American women and advocate for their reproductive rights, alongside tribal sovereignty, in the Red Power movement.[113][114] Some of the most prominent activist organizations established in this decade and active in the Red Power movement and the resistance against coerced sterilization were the American Indian Movement (AIM), United Native Americans, Women of all Red Nations (WARN), the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), and Indian Women United for Justice, founded by Dr. Constance Redbird Pinkerton Uri, a Cherokee-Choctaw physician.[113][114] Some Native American activists have deemed the coerced sterilization of Native American women a "modern form of genocide,"[113] and view these sterilizations as a violation of the rights of tribes as sovereign nations.[113] Others argue that the sterilization of Native American women is interconnected with colonialist and capitalist motives of corporations and the federal government to acquire land and natural resources, including oil, natural gas, and coal, currently located on Native American reservations.[114][112] Scholars and Native American activists have situated the forced sterilizations of Native American women within broader histories of colonialism, violations of Native American tribal sovereignty by the federal government, including a long history of the removal of children from Native American women and families, and population control efforts in the United States.[111][113][114][115]

The 1970s brought new federal legislation enacted by the United States government which addressed issues of informed consent, sterilization, and the treatment of Native American children. The U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare released new regulations in 1979 on informed consent processes for sterilization procedures, including a longer waiting period of 30 days before the procedure, the presentation of alternative methods of birth control to the patient, and clear verbal affirmation that the patient's access to federal benefits or welfare programs would not be revoked if the procedure were refused.[113] The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 officially recognized the significance and value of the extended family in Native American culture, adopting "minimum federal standards for the removal of Indian children to foster or adoptive homes,"[114] and the central importance of the sovereign tribal governments in decision-making processes surrounding the welfare of Native children.[114]

After the eugenics movement was well established in the United States, it spread to Germany. California eugenicists began producing literature promoting eugenics and sterilization and sending it overseas to German scientists and medical professionals.[15] By 1933, California had subjected more people to forceful sterilization than all other U.S. states combined. The forced sterilization program engineered by the Nazis was partly inspired by California's.[116]

The Rockefeller Foundation helped develop and fund various German eugenics programs,[117] including the one that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.[15]

Upon returning from Germany in 1934, where more than 5,000 people per month were being forcibly sterilized, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe bragged to a colleague:

You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought ... I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people.[118]

Eugenics researcher Harry H. Laughlin often bragged that his Model Eugenic Sterilization laws had been implemented in the 1935 Nuremberg racial hygiene laws.[119] In 1936, Laughlin was invited to an award ceremony at Heidelberg University in Germany (scheduled on the anniversary of Hitler's 1934 purge of Jews from the Heidelberg faculty), to receive an honorary doctorate for his work on the "science of racial cleansing". Due to financial limitations, Laughlin was unable to attend the ceremony and had to pick it up from the Rockefeller Institute. Afterward, he proudly shared the award with his colleagues, remarking that he felt that it symbolized the "common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of eugenics."[120]

Henry Friedlander wrote that although the German and American eugenics movements were similar, the U.S. did not follow the same slippery slope as Nazi eugenics because American "federalism and political heterogeneity encouraged diversity even with a single movement." In contrast, the German eugenics movement was more centralized and had fewer diverse ideas.[121] Unlike the American movement, one publication and one society, the German Society for Racial Hygiene, represented all German eugenicists in the early 20th century.[121][122]

After 1945, however, historians began to try to portray the U.S. eugenics movement as distinct and distant from Nazi eugenics.[123] Jon Entine wrote that eugenics simply means "good genes" and using it as synonym for genocide is an "all-too-common distortion of the social history of genetics policy in the United States." According to Entine, eugenics developed out of the Progressive Era and not "Hitler's twisted Final Solution."[124]

After Hitler's advanced idea of eugenics, the movement lost its place in society for a bit of time. Although eugenics was not thought about much, aspects like sterilization were still taking place, just not at such a public level.[125] As technology developed, the field of genetic engineering emerged. Instead of sterilizing people to ultimately get rid of "undesirable" people, genetic engineering "changes or removes genes to prevent disease or improve the body in some significant way."[111]

Proponents of genetic engineering cite its ability to cure and prevent life-threatening diseases. Genetic engineering began in the 1970s when scientists began to clone and alter genes. From this, scientists were able to create life-saving health interventions such as human insulin, the first-ever genetically engineered drug.[126] Because of this development, over the years scientists were able to create new drugs to treat devastating diseases. For example, in the early 1990s, a group of scientists were able to use a gene-drug to treat severe combined immunodeficiency in a young girl.[127]

However, genetic engineering also further allows for the practice of eliminating "undesirable traits" within humans and other organismsfor example, with current genetic tests, parents are able to test a fetus for any life-threatening diseases that may impact the child's life and then choose to abort the baby.[111] Some fear that this could lead to ethnic cleansing, or alternative form of eugenics.[128] The ethical implications of genetic engineering were heavily considered by scientists at the time, and the Asilomar Conference was held in 1975 to discuss these concerns and set reasonable, voluntary guidelines that researchers would follow while using DNA technologies.[129]

The 1978 Federal Sterilization Regulations, created by the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare or HEW, (now the United States Department of Health and Human Services) outline a variety of prohibited sterilization practices that were often used previously to coerce or force women into sterilization.[130] These were intended to prevent such eugenics and neo-eugenics as resulted in the involuntary sterilization of large groups of poor and minority women. Such practices include: not conveying to patients that sterilization is permanent and irreversible, in their own language (including the option to end the process or procedure at any time without conceding any future medical attention or federal benefits, the ability to ask any and all questions about the procedure and its ramifications, the requirement that the consent seeker describes the procedure fully including any and all possible discomforts and/or side-effects and any and all benefits of sterilization); failing to provide alternative information about methods of contraception, family planning, or pregnancy termination that are nonpermanent and/or irreversible (this includes abortion); conditioning receiving welfare and/or Medicaid benefits by the individual or his/her children on the individuals "consenting" to permanent sterilization; tying elected abortion to compulsory sterilization (cannot receive a sought out abortion without "consenting" to sterilization); using hysterectomy as sterilization; and subjecting minors and the mentally incompetent to sterilization.[130][131][72] The regulations also include an extension of the informed consent waiting period from 72 hours to 30 days (with a maximum of 180 days between informed consent and the sterilization procedure).[131][130][72]

However, several studies have indicated that the forms are often dense and complex and beyond the literacy aptitude of the average American, and those seeking publicly funded sterilization are more likely to possess below-average literacy skills.[132] High levels of misinformation concerning sterilization still exist among individuals who have already undergone sterilization procedures, with permanence being one of the most common gray factors.[132][133] Additionally, federal enforcement of the requirements of the 1978 Federal Sterilization Regulation is inconsistent and some of the prohibited abuses continue to be pervasive, particularly in underfunded hospitals and lower income patient hospitals and care centers.[131][72]

The compulsory sterilization of American men and women continues to this day. In 2013, it was reported that 148 female prisoners in two California prisons were sterilized between 2006 and 2010 in a supposedly voluntary program, but it was determined that the prisoners did not give consent to the procedures.[134] In September 2014, California enacted Bill SB1135 that bans sterilization in correctional facilities, unless the procedure is required to save an inmate's life.[135]

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Eugenics in the United States - Wikipedia

Sexual repression – Wikipedia

Psychological state

Sexual repression is a state in which a person is prevented from expressing their own sexuality. Sexual repression is often linked with feelings of guilt or shame being associated with sexual impulses. Defining characteristics and practices associated with sexual repression vary between societies and different historical periods. The behaviours and attitudes constituting sexual repression differ across cultures, religious communities and moral systems. Sexual repression can largely be categorised as physical, mental or an amalgam of both.

Sexual repression is enforced through legislation in certain countries, many of which are located in the Middle East and North Africa region, and South Asia. Common practices associated with the practice include female genital mutilation. Individuals believed to have engaged in behaviours contradicting social, religious or cultural expectations of sexual repression, such as same-sex sexual activity, may be punished through honor killings, persecution or the death penalty.

Sigmund Freud was the first to use the term 'sexual repression' widely, and argued that it was one of the roots of many problems in Western society.[1] Freud believed that people's naturally strong instincts toward sexuality were repressed by people in order to meet the constraints imposed on them by civilized life. Among many others, Freud believed renowned artist Leonardo da Vinci to have been a repressed homosexual, who he believed "sublimated" his sexual desires so as to achieve artistic brilliance.[2] However, Freud's ideas about sexual repression have been subject to heavy criticism. According to sex therapist Bernard Apfelbaum, Freud did not base his belief in universal innate, natural sexuality on the strength of sexual desire he saw in people, but rather on its weakness.[3]

In some periods of Indian history, anaphrodisiacs were utilised in order to lower libido.[4]

In contemporary society, medication may be prescribed to registered sex offenders in order to lower the libido and ensure that further offences are less likely.

Sexual repression is a recurring prohibition in many religious contexts.

Most forms of Christianity discourage homosexual behavior.[5]

Many forms of Islam have strict sexual codes which include banning homosexuality, demanding virginity before marriage, accompanied by a ban on fornication, and can require modest dress-codes for men and women.[6]

Chemical castration has also been practiced upon male choristers prior to puberty to ensure that their vocal range remained unchanged. This practice of creating "Castrati" was common until the 18th century, and after a decline in popularity were only used in the Vatican up until the beginning of the twentieth century.[7]

Marriage has historically been seen as means of controlling sexuality.[8] Some forms of marriage, such as child marriage, are often practiced as a means of regulating the sexuality of girls, by ensuring they do not have multiple partners, thus preserving their virginity for their future husbands.[9] According to the BBC World Service:[10]

In some cases, parents willingly marry off their young girls in order to increase the family income or protect the girl from the risk of unwanted sexual advances or even promiscuity.

Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting or female circumcision, "comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons".[11]The practice is concentrated in 27 countries in Africa as well as Iraqi Kurdistan, Yemen and Indonesia; and more than 125 million girls and women today are estimated to have been subjected to FGM.[11]

FGM does not have any health benefits, and has serious negative effects on health; including complications during childbirth.[11]

FGM is used as a way of controlling female sexuality; the World Health Organization (WHO) states:[11]

FGM is often motivated by beliefs about what is considered proper sexual behaviour, linking procedures to premarital virginity and marital fidelity. FGM is in many communities believed to reduce a woman's libido and therefore believed to help her resist "illicit" sexual acts.

FGM is condemned by international human rights instruments. The Istanbul Convention prohibits FGM (Article 38).[12] FGM is also considered a form a violence against women by the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women which was adopted by the United Nations in 1993; according to which: Article Two: Violence against women shall be understood to encompass, but not be limited to, the following: (a) Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring in the family, including [...] female genital mutilation [...].[13]

An honor killing is the homicide of a member of a family or social group by other members, due to the perpetrators' belief that the victim has brought shame or dishonor upon the family or community, usually for reasons such as refusing to enter an arranged marriage, being in a relationship that is disapproved by their relatives, having sex outside marriage, becoming the victim of rape, dressing in ways which are deemed inappropriate, or engaging in homosexual relations.[14][15][16][17][18] With regards to honor killings of women, according to a UN Expert Group Meeting that addressed harmful practices against women:[19]

They [honor killings] stem from the deeply-rooted social belief that male family members (in some cases, mothers and other women are involved in planning or carrying out honor crimes) should control the sexuality of or protect the reputation of women in the family, and that they may contain their movements or kill them for blemishing family honor, even when rumors or false gossip are the reason for public suspicion.

Homosexual sexual expression is a sensitive topic in many societies. As of 2014, same-sex sexual acts are punishable by prison in 70 countries, and in five other countries and in parts of two others, homosexuality is punishable with the death penalty.[20] Apart from criminal prosecution, LGBT individuals may also face social stigmatization and serious violence (see violence against LGBT people).

Researchers such as Peggy Reeves Sanday have proposed a relationship between sexual repression and rape.[21] Evidence has been found to contradict this hypothesis, with a study by Jaffee and Straus finding "no relationship between sexually liberal attitudes and rape."[22]

Sexual repression is a key talking point in feminism,[23] although feminist views on sexuality vary widely.

Michel Foucault, in his History of Sexuality, refutes what he calls the "repressive hypothesis."

Although the typical expectation is that sexually repressed female individuals would experience less sexual arousal, one study regarding the effect of repression (among other variables) on sexual arousal concluded that repression-sensitization (R-S) and interactions with R-S did not have a significant effect on sexual arousal. These results were consistent with research performed in other studies regarding the same topic. Moreover, other research findings have demonstrated that repression may have differing effects between gender, namely, that "male repressers may inhibit sexual behavior, whereas female repressers do not."[24]

Reproduction-based sex was urged by Mao Zedong, but later politicians instituted a one-child policy. In a country where atheism is popular, the restriction cannot be ascribed to religion but to nationalist motives.[25]

Within the past few decades, China has undergone major changes (known as the sexual revolution) in society that have affected their outlook on sex. Li Yinhe, China's first female sexologist, observed that prior to the sexual revolution, very few couples would engage in premarital sex. These observations were accredited to the fact that, until 1997, premarital sex in China was considered illegal and offenders could be prosecuted.[26]

Furthermore, China's stance on sexuality before the sexual revolution was quite harsh in comparison to standards set by Western governments. China had previously banned the publication of pornography, organization of sex parties and prostitution, and even writing about sex.[26] These regulations on sexuality before the revolution led to a legal precedent regarding the organization of prostitution in 1996 that had sentenced a bathhouse owner to death (though this is no longer punishable by death today). Today, the organization of sex parties is still illegal, although it is not strictly enforced anymore due to changes in Chinese attitudes which have led to fewer people reporting these sex parties.[26]

However, the Chinese sexual revolution still has a lot of progress to make regarding the repression of the LGBT community. Although China has made some progress in the way of LGBT rights (namely, removing homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses), LGBT rights are still limited by some standards. For instance, same-sex marriage still hasn't been recognized legally, although there is the existence of guardianship, a recent development that many people consider as the first step to the legal recognition of same-sex marriage.[27] In addition, Chinese law does not legally protect the LGBT community from discrimination in the workplace.[26]

According to R.P. Bhatia, a New Delhi psychoanalyst and psychotherapist, middle-class India's "very strong repressive attitude" has made it impossible for many married couples to function well sexually, or even to function at all.[28]

A Durex survey performed internationally resulted in Japan being the only country where more people have expressed discontent with their sex lives than those that have expressed fulfilling sex lives, an important major reason being that they are simply not having sex.[29] Homebuilders in Japan have also observed that more than a third of homes built feature separated bedrooms for married couples, suggesting that even married couples are less inclined to have sex than married couples in other cultures.[29]

Japanese citizens' dissatisfaction with their sex lives can be partially attributed to their work culture, whose work hours can be considered lengthy in comparison to other work cultures. According to Michael Zielenziger, Japan's lengthy work hours has led couples to spend less time with each other, have reduced contact, and therefore have less sex.[29] Japan's sexual repression can also be partially attributed to societal and business expectations, which generally expect that women should abstain from marriage, which is a major indicator of sex likelihood.[29] Although Japan's work hours have even shrunk down to the United States' level of work hours per week, large amounts of sexual dissatisfaction and repression are still observed. One reason for these observations is that Japan's economy has been stagnating and has contributed to more unemployment. These factors generate stress, which plays a significant role in forming an unpleasant sex life according to Durex.[29]

Russian history of sexual repression and LGBT rights includes an oscillation of attitudes, caused by both governmental interference and changing societal norms.

Soviet society in the past considered sex to be taboo and unacceptable to talk about. People sometimes expressed fear of losing their job and experienced shame from people they knew for simply using the word 'sex' openly due to the fact that discussion regarding the topic of sex in the Soviet Union was almost nonexistent.[30] Near the end of the Soviet Union, however, the country would undergo major changes when it came to sex. Organizations and media such as Tema and The Moscow Association of Lesbian Literature and Arts, which focused on sexual liberation, were created and promoted the discussion of sex in Russian society.[30]

The USSR's collapse also made way for LGBT rights to come to the forefront of societal issues. In 1993, Russia decriminalized homosexuality and set the precedent for future sociopolitical changes. New outlets of media - including pornography - regarding homosexuality were released within these years of social change.[30] However, these changes would soon be quickly turned around when Vladimir Putin was elected in 2000. Despite previous failed attempts to revert the 1993 decriminalization of homosexuality, the Russian government created a turning point against LGBT rights in 2013 when Russia passed the gay propaganda law, which signaled Russia's return to more conservative and traditional values.[30] The sexual repression of homosexuals with the passing of this law was partly because Russia wanted to portray itself as different from Western countries and demonstrate strength through these differences.[30]

In the last few decades the United States has been gradually removing much of the legislation tied to sexual repression of various groups. The influence of religious and conservative groups however continues to influence American society and how sex is viewed, working to influence governmental affairs, pharmaceutical companies, and education.

The first half of the 1960s saw contraceptions such as the birth control pill and Intrauterine Device (IUD) become widely available, which contributed to sexual freedom for many people without having to rely on less reliable and uncomfortable physical contraceptives such as condoms or diaphragms.[31][32] However, religious and conservative lobbying groups as well as the influence of neo-eugenics created push back on some other forms of birth control such as emergency contraception and tubal ligation. Emergency contraception was being developed and produced by Hoechst under the name RU-486. Conservative lobbyist groups with ties to various religious powers such as the Vatican, originally were promoting limiting healthcare coverage of items such as birth control, and once RU-486 was made public knowledge, these groups actively worked to threaten Hoechst by claiming they would cause the company financial hardship if they did not cease all activity pertaining to RU-486.[33]

In terms of more permanent forms of birth control such as tubal ligation and hysterectomies, there has been a long history of eugenicists pushing for forced sterilization of non Anglo-Saxon or lower-class women. This stemmed from a belief that this would contribute to the betterment of American society. However, neo-eugenics, which is the more modern iteration of the eugenics movement, additionally works to limit access of procedures of sterilization from those they deem fit to reproduce. The demographic targeted for this are mostly white middle-class women.[34]

During the late 1990s and the Bush Administration (20002008) abstinence-only sexual education groups were given considerable government funding to develop programming for schools.[35] These groups were mostly represented by Christians who believed it to be their responsibility to address what they deemed as society's regressions towards a sex-based culture. Abstinence advocates generally focus on prohibiting sexual contact before heterosexual marriage. This has been linked to instigating a culture of sexual repressiveness affecting adolescent sexual behaviors, regardless of their sexuality.[36] Research concerning the effectiveness of different forms of sex education for adolescents shows the highest success from comprehensive sex education. Characteristics of comprehensive sex education include informing students on the forms of birth control and how to use them, and sexual anatomy.[37] The Obama Administration (20082016) worked towards promotion of comprehensive sex education programming and pulled much of the government funding supporting abstinence-only program development.[37]

Sexual repression can be expressed but not limited to the following:[38]

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Sterilization of Latinas – Wikipedia

Sterilization of Latinas has been practiced in the United States on women of different Latin American identities, including those from Puerto Rico[1] and Mexico.[2] There is a significant history of such sterilization practices being conducted involuntarily,[3] in a coerced or forced manner,[4] as well as in more subtle forms such as that of constrained choice.[5] Forced sterilization was permissible by multiple states throughout various periods in the 20th century. Issues of state sterilization have persisted as recently as September 2020.[6] Some sources credit the practice to theories of racial eugenics.[3]

The movement of eugenics developed into the Neo-Eugenics movement.[citation needed] This Neo-Eugenics movement supports and studies the encouragement of people with more desirable traits to reproduce in order to positively influence the population's gene pool and the discouragement of people with undesirable traits to reproduce. This led to the practice of preventing people with undesirable traits to reproduce. Undesirable traits correlated with reproductive fitness which included race and ethnicity.[7] In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the immigration rates in the United States spiked along with the reproduction rates in immigrant families. This provoked a deeper fear from eugenicists that native born Americans and Americans with strong reproductive fitness would be outnumbered by immigrants who possess a low reproductive fitness.[7] This fear became ingrained into many Americans across the nation and became fuel for the sterilization of Latinas movements in the twentieth century.

Some of the factors that may catapulted the movement behind the sterilization abuse in Latina women in the state of California, began with one of the earliest organizations in eugenic sterilizations in the U.S, the Human Betterment Foundation (HBF), the Sterilization Act of 1909, and the Immigration Act of 1924. The California Act of 1909 was one of the major legal and political influences that established authority for doctors and psychiatrists of state hospitals and mental institutions to perform sterilizations on the people unfit to function in society because of their intelligence levels, presumed future deviant behavior and sexual activity. With that established, organizations such as the Human Betterment Foundation came to be the organization that held these ideologies and promote eugenic sterilizations and the Immigration Act of 1924 further developed the idea that labor-migrants were needed, but women and children were not as there was a fear of Latino and Immigrant invasion.

The Human Betterment Foundation operated in California from 1929 to 1942. In those years, the foundation specialized in researching eugenic sterilizations effects, providing literary contributions of their findings to the public. The foundation distributed literature, such as this in order to promote the efficacy of sterilizations among socially- Sterilizations during this time were promoted and imposed in state institutions.

In the pamphlet, the organization describes that the problem is families living on government assistance or "public charity" use more of the public charity than those families sustaining themselves more by 50 percent.[8] The pamphlet stated that families whose children ended up in state homes were increasingly doubling, at a fast rate. The foundation too states that additional children to the state is a burden, but also that taxation rates were increasing because of more children being in need along with the notion that with more children from unfit parents would increase crime and delinquency rates.[9]

And another example of anti-Latino sentiment was with state authorities when dealing with minorities. Immigrants that were feeble minded and at borderline intelligence were of the undesirable type. California's state authorities wrote in a survey conducted by the California State Board of Charities and Corrections that Latinos of low intelligence or mental sanity were of the undesirable types.[10] State institutions that were allowed to perform sterilizations on patients that seemed like the perfect candidate, was very common. Current research shows that Latinas were targets for sterilization at higher rates than white women. The disproportion among sterilization rates in the Latino community could not be quantified in its current time, but data from sterilization forms suggest that 88 percent of Californians with a Spanish last name were of Mexican origin and descent.[3][8] The surnames of people in forms recommending institutionalized patients between 1920 and 1945 shows that Latino were more likely to be sterilized than non-Latino men and Latina women experienced sterilization at higher rates than non-Latina women. This data shows that there was an unfair application of the California law that allowed institutions to take health measures for other people on their behalf.[3]

This law passed in California in 1909, authorized medical staff like doctors and medical superintendents to perform sterilization procedures on both men and women deemed as feeble-minded, whose mental diseases, IQ, and intelligence could be passed down to future generations. A survey in mental deviations in prisons, public schools, and orphanages in California institutions reported worriness of feeble-mindedness and relation of intelligence to previous delinquency record.[10] In their survey, they found that California had drawn a large proportion of immigrants of undesirable types and would therefore recommend them to sterilization processes. Later research shows that there the number of sterilizations were disproportionate to racial and ethnic minorities, such as people of low class and female gender.[11] Research also suggests that Latinas were targets for sterilizations at higher rates than white women because data from sterilization forms collected, the number of people with Spanish surnames suggests that 88 percent of these patients were of Mexican origin and descent.[3]

Anti-miscegenation laws, along with the Immigration Act of 1924, contributed to the anti-immigrant sentiment that existed during the development of United States history. At this point in time, the United States was concerned with foreigners coming into the country in higher numbers and therefore enforced its first border patrol and regulated the number of foreign immigrants from south and eastern Europe, as well as permitting people from the southern people specialized in agriculture and work from the southern border.[12] In the forgotten narrative of Latin American History, U.S, Mexican immigrants and citizens were labeled and seen as a problem in society because they were seen as hyper-fertile and supported theories that Mexicans were of a lower racial level. By the first half of the 20th century, almost 60,000 people had been sterilized under the different U.S Eugenics Programs implemented.[13]

The history of sterilizations in the United States and Puerto Rico can be defined as an intersectional form of oppression that connects race, class, and sex to the social, political, and economic status of Puerto Ricans. The oppressive nature of these procedures lie within the fact that they were politically backed and used within the court of law against Puerto Ricans. Other women on the island experienced an increase in surveillance and control of their body within social realms. This illustrates how sterilizations were conducted on a continuum and had vast as well as long lasting consequences. In 1947, 7% of mothers aged 2049 received tubal ligation which almost doubled in 1954 as sterilizations increased on the island to 16%. By 1965, over 34% of Puerto Rican women within this age bracket received sterilizations, which is five times the rate two decades prior.[14] Sterilization was the most heavily promoted method of contraception in Puerto Rico and was legitimized by concerns of population, which can be associated with the same concerns of race and class that date back to the island's annexation.[14][15]

After the US gained ownership of Puerto Rico, it was viewed as a province in urgent need of a way to prevent greater poverty and population rates. This heavily influenced the US decision to begin sterilizing Puerto Rican women and implementing experimental birth control methods. Puerto Rican women in particular have served as test subjects for various contraceptive studies in the United States,[16] of which included involuntary sterilization. Many Puerto Rican women were sterilized from the 1930s to the 1970s in order to decrease poverty and population growth in Puerto Rico.[17]

Concerns about the population density in Puerto Rico can be traced back to 1898 when Puerto Rico became a US colony.[14] These concerns from scholars, scientist, and government officials inform the thought process behind the association between poverty, health, and economy with population throughout the 20th century.

When Americans began to occupy the island of Puerto Rico, they asserted more than their ideals and beliefs. American colonizers asserted absolute dominance over Puerto Rico due to the idea of Manifest Destiny, which greatly shifted the dynamics of the island. The U.S. capitalized on the fact that Puerto Rico utilized a large fraction of its resources to gain independence from Spain, which left the island's economy depleted. During this time, many Puerto Ricans lost land while their natural resources became exploited. In the mid-1920s, Puerto Rico's dependency on the production of sugar, devastated the island when the sugar market collapsed.[18] Additionally, the nation-wide economic depression in 1927 exacerbated the effects of this collapse as well as the overall stability of the island.[18] In 1928, Puerto Rico suffered the consequences of a hurricane in San Felipe.[18] The Okeechobee Hurricane resulted in over 300 deaths and property damages ranging from $50-$80 million, while the agricultural market also suffered.[18] In the 1930s, Puerto Rican citizens began to experience the adverse health effects of tuberculosis, malaria, diarrhea-enteritis, hookworm, and dietary-deficiencies that were responsible for over 40 percent of deaths.[18][19] This later on gave medical professionals grounds to support sterilization on the island.[19]

Furthermore, these factors resulted in immense and widespread poverty. Many Puerto Ricans faced perpetual hunger and growing unemployment rates. In 1930, the median family income was reported to be approx. $250 a year and "economically productive families" were attributing around 94% of their income toward acquiring food.[18] Additionally, 27% of the labor force was unemployed.[18]

The current state of Puerto Rico confirmed the ideals Americans projected in the midst of the island's annexation about the longevity and potential of Puerto Rico.[18] Puerto Ricans were once again viewed as ignorant and devious as they participated in "reckless breeding" in the midst of this economic downward spiral.[18] This caused many Americans and a fraction of Puerto Ricans to believe that overpopulation essentially was the cause of the wide variety of problems on the island.

Messages about Puerto Rico's increase in population began to spread rapidly by citizens, government officials, scientist, and industrial leaders/capitalist. In 1899, the population of Puerto Rico was less than a million and in 1917 was half of the population size that it would be four decades later.[18] In the 1930s, Puerto Rico had a population growth rate of approximately 1.5%, while fertility rates were lower than developed and industrialized nations.[19] According to Puerto Rico's planning report decades later, the island's population has grew from 687 people per square mile in 1960 to 793 in 1970. This growth continued as the population was 815 people per square mile in 1972, 863 people per square mile in 1973, and 871 people per square mile in 1974. Concurrently, the death rate decreased to 6.5 per 1,000 persons as the birth rate the year before was 23.3. As the increase in population grew by 2 percent each year, Puerto Rico was predicted to have the population density of 4,339,000 by the year 2000, which is also 1300 inhabitants per square mile.[20] The current and predicted rates of population growth provoked a high level of concern, which made birth control the primary solution for health concerns, poverty, and this idea of overpopulation.

Operation Bootstrap was enacted in 1948 and was the result of Puerto Rico's desire to attract outside capitol by inviting U.S. private funds.[14] Therefore, a tax arrangement was made by the U.S. to improve the industrial production on the island in an effort to increase profits and funnel money to the mainland.[19] This economic development program enticed industries within the U.S. that were in search of "cheap labor, tax exemptions, and free trade between Puerto Rico and the mainland".[14]

This rapid foreign investment provided promise for disadvantaged Puerto Rican women who were struggling to navigate through domestic working conditions and limited job opportunities.[19] Operation Bootstrap was marketed and believed to be an advantageous new service sector for women in search of white collar jobs.[19] However, Puerto Rican women and the vast majority of the island experienced the exact opposite. Operation Bootstrap resulted in "high unemployment, increased migration, exacerbated poverty", and most importantly, economic colonization.[14]

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women defines forced sterilizations as "a method of medical control of an individual's fertility without consent". Another source adds that sterilization abuse is "any procedure completed without the patient knowing they are being sterilized" as well as "when the patient is coerced or deceived in order to obtain the consent to the procedure".[21] Many Puerto Rican women were manipulated through incorrect information, language barriers, incentivization, testing, and withholding information as they knowingly or unknowingly consented to sterilization.[21] Although, in some cases sterilization was completely voluntary and consented. In fact, the Puerto Rican government conducted a study that stated that 83 percent of 3000 families supported sterilizations that were free. In 1968, 75 percent of the women that had sterilizations were upper and middle-class women that could afford the $100-$125 procedure.[22] Although, the term "family" does not specifically state the perspective of the woman. Lastly, it is important to recognize that sterilization was a choice that was made in the setting of a few or no alternatives.[14] As mentioned earlier, sterilization was the most promoted and harmful form of contraception in Puerto Rico.[15]

Due to a lack of educational materials distributed in Puerto Rico, many women had misconceptions about tubal ligations. For example, one common misconception about sterilization is that the procedure is not permanent. A 1968 study reported that over one-third of Puerto Rican women were not aware that tubal ligation was permanent or irreversible.[23] Some doctors did not even request consent while other doctors threatened to not deliver the baby right before delivery unless the mother consented to sterilization after birth.[24] If mothers were receiving government assistance, many women were threatened to have their welfare terminated.[15]

Additionally, the U.S. government and institutions worked collaboratively to incentivize sterilizations. Many doctors and hospital administrators began to encourage sterilizations due to the fact that the Joint Committee for Hospital Accreditation refused to accredit hospitals in Puerto Rico "unless a ten percent limit of sterilization (in proportion to all hospital deliveries) was agreed upon".[19] In the 1930s, Puerto Rican women began to occupy jobs within factories. The women working in these factories felt an immense amount of pressure to undergo a sterilization to prove to employers that their pregnancy would not deter them from completing their job.[14] This same year, approximately three sugar plantations housed birth control clinics and discriminated against women that were not sterilized as they refused employment to women who would not get the procedure.[14] Puerto Rican women on sugar plantations were discriminated against while others were incentivized to alter their reproductive capacity to become the ideal responsible and dependable female worker.

Coercive strategies experienced in the delivery room and at work, were also entrenched in the process of clinical trials for birth control pills in 1955.[25] These trials took place in poor areas in Puerto Rico like San Juan. Outside of San Juan, the Common Wealth Health Department controlled more than 19 free clinics. These clinics were reported to be operating at full capacity as approximately 1,000 sterilizations were completed a month.[22] Within these clinics, low socioeconomic women were unknowingly being used as test subjects.[25] Class inequality was apparent during these trials due to educated middle class women fearing the side effects and refusing to try the new medication while poor-less educated women unknowingly became test subjects out of desperation to avoid pregnancy and ultimately sterilization.[25] On many occurrences, these pills such as Enovid, contained an unusually high quantity of hormones compared to 21st century birth control pills.[25] Doctors disregarded women that reported nausea, blood clotting, and depression.[25] Three women allegedly died during the underground testing of this pill, but their deaths were never put to trial or investigated. In the mainland, testing for this pill, Enovid, continued and was approved in 1957 regardless of dangerous and adverse side effects.[25] Additionally, poor Puerto Rican women in Ryder Memorial Hospital were tested on for six different variations of birth control along with the IUD in the 1960s.[19] These same women were also subject to extremely long and extensive interviews so that the Population Council's International Population Program could document their marital and fertility histories.[19] This same secrecy and oppression was experienced by Puerto Rican women as they were unknowingly being tested for the Depo Privera shot and contraceptive foam.[14] Once the implications of sterilizations became more widely known, many women opted to take other forms of contraception during the dangerous phases of development to avoid the permanent procedure.[25]

In 1937, Law 116 legalized sterilization in Puerto Rico.[24] This law implemented Eugenics Boards within 32 states that oversaw compulsory sterilizations.[24] More specifically, the Puerto Rican Eugenics Boards reviewed and confirmed petitions from the government and private entities to inflict sterilizations amongst the perceived "insane", "feeble minded", "diseased", and "dependent".[21] The purpose of the Puerto Rican Eugenics Board was to regulate the reproductive capacities of "socially inferior" and perceived undesirable Puerto Ricans.[21] This led the Puerto Rican Eugenics Board to approve 97 sterilizations before it was dissolved.[24] Additionally, a large purpose of Law 116 was to further the science of eugenics and incite economic growth.[21][24]

Law 116 was the result of an increase of curiosity and political support for the science of eugenics.[24] It was legitimized by the belief that Puerto Rico was a failing economy that consisted of "unfit" people that should be addressed by decreasing the population density through the means of forced sterilizations.[24] Therefore, population control programs became institutionalized as well as federally subsidized.[24] Funds from both the U.S. government and private investors enabled the last eugenics sterilization law passed under United States territorial jurisdiction.[20] It also legalized state-mandated and forced sterilizations, which further exploited Puerto Ricans.[24]

Immigration of Mexican citizens into the United States caused much controversy in how well they had adjusted to the American life and culture. Because of this, starting in the early 20th century, they were deemed as a significant problem to the community as they were believed to be mentally weak due to their prolonged adjustment to the American culture. The increase of city populations also led to the belief that mental health degraded, as more mental breakdowns seemed prevalent. This discrimination against Mexican and Mexican-Americans led to eugenics laws in which women were targeted and utilized in sterilization procedures.[26]

Starting in the year 1909, women of Mexican descent were used as targets for the eugenics movement to reinforce population control and purity. Women of all ages were victims of the many sterilization acts performed in hospitals, correction facilities, and asylums, but younger women were especially targeted. Pacific Colony (later known as Lanterman Developmental Center), a home designated for the mentally defective in LA, California, took in many young women and classified them as mentally defective and sexually delinquent starting in 1944.[27] According to laws in California justifying sterilization acts, staff at this clinic deemed it was in the best interests of society to go forth with the procedure on some of the women who were sent here.[citation needed]

In Los Angeles, between 19691973, Mexican and Chicana (Mexican-American) women were also disproportionately targeted by involuntary sterilizations. A number of these women would go on to join a class action lawsuit, Madrigal v. Quilligan, discussed below.

These Mexican and Mexican-American women were given the stereotype as "hyper-fertile" and were believed to lack the knowledge of birth control methods due to the high numbers of teen pregnancies occurring within their community. At the Hospital of LA County+USC, coercive sterilization was justified as it was an attempt to control the birthrate of these women. In 1998 the US government performed a census and multiyear analysis of Latino births and found the women of Mexican origin displayed the highest rate of childbirth compared to other Latina women. From these statistics, the "Save our State" campaign arose and worked to enforce more eugenic sterilization of these women.[28]

In 1973 an investigation by progressive anti-sterilization advocacy groups discovered the stories of Mary Alice's and Minnie Lee Relf's sterilization. This story was released by the Southern Poverty Law Center and led to the discovery of 16 thousand women and 8,000 men being sterilized using federal funds in 1972. In addition to this finding, they found more than three hundred of these patients were under the legal age of 21. Following this discovery and exposure, in 1977 Mexican-American began coming forth to file lawsuits in relation to coercive sterilization they faced while in labor.[1]

In 1979 a bill to repeal the eugenics laws passed that legalized sterilization was proposed to the legislature in California. Many women were coerced into have the tubal ligation procedure done right after postpartum which was paid for using federal money that was dispersed into the War On Poverty first initiated by Lyndon B. Johnson.[29]

Many of these sterilizations were done involuntarily and without consent. Oftentimes, these women signed off on paperwork without being able to read the English language. This sterilization was seen as a result of barriers experienced by Spanish speaking women.[7] Other times, they were told it was necessary in order to maintain their welfare benefits. It became common to sterilize women after giving birth whether by tubal ligation or hysterectomy. Even when the women did consent, it was often under false pretenses that the procedure could be reversed if they decided to have children again in the future.

The film No Ms Bebes tells the stories of women who joined a lawsuit to fight for their reproductive rights. Several women tell their stories of how they were sterilized without their proper consent. Hundreds of women got their tubes tied during the late 1960s to the early 1970s at this hospital. The women were immigrants from Mexico and most understood little to no English. Many of the women did not know they had been sterilized until several months or even years later.[30] The list of sterilized women at this hospital was extensive but only ten of them decided to continue with the lawsuit. Being sterilized had ongoing consequences for the rest of their lives. Some of the families disintegrated because of this; some of the women in the film stated that their husbands viewed women who were sterilized as women who cheated on their husbands or would betray them by not being loyal to them. The doctors who did the sterilization were not punished.

Involuntary sterilization programs were in some instances supported and funded by the states. In California, the rationale for forced sterilization was primarily for eugenics purposes, although this later shifted to a fear of overpopulation and welfare dependency.[31]

California passed the third law in the United States that allowed state institutions to sterilize "unfit" and "feeble-minded" individuals. As eugenics gained credibility as a field in science, sterilization rates increased, especially after the 1927 Buck v. Bell U.S. Supreme Court decision, which upheld the constitutionality of sterilization laws in Virginia. See below. According to available data, California performed one third of all reported sterilization procedures in the United States between 1910 and 1960.

Although the Californian state was the third state to legalize sterilization as mentioned previously, it has made the greatest impact by performing over half of the sterilization procedures throughout the eugenics era from 1907 to 1979. Their laws granted prison authorities and asylum medical superintendents the right to sterilize a patient if it would be proven to better their conditions. It surpassed the other 32 states who had passed eugenics laws due to its large Latino incarnation rates and advocacy found within the eugenics movements.[29] Between 1920 and 1945, over 17,000 individuals were recommended for sterilization in California. During this time, Latinas were at a 59% greater risk of being sterilized than non-Latinas.[3] Eugenic philosophy claimed scientific legitimacy to uphold racial stereotypes of latino/as, deeming them as unfit and even "hyper-fertile, inadequate mothers, criminally inclined, and more prone to feeblemindedness." At a time of segregation and growing anti-Mexican immigration sentiment, eugenic programs have been linked to efforts to reduce immigration."Novak_2018" The unjust laws in California from 1909 to 1979 allowed for nonconsensual sterilization of over 20,000 individuals.[32]

The forced sterilizations in California began in 1909 when a eugenics law was passed. It allowed doctors to sterilize people who were thought to be "unfit" to have children at state hospitals. Before this law was nullified in 1979, more than 20,000 people, including teenagers were victims of this sterilization. Doctors recommended people who they thought should be sterilized for certain reasons; this included not only people with a medical condition but also perfectly healthy ones as well. Minors as young as thirteen years old were sterilized. This law was meant to keep the "undesirable population" from growing. Women of Latina Origin were 59% more likely to be sterilized than women who were not of latino descent.

An example of California's eugenic and neo-eugenic practices is a case from 1966. Nancy Hernandez was a 21-year-old mother of two in Santa Barbara, California. Nancy pleaded guilty, in 1966, for being with her boyfriend, Joseph Sanchez, while he used illegal narcotics.[33] The judge that was over the trial, Judge Kearney, requested that if she wanted to get probation then she must submit to sterilization. The judge's reason behind his decision was that if she acts immorally then she should not be allowed to have more children. Hernandez inevitably did not submit to forced sterilization and instead was sentenced to three months in jail. Following the trial Nancy's lawyer submitted a writ of habeas corpus and requested that Hernandez be released from the Court's Order. Hernandez's lawyer stated that Judge Kearney was using Hernandez to make the public consider what is moral or immoral and his decision was based on neo-eugenic principles and assumed that because Hernandez was a minority and in the presence of marijuana that she naturally would descend to non-moral conduct and should not have children. Kearney's main goal all along was to reduce the state's welfare expenditures through forced sterilization. Many citizens across America, when this case went National, felt that her drug related misdemeanor had nothing to do with her parenting skills and style. It seemed that many people in America agreed that there should be a punishment for her crimes, but that forced sterilization was never a fit punishment.[34]

Some other instances in California's sterilization practices in the 1960s and 1970s was shown in the movie, No mas bebes, multiple women and families discuss the impact of sterilization abuse on their mental health, their relationship, and their family planning.[35] Many women reported that at the L.A. County hospital, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, that they were forced to submit to sterilization. Many of these women did not know that they had been sterilized until they found out through 26-year-old Chicana Lawyer and a whistle blowing doctor. These mothers mounted a civil rights lawsuit during the same time of Roe v. Wade and other reproductive rights justice movements. These stories made many Chicanas and other women across the nation question their government and reproductive rights.

In Los Angeles, hundreds of Mexican women were sterilized after giving birth at Los Angeles County Hospital. In the documentary No Mas Bebes, some of the women who were sterilized at this hospital shared their experiences. All of the women shown did not want to be sterilized. "In California, at least into the 1950s, compulsory sterilization was consistently described as a public health strategy that could breed out undesirable defects from the populace and fortify the state as a whole".[29] Women who were unhappy with this situation marched and protested to speak up for their reproductive rights.[citation needed]

In 1973, Acosta was living in Los Angeles. She was a poor Mexican woman. She gave birth to a child with brain damage so he did not survive. The doctor sterilized her stating that her husband had given permission for a tubal ligation. The husband denied giving such consent.[36] In an interview done by Claudia Dreifus Guadalupe stated "My nerves and my head are in great pain. Ever since the operation, I am very inattentive. Not forgetful, inattentive. People sometimes have to tell me things twice. I am not there".[37] Guadalupe later gave more details about her experience at the hospital, her physician worked in an aggressive manner to induce her labor. She said that he pushed down her abdomen with great force and even hit her in the stomach due to her swinging arms.[38] Acosta died in 2003. She had a baby in Mexico but it was taken away from her because he was born out of wedlock. The baby that she delivered at Los Angeles Hospital was her fourth baby. Her husband left her and her two kids due to her tubal ligation.

Jovita Rivera was one of the ten plaintiffs in the federal class action suit of Madrigal v. Quilligan. On October 12, 1973, Rivera went to the USC-LA hospital to give birth to her second child. She was under medication and in labor pains when medical staff misinformed her about the risk and chances of getting pregnant right after birth. She consented and a tubal ligation was done. Rivera, 27 at the time, states that during her stay at the hospital, while in advanced labor and under pain medication due to complications, her doctor told her she would be a burden to the government. Women like Rivera were offered the choice of sterilization under poor circumstances, under medication, and with no language assistance for translation. Some of the other plaintiffs for this case faced hostility from staff when told they could receive more pain medication if they signed papers consenting to sterilization.

Rivera stated: "... the doctor told me that I had too many children, that I was poor, and a burden to the government and I should sign a paper not to have more children [...] The doctors told me that my tubes could be untied at a later time and I could still have children."[39] While Rivera was under distress, she believed the process was reversible and consented. When Rivera and the other plaintiffs testified in court to prove that they had been coerced into getting a procedure, the judge did not rule in their favor.

Low-income minority women were more dependent on sterilization than other groups.[40] In a study conducted in El Paso, Texas, groups of women were asked why they would choose sterilization; many of the top reasons included: not wanting any more children, their current age and health, plans of working or attending school or inability to afford another child.[40]

Indiana passed the first sterilization law in the United States, the 1907 Indiana Eugenics Law. It was proposed as a part of the Progressive-era wave in which public health advocacy began coming to light.[29]

As recent as September 2020, whistleblower complaints were filed concerning "the rate at which hysterectomies are performed on immigrant women under ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) custody at ICDC". The whistleblower complaint also includes reports from many detained women who described "not understanding why they had received a hysterectomy" and even details "miscommunications" that led to patients receiving hysterectomies they may not have needed.[6]

Carrie Buck was raped by a nephew of her adopted parents in Virginia at the age of 17. In an attempt to cover up the assault, her family committed her to the Lynchburg State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded. Soon later, the colony realized that Buck was pregnant with her assailant's child. At the colony, Dr. Albert Sidney Priddy examined Buck and deemed her to be unfit due to her feeblemindedness. Priddy recommended her for sterilization. This was brought to the courts in order to sanctify the sterilization order. Buck's biological mother was labeled as feebleminded, so Buck was used as "proof" that feeblemindedness was hereditary and sterilization was necessary for the common good. The Supreme Court voted 8-1 stating that being feebleminded led to promiscuity and sterilization was justified. Buck was then sterilized under the Virginia 1924 compulsory sterilization statue.[41]

The Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell confirmed the constitutionality of sterilization of the feebleminded and "unfit". This case solidified that involuntary sterilization was not cruel or unusual punishment and it did not violate due process, but rather it helped the good of the country as a whole. Individual rights of reproduction were now able to be taken for the public good. Cases of involuntary sterilization rose significantly after this case in 1927.[41]

In the 1970s a group of Chicana women brought up a federal class action lawsuit against a hospital in Los Angeles County regarding their sterilizations.[42] Women in the class were allegedly given false information regarding sterilization.[42] The titular plaintiff, Dolores Madrigal, a Latina woman, was allegedly told several times by a medical professional that sterilization could be reversed.[42] Other women involved in the case signed consent forms for their sterilizations because they were allegedly sedated or manipulated by doctors and medical staff.[42] A common reason for forcing the sterilizations of these women was apparently the burden that their future children would be to "taxpayers".[42] Many of the women did not discover that they had been sterilized until they visited a doctor.[42]

The judge deciding Madrigal held that it was a part of a doctor's practice to provide sterilizations to these women based upon their cultural backgrounds.[42] The judge, Judge Curtis, stated in his ruling that miscommunication between the doctors and the women, rather than malice, resulted in the sterilizations.[42] In the words of his final comment, the judge stated, "One can sympathize with them for their inability to communicate clearly, but one can hardly blame the doctors for relying on these indicia of consent which appeared to be unequivocal on their face and which are in constant use in the medical center."[42]

In 1979, the practice was abolished in California.[29] It is estimated that approximately 20,000 women were sterilized in total.[43] There have been talks in the California State Assembly to formally compensate the women who were involuntary sterilized.[citation needed]

See more here:

Sterilization of Latinas - Wikipedia

IELTS Reading Practice Test 74 with Answers

READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

A

At this point, you might be wondering: what does deafhood mean? Is it a synonym for deafness? Is it a slightly more politically correct term to express the very same concept youve grown accustomed to-a person who lacks the power of hearing, or a person whose hearing is impaired? Whats wrong with terms like hard of hearing or deafness? Have they not represented the deaf community just fine for the past few centuries? Who came up with the term Deafhood anyway, and why?

B

The term Deafhood was first coined in 1993 by Dr Paddy Ladd, a deaf scholar in the Deaf Studies Department at the University of Bristol in England. First explored through his doctoral dissertation in 1998, and later elaborated on in his 2003 book, Understanding Deaf Culture In Search of Deafhood, the idea behind Deafhood is twofold: first, it seeks to collect everything that is already known about the life, culture, politics, etc. of Sign Language Peoples (SLPs); secondly, it attempts to remove the limitations imposed on SLPs through their colonization from hearing people.

C

In order to understand what Deafhood represents, its first important to understand what is meant by colonisation. To do that, we need to examine two terms: Oralism and Audism. Oralism is a philosophy that first emerged in the late 19th century, and which suggests that reduced use of sign language would be more beneficial to SLPs, as it would allow them to integrate better to the hearing world. In that respect, sign language is dismissively regarded as a mere obstacle to listening skills and acquisition of speech-treated, in effect, in the same manner as the languages of other peoples who were oppressed and colonised, e.g. the Maori in New Zealand, or the Aborigines in Australia. Audism, however, is an even more sinister ideology: first coined in 1975 by Dr Tom Humphries of the University of California in San Diego, it describes the belief that deaf people are somehow inferior to hearing people, and that deafhood or, in this case, we should say deafness is a flaw, a terrible disability that needs to be eliminated. It is the effect of these two ideologies that Deafhood seeks to counter, by presenting SLPs in a positive light, not as patients who require treatment.

D

But even if we understand the oppression that SLPs have suffered at the hands of hearing people since the late 1800s, and even if we acknowledge that deafness is a medical term with negative connotations that need to be replaced, that doesnt mean its easy to explain what the term Deafhood represents exactly. This is because Deafhood is, as Dr Donald Grushkin puts it, a physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, cultural and linguistic journey that every deaf person is invited-but not obligated-to embark on.

E

Deafhood is essentially a search for understanding: what does being Deaf mean? How did deaf people in the past define themselves, and what did they believe to be their reasons for existing before Audism was conceived? Why are some people born deaf? Are they biologically defective, or are there more positive reasons for their existence? What do terms like Deaf Art or Deaf Culture actually mean? What is the Deaf Way or doing things? True Deafhood is achieved when a deaf person feels comfortable with who they are and connected to the rest of the deaf community through use of their natural language, but the journey there might differ.

F

Aside from all those questions, however, Deafhood also seeks to counter the eect of what is known as neo-eugenics. Neo-eugenics, as described by Patrick Boudreault at the 2005 California Association of the Deaf Conference, is a modern manifestation of what has traditionally been defined as eugenics, i.e. an attempt to eradicate any human characteristics which are perceived as negative. Deaf people have previously been a target of eugenicists through the aforementioned ideologies of Audism and Oralism, but recent developments in science and society-such as cochlear implants or genetic engineering-mean that Deafhood is once again under threat, and needs to be protected. The only way to do this is by celebrating the communitys history, language, and countless contributions to the world, and confronting those who want to see it gone.

G

So, how do we go forward? We should start by decolonising SLPs-by embracing Deafhood for what it is, removing all the negative connotations that surround it and accepting that deaf people are neither broken nor incomplete. This is a task not just for hearing people, but for deaf people as well, who have for decades internalised societys unfavourable views of them. We should also seek recognition of the deaf communitys accomplishments, as well as official recognition of sign languages around the world by their respective governments. Effectively, what we should do is ask ourselves: how would the Deaf community be like, had it never been colonised by the mainstream world? And whatever it is it would be like, we should all together-hearing and Deaf alike-strive to achieve it.

The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 28-33 on your answer sheet.

28 Examples of other groups treated the same way as deaf people

29 Why the word deafness is no longer appropriate

30 The definition of the word dear

31 Why deaf people might sometimes think negatively of themselves

32 How one can attain deafhood

33 Where the word deafhood came from

34 Why deafhood is currently imperilled

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write your answers in boxes 35-37 on your answer sheet.

35 According to Dr Paddy Ladd, Deafhood

A is a more appropriate term than hard of hearing.

B doesnt colonise SLPs as much as deafness does.

C strives to get rid of the effects of colonisation.

D contributes positively to the life and culture of deaf people.

36 Oralism suggests that

A SLPs have no use for sign language.

B SLPs dont belong in the hearing world.

C hearing people are superior to SLPs.

D SLPs are unable to acquire speech.

37 Aborigines in Australia are similar to deaf people because

A eugenicists also tried to eradicate them.

B they were also considered inferior by their oppressors.

C their languages were also disrespected.

D their languages were also colonised.

Answer the questions below with words taken from Reading Passage 3.

Use NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.

38 What should deaf people use to communicate with each other, according to deafhood?

39 Who has used oralism and audism to attack the deaf community?

40 What does the deaf community strive to achieve for sign language worldwide?

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IELTS Reading Practice Test 74 with Answers

The Complicated History Behind Womens Reproductive Rights

Often the conversation surrounding the reproductive rights of women focuses on present restrictions, controversy, and debate. Repeatedly, the historical context of the access to contraceptives and abortions is neglected, and many discussions about Womens History Month neglect what many consider to be a sensitive topic.

But this hypersensitivity raises the question: how did the feminist movement reach this hyper-partisan and volatile attitude towards reproductive rights?

One of the first major proponents of birth control was Margaret Sanger, who was active between the 1910s and 1950s and advocated for working-class women. Sanger invented the term birth control to frame contraceptives as a solution to unwanted pregnancies while indicating that women were assuming responsibility over their own bodies.

Margaret Sanger protesting being prevented from discussing Birth Control in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photograph by Bettmann/Contributor)

In an effort to normalize birth control use among middle class women and adjust to changing attitudes, Sanger founded the Birth Control League of America, which later became known as "Planned Parenthood" to underscore the family while mitigating radical feminist undertones.

Gradually, Sanger and other advocates' efforts to transform the framework of birth control into a both political and medical issue triumphed. By the 1940s, however, the birth control movement was forced to accommodate a conservative society that romanticized traditional family values.

Despite the seemingly uncontroversial history, the movement towards birth control is interconnected with the popular early 20th century philosophy of eugenics, which Sanger herself has been connected to. Sanger advocated for only the fit to reproduce and consequently to sterilize women who were deemed unfit. These unfit women were often women of color or disabled women who were accused of possessing genetic factors that predisposed their children to criminality and feeblemindedness.

After World War II, the eugenics movement attempted to dissociate itself from Nazism by reframing sterilization as entirely voluntary for all Americans, but with emphasis on the unfit. This framing of sterilization that stressed the importance of family made this neo-eugenics movement much more palatable to the general population.

Up to this point, the actual implementation of birth control was both unreliable and extremely uncomfortable. But the scientific breakthrough of the birth control pill in 1960, birth control not only became accessible and reliable, but widely accepted, pivoting the main focus of reproductive rights to sterilization, and eventually, abortion.

Sterilization was returned to the public consciousness as many white middle and upper class women desired a permanent solution to birth control. But for women of color, sterilization represented a much darker concept. Many Black, Mexican American, and Native American women were forced to undergo sterilization procedures because they were deemed unsuitable for carrying children.

This gross and racist abuse of sterilization was amplified in the 1973 case of the Relf sisters, who were sterilized at 12 and 14 years old by the consent of their mother, who was illiterate and thought she was signing for birth control shots. This case sparked outrage among women, who viewed the case as a shocking violation of consent that contradicted the fundamental frame of sterilization as a completely autonomous decision.

The Relf Sisters, pictured on the right (Photographer Unknown)

Its important to note that up until 1967, the Reproductive Rights Movement was almost completely unconcerned with the issue of abortion. Abortion was considered to be an issue exclusive to the medical community and a covert operation for desperate women.

This portrayal and perception of abortion is central to the consequent advocacy for abortion wherein abortion was a right that was directly linked to the fight for equality, making abortion a fixture of an everyday womans fight for equality. This effort is exemplified through the phrase the personal is political, which was adapted by many abortion advocates.

With this increased advocacy in mind, the landmark case of Roe v. Wade in 1973, which made abortion an individual right, indelibly transformed the fight for reproductive rights as well as the relationship between feminism and reproductive rights.

The response to Roe v. Wade and the subsequent political controversy is evident in the modern pro-life and pro-choice movements. These movements were meticulously developed in such a way that allowed them to maintain a significant number of supporters more than 45 years after the decision.

The pro-life movement is entirely based on the perception of abortion as an issue of morality, often citing religious reasons for abortion being sinful and "murder". These religious reasons are rooted in the belief that sex is solely for procreation within a marriage and that the pro-life movement is meant to fight a culture of death.

Its important to specify that no social movement should be generalized to exclusively include a specific group, and by no means is religion the sole reason why there are supporters of the pro-life movement. But it should be mentioned that religion was an integral part of the initial framework of the pro-life movement. Religious beliefs and opposition to abortion have been shown to be correlated in numerous studies.

Conversely, the pro-choice movement surrounds the idea that morality is irrelevant to the debate surrounding abortion and that fundamentally women should be the sole decision-makers regarding their bodies. This ideal of bodily autonomy has consistently been portrayed as a democratic principle. The pro-choice movement has also expanded the realm of pro-choice issues by also advocating for sex education, affordable childcare, sexual health, neonatal care, and access to adoption rights.

This expansion of what falls under the umbrella of reproductive rights reflects a prominent grievance of women of color, who not so much desired abortions or sterilizations but liberation from the miserable social conditions which dissuade them from bringing new lives into the world.

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The Complicated History Behind Womens Reproductive Rights

Deafhood – IELTS reading practice test

A

At this point, you might be wondering: what does deafhood mean? Is it a synonym for deafness? Is it a slightly more politically correct term to express the very same concept youve grown accustomed to-a person who lacks the power of hearing, or a person whose hearing is impaired? Whats wrong with terms like hard of hearing or deafness? Have they not represented the deaf community just fine for the past few centuries? Who came up with the term Deafhood anyway, and why?

B

The term Deafhood was first coined in 1993 by Dr Paddy Ladd, a deaf scholar in the Deaf Studies Department at the University of Bristol in England. First explored through his doctoral dissertation in 1998, and later elaborated on in his 2003 book,Understanding Deaf Culture In Search of Deafhood, the idea behind Deafhood is twofold: first, it seeks to collect everything that is already known about the life, culture, politics, etc. of Sign Language Peoples (SLPs); secondly, it attempts to remove the limitations imposed on SLPs through their colonization from hearing people.

C

In order to understand what Deafhood represents, its first important to understand what is meant by colonisation. To do that, we need to examine two terms: Oralism and Audism. Oralism is a philosophy that first emerged in the late 19th century, and which suggests that reduced use of sign language would be more beneficial to SLPs, as it would allow them to integrate better to the hearing world. In that respect, sign language is dismissively regarded as a mere obstacle to listening skills and acquisition of speech-treated, in effect, in the same manner as the languages of other peoples who were oppressed and colonised, e.g. the Maori in New Zealand, or the Aborigines in Australia. Audism, however, is an even more sinister ideology: first coined in 1975 by Dr Tom Humphries of the University of California in San Diego, it describes the belief that deaf people are somehow inferior to hearing people, and that deafhood or, in this case, we should say deafness is a flaw, a terrible disability that needs to be eliminated. It is the effect of these two ideologies that Deafhood seeks to counter, by presenting SLPs in a positive light, not as patients who require treatment.

D

But even if we understand the oppression that SLPs have suffered at the hands of hearing people since the late 1800s, and even if we acknowledge that deafness is a medical term with negative connotations that need to be replaced, that doesnt mean its easy to explain what the term Deafhood represents exactly. This is because Deafhood is, as Dr Donald Grushkin puts it, a physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, cultural and linguistic journey that every deaf person is invited-but not obligated-to embark on.

E

Deafhood is essentially a search for understanding: what does being Deaf mean? How did deaf people in the past define themselves, and what did they believe to be their reasons for existing before Audism was conceived? Why are some people born deaf? Are they biologically defective, or are there more positive reasons for their existence? What do terms like Deaf Art or Deaf Culture actually mean? What is the Deaf Way or doing things? True Deafhood is achieved when a deaf person feels comfortable with who they are and connected to the rest of the deaf community through use of their natural language, but the journey there might differ.

F

Aside from all those questions, however, Deafhood also seeks to counter the eect of what is known as neo-eugenics. Neo-eugenics, as described by Patrick Boudreault at the 2005 California Association of the Deaf Conference, is a modern manifestation of what has traditionally been defined as eugenics, i.e. an attempt to eradicate any human characteristics which are perceived as negative. Deaf people have previously been a target of eugenicists through the aforementioned ideologies of Audism and Oralism, but recent developments in science and society-such as cochlear implants or genetic engineering-mean that Deafhood is once again under threat, and needs to be protected. The only way to do this is by celebrating the communitys history, language, and countless contributions to the world, and confronting those who want to see it gone.

G

So, how do we go forward? We should start by decolonising SLPs-by embracing Deafhood for what it is, removing all the negative connotations that surround it and accepting that deaf people are neither broken nor incomplete. This is a task not just for hearing people, but for deaf people as well, who have for decades internalised societys unfavourable views of them. We should also seek recognition of the deaf communitys accomplishments, as well as official recognition of sign languages around the world by their respective governments. Effectively, what we should do is ask ourselves: how would the Deaf community be like, had it never been colonised by the mainstream world? And whatever it is it would be like, we should all together-hearing and Deaf alike-strive to achieve it.

The reading passage has seven paragraphs,A-G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter,A-G, in boxes1-7on your answer sheet.

1 ABCDEFG Examples of other groups treated the same way as deaf people

2 ABCDEFGWhy the word deafness is no longer appropriate

3 ABCDEFGThe definition of the word dear

4 ABCDEFGWhy deaf people might sometimes think negatively of themselves

5 ABCDEFGHow one can attain deafhood

6 ABCDEFG Where the word deafhood came from

7 ABCDEFGWhy deafhood is currently imperilled

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Deafhood - IELTS reading practice test

Deafhood IELTS Reading Academic with Answers – IELTSXpress

Deafhood IELTS Reading Academic with Answers

Reading Passage 3You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

Real IELTS Exam Question, Reported On:

AAt this point, you might be wondering: what does deafhood mean? Is it a synonym for deafness? Is it a slightly more politically correct term to express the very same concept youve grown accustomed to-a person who lacks the power of hearing, or a person whose hearing is impaired? Whats wrong with terms like hard of hearing or deafness? Have they not represented the deaf community just fine for the past few centuries? Who came up with the term Deafhood anyway, and why?

BThe term Deafhood was first coined in 1993 by Dr Paddy Ladd, a deaf scholar in the Deaf Studies Department at the University of Bristol in England. First explored through his doctoral dissertation in 1998, and later elaborated on in his 2003 book, Understanding Deaf Culture In Search of Deafhood, the idea behind Deafhood is twofold: first, it seeks to collect everything that is already known about the life, culture, politics, etc. of Sign Language Peoples (SLPs); secondly, it attempts to remove the limitations imposed on SLPs through their colonization from hearing people. IELTSXpress

CIn order to understand what Deafhood represents, its first important to understand what is meant by colonisation. To do that, we need to examine two terms: Oralism and Audism. Oralism is a philosophy that first emerged in the late 19th century, and which suggests that reduced use of sign language would be more beneficial to SLPs, as it would allow them to integrate better to the hearing world. In that respect, sign language is dismissively regarded as a mere obstacle to listening skills and acquisition of speech-treated, in effect, in the same manner as the languages of other peoples who were oppressed and colonised, e.g. the Maori in New Zealand, or the Aborigines in Australia. Audism, however, is an even more sinister ideology: first coined in 1975 by Dr Tom Humphries of the University of California in San Diego, it describes the belief that deaf people are somehow inferior to hearing people, and that deafhood or, in this case, we should say deafness is a flaw, a terrible disability that needs to be eliminated. It is the effect of these two ideologies that Deafhood seeks to counter, by presenting SLPs in a positive light, not as patients who require treatment.

DBut even if we understand the oppression that SLPs have suffered at the hands of hearing people since the late 1800s, and even if we acknowledge that deafness is a medical term with negative connotations that need to be replaced, that doesnt mean its easy to explain what the term Deafhood represents exactly. This is because Deafhood is, as Dr Donald Grushkin puts it, a physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, cultural and linguistic journey that every deaf person is invited-but not obligated-to embark on. iets xpress

EDeafhood is essentially a search for understanding: what does being Deaf mean? How did deaf people in the past define themselves, and what did they believe to be their reasons for existing before Audism was conceived? Why are some people born deaf? Are they biologically defective, or are there more positive reasons for their existence? What do terms like Deaf Art or Deaf Culture actually mean? What is the Deaf Way or doing things? True Deafhood is achieved when a deaf person feels comfortable with who they are and connected to the rest of the deaf community through use of their natural language, but the journey there might differ.

FAside from all those questions, however, Deafhood also seeks to counter the eect of what is known as neo-eugenics. Neo-eugenics, as described by Patrick Boudreault at the 2005 California Association of the Deaf Conference, is a modern manifestation of what has traditionally been defined as eugenics, i.e. an attempt to eradicate any human characteristics which are perceived as negative. Deaf people have previously been a target of eugenicists through the aforementioned ideologies of Audism and Oralism, but recent developments in science and society-such as cochlear implants or genetic engineering-mean that Deafhood is once again under threat, and needs to be protected. The only way to do this is by celebrating the communitys history, language, and countless contributions to the world, and confronting those who want to see it gone. ielts xpress.com

GSo, how do we go forward? We should start by decolonising SLPs-by embracing Deafhood for what it is, removing all the negative connotations that surround it and accepting that deaf people are neither broken nor incomplete. This is a task not just for hearing people, but for deaf people as well, who have for decades internalised societys unfavourable views of them. We should also seek recognition of the deaf communitys accomplishments, as well as official recognition of sign languages around the world by their respective governments. Effectively, what we should do is ask ourselves: how would the Deaf community be like, had it never been colonised by the mainstream world? And whatever it is it would be like, we should all together-hearing and Deaf alike-strive to achieve it.

Questions 28-34The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-G.Which paragraph contains the following information?Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 28-33 on your answer sheet.

28 Examples of other groups treated the same way as deaf people IELTSXpress29 Why the word deafness is no longer appropriate30 The definition of the word dear31 Why deaf people might sometimes think negatively of themselves32 How one can attain deafhood33 Where the word deafhood came from34 Why deafhood is currently imperilled

Questions 35-37Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.Write your answers in boxes 35-37 on your answer sheet.

35. According to Dr Paddy Ladd, Deafhood

A. is a more appropriate term than hard of hearing.B. doesnt colonise SLPs as much as deafness does.C. strives to get rid of the effects of colonisation.D. contributes positively to the life and culture of deaf people.

36. Oralism suggests that

A. SLPs have no use for sign language.B. SLPs dont belong in the hearing world.C. hearing people are superior to SLPs.D. SLPs are unable to acquire speech.

37. Aborigines in Australia are similar to deaf people because

A. eugenicists also tried to eradicate them.B. they were also considered inferior by their oppressors.C. their languages were also disrespected.D. their languages were also colonised.

Questions 38-40Answer the questions below with words taken from Reading Passage 3.Use NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.

38. What should deaf people use to communicate with each other, according to deafhood?39. Who has used oralism and audism to attack the deaf community?40. What does the deaf community strive to achieve for sign language worldwide?

28. C

29. D

30. A

31. G

32. E

33. B

34. F

35. C

36. A

37. C

38. natural language

39. eugenicists

40. official recognition

Also Check: Preserving Gardens IELTS Reading Passage with Answers

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Deafhood IELTS Reading Academic with Answers - IELTSXpress

Neo-eugenics: A Feminist Critique of Agamben

In contemporary American poverty policy, the welfare mother is exposed to harsh treatment that is designed to maintain her participation in the low-wage labor force and, arguably, to discipline wage labor as a whole by restricting the alternatives to wage earning. I would contend that she is also being subjected to an extraordinarily invasive form of sexual regulation, ranging from teen pregnancy avoidance programs and abstinence education counseling to the family cap and child support enforcement. Welfare sexual regulationwith its broad scope (impacting about ten million adults and vast numbers of high school students in sex education classes across the country at any given moment), its impressive allocations, and its array of unusually well-coordinated federal and state bureaucratic structuresis becoming a substantial moment in social policy; indeed, we might usefully inquire what this moment teaches us about the relation between the indigent female citizen and the State in our neoliberal context. I argue that poverty policy is working in tandem with capital to construct the welfare mother not simply as a flexible proletarian but as a childless flexible worker as wellone who arrives at the employers doorstep bearing as few domestic burdens as possible, such that she is all the more available for extreme forms of exploitation. Because these pressures to remain or to become childless are being systematically trained upon poor womenand women of color are overrepresented within this categorythey introduce the question of eugenics. In this article, I attempt to enrich my analysis of the welfare mother as a target of sexual regulation by interrogating Agambens argument about the States production of bare life from a feminist perspective.

For Agamben, sexual regulation in welfare policy constitutes only one moment within the States timeless campaign to produce bare life. Agamben claims that Aristotles distinction between life as mere subsistence, which could be lived to its fullest even if one found oneself outside the polis, and the pursuit of the good life, which is only possible in a formally constituted polis, serves as the structure of any possible governance. Indeed, with his attempt to transcend historical specificity, Agambens theory could be called a metaphysics of governance. For Agamben, Aristotles distinction refers to a fundamental tension between two institutional postures that the State adopts toward the people. In Aristotles account, the male citizen could perfect himself only within the polis. If he left the cityor if his government descended into anarchistic chaos and effectively dissolved itselfhe would revert back to a life in which his highest good would be nothing more than subsistence, or bare life. It appears, then, that one enters the condition of bare life only in the absence of government, and that the social contract secures us from the descent into the state of nature. That appearance achieves its ideological perfection in modern liberal democratic legitimation discourse, for the latter promises to safeguard the life, liberty, and happiness of the people by prohibiting arbitrary state intervention. Agamben would argue, however, that the liberal democratic form of governance inevitably betrays itself. Even as it promises to embrace laissez-faire, it busily measures its population, tracks reproductive rates, controls immigration, manages the markets in food, housing, transportation, and energy, and takes steps to ensure the ready supply of able-bodied military recruits. Ironically enough, caregiving is thereby politicized, and for all the ideological disavowal, biopolitics is established yet again as the essence of governmental interest by the modern nation-state. The latter assume[s] directly the care of the nations biological life as one of its proper tasks.

But this is hardly the politicization of caregiving that is envisioned by feminism. Agamben is particularly interested in the way in which the modern nation-State prioritizes its population management interests when it singles out demon figures and treats them as objects that can be legally exterminated. The Jewish inmates in Nazi Germany's concentration camps were designated, by public opinion and law, as nothing more than the bearers of mere existence. These were, in effect, disposable nonpersons who had such a tenuous moral claim on the community that the state could, with impunity, strip them of the very basic rights that make human life worth living, consume their energies, and then treat what remained as waste products. They seem to be exceptional cases, for the fascist State reserved for itself comprehensive and unlimited sovereignty over their lives. And yet they were, at the same time, the exception that proved the rule, for the definition of their juridical status was simply the reverse side of the Reichs deliberate cultivation of its living human wealth. Agamben would also caution us against any complacency and unwarranted self-congratulation where allegations about liberal democracys resilience against authoritarianism are concerned. Some of the medical experiments carried out by the Nazis, for example, were invented by doctors who lived in the liberal democratic societies, and modern medicine continues to sign up death row inmates as trial subjects. In addition, we are now well aware that the Bush administration sought to establish a legal basis for torturing its detainees. As it produces bare life, the State claims that it is advancing its fundamental objective of caring for the nation. However, every last trace of the egalitarian and solidaristic dimension of the feminist concept of care is thereby eviscerated, such that we are left with nothing more than brutal exclusion.

Is Agambens metaphysics of governance adequate to the task of interpreting welfare law? Is the welfare mother analogous to these dehumanized nonpersons who are cast into this horrific condition in which human rights are totally suspended? In Agambens account, the camp inmates are so totally denuded of their personhood that they are deprived of the right to live. The sovereign authority may allow them to exist as nonpersons; that is, it may permit them to pursue a bare life, and it may choose to revoke that permission at any time and for any reasonor for no reason at all. It is because they have this absolutely minimal capacity to live a bare life that the concentration camp inmates can function as a surface of inscription for the state as it demonstratesand brings into being at the same timeits population management authority. With the suspension of their right to life, these nonpersons live each moment entirely at the unlimited discretion of the state, in which even the moral ban against cruelty to animalslet alone international human rights treaties, the Bill of Rights, and criminal statuteshas no bearing whatsoever. Because they are nonpersons, the state can kill the concentration camp inmates without committing homicide.

On the one hand, the welfare mother does not completely fulfill Agambens criteria in narrow juridical terms; the state cannot act affirmatively to put the welfare mother to death without breaking the law. Agamben is referring to the Nazis treatment of the concentration camp inmates when he writes: Precisely because they were lacking almost all the rights and expectations that we customarily attribute to human existence, and yet were still biologically alive, they came to be situated in a limit zone between life and death, inside and outside, in which they were no longer anything but bare life. For all the brutality of American welfare law, we are not rounding up welfare mothers and exterminating them en masse; in an absolutely minimal sense, they remain legal persons. They retain a sliver of the right to due process. In theory at least, they have the right to apply for a passport and to emigrate.

Agambens text, however, also lends itself to a more expansive reading. It can also be interpreted as an invitation to cultivate a more acute sensitivity to the ways in which even the most humanitarian forms of governance can have, as their hidden core principle, the brutal violation of fundamental human rights. As he defends the decision to wage war on Iraq, former President George W. Bush proclaims the exemplary achievements of American democracy. But in this same country, the State has stripped the welfare mother of almost all the basic rights that make a human life worth living, such as the right to refuse demeaning work. (This fact became all the more obvious, even to the corporate media, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.) The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRA) has eliminated her statutory entitlement to poverty assistance; she must look to her state constitution to give her claim to emergency aid any binding force. American constitutional law not only refuses to recognize the very concept of social rights but deliberately refuses to construct the poor as a suspect class where equal-protection doctrine is concerned. The State is empowered by the law to intervene in the intimate and sexual dimensions of a poor single mothers life in ways that would be considered legally and ethically unacceptable if these same interventions were aimed at professional women. The state has what the courts regard as a legitimate interest in forcing the welfare mother to cooperate with child support enforcementeven if she is fleeing from a violent biological father; it can order her to disclose her sexual history and to open her home, the personal conduct of her teenage children, and her very DNA structure to intensive governmental scrutiny. Federal law allows the states to deprive needy families of benefits when the eligibility time limits are exceeded and to set benefit levels at below-subsistence levels. Workfare rules require custodial mothers with young children to perform duties out of the home on a rigid schedule even though they may not have access to adequate and affordable childcare. In the guise of a poverty program ostensibly aimed at families with dependent children, the state can put so much pressure on a poor single mother that it places her in an absolutely desperate condition, one in which it becomes all the more likely that she will voluntarily give up her children for adoption. Indeed, three states evidently do not want to leave the custodial relinquishment effect of poverty policy to chance. They actually require welfare applicants to endure pro-adoption counseling and educational materials designed to encourage themsolely on the basis of their application for means-tested aid alone, with not even the slightest allegation of child abuse or neglectto relinquish their custodial rights.

There is hardly any difference between the slurs that are commonly circulated in American society and government about the welfare motherthat is, the demonizing representations that construct her as a species of vermin or pestilenceand the absolutely obnoxious and horrific claim that her life is not worth living and does not deserve to be lived. But mainstream American political rhetoric is also invested in portraying the states relationship with the poor in a humanitarian light: the state is reluctantly withdrawing redistributive supports only because they perversely fostered welfare dependency, and it is introducing therapeutic interventions designed to promote the work ethic and patriarchal and heterosexist family values. What we are really witnessing, however, is a massive reduction in social rights and the augmentation of a harsh punishment regime that advances racial-capitalist and patriarchal interests by keeping the poor disorganized, desperate, and eager to work for low wages. Child support enforcement continues to fail as an antipoverty measuregiven the fact that the biological fathers of the children of welfare mothers are typically too poor to meet their legal obligationsbut the encapsulation of millions of adults within custodial mother/obliged biological father dyads greatly enhances the states ability to render the poor mass into a policeable totality. This tactic also interrupts the formation of solidaristic relations among the poor at an intimate level, and perpetuates neoliberal and traditional family values by displacing entitlement with private patriarchal dependency.

Agamben, like Foucault, encourages us to pay close attention not just to the eternal return of exclusion but to the structure of exclusion as well. For his part, Foucault is perhaps the better theorist of the two where the institutionally specific analysis of disciplinary technology is concerned. But they both read the text of State authority against the grain, as it were. In its ideological self-presentation, the State establishes its governmental interests by referring to its showcase policies, namely the ones that are widely accepted as mainstream measures for enhancing the normal citizens well-being. In the American case, we are seductively invited to position ourselves as citizens of a country that has built up the best form of government in human history, one that is deeply committed to securing the conditions necessary for the pursuit of the good life. Agamben and Foucault resist the lure of modern State legitimation discourse. Refusing to follow the ostensive gesture of the State itselfagain, the state prefers to point out its mainstream policies that serve the general populationAgamben and Foucault seek to interpret power relations by investigating the extreme cases involving individuals who are rendered into nonpersons through the application of purportedly extraordinary law (Agamben) or problematized fields of insufficiently disciplined subjectivity (Foucault).

But Agamben would argue that Foucault himself vacillates on this crucial point and at times endorses the view that unilateral forms of exclusionary governancethose that are embodied in State practices such as banishment, the quarantining of the sick within fenced-off spaces like the leper colony, or the execution of criminals, for examplewere more or less eclipsed by modern disciplinary technologies. In my view, Foucaults juridico-discursive and biopower regimes should be understood as ideal types that can bring to light the operations of power that are constitutive of modern liberal democratic societies. The fact that Foucault did not address fascism in his development of these two governance types is indicative of his scrupulous attention to the institutional specificities of distinct political regimes. Further, it is a virtue of Foucaults work that the political status of the individuals targeted by biopower remains somewhat ambiguous; to a certain extent, they retain some types of liberal democratic rights even as they are excluded. Power in Foucaults model is a sophisticated force that works best when it finds ways to bend freedom against itself, such that the subject misrecognizes his or her disciplined condition as a form of liberation. Agamben would vigorously resist these suggestions. He would charge Foucault with failing to push the investigation of the exception to its proper limit. Agambens eccentric reading of Foucault is consistent with his ambitious objective, namely to establish a theory that lays bare the timeless structure of any possible form of Western governance.

From a political theory perspective, it is nevertheless important to note that Agamben proposes a salutary challenge to the status quo. He is effectively insisting that we must reverse the analytical gaze of the social sciences: we must investigate the nature of sovereignty from the perspective of the exception, rather than the mainstream, policy of the State. It is the politicization of bare life as such that constitutes the decisive event of modernity, not the establishment of a liberal democracy dedicated to securing the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The opposition that is taken for granted between absolutism and democracy has always been a fragile one, and these two modes of governance are currently entering into a real zone of indistinction. Absolutism only appears to lie at the other end of the regime-type continuum at a maximal distance from democracy. Once we pierce the ideological obfuscations that are thrown up by the State, we can grasp the fact that the absolutist assertion of sovereign power over bare life is secretly tied to the most humanitarian moments of liberal democratic State authority.

Standing confidentlysome would say arrogantlyon our Enlightenment inheritance, we westerners are enthralled by our own legitimation discourse, namely humanitarianism. We find it almost inconceivable, for example, that it is becoming increasingly difficult to draw the line between imperialist military campaigns and humanitarian aid projects. Similarly, we, the American wealthy, like to tell ourselves that we have always been very generousif not overly generoustoward the poor. It is, in fact, power that lies at the heart of poverty program design: its structures owe everything to the struggles between racial-capitalist and patriarchal forces that are deeply invested in the production of a docile low-wage workforce and in the promotion of the traditional heterosexual family, on the one side, and progressive forces like the poor peoples protests and the civil rights movement, on the other.

Agambens ambitious deployment of transhistorical overview is quite suggestive; like Hortense Spillerss concept of the American grammar book (i.e., Spillerss diagnosis of the underlying structure of gender and race hierarchies that remains constant in American culture from the colonial period to the present), his theory interrupts our complacent assumption that liberal democratic formations are somehow magically endowed with such a distinct orientation to the law, and such resilient and self-sustaining capacities, that we need not consider the possibility that they can harbor antidemocratic momentssuch as slavery, imperialism, and eugenicsat their very core, or that they can descend quite quickly into various forms of absolutism. Agamben and Spillers help us to resist the lure of progressivism: the myth that the West is always moving forwards in its bid to achieve a just form of social cooperation. They show us how to grasp the continuities between the various moments of constitutive exclusion in the history of American identity, whether they involve the strategic production of the indigenous savage or that of the slave woman and the welfare mother.

However, Agamben, unlike Spillers, moves at such a distance from historical specificities that he loses sight of institutionalized gendered dynamics. His objective is not only to thematize Western discourse on a metaphysical level, in the Derridean sense, but to establish a critical sociopolitical theory that can bring to light the fundamental character of Western governance that has purportedly endured, like a timeless essence, from Aristotles ancient Greece to post-9/11 American government. Like Spillers, Agamben underlines the fact that biopolitics constructs the national population in a racially essentialist manner. But he cannot detect the specificity of racial formations; he cannot help us to understand the ways in which the anti-Semitism of the Nazis resembles, but also deviates from, institutional racism in contemporary American society. Further, he completely fails to grasp the centrality of gender to the biopolitical project of producing bare life. For Agamben, the sovereign preserves for itself the natural right to do anything to anyone. As the line between legitimate authority and the right of the sovereign in a state of exception to protect the people by producing bare life is increasingly blurred, we become unable to identify any one clear figure of the sacred man. In effect, we are all virtually homines sacri. Bare life is no longer confined to a particular place or a definite category. It now dwells in the biological body of every living being.

The historical record, however, makes it crystal clear that it is the structurally disempowered who are most vulnerable to the exercise of arbitrary state power in the state of emergency. Women are placed in especially constrained positions by the modern State when it devotes itself to population management. In the context of positive eugenics, the fittest women of the racial nation are asked to serve as the wombs of the people through natalist propaganda and policies. Negative eugenics in turn promotes the exclusion of the unfit through selective immigration controls, sterilization, and the discouragement of child-rearing. Poor women typically bear the brunt of these policies. In some eugenic contexts, the unfit woman is offered partial redemption, but only insofar as she is rendered into a sterile worker, a prostitute, or a military servant.

The practical implications of Agambens failure to address the historically specific and stratified character of the States targeting (i.e., the fact that in the midst of an emergency, the State escalates its already established class, race, ethnic, and gender profiling instead of striking out in an unpredictable manner) are sobering. If we convinced ourselves that vulnerability is equally distributed, we would implicitly reinforce our already excessive tendency toward bourgeois self-regard. We would also foreclose all radical attempts to hold the agents who actively participate in the establishment of eugenics policy, and those who benefit handsomely from its operation, collectively responsible. Out of our bourgeois narcissism, we would refuse to face the Other and to receive the Others inscrutable and yet insistent demand. Instead of facing the Other, we would merely fixate on the image of the Others suffering. We would derive compensation for our perceived vulnerability through our consumption of this image; it would become our fetish. We would congratulate ourselves for having the fortitude to commodify suffering, and we would act as if we could exhaust our moral obligation by doing so. Thus, we would forget that we had forgotten the Other and that we were keeping our backs turned against the Others face. Fetishism, however, is not solidarity.

If any person can be rendered into bare life, then we should assume that Agambens absolute sovereign will strike in a random fashion, anywhere and everywhere at once. If absolutism is omnipresent, then virtually every form of political organizing is doomed to fail. Once again, Agambens argument risks the incitement of bourgeois self-regard and quietistic resignation. Agambens sensitization is one-sidedit raises our awareness of the fact that it is the interests of powerful elites, not charity, that structure poverty programs, but it allows us to avoid the inconvenient truth: the State remains a terrain of struggle, and it is our moral duty to contribute to the advance of social justice. Todays welfare mothers are not strategically positioned in exactly the same way as the Nazis concentration camp inmates; nor are they subjected to totalistic domination like the slave woman or Carrie Buck. They can, and they do, engage in political organizing; they have a fewalbeit far too fewallies in civil society, Congress, state legislatures, and local governments; and they are exercising their right to self-determination against very steep odds.

To return to Agamben, what precisely is the relationship between human reproduction and governance? Introducing Aristotles distinction between the life of the citizen and bare life, Agamben deploys a distinctly liberal democratic topographic metaphor: In the classical world . . . simple natural life is excluded from the polis in the strict sense, and remains confinedas merely reproductive lifeto the sphere of the oikos, home. The concept of confining a particular social practice to a distinct spatial region, like a sphere, seems to be at odds with the ancients organicism. To be sure, Agamben refers in particular to Aristotles rejection of the argument that governing the polis amounted to nothing more than the continuation of the sort of governing required in the household on a grander scale. But Agambens introductory passage on Aristotle continues to muddy the water even further. At one moment he is referring to distinct spheres of governancethe political versus the reproductivein which different types of leadership take different fields of human activity as their proper object. At the next, he discusses Aristotles hierarchy of moral ends: man is born with regard to life, but exist[s] essentially with regard to the good life.

In fact, the organicism that was proper to the ancients had a very specific character. The Greek citizens household was not a distinct sphere of human intersubjectivity in the modern sense; household relations had a great deal of bearing upon the good of the community and the ability of the polis to facilitate the pursuit of the good life. Ideally, the male citizen conducts himself ethically when he acts as the head of the household, for he enters into relations with other citizens from the most felicitous position when he does so, and the good of the polis depends upon the ethical performance of social roles in every nook and cranny of the citizens world. It is also best for the citizen to manage his economic affairs properlythat is, to achieve a subsistence standard of living and to generate the small surplus necessary for honoring virtuous friends with appropriate gifts. Ultimately, however, these domestic matters ought to be determined by a set of ethical principles that are unique; the guiding principles for household management cannot be derived from the ones that are proper to political deliberation. This is not because the household was located in a separate domestic sphere, however. In the ideal polis, the citizen rules and is ruled by other citizens in turn. In the household, the patriarch is directing subjects who allegedly do not meet the male citizens standard of rationality, namely women, children, and slaves. Even if the good man is the same as the good citizen in the ideal polis, the art of governing ones peers remains distinct from that pertaining to the management of ones dependents. Let us assume, then, that the polis remains properly constituted, and that the household in question is headed by a male citizen. In that case, we certainly cannot construct the household as if it existed in a distinct sphereit is not wholly apart from the polis, and it is not a special place within the polis that cannot be considered a proper object of public deliberation. The citizen has to adopt a different leadership posture when he applies himself to the task of heading the household, but that is not because the polis has no interest in regulating reproduction. He does so only because he must deal with his inferiors when he acts as the head of the household and manages his domestic affairs.

Agambens use of Aristotle to set up his broader argument could distract us from the fact that Aristotle actually wanted the legislator to take a deep interest in the management of human reproduction. In The Politics, for example, the discussion of constitutional types is juxtaposed with a substantial section in which a plan for the ideal city-state is sketched out, complete with advice on demographics, territorial considerations, the best division of labor, public planning, military preparation, and education. At its foundation, the polis must seek to enhance the moral development of the citizen, but educational institutions work best when they receive the best pupils. Reflecting the biological and medical thinking of his day, Aristotle lays out a model family law. Indeed, the topic is treated as if the text does not sense any particular need for extraordinary explanation; for Aristotles students, this expansive view of the poliswhich includes population management within the scope of legitimate governmental interestswas entirely unremarkable. The legislator in the ideal city-state naturally concerns himself with the task of establishing the legal conditions that foster the best types of human reproduction. The poliss interest in ensuring the reproduction of the best offspring is so extensive that it may quite properly establish rigid and narrow age requirements for marriage (around eighteen for women and thirty-seven for men). The legislator is invited to consider a law that would require pregnant mothers to perform daily pilgrimages in order to enhance their physical fitness. As for the treatment of the unfit child, The Politics states plainly that there should certainly be a law to prevent the rearing of deformed children. The legislator is also counseled to establish the upper limit of children in the ideal family and to ensure that miscarriages are induced when a family has reached that limit. Of course, the liberal democratic idea of a right to privacy has no place in Aristotle's scheme. Men and women form intimate partnerships, not as an expression of their individual and autonomous wills, but to render service to the state by bringing children into the world.

Fascist organicism similarly seeks to extend the grip of the sovereign into every corner of the Reich such that the will of the Fhrer defines virtually every field of social activity, from the courts to the market, the church, and the family. Agamben quite rightly draws our attention to the integration of eugenics into fascist social policy. The National Socialists sought to secure the life of the people by preserving the Aryan racial stock from miscegenation and degeneration. They adopted laws permitting the sterilization of those deemed to be carrying hereditary disorders of the body or the mind. They prohibited marriage for anyone who was institutionalized or who suffered from contagious disease, mental illness, or hereditary disease. Only those with Aryan blood were considered full citizens with the right to a passport, and Jews were not allowed to marry full citizens. Agamben could have also pointed to the fact that these prohibitions were combined with positive eugenics strategies. The Aryan woman was charged with the duty of marrying an Aryan man, bearing children, and faithfully rearing the Reichs future generation. Aryan women who bore more than four children received the Cross of Honor of the German mother. In Hermann Grings Nine Commandments for the Workers Struggle, German Aryan women were called to take hold of the frying pan, dust pan and broom and marry a man.

Taking inspiration from Agamben, and yet rejecting his metaphysical approach to governance, I would argue that contemporary social policy is an expression of neo-eugenics. Neo-eugenics is a special kind of biopolitics that resembles fascist organicism but is unique in several key respects. Eugenics is certainly alive and well in the United States today. Not only are publications like The Bell Curve that espouse a theory of biologically determined and racially differentiated intelligence received as mainstream texts, but we are also witnessing the training of a myriad of forces upon the poor that effectively discourage them from forming kinship groups and bearing and rearing children on their own terms. The harsh character of poverty assistance policy, the gap between the living wage and the minimum wage, gender- and race-based discrimination, and the stratified nature of the labor market operate in tandem. Together, they guarantee that millions of American adults will never earn enough to support a family even when they do manage to find full-time and year-round jobs. The racial bias of the criminal justice system places a disproportionate number of black and Latino men and women in prison at precisely the moment in their life cycles in which nonincarcerated adults typically start building their families. American infant mortality rates are the worst for any developed country, while HIV infection and AIDS continue to hit poor women of color particularly hard. Even if a poor black woman beats the odds and manages to bear and rear a healthy child and to provide him or her with an adequate diet, decent housing, a safe neighborhood, adequate childcare, and early education, she is still exposed to the inequitable child welfare system that threatens to cancel out her parental rights in an arbitrary manner.

But for all its continuities with ancient and fascist visions of legitimate governmental interest, contemporary eugenics remains unique. To be sure, there are the jeremiads from conservative-policy pundits and think tanks condemning middle-class women for utilizing childcare services and selfishly combining parenting with the pursuit of a professional career. It is also certainly true that the middle-class mother has been largely abandoned by the neoliberal state and that when she secures an adequate education for her children, she is, in all likelihood, reaching into her own bank account to do so. Even with these caveats in mind, however, the middle-class professional woman is not being subjected to compulsory maternalism; she is not being effectively pressed to do her patriotic duty by bearing and rearing the next generation. The rise of the liberal feminist movement has transformed the political landscape, social policy, and popular attitudes. As such, the free-market liberty of the professional woman will, in all likelihood, resist the attacks of the most conservative reformers for decades to come.

We are witnessing, then, the establishment of a neo-eugenics trend in public policy rather than a return to the organicist worldviews that are specific to the ancients and the fascists. Against Agambens de-historicization, I would insist on the importance of this departure. The concept of neo-eugenics usefully reminds feminist and queer activists that any analysis of the contemporary backlash against gender equality, sexual liberation, and secular humanism that does not pay close attention to class, race, and transnational capital accumulation would be woefully inadequate. We may see the re-criminalization of abortion, for example, thanks to the rise of antifeminist extremists at every level in the American political scene, from the local hospital board to the Supreme Court. It is nevertheless unlikely that we will see the wealthiest professional women being pressed to give up their careers and coerced into putting their wombs at the service of the race. Under pressure from patriarchal and capitalist forces, the State will probably do as little as possible to make the combination of wage earning and mothering any easierwe will not, in all likelihood, see the establishment of a universal childcare program, for examplebut it is unlikely that elite professional women will be assaulted by the same degree of patriarchal propaganda, racially motivated population control anxieties, economic coercion, and religious proselytization that poor women must endure on a daily basis as a matter of course. To be sure, conservative forces have not entirely abandoned the fray. They champion the women with college degrees who have eschewed the paid-work world in favor of full-time domestic labor, and they continue to make every effort to whip up a social panic about the pediatric perils of childcare. But on the whole, the career gains of elite professional women will remain somewhat unassailable, such that any calls for a full-scale return to earlier forms of positive eugenics and the insistence that the fittest women take up their proper maternal duties will remain muted. It is the welfare mother, not the professional career woman, who will bear the brunt of neo-eugenics.

Read the original post:

Neo-eugenics: A Feminist Critique of Agamben

Coronavirus and the Neo-Eugenics Era – The Good Men Project

Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, who is 63-years-old, told Fox host Tucker Carlson on air Monday, March 23 that: No one reached out to me and said, As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren? And if thats the exchange, Im all in.

The next day, Fox News host and reporter, Brit Hume, defended Patricks remarks saying it is entirely reasonable that older U.S. residents should be fine with dying over complications of coronavirus infection if it assures a better U.S. economy.

The utter collapse of the countrys economy which many think will happen if this goes on much longer is an intolerable result of mandatory social isolation, continued the 76-year-old Hume.

Not only does the premature mass reopening of the business sector pose a potential death sentence to many of our seniors, but it also presents major health risks for younger people, especially those with other medical conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart and other organ problems.

Reports indicate that even young people without other medical complaints are turning up in a hospital intensive care units hooked up to ventilators as a result of contracting the coronavirus.

Adultism refers to oppression against young people by adults, and ageism against elders by youth and by adults.

Adultism, as defined by John Bell (2003) includes behaviors and attitudes based on the assumption that adults are better than young people and entitled to act upon young people without their agreement. This mistreatment is reinforced by social institutions, laws, customs, and attitudes.

Within an adultist society, adults construct the rules, with little or no input from youth, which they force young people to follow.

While elders in most countries were once considered as wise and treasured members of their communities, in many contemporary societies, older people are often marginalized, stripped of their rights and responsibilities, their dignity, their voice, and the power over their lives.

Todd Nelson (2005) summarizes the change in attitudes regarding elders resulting from two dramatic historical developments.

First, the advent of the printing press was responsible for a major change in the status of elders (quoted in Branco & Williamson, 1982). The culture, tradition, and history of a society or tribe now could be repeated innumerable times, in exact detail through books, and the status and power elders once had as the village historians was greatly reduced and, in many cases, eliminated.

The second major development in society that led to a shift in attitudes toward the elderly was the industrial revolution (Stearns & Tassel, 1986). The industrial revolution demanded great mobility in familiesto go where the jobs were. In light of this new pressure to be mobile, the extended family structure (with grandparents in the household) was less adaptive. Older people were not as mobile as younger people.

An early writer on the topic of oppression toward older people is Robert Butler (1975) who defines ageism as:

A process of systematic stereotyping of and discrimination against people because they are old. Old people are categorized as senile, rigid in thought and manner, old fashioned in morality and skills. Ageism allows the younger generations to see older people as different than themselves; thus they subtly cease to identify with the elders as human beings.

Margaret Morganroth Gullette (2017) describes ageism as the infliction of suffering by the mere fact of birthdate.

In terms of age, some of the most creative and successful thinkers have been at all stages of life, from very young to extraordinarily old.

I recently commented on a Facebook posting, and in response, someone called me a damned Boomer. Well, I say, damned right Im a Boomer, and a proud one at that.

We damned Boomers served proudly in our military alongside other generations.

We worked tirelessly in the service of civil and human rights, in ensuring the rights of women to control their own bodies, in protecting and defending lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, in protecting the separation of government and religion, in protecting our environment, and in attempting to bring down the rate of gun violence.

We designed and built your buildings. We cleaned your offices and homes. We cared for you in doctors offices and hospital rooms, and we defended you in the courtroom.

We collected your garbage and prepared your taxes, laid your roadways, paved your sidewalks, and constructed your bridges.

We wrote your books, taught you how to read and write, add and subtract. We helped you learn the names of the states and their capitals, inspired your enthusiasm and your critical thinking and trained you in the fields you were to enter.

We manufactured your automobiles, invented your social media, planted and picked your vegetables, and shipped your products to market. We reported the news and gave you solace in good times and bad.

We cleaned your asses and collected your soiled diapers, and we gave you a shoulder to cry on as we wiped away your tears.

And many of us continue to carry out these essential tasks today.

For some members of the following generations, we have always had and maintained your respect. Others, unfortunately, consider us as mere dinosaurs and inconveniences as we maintain positions they covet for their career advancement.

How convenient it is to justify opening the economy by placing our seniors at higher risk for death. How insidious it is to place economic considerations far above the physical welfare of actual living human beings.

But this is quickly becoming the norm in these terrifying Trumpian times in which the President of the United States rose to power by dehumanizing undocumented immigrants who attempted to escape rape, kidnapping, poverty, and death in their home countries.

The times in which the President of the United States rose to power by attacking the integrity, humanity, and honesty of women who called him on his rampant misogyny.

The times in which the President of the United States rose to power demonizing all members of U.S. Muslim communities and others throughout the world, and by defining all Jews as ethnically connected to their/our supposed Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The times in which the President of the United States rose to power by mocking a reporter with a disability, and the residents of supposed shithole countries, all of which are majority populations of color.

The times in which the President of the United States rose to power by labeling the mainstream media as the lamestream media, and attacking them as the enemy of the people.

In his call to reopen the economy and to fill the churches this Easter Sunday, Trump has added all seniors to his tyrannical mix of disposables. It seems the only people he considers worthy of life include primarily relatively young (up to early middle age) white Christian heterosexual cisgender U.S. native-born able-bodied and preferably politically conservative male Republicans.

All others be damned with you.

Are we to return to the era when Eugenics was considered a bone fide scientific field of inquiry and practice?

The British psychologist, Francis Galton (1822-1911), a first cousin of Charles Darwin, was a founder of the Eugenics Movement. In fact, Galton coined the term eugenics in 1883 from the Greek word meaning well-born.

Eugenicists attempted to improve the qualities of a so-called race by controlling human breeding. It was based on the theory that genetic predisposition determined human behavior. Galton also profited greatly from the slave trade. He stated:

I do not join in the belief that the African is our equal in brain or in heart; I do not think that the average negro cares for his liberty as much as an Englishman, or as a self-born Russian; and I believe that if we can in any fairway, possess ourselves of his services, we have an equal right to utilize them to our advantages (Galton, 1857).

Galton, in his books: Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences (1869), and Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883), centered on the notion that the purpose of eugenics was to promote judicious mating in order to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable.

He assessed the relative intellectual capabilities of the so-called races, including Africans, Australians, Chinese, Jews, and others. He stated that degenerates exhibited deterioration to a level below the acceptable standards that were implicit in the Great Chain of Being hierarchy of worth.

Several forced sterilization laws stemmed from the Eugenics movement. Charles Benedict Davenport (1866-1944), Instructor of Zoology at Harvard University, in 1910, Director of the Cold Springs Laboratory, Long Island, New York, founded the Eugenics Record Office.

In his books, Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (1913) and Race Crossing in Jamaica (1929), strongly argued against miscegenation: sexual relations between whites and blacks, which he argued resulted in cultural and biological degradation. He favored mandatory sterilization of the unfit. In 1918, he was elected chair of the Galton Society for the Study of the Origin and Evolution of Man.

Have we now added our elders to the list of degenerates that bring down the race, and attendant economy?

Well, this Boomer will shout again as loudly and forcefully and I did in my youth when protesting the U.S. unwarranted and illegal incursion into Vietnam, this time in opposition to reopening the workplace before we have scientific indications that the time is right to do so.

References

Bell, J. (2003). Understanding adultism: A key to developing positive youth-adult relationships. Olympia, WA: The Freechild Project.

Branco, K. J., & Williamson, J. B. (1982). Stereotyping and the life cycle: Views of aging and the aged. In A. G. Miller (Ed.), In the eye of the beholder: Contemporary issues in stereotyping (pp. 364410). New York: Praeger.

Butler, R. N. (1975). Why survive? Being old in America. New York: Harper and Row.

Davenport, C. B. (1929). Race crossing in Jamaica. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution.

Davenport, C. B. (1913). Heredity in relation to Eugenics. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution.

Galton, F. (1883). Inquiries into human faculty and its development. London: Macmillan.

Galton, F. (1869). Hereditary genius: An inquiry into its laws and consequences. London: Macmillan.

Galton, F. (1971). in Hunt, J. M. (ed.). Human intelligence. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

Galton, F. (1857). Negroes and the slave trade. Letter to The Times [of London] Eugenics, December 26.

Gullette, M. M. (2017). Ending ageism or how not to shoot old people. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Stearns, P. N. & Tassel, D. V. (1986). Introduction: Themes and prospects in old age history. In Old age in a bureaucratic society, in D. V. tassel and P. N. Stearns, ix-xx. New York: Greenwood Press.

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Coronavirus and the Neo-Eugenics Era - The Good Men Project

Eugenics – New World Encyclopedia

Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. The purported goals have variously been to create healthier, more intelligent people, save society's resources, and lessen human suffering.

Earlier proposed means of achieving these goals focused on selective breeding, while modern ones focus on prenatal testing and screening, genetic counseling, birth control, in vitro fertilization, and genetic engineering. Opponents argue that eugenics is immoral and is based on, or is itself, pseudoscience. Historically, eugenics has been used as a justification for coercive state-sponsored discrimination and human rights violations, such as forced sterilization of persons with genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized and, in some cases, genocide of races perceived as inferior. Today, however, the ideas developed from eugenics are used to identify genetic disorders that are either fatal or result in severe disabilities. While there is still controversy, some of this research and understanding may prove beneficial.

The word eugenics etymologically derives from the Greek words eu (good) and gen (birth), and was coined by Francis Galton in 1883.

The term eugenics is often used to refer to movements and social policies that were influential during the early twentieth century. In a historical and broader sense, eugenics can also be a study of "improving human genetic qualities." It is sometimes broadly applied to describe any human action whose goal is to improve the gene pool. Some forms of infanticide in ancient societies, present-day reprogenetics, preemptive abortions, and designer babies have been (sometimes controversially) referred to as eugenic.

Eugenicists advocate specific policies that (if successful) would lead to a perceived improvement of the human gene pool. Since defining what improvements are desired or beneficial is, by many, perceived as a cultural choice rather than a matter that can be determined objectively (by empirical, scientific inquiry), eugenics has often been deemed a pseudoscience. The most disputed aspect of eugenics has been the definition of "improvement" of the human gene pool, such as what comprises a beneficial characteristic and what makes a defect. This aspect of eugenics has historically been tainted with scientific racism.

Early eugenicists were mostly concerned with perceived intelligence factors that often correlated strongly with social class. Many eugenicists took inspiration from the selective breeding of animals (where purebreds are valued) as their analogy for improving human society. The mixing of races (or miscegenation) was usually considered as something to be avoided in the name of racial purity. At the time this concept appeared to have some scientific support, and it remained a contentious issue until the advanced development of genetics led to a scientific consensus that the division of the human species into unequal races is unjustifiable. Some see this as an ideological consensus, since equality, just like inequality, is a cultural choice rather than a matter that can be determined objectively.

Eugenics has also been concerned with the elimination of hereditary diseases such as haemophilia and Huntington's disease. However, there are several problems with labeling certain factors as "genetic defects." In many cases there is no scientific consensus on what a "genetic defect" is. It is often argued that this is more a matter of social or individual choice. What appears to be a "genetic defect" in one context or environment may not be so in another. This can be the case for genes with a heterozygote advantage, such as sickle cell anemia or Tay-Sachs disease, which in their heterozygote form may offer an advantage against, respectively, malaria and tuberculosis. Many people can succeed in life with disabilities. Many of the conditions early eugenicists identified as inheritable (pellagra is one such example) are currently considered to be at least partially, if not wholly, attributed to environmental conditions. Similar concerns have been raised when a prenatal diagnosis of a congenital disorder leads to abortion.

Eugenic policies have been conceptually divided into two categories: Positive eugenics, which encourage a designated "most fit" to reproduce more often; and negative eugenics, which discourage or prevent a designated "less fit" from reproducing. Negative eugenics need not be coercive. A state might offer financial rewards to certain people who submit to sterilization, although some critics might reply that this incentive along with social pressure could be perceived as coercion. Positive eugenics can also be coercive. Abortion by "fit" women was illegal in Nazi Germany.

During the twentieth century, many countries enacted various eugenics policies and programs, including:

Most of these policies were later regarded as coercive, restrictive, or genocidal, and now few jurisdictions implement policies that are explicitly labeled as eugenic or unequivocally eugenic in substance (however labeled). However, some private organizations assist people in genetic counseling, and reprogenetics may be considered as a form of non-state-enforced "liberal" eugenics.

Selective breeding was suggested at least as far back as Plato, who believed human reproduction should be controlled by government. He recorded these ideals in The Republic: "The best men must have intercourse with the best women as frequently as possible, and the opposite is true of the very inferior." Plato proposed that the process be concealed from the public via a form of lottery. Other ancient examples include the polis of Sparta's purported practice of infanticide. However, they would leave all babies outside for a length of time, and the survivors were considered stronger, while many "weaker" babies perished.[1]

During the 1860s and 1870s, Sir Francis Galton systematized his ideas and practices according to new knowledge about the evolution of humans and animals provided by the theory of his cousin Charles Darwin. After reading Darwin's Origin of Species, Galton noticed an interpretation of Darwin's work whereby the mechanisms of natural selection were potentially thwarted by human civilization. He reasoned that, since many human societies sought to protect the underprivileged and weak, those societies were at odds with the natural selection responsible for extinction of the weakest. Only by changing these social policies, Galton thought, could society be saved from a "reversion towards mediocrity," a phrase that he first coined in statistics and which later changed to the now common "regression towards the mean."[2]

According to Galton, society already encouraged dysgenic conditions, claiming that the less intelligent were out-reproducing the more intelligent. Galton did not propose any selection methods; rather, he hoped that a solution would be found if social mores changed in a way that encouraged people to see the importance of breeding.

Galton first used the word eugenic in his 1883 Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development, a book in which he meant "to touch on various topics more or less connected with that of the cultivation of race, or, as we might call it, with 'eugenic' questions." He included a footnote to the word "eugenic" which read:

That is, with questions bearing on what is termed in Greek, eugenes namely, good in stock, hereditarily endowed with noble qualities. This, and the allied words, eugeneia, etc., are equally applicable to men, brutes, and plants. We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognisance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea; it is at least a neater word and a more generalized one than viriculture which I once ventured to use.[3]

Eugenics differed from what would later be known as Social Darwinism. This school of thought was developed independently of Darwin by such writers as Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner. Social Darwinism includes a range of political ideologies which are held to be compatible with the concept that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution of biological traits in a population by natural selection can also be applied to competition between human societies or groups within a society. It is based on ideas of the "survival of the fittest" (a term coined by Herbert Spencer) to human society, saying that those humans with superior genes would be better placed to succeed in society, as evidenced by wealth and status. Social Darwinism, like eugenics, fell out of favor as it become increasingly associated with racism. While both claimed intelligence was hereditary, eugenics asserted that new policies were needed to actively change the status quo towards a more "eugenic" state, while the Social Darwinists argued society itself would naturally "check" the problem of "dysgenics" if no welfare policies were in place (for example, the poor might reproduce more but would have higher mortality rates).

The United States was home to a large eugenics movement in the 1890s. Beginning with Connecticut, in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws with eugenic criteria, prohibiting anyone who was "epileptic, imbecile, or feeble-minded" from marrying. In 1898, Charles B. Davenport, a prominent American biologist, began as director of a biological research station based in Cold Spring Harbor, where he experimented with evolution in plants and animals. In 1904, Davenport received funds from the Carnegie Institution to found the Station for Experimental Evolution. The Eugenics Record Office opened in 1910, while Davenport and Harry H. Laughlin began to promote eugenics.[4]

Though eugenics is today often associated with racism, it was not always so; both W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey supported eugenics or ideas resembling eugenics as a way to reduce African American suffering and improve their stature.[5] Many legal methods of eugenics include state laws against miscegenation or prohibitions of interracial marriage. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned those state laws in 1967, and declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.

During the twentieth century, researchers became interested in the idea that mental illness could run in families and conducted a number of studies to document the heritability of such illnesses as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and clinical depression. Their findings were used by the eugenics movement as proof for its cause. State laws were written in the late 1800s and early 1900s to prohibit marriage and force sterilization of the mentally ill in order to prevent the "passing on" of mental illness to the next generation. These laws were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927, and were not abolished until the mid-twentieth century. By 1945, over 45,000 mentally ill individuals in the United States had been forcibly sterilized.

With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, eugenicists for the first time played a central role in the Congressional debate as expert advisers on the threat of "inferior stock" from eastern and southern Europe. This reduced the number of immigrants from abroad to 15 percent of previous years, to control the number of "unfit" individuals entering the country. The new act strengthened existing laws prohibiting race mixing in an attempt to maintain the gene pool.[6] Eugenic considerations also lay behind the adoption of incest laws in much of the U.S. and were used to justify many antimiscegenation laws.[7]

Some states sterilized "imbeciles" for much of the twentieth century. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case that the state of Virginia could sterilize those it thought unfit. The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States.[8] A favorable report on the results of sterilization in California, by far the state with the most sterilizations, was published in book form by the biologist Paul Popenoe and was widely cited by the Nazi government as evidence that wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane. When Nazi administrators went on trial for war crimes in Nuremberg after World War II, they justified the mass sterilizations (over 450,000 in less than a decade) by citing the United States as their inspiration.[9]

Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler was infamous for eugenics programs which attempted to maintain a "pure" German race through a series of programs that ran under the banner of "racial hygiene." Among other activities, the Nazis performed extensive experimentation on live human beings to test their genetic theories, ranging from simple measurement of physical characteristics to the horrific experiments carried out by Josef Mengele for Otmar von Verschuer on twins in the concentration camps. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazi regime forcibly sterilized hundreds of thousands of people whom they viewed as mentally and physically "unfit," an estimated 400,000 between 1934 and 1937. The scale of the Nazi program prompted American eugenics advocates to seek an expansion of their program, with one complaining that "the Germans are beating us at our own game."[10] The Nazis went further, however, killing tens of thousands of the institutionalized disabled through compulsory "euthanasia" programs.[11]

They also implemented a number of "positive" eugenics policies, giving awards to "Aryan" women who had large numbers of children and encouraged a service in which "racially pure" single women were impregnated by SS officers (Lebensborn). Many of their concerns for eugenics and racial hygiene were also explicitly present in their systematic killing of millions of "undesirable" people including Jews, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals during the Holocaust (much of the killing equipment and methods employed in the death camps were first developed in the euthanasia program). The scope and coercion involved in the German eugenics programs along with a strong use of the rhetoric of eugenics and so-called "racial science" throughout the regime created an indelible cultural association between eugenics and the Third Reich in the postwar years.[12]

After the experience of Nazi Germany, many ideas about "racial hygiene" and "unfit" members of society were publicly renounced by politicians and members of the scientific community. The Nuremberg Trials against former Nazi leaders revealed to the world many of the regime's genocidal practices and resulted in formalized policies of medical ethics and the 1950 UNESCO statement on race. Many scientific societies released their own similar "race statements" over the years, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, developed in response to abuses during the Second World War, was adopted by the United Nations in 1948, and affirmed, "Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family."[13] In continuation, the 1978 UNESCO declaration on race and racial prejudice states that the fundamental equality of all human beings is the ideal toward which ethics and science should converge.[14]

In reaction to Nazi abuses, eugenics became almost universally reviled in many of the nations where it had once been popular (however, some eugenics programs, including sterilization, continued quietly for decades). Many pre-war eugenicists engaged in what they later labeled "crypto-eugenics," purposefully taking their eugenic beliefs "underground" and becoming respected anthropologists, biologists, and geneticists in the postwar world (including Robert Yerkes in the U.S. and Otmar von Verschuer in Germany). Californian eugenicist Paul Popenoe founded marriage counseling during the 1950s, a career change which grew from his eugenic interests in promoting "healthy marriages" between "fit" couples.[15]

High school and college textbooks from the 1920s through the 1940s often had chapters touting the scientific progress to be had from applying eugenic principles to the population. Many early scientific journals devoted to heredity in general were run by eugenicists and featured eugenics articles alongside studies of heredity in nonhuman organisms. After eugenics fell out of scientific favor, most references to eugenics were removed from textbooks and subsequent editions of relevant journals. Even the names of some journals changed to reflect new attitudes. For example, Eugenics Quarterly became Social Biology in 1969 (the journal still exists today, though it looks little like its predecessor). Notable members of the American Eugenics Society (192294) during the second half of the twentieth century included Joseph Fletcher, originator of Situational ethics; Dr. Clarence Gamble of the Procter & Gamble fortune; and Garrett Hardin, a population control advocate and author of The Tragedy of the Commons.

Despite the changed postwar attitude towards eugenics in the U.S. and some European countries, a few nations, notably, Canada and Sweden, maintained large-scale eugenics programs, including forced sterilization of mentally handicapped individuals, as well as other practices, until the 1970s. In the United States, sterilizations capped off in the 1960s, though the eugenics movement had largely lost most popular and political support by the end of the 1930s.[16]

Despite the ill repute of eugenics, there still exists a debate regarding its use or abuse.

While the science of genetics has increasingly provided means by which certain characteristics and conditions can be identified and understood, given the complexity of human genetics, culture, and psychology, there is at this point no agreed objective means of determining which traits might be ultimately desirable or undesirable. Eugenic manipulations that reduce the propensity for criminality and violence, for example, might result in the population being enslaved by an outside aggressor it can no longer defend itself against. On the other hand, genetic diseases like hemochromatosis can increase susceptibility to illness, cause physical deformities, and other dysfunctions. Eugenic measures against many of these diseases are already being undertaken in societies around the world, while measures against traits that affect more subtle, poorly understood traits, such as criminality, are relegated to the realm of speculation and science fiction. The effects of diseases are essentially wholly negative, and societies everywhere seek to reduce their impact by various means, some of which are eugenic in all but name.

In modern bioethics literature, the history of eugenics presents many moral and ethical questions. Commentators have suggested the new "eugenics" will come from reproductive technologies that will allow parents to create so-called "designer babies" (what the biologist Lee M. Silver prominently called "reprogenetics"). It has been argued that this "non-coercive" form of biological "improvement" will be predominantly motivated by individual competitiveness and the desire to create "the best opportunities" for children, rather than an urge to improve the species as a whole, which characterized the early twentieth century forms of eugenics. Because of this non-coercive nature, lack of involvement by the state, and a difference in goals, some commentators have questioned whether such activities are eugenics or something else altogether.

Some disability activists argue that, although their impairments may cause them pain or discomfort, what really disables them as members of society is a sociocultural system that does not recognize their right to genuinely equal treatment. They express skepticism that any form of eugenics could be to the benefit of the disabled considering their treatment by historical eugenic campaigns.

James D. Watson, the first director of the Human Genome Project, initiated the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Program (ELSI) which has funded a number of studies into the implications of human genetic engineering (along with a prominent website on the history of eugenics), because:

In putting ethics so soon into the genome agenda, I was responding to my own personal fear that all too soon critics of the Genome Project would point out that I was a representative of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory that once housed the controversial Eugenics Record Office. My not forming a genome ethics program quickly might be falsely used as evidence that I was a closet eugenicist, having as my real long-term purpose the unambiguous identification of genes that lead to social and occupational stratification as well as genes justifying racial discrimination.[17]

Distinguished geneticists including Nobel Prize-winners John Sulston ("I don't think one ought to bring a clearly disabled child into the world")[18] and Watson ("Once you have a way in which you can improve our children, no one can stop it")[19] support genetic screening. Which ideas should be described as "eugenic" are still controversial in both public and scholarly spheres. Some observers such as Philip Kitcher have described the use of genetic screening by parents as making possible a form of "voluntary" eugenics.[20]

Some modern subcultures advocate different forms of eugenics assisted by human cloning and human genetic engineering, sometimes even as part of a new cult (see Ralism, Cosmotheism, or Prometheism). These groups also talk of "neo-eugenics." "conscious evolution," or "genetic freedom."

Behavioral traits often identified as potential targets for modification through human genetic engineering include intelligence, clinical depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, sexual behavior (and orientation), and criminality.

In a 2005 United Kingdom court case, the Crown v. James Edward Whittaker-Williams, arguably set a precedent of banning sexual contact between people with "learning difficulties." The accused, a man suffering learning disabilities, was jailed for kissing and hugging a woman with learning disabilities. This was done under the 2003 Sexual Offences Act, which redefines kissing and cuddling as sexual and states that those with learning difficulties are unable to give consent regardless of whether or not the act involved coercion. Opponents of the act have attacked it as bringing in eugenics through the backdoor under the guise of a requirement of "consent."[21]

A common criticism of eugenics is that it inevitably leads to measures that are unethical. In the hypothetical scenario where it's scientifically proven that one racial minority group making up 5 percent of the population is on average less intelligent than the majority racial group it's more likely that the minority racial group will be submitted to a eugenics program, opposed to the five percent least intelligent members of the population as a whole. For example, Nazi Germany's eugenic program within the German population resulted in protests and unrest, while the persecution of the Jews was met with silence.

Steven Pinker has stated that it is "a conventional wisdom among left-leaning academics that genes imply genocide." He has responded to this "conventional wisdom" by comparing the history of Marxism, which had the opposite position on genes to that of Nazism:

But the twentieth century suffered "two" ideologies that led to genocides. The other one, Marxism, had no use for race, didn't believe in genes and denied that human nature was a meaningful concept. Clearly, it's not an emphasis on genes or evolution that is dangerous. It's the desire to remake humanity by coercive means (eugenics or social engineering) and the belief that humanity advances through a struggle in which superior groups (race or classes) triumph over inferior ones.[22]

Richard Lynn has argued that any social philosophy is capable of ethical misuse. Though Christian principles have aided in the abolition of slavery and the establishment of welfare programs, he notes that the Christian church has also burned many dissidents at the stake and waged wars against nonbelievers in which Christian crusaders slaughtered large numbers of women and children. Lynn argued the appropriate response is to condemn these killings, but believing that Christianity "inevitably leads to the extermination of those who do not accept its doctrines" is unwarranted.[23]

Eugenic policies could also lead to loss of genetic diversity, in which case a culturally accepted improvement of the gene pool may, but would not necessarily, result in biological disaster due to increased vulnerability to disease, reduced ability to adapt to environmental change and other factors both known and unknown. This kind of argument from the precautionary principle is itself widely criticized. A long-term eugenics plan is likely to lead to a scenario similar to this because the elimination of traits deemed undesirable would reduce genetic diversity by definition.

Related to a decrease in diversity is the danger of non-recognition. That is, if everyone were beautiful and attractive, then it would be more difficult to distinguish between different individuals, due to the wide variety of ugly traits and otherwise non-attractive traits and combinations thereof that people use to recognize each other.

The possible elimination of the autism genotype is a significant political issue in the autism rights movement, which claims autism is a form of neurodiversity. Many advocates of Down Syndrome rights also consider Down Syndrome (Trisomy-21) a form of neurodiversity, though males with Down Syndrome are generally infertile.

In some instances, efforts to eradicate certain single-gene mutations would be nearly impossible. In the event the condition in question was a heterozygous recessive trait, the problem is that by eliminating the visible unwanted trait, there are still as many genes for the condition left in the gene pool as were eliminated according to the Hardy-Weinberg principle, which states that a population's genetics are defined as pp+2pq+qq at equilibrium. With genetic testing it may be possible to detect all of the heterozygous recessive traits, but only at great cost with the current technology. Under normal circumstances it is only possible to eliminate a dominant allele from the gene pool. Recessive traits can be severely reduced, but never eliminated unless the complete genetic makeup of all members of the pool was known, as aforementioned. As only very few undesirable traits, such as Huntington's disease, are dominant, the practical value for "eliminating" traits is quite low.

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10 of The World’s Most Bizarre Cults – EListMania

10 of The Worlds Most Bizarre Cults

Cults are eerie and carry weird practices which are not welcomed in the day to day routine of the average human being who lives a normal life. A cult can be extreme in nature with rituals that are beyond bizarre to say the least. The followers in certain cases have been known to pay the ultimate price by giving their lives for a belief fabricated by their charismatic ascetics and leaders. Heres a list of some of the worlds most bizarre cults.

The Ordo Templi Orientis(O.T.O), also known as the Order of the Temple of the East and Order of Oriental Templers, is a fraternal international and religious group which was created in the beginning of the 20th century. Aleister Crowley, an English author and a known Satanist occultist is one of the most renowned members of the order.

Initially the cult was anticipated to be modeled after and connected to Freemasonry, a form of a Gnostic Order, however, under the headship of Aleister Crowley; O.T.O has been documented around the Law of Thelma as its fundamental religious principal. This law is expressed as Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law and Love is the law, love under will. These laws for the cult were promulgated in 1904 with the dictation of The Book of the Law.

The O.T.O is well known for practicing Black Magic. The creepy cult is branded to include sexual rituals that are both heterosexual and homosexual in nature. Many of the practices that O.T.O teaches are related to magical orders which enlighten the system of Masonic style of sexual magic. However, the O.T.O still restricts access to its inner secrets. The controversial book, Secret Rituals of the O.T.O, was withdrawn from print by the publisher after receiving a threat of legal action by the O.T.O. Nevertheless, as there has been a growing interest in the writings of Aleister Crowley, his work has been reprinted due to which various new societies have come into existence and have modeled themselves as the new generation of O.T.O.

The Aghori or Aghouri is a Hindu cult that is considered to have split off from the Kapalika order in the fourteenth century AD. Many Hindus condemn the Aghorias non-Hindu due to their cannibalistic rituals. The streets of northern Indian cities are littered with followers of this cult carrying a kapala, which is a cup made from a skull! These bizarre people will eat anything from rotten food to animal faeces. In order to achieve the highest citadel of enlightenment, the Aghori will perform horrendously crude rituals. The finality of their rituals is attained from eating the decaying flesh of a human.

According to Hindu mythology and practiced beliefs, everything emanates from Brahman. Therefore, there is no evil. The Aghori believe everything to be god itself and to abandon anything would be equivalent of abandoning god. This is the bizarre philosophy followed by the Aghori Babas.

The roots of the Aghori date back to ancient times. An Aghori ascetic who went by the name of Kinaram is responsible for the present-day rituals and beliefs of the cult. Since the Aghori worship lord Shiva with all their fervor, they believe that Kinaram was a reincarnation of lord Shiva.

The Aghori cult dwells on cremation grounds, daubing themselves with the ashes of the corpses and eating from a cranial begging bowl or a kapala. Many Aghori opt to roam around baring all. This is their representation of their detachment from the ways of life that normal people abide by. A strong belief which surrounds them is that by doing so they are above and beyond the normal worldly emotions of human beings.

Ralism is a UFO cult that was formed in 1974 by Claude Vorilhon. The cult is famous for believing that all life on Earth was formed in scientific labs by species of extraterrestrials. Members of this species materialized into the human form when having personal contacts with the humans that they created. They believe that these species were mistaken for angels, cherubim or gods. The cult fervently believes in scientifically advanced humanoid extraterrestrials known by our archaic ancestors as Elohim (meaning: those who came from the sky).

Ralism has been described as the largest UFO religion in the world. Ralism mainly focuses on the social ideology of sexual self-determination, individualism and humanitarianism. Some of the women, who are members of this cult, are strong advocates of refinement and erotic sensualistic activities. They participate in groups within such as Raels Girls and the Order of Angels.

Furthermore, the Ralians believe that the Elohim will visit the Earth authoritatively when more than half of the worlds population is peaceful and come to know about them. They also believe that this has been foretold in nearly all the religious texts as the predicted Age of Apocalypse or Revelation.

From time to time extremely bizarre and weird cults are born. One baffling insertion in the list of bizarre cults is the Sect of the Gadget Hackwrench. The members of this cult believe in a Disney cartoon that is Gadget Hackwrenchfrom the famous the Disneys Rescue Ranger TV show,as being a divine being. She is considered to be the most untouched and perfect sibling of the great god on Earth. The members of the Gadget Hackwrench cult fervently believe that she is some sort of a goddess. They consider her to be firm, adorable and sanguine and that her degree of technical knowledge is practically unachievable for any existing mortal being. These are just a few of the testimonies of the sect followers.

What is completely bizarre is the fact that this hero or goddess that they believe in is a Disney cartoon. The members of the cult burn candles around a poster size image of the cartoon and chant to her to grant their wishes.

The philosophy of this cult revolves around the fact that it is a combination of every religion possible on the planet. The supposed scetic of the cult is Saint Germain. The founders Guy and Edna Ballard likened themselves to the Illuminati. Guy Ballard had supposedly met this Saint while on a trip to the Mount Shasta in California. It is believed that this cult was based on the premise of destroying the individuality of people. What makes it so creepy is the fact that this cult tries to manipulate the human mind into believing that one has the ability to become a millionaire over night only by using the power of the mind. In other words, proclaiming every follower to be a demigod himself. In the earlier part of the 20th century, the cult had more than a million followers. The followers were made to believe that Ballard was taken to a mystical place while on his trip to California and that his spirit went to a different realm, the realm of Saint Germain. Saint Germain is the main character of worship for the followers. His myths are strikingly hard to swallow. The reason for holding him in such high esteem was due to the fact that the founders claimed he was a direct descendant of Will-I-Am-Shaker-Spear (William Shakespeare), Rasputin and Merlin.

The Body of Christ is a diminutive authoritarian group that focuses on direct revelation and not the Bible for its direction. As of late this cult has been in the news as two children have died pointlessly. Samuel, the ten month old baby of the founders son, Jacques, died of malnutrition. The little baby was not fed, because the cult believed that they were going to get a sign from God to feed him. The other child who died was Jeremiah, son of Rebecca Corneau. The baby died shortly after the mother gave birth. The reason for the death of the baby has been attributed to the lack of medical care provided.

Ten years ago, Dennis Mingo a former member of the cult, left the group. He gave a diary to the police in which he described the deaths of the two babies in depth. Regardless of the effort the police has put into finding the bodies of the children, they have remained to be unsuccessful.

The cult denounces the seven systems of a conventional society. These primarily, include: education, government, banking, religion, medicine, science and entertainment. The members of the group have consistently denied any cooperation with civil and governmental authorities. They have also refused any forms of legal counsel. They have constantly been refusing to assert their primary constitutional right against self-incrimination. This bizarre cult expects that the world will soon erupt in outrageous violence and turmoil, and that they alone will be the sole survivors of the disaster that they predict.

This Japanese cult was created by Hogen Fukunaga. It is often referred to as the foot reading cult, as the founder of this cult believed that he could make a diagnosis by examining peoples feet. The group was created in 1987 after a supposed spiritual event where Fukunaga declared that he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and the Buddha.

The Ho Na Hana Sanpoygo cult had nearly 30,000 followers not so long ago. However, Fukunaga charged $900 for the foot readings and a widespread doubt arose that he used money to profit himself. He had been accused of bagging money from housewives which resulted in a massive disproof from the cults followers. Fukunaga had to pay over 200 million yen in damages to followers of the cult who had been swindled.

The Ho Na Hana Sanpoygo declared openly in court, to the people who stood against their practices that their only salvation was to go through the cults expensive training sessions and to buy lucky charms.

The Creativity Movement is a xenophobic and White-supremacist cult which advocates a religion known as the White Religion called Creativity. Though, in the contemporary sense, the cult is Anti-Christian, yet the Creativity Movement is a proxy of Positive Christianity. It is directed by elements of a pseudo-Christian racial mechanism. The cult also denies the Holocaust; it embraces racial neo-eugenics with a religious mission that is devoted to the survival, expansion and the advancement of the White Race completely.

The cult was founded as the Church of the Creator by Ben Klassen in 1973. In the summer of 1993, Klassen committed suicide. After the demise of its creator, Mathew F. Hale led the cult until his incarceration on 8th January, 2003 for scheming with an FBI informant Anthony Evola to murder a federal judge. On 22nd July, 2002, two of the cults followers were found guilty in a federal court of plotting to blow up Jewish and Black landmarks around the area of Boston. The prosecutors deemed this to be a scheme to spark a racial holy war by the cult.

A few of the 16 Commandments of Creativity include: It is our sacred goal to populate the lands of this earth with White people exclusively. Inferior colored races are our deadly enemies, and that the most dangerous of all is the Jewish race. Destroy and banish all Jewish thought and influence from society.

The Iglesia Maradoniana (Spanish for Maradonian Church) was founded by the fans of the retired Argentine footballer, Diego Maradona. The members of this cult believe Maradona to have been the best player of all time. On 30th October 1998, this cult was formed. The day also commemorated the 30th birthday of the athlete. The group held its first official meeting in the year 2001. Today, they reportedly have more than 80,000 members from 60 countries around the globe.

The formation of this cult can be viewed as a type of syncretism. Unlike other normal fan clubs, this cult has many rituals like naming their children Diego to literally worshipping him. Arguably the best footballer to have lived, he is officially a god in Argentina. The passion for the group between its different members is what glues them together. Supporters of the Maradonian Church, allegedly from all corners of the world, count the years since Maradonas birth in 1960. It is very popular amid the followers of this cult and also amongst other football fans, the use of neo-Tetragrammaton D10S as one of the names of Maradona. D10S is a portmanteau word which blends 10 (diez in Spanish), Maradonas shirt number and dios, the Spanish word for god. The cult has its own commandments, one of which states, Spread news of Dieogos miracles and apart from naming your son Diego, it is a commandment as well to change your middle name to Diego.

The cargo cult is primarily a religious practice and has had numerous followers over the years. The term cargo is aimed at obtaining the advancements in technology used in foreign cultures. The cargo cults are bizarre because they believe that the technological advancement man has made over the years is actually their property left to them by their ancestors. So your laptop basically belongs to one of the followers of the cargo cult. These cults thrived in the southwestern Pacific and New Guinea. A substantial increase in the followers came during World War II. Immense logistic support and manpower would throng these islands and hence their beliefs turned into reality. Once the war ended, the ascetics of the cult ordered building of false landing sites and military equipment, so as to keep the gods interested in sending goods their way. The most publicized and prolonged cult is that of John Frum. It started well before the war and still thrives in Tannu, a small Island of Vanuata.

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New eugenics – Wikipedia

New eugenics, also known as neo-eugenics, consumer eugenics, liberal eugenics, and libertarian eugenics, is an ideology that advocates the use of reproductive and genetic technologies where the choice of enhancing human characteristics and capacities is left to the individual preferences of parents acting as consumers, rather than the public health policies of the state. The term "liberal eugenics" was coined by bioethicist Nicholas Agar.[1] Since around the year 2000, criticism has risen preferring to call the theory "libertarian eugenics" because of its intention to keep the role of the state minimal in the advocated eugenics program.[2]

The term refers to an ideology of eugenics influenced by liberal theory and contrasted from the coercive state eugenics programs of the first half of the 20th century.[3] The sterilization of individuals alleged to have undesirable genes is the most controversial aspect of those programs.[1]

Historically, eugenics is often broken into the categories of positive (encouraging reproduction among the designated "fit") and negative (discouraging reproduction among the designated "unfit"). According to Edwin Black, many positive eugenic programs were advocated and pursued during the early 20th century, but the negative programs were responsible for the compulsory sterilization of hundreds of thousands of persons in many countries, and were contained in much of the rhetoric of Nazi eugenic policies of racial hygiene and genocide.[4] New eugenics belongs to the "positive eugenics" category allowing parents to select desirable traits in an unborn child.[5]

Dov Fox, a law professor at the University of San Diego, argues that liberal eugenics cannot be justified on the basis of the underlying liberal theory which inspires it. He introduces an alternative to John Rawls's social primary goods that might be called natural primary goods: heritable mental and physical capacities and dispositions that are valued across a range of projects and pursuits. He suggests that reprogenetic technologies like embryo selection, cellular surgery, and human genetic engineering, which aim to enhance "general purpose" traits in offspring are less like childrearing practices a liberal government leaves to the discretion of parents than like practices the state makes compulsory.[6]

Fox argues that if the liberal commitment to autonomy is important enough for the state to mandate childrearing practices such as health care and basic education, that very same interest is important enough for the state to mandate safe, effective, and functionally integrated genetic practices that act on analogous all-purpose traits such as resistance to disease and general cognitive functioning. He concludes that the liberal case for compulsory eugenics is a reductio ad absurdum against liberal theory.[6]

According to health care public policy analyst RJ Eskow, "libertarian eugenics" is the term that would more accurately describe the form of eugenics promoted by some notable proponents of liberal eugenics, in light of their strong opposition to even minimal state intervention in eugenic family planning, which would be expected of a social liberal state that assumes some responsibility for the welfare of its future citizens.[2]

The United Nations International Bioethics Committee wrote that liberal eugenics should not be confused with the ethical problems of the 20th century eugenics movements, but that it is still problematic because it challenges the idea of human equality and opens up new ways of discrimination and stigmatization against those who do not want or cannot afford the enhancements.[7]

Liberal eugenics is known as new eugenics, consumer eugenics, reprogenetics, or designer progeny. The connotations of liberal eugenics are negative due to the history of eugenics being associated with dark historical times. According to the Harvard Law Review, the eugenics of the early 20th century were part of a false scientific justification for racism, class-ism, and colonial subjugation falsely concerned with genetic fitness. The new model of eugenics of the 21st century, called liberal eugenics, allegedly advocates for genetic modification including the screening of genes that cause serious disabilities and engineering children to be born with more desirable physical and mental traits.[8] Liberal eugenics is aimed at "improving" the genotypes of future generations through screening and genetic modification to eliminate "undesirable" traits.

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New eugenics - Wikipedia

Free eugenics Essays and Papers – 123HelpMe

TitleLengthColor Rating Early 20th Century Eugenics as part of Modernism - As the sun was setting on the 19th century, a new theory, called eugenics was just beginning to rise. Eugenics is the idea that human mental, moral, temperamental and physiological traits are passed down through generations, and that society should attempt to foster the reproduction of those with favorable traits and discourage or eliminate those with less than favorable traits. In the early parts of the 20th century, eugenics was put into practice across the rich world. This increase, not only in popularity but in application is best viewed when part of the greater context of modernity.... [tags: Eugenics]:: 5 Works Cited 1047 words(3 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The History of Eugenics in America - Eugenics is the study of the agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally. After the major turn of the century, eugenics developed into a world- wide movement. (Vermont University, 2003) It was led by scientist and scholars in several diverse fields, and funded by wealthy philanthropists, also supported by statesmen. Eugenics played a very vital and central role in the political, social, and intellectual history of numerous diverse peoples and nations.... [tags: The Eugenics Movement]:: 5 Works Cited 2148 words(6.1 pages)Research Papers[preview] Eugenics: A Controversial Science - Eugenics has been a very controversial science that has existed in the world for centuries. Eugenics is defined as the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics)(Dictionary.com, 2005). Its base came from the idea that the human race could be perfected by getting rid of its undesirable traits and the desirable ones could be multiplied.... [tags: Eugenics Essays]1168 words(3.3 pages)Better Essays[preview] The Eugenics Movement - In the 1920s, a company in New York started a movement known as The Eugenics Movement. The idea of eugenics was eventually picked up by Germany, China, Peru, India and Bangladesh. The movement is still in effect till this day; however, it is not as prevalent as it once was. The beginning of the Eugenics Movement all started at Cold Spring Harbor, New York. The United States coined the term Eugenics from Great Britain in the early 1900s. In the year 1910, a man by the name of Charles B. Davenport founded the Eugenics Records Office (ERO).... [tags: Eugenics, ERO, sterilization]:: 3 Works Cited 1539 words(4.4 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Eugenics -Not the Way of the Future - Eugenics in the world today has become an issue because of its many positive uses furthermore its possible consequences. It is believed by many that eugenics does more harm than good, on the other hand there are exceptions; it is not the way of the future. There is no doubt that it could be extremely useful for preventing diseases such as cancer and others before we are even born. But, with this also comes the ability to give children genes before their born that will give them talent to run faster, jump higher, use more of their brain which will strictly discriminate them from the rest of society in a way where they will always stand out, the reason being is their extraordinary talents due... [tags: Eugenics, Genetic Engineering]722 words(2.1 pages)Good Essays[preview] The Ethics and Morality of Eugenics in Society - My research revolves around the ethics and morality of eugenics (Science of heredity and good breeding), and whether society should be in favor of influencing genetics in order to create a more favorable genetic pool. This topic interests me because I find great interest in political and cultural issues, and I have always been fascinated by whether eugenics would actually work and if governments should be in support of it. The sources I found were all scientific journals from credible books. I did this to because I needed to gain information on studies that have taken place in the name of eugenics as well as establish that eugenics is high priority within the scientific community.Taking this... [tags: disabled, eugenics, influencing genetics]:: 7 Works Cited 1598 words(4.6 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] The Three Stooges: Charles Darwin, Adolf Hitler and Margaret Sanger - Only the most imaginative mind could fathom the thought of human beings being selected or disregarded and even killed based on biological protocol. This scientific theory is responsible for the reproduction of superior genes through heredity by controversial means. This idea is based on the evolution of the human species or basically survival of the fittest. Charles Darwin who is the greatest known scientist to ever live popularized this theory and is responsible for the brutality and death of well over 100 million human beings.... [tags: Eugenics]:: 41 Works Cited 1299 words(3.7 pages)Strong Essays[preview] A Look at Eugenics - Introduction Eugenics is the conviction and practice of enhancing the hereditary nature of the human population. It is a social theory upholding the change of human hereditary qualities through the advancement of higher proliferation of individuals with coveted characteristics and decreased multiplication of individuals with less-wanted or undesired attributes. It alludes to the investigation of or faith in the likelihood of enhancing the characteristics of the human species or a human populace, especially by embracing varied hereditary qualities or pessimistic selective breeding.... [tags: Heredity Nature, Human Heredity Qualities]:: 4 Works Cited 1221 words(3.5 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The ethics of eugenics - The theory of eugenics has changed throughout time from its conception by Sir Francis Galton to its modern technological interpretation in the 21st century. The term has been embraced by Social Darwinists, Progressives, human genetic engineers, and Nazis, to just name a few. The theorys popularity has undergone cycles of approval and upheaval as it is a fairly conceptually fluid idea. Today its definition is still hazy, with both sides of its controversial spectrum debating what it really means.... [tags: Social Darwinists, Sir Francis Galton]:: 28 Works Cited 1675 words(4.8 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] The Misapplication of Eugenics - The concept of eugenics has to do with the belief or practice of improving the genetic quality of the human race (Eugenics 2010). The concept was first introduced by Francis Galton, a researcher who wished to apply Darwins theory of evolution to the human race. Much like many endeavors that start off with good intentions, the results of applying this concept in real life were gross crimes against humanity. The eugenics movement in the early 20th century perverted the original concept by employing morally objectionable techniques including forced sterilization, marriage restrictions, segregation, internment camps, and genocide (Black 2012).... [tags: Humans, Genetic Quality, Francis Galton]:: 4 Works Cited 1023 words(2.9 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The Downfall of Eugenics - In the twentieth-century politics has played a vital role in the way disease is perceived by the average person. Every aspect of disease became a political concern with eugenics publically taking on a major role in public policy. Giving credit to eugenics, many Americans began to worry more about their personal genetic traits as well as the traits that they may pass on to their children. Later society became interested with eugenics on a more community-oriented basis. The downfall of Eugenics came when reformers began to use it as a program of social control, promoting government intervention and coercion in human reproduction. Masturbation was once seen as degenerative disease that led... [tags: Medical Ethics]:: 4 Works Cited 1192 words(3.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Edwin Black's War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race - Edwin Black's War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race To the average American it seems unfathomable that US based research into the "scientific" practice of eugenics could have been the foundation and impetus for Hitler's Nazi genocide and atrocities. In addition, notions of racial superiority and the scientific quest for the development of a pure Aryan nation, both by the United States and foreign countries, particularly Germany, were funded and fueled by monies from such prominent families as the Rockefellers, Carnegies and Harriman's.... [tags: Edwin Black Eugenics Master Race Essays]1983 words(5.7 pages)Strong Essays[preview] What is Eugenics? - Introduction Eugenics is defined as a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed (1). The principles of eugenics have been used in many different countries for various reasons. In the United States, eugenics reached its peak in the pre-World War II period. It was believed that the most efficient way to deal with social problems, such as mental illness, poverty and crime, was to inhibit reproduction among people with such characteristics.... [tags: Science, Improving Hereditary Traits. Human]:: 20 Works Cited 1713 words(4.9 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] The Eugenics Movement - ... Both women selected Gregory Pincus to develop the contraceptive pill. Once the birth control pill was created, Pincus began collaborating with John Rock because the next step was to start human trials ("People & Events: Gregory Pincus"). The first study of the pill was conducted in 1954 (People & Events: The Pill and the Women's Liberation Movement). The test was successful, and showed a 100% effectiveness rate. Not a single woman who took part in the trials ovulated while taking the pill.... [tags: criminals, poverty, women, social class]2040 words(5.8 pages)Better Essays[preview] The Practice of Positive Eugenics - Since its inception in 1883, eugenics has long since been the subject of controversy and a forum for discussion on ethics and morality. Positive eugenics, defined as, "encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits," is considered a benevolent form of eugenics, but can be used for sinister purposes. Negative eugenics, officially defined as, "discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits," is perhaps the more well-known variety of eugenics, with notable examples such as the Holocaust and forced sterilization.... [tags: ethics and morality, reproduction]:: 13 Works Cited 1178 words(3.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Eugenics: Improving The Human Race? - The idea that one can improve the human race by careful selection of those who mate and produce offspring is called eugenics. It is better understood as the process of selective breeding can improve human society. The term eugenics is from the greek, meaning well-born. The idea of eugenics is to have a society be abundant with many wanted traits, during a movement called the melting pot where people tried to solve their problems with the use of technology. Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development, is the book in which Sir Francis Galton first mentioned the term eugenics.... [tags: Scientific Research ]:: 5 Works Cited 1135 words(3.2 pages)Better Essays[preview] Eugenics - Eugenics, the word that got its bad reputation years ago through an event that changed history: the Holocaust. First dubbed by Francis Galton in the 1880s, the word Eugenics stemmed from the words good and generation. (Eugenics-Meanings) Eugenics means the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population. This improvement is done through discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics); or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).... [tags: Genetic Engineering]:: 6 Works Cited 1552 words(4.4 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Eugenics - Taken from the Greek word eugenes meaning good in stock the term eugenics was coined in 1883 By Francis Galton (1822-1911). Today it is defined by the OED as Pertaining or adapted to the production of fine offspring, esp. in the human race. We will attempt to explain what eugenics was within in the context of its time and how it was to be applied to humans. We will also attempt to identify who its supporters were and the many different reasons why the eugenic doctrine appealed to them. The problem of what to do about the urban poor had been a continuing worry for the middle classes since the mid nineteenth century.... [tags: Sociology]2214 words(6.3 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Eugenics or Forced Sterilization Programs - Heredity: Like begets like. Eugenics or force sterilization programs were government policies that attempted to force people to undergo surgical sterilization, and also aim to assimilate any genetic deficiency (Keith 2011). The pseudo-science behind eugenics was based on a misconception of heredity that assumed that the deficient inevitably passed down their pathology to their progeny, and with this misconception, heredity became related to the crude term like begets like (Grekul 2008). This term was the foundation of what shaped the Eugenics movement into a dark and horrific period (McLaren 1990).... [tags: Sexual Sterilization Act, Canadian history]1630 words(4.7 pages)Better Essays[preview] The Eugenics Movement for Criminality - 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 societys flaws through the sterilization of the inferior. Due to an increased surge of criminality in many cities during the 1900s, eugenicists began to focus on the role of genes in determining criminal behavior.... [tags: genetics, violence, psychopathy]569 words(1.6 pages)Good Essays[preview] Eugenics: Solving Social Problems? - The melting pot was a movement to solve social problems of the population with the use of technology. Eugenics is the use of science to solve social problems. It is defined as the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits.... [tags: Scientific Research ]:: 9 Works Cited 1201 words(3.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Nazi Eugenics and Racial Hygiene - The Nazis perpetrated many horrors during the Holocaust. They enacted many cruel laws. They brainwashed millions into foolishly following them and believing their every word using deceitful propaganda tactics. They forced many to suffer doing embarrassing jobs and to live in crowded ghettos. They created mobile killing squads to exterminate their enemies. Finally, as part of The Final Solution to the Jewish Question, they made concentration and killing camps. Another thing the Nazis did was to use eugenics as another mean to micromanage the population.... [tags: Holocaust, Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler]:: 7 Works Cited 1198 words(3.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Eugenics: Man versus God - Eugenics: Man vs God The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it. -Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race Seven-foot, blonde haired, blue-eyed super-humans bearing the swastika and marching in perfect Aryan rhythm, bred to be smarter, stronger, superior. This is a typical image when people hear the word eugenics, but there are two distinct branches: negative eugenics, which looks at removing undesirables and degenerates from society, and positive eugenics, which looks to promote the positive hereditary traits within society.... [tags: improving genetic qualities of a population]974 words(2.8 pages)Strong Essays[preview] IVF and the New Eugenics - The addition of a child into a familys home is a happy occasion. Unfortunately, some families are unable to have a child due to unforeseen problems, and they must pursue other means than natural pregnancy. Some couples adopt and other couples follow a different path; they utilize in vitro fertilization or surrogate motherhood. The process is complicated, unreliable, but ultimately can give the parents the gift of a child they otherwise could not have had. At the same time, as the process becomes more and more advanced and scientists are able to predict the outcome of the technique, the choice of what child is born is placed in the hands of the parents.... [tags: Infertility]:: 8 Works Cited 1509 words(4.3 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Eugenics and Genetic Testing - 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.... [tags: Morality, Society, Science]1752 words(5 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Eugenics and Planned Parenthood - When one contemplates the concept of eugenics, few think of modern contraception and abortion when in reality they are one in the same. The American Eugenics Society, founded in 1923, proudly proclaimed that men with incurable conditions should be sterilized. However these conditions were often none that could be helped, such as, ones intelligence, race, and social class (Schweikart and Allen 529-532). The purpose of the society was to create the perfect class of men; elite in all ways.... [tags: Birth Control Movement]:: 12 Works Cited 1395 words(4 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Was Eugenics Ever Moral? - Eugenics is the study or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species. Sounds good, right. But the question here is, is it moral to sacrifice someones life or the ability for someone to create life in the name of science. Surely Francis Galton and Gregor Mendel thought so. In the nineteenth century, biology was at its peak. Charles Darwin, who just happens to be Galtons cousin, had just introduced his idea of survival of the fittest. Galton then took that thesis and dissected it.... [tags: human species, charles darwin]:: 7 Works Cited 1043 words(3 pages)Strong Essays[preview] International Eugenics - Throughout the history of international relations, the study of human diversity has held a key role in establishing the political principles and recognized shared culture that defines nationhood. Nations have traditionally been associated with a specific geographic location and political ideology, but they also have ethnical identifiers associated with this shared culture. These ethnical identifiers were thrust onto the world stage during the end of the nineteenth century with the introduction of the study of eugenics.... [tags: Sociology ]:: 13 Works Cited 1825 words(5.2 pages)Term Papers[preview] Social Darwinism: History of the Study of Eugenics - The study of eugenics has been around for many years. China has one of the leading birth control systems containing the one child policy and Eugenics. Eugenics is a system of improving human population by promoting the most socially desirable individuals to reproduce while preventing the socially undesirables from reproduction. Eugenics comes from the Greek word meaning good or well born. It is the belief that some people are genetically superior to others; and that one inherits their relatives mental and psychological traits.... [tags: one child policy, china]724 words(2.1 pages)Better Essays[preview] The Rise and Fall of the Eugnics Movement - Introduction According to Merriam-Webster.com, eugenics is defined as the theory dealing with the production or treatment of a fine, healthy race. Despite this seemingly innocent representation, eugenics is an extremely controversial science. Some even debate whether or not it is worthy of the label of science, or if its just a form of intellectual racism. Nevertheless, eugenics was greatly embraced and was behind a scientific and social revolution during the late 19th century through the Second World War.... [tags: A Historical Analysis of Eugenics]:: 10 Works Cited 3924 words(11.2 pages)Term Papers[preview] How the US introduced Eugenics to the World - Eugenics is defined as human improvement by genetic means to improve the hereditary qualities of a race or breed and it was coined by Francis Galton in 1869. Throughout history, the World has borne witness to such atrocities as genocide, where the roots of these movements have been to eliminate the undesirables to allow the strongest and purest an opportunity to thrive and exist. Many would believe that the eugenics movement first started in Europe when the Nazis tried to eradicate Jews, Gays, Gypsys or anyone else they deemed not a part of the master race dreamed up by Hitler.... [tags: sterilization, genetics, Germany, race]:: 10 Works Cited 1022 words(2.9 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Eugenics: America's Dark Past and Future - The idea of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed race is often credited to Adolf Hitler. The not as well-known part is that this idea was around before Hitler and actually was spread to Germany by eugenics scientists in the United States. In this paper we will look into the full history of eugenics and how the idea was spread across the world. Along the journey we will encounter many major donors that may be of surprise to some of us. Eugenics has been a dark presence in the history of America and will continue to be until real strides are made to end racism.... [tags: blonde-haired, blue-eyed race, hitler]:: 9 Works Cited 1460 words(4.2 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Genetic Engineering: Cloning: Dolly and Eugenics - Cloning is vital in American society because it will help us further our knowledge in genetics. Also cloning will make us realize how much scientists can actually accomplish knowing how to clone. Scientists were able to clone an animal in 1997. That accomplishment made all the scientists theories about cloning possible. It gave the scientists hope that one day they will maybe be able to clone a human because they were able to clone a mammal. Eugenics is also vital to American society. Eugenics is the practice of improving humans genetic quality of the human population as a whole.... [tags: dna, science, god]:: 13 Works Cited 1691 words(4.8 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Eugenics in America - Eugenics in America Eugenics profoundly impacted the culture of the twentieth century. Coined in 1893 by Sir Francis Galton, it studied the heredity and selection of favorable traits. Born out of the social tumults of the late nineteenth century, it represented the Western elites attempt to protect itself from so called inferior cultures of the colonies and new wave immigration. The late eighteenth century was a turbulent time throughout America. An influx of immigrants packed into massive cities such as New York and Chicago.... [tags: Sociology Essays Research Papers]710 words(2 pages)Better Essays[preview] Reprogenetics and Eugenics - Reprogenetics and Eugenics Advantages: Reprogenetics will enable parents to give their children genes that they themselves do not carry, thereby increasing their offspring's chances for health, longevity, happiness, and success -- this is an appalling prospect for many bio ethicists. Eugenics embodies the desire and attempts of a society's leaders to control the breeding practices of its citizens, including the forcible sterilization or murder of those deemed as carrying undesirable genes.... [tags: Papers]862 words(2.5 pages)Better Essays[preview] Eugenic Decision-Making - Eugenics is defined, in some way or the other, as the process of reshaping the human race by determining the kinds of people who will be born. As such, there is much debate in the field of eugenics, with authors, like Philip Kitcher, who support laissez-faire or a minimalist approach of eugenics in which eugenic decision-making should be limited only to avoid neurological illnesses and in which parental free choice is valued. Gregory Stocks essay, The Enhanced and Un-Enhanced, presents otherwise by supporting the position of maximalist eugenics, allowing individuals the full extent in the selection of genes.... [tags: Gattaca, Laissez-Faire, Maximalist Eugenics]1482 words(4.2 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The Understanding of Eugenics, and the Move Forward from Past Failures. - The Understanding of Eugenics, and the Move Forward from Past Failures. Eugenics, from the Greek word Eu-genes, which means well-born or of good stock, In 1869 was the name given to the work produced by scientist Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911). Sir Francis Galtons work was based primarily on the theories of biological evolution, first developed by Charles Darwin, and was published in his book The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 1859. Charles Darwin theorized that all species of life descended from common ancestors, and that natural selection had a profound effect by using selective breeding to enhance its worth.... [tags: Sir Francis Galton, Bilogical Evolution, Biology]:: 4 Works Cited 938 words(2.7 pages)Better Essays[preview] Atrocities Associated with the Eugenics Movement - Atrocities Associated with the Eugenics Movement Among the fears of many environmentalists is that of overpopulation. Acutely aware of the finite resources that the planet possesses and the limitations of renewable resources, there are concerns that the planet may soon reach its maximum caring capacity. Since the First Great Transition ten thousand years ago, the planet has experienced an astounding increase in population. Generations later, the planet is beginning to feel the effects of continual population expansion.... [tags: Exploratory Essays Research Papers]:: 4 Works Cited 1243 words(3.6 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Eugenics - The roots of eugenics can be traced back to Britain in the early 1880s when Sir Francis Galton generated the term from the Greek word for well-born. He defined eugenics as the science of improving stock, whether human or animal. According to the American Eugenics Movement, todays study of eugenics has many similarities to studies done in the early 20th century. Back then, Eugenics was, quite literally, an effort to breed better human beings by encouraging the reproduction of people with "good" genes and discouraging those with "bad" genes. (www.eugenicsarchive.org) According to Merriam-Webster, the modern day definition of eugenics is, a science that deals with t... [tags: essays research papers]1049 words(3 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Neo-Eugenics The Social and Biological Ethics of Designer Babies - Neoeugenics is the idea of new, neo, eugenics or a new way of creating a healthier race. Eugenics was first defined in the late 1800s by a man named Sir Francis Galton who said that it was basically the study of traits that will cause an advantage or disadvantage in the traits of future generations. Eugenics soon turned from being about the use of artificial selection of breeding to create a stronger species, to being about the advancement of certain races over others. When talking about neo eugenics, it is believed that it may turn into something similar to that of eugenics in that the use of artificial selection would now be used to bring the upper class higher in standards of health and... [tags: Healthier Reace, Future Generations]:: 2 Works Cited 1586 words(4.5 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Eugenics - Eugenics President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." The Civil War was fought to save the republic and free the enslaved. World War II was fought to save the world and stop a group which thought they were a superior race. What do these two wars have in common. They were fought, in part, for equality.... [tags: Papers]1119 words(3.2 pages)Good Essays[preview] Eugenics Should be Abolished - Eugenics Should be Abolished Since the end of the 19th century, eugenics has had a significant role in the development of Western society. There have been laws established by its presence and a war fought to cease its progress. To analyze the philosophy of and the actions due to eugenics, one must look at the past and see what contributions eugenics has made to events in history. One must also look at the present applications of eugenics and how they affect the lives of people. With these two directions, one can see that because it is racist, encourages immoral actions and is biologically unsound, eugenics is iniquitous and should be abolished from modern medical and political thought.... [tags: Papers]3259 words(9.3 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Ethics of Genocide and Eugenics - Gene Therapy: Genocide and Eugenics or Striving for a More Perfect Population Controversy and Ethics Just as there are different types of people who look at one glass of water and describe it as half full or half empty, the public has many different views on the future of our society. Gene therapy is also a glass that can be viewed in different angles different perspectives. Some say it has great potential to shape the ideals of our future, while others believe it signifies intolerance for disabilities, imperfections that supposedly deplete from a persons interests, opportunities and welfare (quoted by Peter Singer, xviii).... [tags: Biology Medical Biomedical Genetics]:: 2 Works Cited 1413 words(4 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Euthanasia Essay: Eugenics To Euthanasia - Eugenics To Euthanasia This essay presents the appeal which euthanasia has to modern society. What is this appeal based on. Is it a valid appeal. These and other questions are addressed in this paper. See if this story sounds familiar: A happily married couple - she is a pianist; he a rising scientist - have their love suddenly tested by a decline in the wife's health. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she falls victim to a steady loss of muscle control and paralysis. The desperate husband uses all his professional skills to save her.... [tags: Free Euthanasia Essay]:: 1 Works Cited 1001 words(2.9 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Genetic Engineering and Eugenics - Genetic Engineering and Eugenics The idea of genetic engineering has been a very heated topic of discussion lately. The possibilities of this topic range from cloning to gene therapy and eugenics. The most recent type, eugenics through gene therapy has created a lot of controversy. Eugenics is the study of how to improve human genetic heritage. This basically is the engineering of babies. The thought of these new designer babies raises many new questions. What are the consequences of these advances.... [tags: Exploratory Essays Research Papers]1108 words(3.2 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The American Eugenics Movement - The idea of eugenics was first introduced by Sir Francis Galton, who believed that the breeding of two wealthy and successful members of society would produce a child superior to that of two members of the lower class. This assumption was based on the idea that genes for success or particular excellence were present in our DNA, which is passed from parent to child. Despite the blatant lack of research, two men, Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Jon Alfred Mjoen, played to the white supremacists desires and claimed that white genes were inherently superior to other races, and with this base formed the first eugenics society.... [tags: essays research papers fc]:: 3 Works Cited 1421 words(4.1 pages)Strong Essays[preview] In Opposition of Eugenics and Human Embryo Research - In Opposition of Eugenics and Human Embryo Research There are a variety of views of eugenics and all that it entails. The definition of eugenics is "the science of improving the physical and mental qualities of human beings through control of the factors influencing heredity," ( Funk and Wagnall's, 1984). Others think eugenics is the social control of human genetic evolution, an ideology of racism and genocide, thought to improve society and halt disease while others think only of the Nazi Regime (Saetz, 1985 and McGee, 1997).... [tags: Argumentative Persuasive Essays]667 words(1.9 pages)Better Essays[preview] Ethical Complications of Genetic Engineering and Eugenics - Genetic engineering is currently the fastest growing and perhaps most controversial field of science. Genetic engineering is decoding and manipulating DNA to use for scientific and medical purposes. "The discovery that human cells can be grown in a petri dish has opened up breathtaking possibilities for curing disease - and a morass of ethical complications" (Allen 9). Genetic engineering has already started to be most helpful in the field of medicine. The map of the human genome offers many cures and potentially successful medical procedures.... [tags: Exploratory Essays Research Papers]:: 6 Works Cited 3149 words(9 pages)Strong Essays[preview] To What Extent are American Scientist and Institutions Responsible for Nazi Eugenics? - During Adolf Hitlers reign many American companies and scientist contributed towards advances in eugenic studies, are they to blame for the atrocities that occurred in the Second World War. It started in the late 1800s by Francis Galton who believed that to raise the present miserably low standard of the human race breeding the best with the best had to happen. Although the United States had a large amount of involvement, many European scientists and governments aided the research. In the late 1800s many rich businessmen and prior slave owners were most likely upset as slavery had been abolished, so through science they wanted to make Africans and Asians an inferior race.... [tags: adolf hitler, second world war, racism]:: 7 Works Cited 1043 words(3 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Josef Mengele and The Inhumane Experiments in Auschwitz - He cut into me, without anesthetic, . . .The pain was indescribable. I felt every slice of the knife. Then I saw my kidney pulsating in his hand. I cried like a madman, I cried out the prayer; Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one . . . And I prayed to die, that I might not suffer this agony any more (Hall). This was said by a patient of Dr. Josef Mengele, Mr.Yitzhak Ganon. Mr. Ganon was of the survivors of the inhumane experiments that took place in Auschwitz by the hand of the abominable man that is Josef Mengele.... [tags: angel of death, evil, eugenics]:: 10 Works Cited 1323 words(3.8 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The Humanities of Science - The philosophy of science is to improve our knowledge about the world and how our bodies behave to enhance our well-being. Science has aid us in many ways such as increasing our lifespan, improving medicine, and advancing technology. Provided that the government of Canada and Quebec want to improve the quality of life for its people and encourage the growth of scientific discoveries, they should invest in scientific research that will continue to expand our knowledge and use that newly acquired knowledge to continue improving our quality of life.... [tags: lifespan, medicine, technology, eugenics]817 words(2.3 pages)Better Essays[preview] Stereotypes where the Mentally Handicapped People are Ignorant - In history, stereotypes in society have been negative towards people with disabilities and that often led to discrimination. Colonial Americans, in the 1700s, referred to people with handicaps as lunatics. Lunatic by todays definition is someone crazy or insane. However, the root word, lunar, means, moons. Back then, people thought that a full moon had something to do with the mental illness that the child was born with. Some thought that the baby could be affected by being conceived, being born under, or sleeping in the light of a full moon.... [tags: disabilities, lunatic, eugenics]627 words(1.8 pages)Better Essays[preview] Eugenics: An Excuse To Be A Racist Or A Means To A Better Tomorrow? - Eugenics: An Excuse to be a Racist or a Means to a Better Tomorrow. The term eugenics was coined in the late 19th century. Its goal was to apply the breeding practices and techniques used in plants and animals to human reproduction. Francis Galton stated in his Essays in Eugenics that he wished to influence "the useful classes" in society to put more of their DNA in the gene pool. The goal was to collect records of families who were successful by virtue of having three or more adult male children who have gain superior positions to their peers.... [tags: essays research papers]1102 words(3.1 pages)Strong Essays[preview] American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism - American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism Works Cited Missing Nancy Ordover argues that current attempts to regulate marginalized social groups are eugenicist movements couched in new language. While "today, the preoccupation with immigrant fertility is couched in concerns over expenditures rather than in classic eugenicist worries over the depletion of the national gene pool" (54), that supposed strain on the national economy presented by immigration is still located in immigrant's reproduction, although it is less frequently explicitly the "whiteness" of the nation that is threatened.... [tags: Sociology Sociological Essays]1123 words(3.2 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Methods of Experimentation and Research in the Natural Sciences that are Limited due to Ethical Considerations - The production of knowledge, the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject (New Oxford), has constantly been accomplished throughout the history of man as a result of the characteristics of creativity and curiosity. These attributes, besides ethics, have set humans apart from the other species allowing for constant and rapid development. According to (Rest), an ethical judgment is the process by which an individual determines that one alternative is morally right and another alternative is morally wrong.... [tags: eugenics, animal testing, ethical judgement]:: 8 Works Cited 1459 words(4.2 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Altering Human Genome - Altering Human Genome The gene pool could use a little chlorine. -Bumper Sticker Consider Gods handiwork; who can straighten what He hath made crooked? -Ecclesiastes 7:13, from Gattaca I not only think that we will tamper with Mother Nature. I think Mother wants us to. -Willard Gaylin, from Gattaca With the scientific breakthroughs of the recent decades the humans have become more powerful than ever in their mastery of Nature. The genetic engineering that allows extracting and modifying the genetic makeup of the future person or animal is in a sense the power of Creation.... [tags: Eugenics Genetics Science Essays]:: 14 Works Cited 1425 words(4.1 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Genetic Engineering: Pros and Cons - Our world has finally begun its long-predicted descent into the depths of chaos. We may not yet realize it, but more and more problems plague the very state of our humanity with each passing day, such as cancer, famine, genetic disorders, and social elitism. It seems as though there is little hope, although a new solution has finally emerged, in the form of genetic engineering. It is apparent, however, that currently we cannot proceed, because while there are an abundant amount of advantages to genetic engineering, it is not a utopian process; criticism includes its practicality, theological implications, and changes in modern social structure.... [tags: Eugenics, Ethics]:: 5 Works Cited 1212 words(3.5 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Allegiance and Loyalty to Totaltarian Society in The Anthem by Ayn Rand - Totalitarian societies include government control over every part of life of the people in that society. The government often has a ruler who is a dictator and has absolute control over the public and private life of the citizens. The leaders of these societies, both real and fictionalized, enforce the rule that children have to live apart from their families because they want loyalty and allegiance to the government, collectivism among the people, and the practice of eugenics. Allegiance to the government is the most important factor in totalitarian societies because it helps dictatorial leaders manipulate the people of the society.... [tags: governement, eugenic, collectivism]629 words(1.8 pages)Better Essays[preview] History and culture of Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let me Go uses a dystopian fantasy world to illustrate the author's view that our real world practice of eugenics is as equally immoral and degrading as the world he describes. The eugenic-soaked world of Never Let me Go is dystopian, and our real world, with its quiet adoption of 'soft' eugenics, is equally dystopian. Ishiguro's point is that utopia can never be attained in either realm if it contains the contagion of eugenics. By depicting unfair struggles that eugenics rigged "pre-destination" imposes on his oh so human characters, Ishiguro portrays the Eugenist's utopian wet dream as a nightmarish perversion of humanity's social contract.... [tags: Literature]:: 1 Works Cited 1330 words(3.8 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Trying to Improve the Human Race by Controlling Reproduction - Trying to Improve the Human Race by Controlling Reproduction THE idea of "Natural Equality" is one of the most deluded ideas that have ever afflicted itself upon mankind. It is simply a figment of the human imagination. Nature knows no equality. She thrives on the idea of the survival of the fittest. The exact definition of eugenics is "The study of methods to improve the human race by controlling reproduction." Therefor eugenics is a pseudo science. It is about the selective prevention or encouragement of births for social, racial, or political ends.... [tags: Papers]390 words(1.1 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Review of a Website - If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday, quoted Pearl Buck. Most everyone has a time in their life where history becomes important to them. Whether that be tracing back family heritage, writing a research essay, or just out of curiosity. All and all, history is very influential to peoples lives and what better way to learn about history then to visit the website Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement. This credible website offers an opportunity for the public to learn more about our American history in an interactive and creative way.... [tags: Website Review, Reliable Sources]973 words(2.8 pages)Better Essays[preview] Role of Doctors Under Nazis - Role of Doctors in Nazis Racial Hygiene Germany was out to establish a new utopian world order where everything worked in harmony. They wanted to become a healthy and vibrant organism of healthy Aryans. The German doctors were mobilized to create this new world. The German bureaucrats believed all their social burdens were brought on by the handicapped, incurables and homosexuals as well as the Jews and gypsies. The physicians were to use all their medical knowledge and scientific expertise in the treatment for their new world.... [tags: essays research papers fc]:: 2 Works Cited 2232 words(6.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Genetic Engineering in Humans - Author Chuck Klosterman said, The simple truth is that were all already cyborgs more or less. Our mouths are filled with silver. Our nearsighted pupils are repaired with surgical lasers. We jam diabetics full of delicious insulin. Almost 40 percent of Americans now have prosthetic limbs. We see to have no qualms about making post-birth improvements to our feeble selves. Why are we so uncomfortable with pre-birth improvement? Despite Klostermans accurate observation, there are reasons people are wearisome toward pre-birth enhancement.... [tags: Genetic Engineering ]859 words(2.5 pages)Better Essays[preview] The High Cost of Genetic Engineering - The High Cost of Genetic Engineering Genetic research on human embryos, in correlation with the human genome, is the key to gene therapy, genetic diagnosis, and even to genetically engineered human beings. Knowing which gene controls what trait and causes what genetic disease will arm doctors with a powerful tool to treat their patients at the molecular level. On the other hand, this allows people to possibly manipulate genes to enhance specific traits or create the perfect baby. Genetic research on human embryos has two implications. A practical one in therapeutic research (to detect, and hopefully correct gene flaws), and then the potentiality of allowing parents to decide how the... [tags: Persuasive Argumentative Essay Examples]:: 9 Works Cited 1197 words(3.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] An Enhanced Genotype: Ethical Issues Involved with Genetic Engineering and their Impact as Revealed by Brave New World - An Enhanced Genotype: Ethical Issues Involved with Genetic Engineering and their Impact as Revealed by Brave New World Human society always attempts to better itself through the use of technology. Thus far, as a species, we have already achieved much: mastery of electronics, flight, and space travel. However, the field in which the most progress is currently being made is Biology, specifically Genetic Engineering. In Aldous Huxleys Brave New World, humanity has taken control of reproduction and biology in the same way that we have mastered chemistry and physics.... [tags: Genetic Engineering ]:: 6 Works Cited 2288 words(6.5 pages)Term Papers[preview] History And Procedures of Gene Therapy - The History And Procedures of Gene Therapy Abstract: Over the course of history there has been the idea of gene therapy has inspired many great scientists. The history of eugenics is important to the history of gene therapy because it is how gene therapy originated. Eugenics has driven many people to take extreme measures to try and make a better human race, this includes the Nazi party and the movement in the 1930s inspired by Francis Galton. After that, research in eugenics continued and the human genome project sprung from the minds of scientists.... [tags: Biology Medical Biomedical Genetics]:: 2 Works Cited 1810 words(5.2 pages)Term Papers[preview] The indoctrination of the Concept of Racial Hygiene: The Begining of t - The Indoctrination of the Concept of Racial Hygiene: The Beginning of the End The idea of biological degeneration had been studied by doctors, psychiatrists, and scientists many decades before the 1930s and the Nazi regime were ever in power. The idea that the integrity of populations was being undermined by behaviors of alcoholism, criminality, or mental deficiency was a topic for researchers before anyone even knew who Adolf Hitler was. In this essay I will discuss the evolution of a concept that would become known as racial hygiene.... [tags: essays research papers fc]:: 2 Works Cited 2296 words(6.6 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Engineering the Perfect Human - For centuries, mankind has been fascinated by the idea of perfection. In recent decades, the issue has been raised regarding the perfect human and whether scientists are able to engineer and create this. Attempts have been made in the past to engineer this said perfect human, through eugenics and scientific racism, but until now, these attempts have been ineffective. Only now, with modern technology, are scientists able to make more significant progress in altering the human genome to the produce desired characteristics of perfection.... [tags: Genetic Engineering ]:: 21 Works Cited 1831 words(5.2 pages)Term Papers[preview] Whats Genetic Engineering? - You are unique. Born into a family, you are the culmination of months worth of waiting and patience from your parents. The moment you are born may very well be the best day of their lives. Though you may not be very respectful at times, they still love you just as much as they did before. If they could change you thoughif they could have put you together before you were bornwould they. In the society of today, technology and human intellect are increasing at an astonishing rate. While the two may be equal at this moment, there will come a time where technology will overtake human intellect and may very well change the way we look at society today more than it ever has before.... [tags: biotechnology, scientific breakthroughs]:: 9 Works Cited 1281 words(3.7 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The Truth Behind The Holocaust - The twentieth century was a time of change. With two world wars occurring within roughly three decades, it was no surprise that society became forever changed. These two world wars, however, resulted in perhaps one of the most significant and catastrophic events in history - the Holocaust. The Holocaust saw about six million Jews killed by command of German dictator Adolf Hitler. Despite resulting from World War II, however, Hitlers massive genocide of European Jews was planned before the Second World War, and therefore was intentionalism, because of the blame from post-World War I Germany, the twentieth century movement of eugenics as a racial hygiene, and the actions to exterminate Jews... [tags: adolf hitler, nazis, treaty of versailles,germany]:: 9 Works Cited 1675 words(4.8 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] A Comparison of Myself to Adolf Hitler - Struggle is the father of all things. It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle. If you do not fight, life will never be won. (Hitler) For most of the world, Adolf Hitler's name is synonymous with thoughts of hatred, criminality, and pure evil. Although he is responsible for the greatest genocide known to humanity, Hitler is now known to be one of the most influential World leaders weve ever known.... [tags: Essay About Myself]:: 5 Works Cited 1230 words(3.5 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Atwood's Oryx and Crake: Chaos Then, Chaos Now, Chaos Later - One brilliant man alone tore down the world, in an attempt to create the perfect people. Instead of creating his ideal world, he created utter chaos, where the number of healthy and living humans fell rapidly. After the complete disorder came to an end, destruction and damage were not the only remnants left behind. A new world was begun with the end of the human race and the birth of the perfect race, which was made up of creatures of flawlessness and excellence. Margaret Atwood tells a story of an end, revolving in the time of a society of the future.... [tags: Literature]:: 6 Works Cited 1489 words(4.3 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Perfect Society: The Effects of Human Genetic Engineering - Many citizens strive to make our society a better one for everyone. By attempting to filter out genetic inferiorities, many believed there were positive effects to the idea of eugenics. Many historic eugenicists thought society would be better by preventing the births of people afflicted with these inheritable diseases. This sterilization movement was very flawed in the early 20th century. Much of the data collected and methods used by eugenicists determined why certain individuals were malleable to a society.... [tags: eugencies, sterilization, diversity]1451 words(4.1 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Darwin and History - Following 1859, The Origin of Species had at last entered public consciousness. While the theories presented by Darwin were simultaneously being celebrated, condemned or challenged, it triggered a new form of self-awareness. Because Darwin initially avoided addressing the ultimate question of human evolution until The Descent of Man published in 1871, it would lead others to pursue the matter with diverse explanations. Known as the father of German Darwinism, Ernst Haeckels Natrliche Schpfungsgeschichte (The History of Creation) was first published in German in 1868 and translated into English in 1876.... [tags: Scientific Research ]:: 6 Works Cited 1149 words(3.3 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Euthanasia: An End to Misery - Thomas More, in describing a utopian community, envisaged such a community as one that would facilitate the death of those whose lives had become burdensome as a result of torturing and lingering pain (Voluntary Euthanasia). Euthanasia is an act that would be used to relieve suffering patients. Before one can argue for or against the legalization of euthanasia, he must understand the difference between the different types of euthanasia: active versus passive, voluntary versus non-voluntary and involuntary, and euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.... [tags: Ethics ]:: 6 Works Cited 1369 words(3.9 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Genetic Discrimination - In the 1920s the United States became the world center of eugenic activity and social policy. From 1907-1960 more than 100,000 innocent Americans were sterilized in more than 30 states. The American eugenics movements of the 1920s and 1930s recognized human beings as being either cherished or substandard. They established degeneration programs to improve races of low grade causing racism to intend more rapidly. The main targets of degeneration were the usual victims of racism Jews, Indians, Blacks, and many more minorities.... [tags: Discrimination ]584 words(1.7 pages)Good Essays[preview] The Nazi Euthanasia Programme Based on Racial Purity Theories - The Nazi Euthanasia Programme Based on Racial Purity Theories While the actual program of 'euthanasia' was initiated by Hitler in 1939 the whole idea of racial purity, Social Darwinism and eugenics had been on the rise In Europe and more importantly Germany for quite some years. The issue that called for the commencement of the program was in fact written at the end of October but was predated 1st of September to coincide with the start of the war, as it was interestingly enough seen as a paralleled war by the Nazis.... [tags: Papers]2513 words(7.2 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Main Points of an Essay by an Author Regarding Racism in the South - The essays of the authors in this book focus on the different views of racial segregation in the south. There are many different dimensions of racial discrimination brought to the light by these well-educated authors. This book shows the perspective of segregation of blacks and whites in the south. Over all this book of essays assess the costs of segregations impact on the entire nation. The author of this book, a civil rights historian, recounts the pilgrimage of black teachers in the south. This book gives a comprehensive understanding of how blacks and whites exist side-by-side after slavery is abolished.... [tags: Civil Rights, Discrimination]587 words(1.7 pages)Good Essays[preview] Genetic Engineering is Unethical - Genetic engineering is a technology that has been created to alter DNA of different species to try and make them more improved. This essay will discuss the eugenics, the religious point of view about genetic engineering, genetically modified food and the genetic screening of embryos. In this essay it will be said wether genetic engineering is ethical or unethical. During 1924 Hitler said that everyone needs to be blond hair, blue eyes and white. This is known as Eugenics, thanks to a new science known as biotechnology in a few decades.... [tags: Genetic Engineering Essays]492 words(1.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Franz Boas Discuss the Contribution of Anthropology - Franz Boas has been considered by many as the "Father of American Anthropology", as he was a pioneer in breaking down the American isolationism, intolerance and misinformation about and biological diversity and linguistics. Born in Minden, Westphalia, Germany, in 1858, from a Jewish family, Boas early thinking was based on the ideals of the 1848 German revolution and followed his parents intellectual freedom (Stocking, 1974). However, Boas did not set out with the specific ambition to study human cultures, and after attending the universities of Heidelberg, Bonn and Kiel, in 1881 he earned a PhD.... [tags: Deconstructing, Discrediting, Concept of Race ]:: 14 Works Cited 1247 words(3.6 pages)Strong Essays[preview]

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Free eugenics Essays and Papers - 123HelpMe

Free eugenics Essays and Papers

Title Length Color Rating Early 20th Century Eugenics as part of Modernism - As the sun was setting on the 19th century, a new theory, called eugenics was just beginning to rise. Eugenics is the idea that human mental, moral, temperamental and physiological traits are passed down through generations, and that society should attempt to foster the reproduction of those with favorable traits and discourage or eliminate those with less than favorable traits. In the early parts of the 20th century, eugenics was put into practice across the rich world. This increase, not only in popularity but in application is best viewed when part of the greater context of modernity.... [tags: Eugenics]:: 5 Works Cited 1047 words(3 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The History of Eugenics in America - Eugenics is the study of the agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally. After the major turn of the century, eugenics developed into a world- wide movement. (Vermont University, 2003) It was led by scientist and scholars in several diverse fields, and funded by wealthy philanthropists, also supported by statesmen. Eugenics played a very vital and central role in the political, social, and intellectual history of numerous diverse peoples and nations.... [tags: The Eugenics Movement]:: 5 Works Cited 2148 words(6.1 pages)Research Papers[preview] Eugenics: A Controversial Science - Eugenics has been a very controversial science that has existed in the world for centuries. Eugenics is defined as the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics)(Dictionary.com, 2005). Its base came from the idea that the human race could be perfected by getting rid of its undesirable traits and the desirable ones could be multiplied.... [tags: Eugenics Essays]1168 words(3.3 pages)Better Essays[preview] The Eugenics Movement - In the 1920s, a company in New York started a movement known as The Eugenics Movement. The idea of eugenics was eventually picked up by Germany, China, Peru, India and Bangladesh. The movement is still in effect till this day; however, it is not as prevalent as it once was. The beginning of the Eugenics Movement all started at Cold Spring Harbor, New York. The United States coined the term Eugenics from Great Britain in the early 1900s. In the year 1910, a man by the name of Charles B. Davenport founded the Eugenics Records Office (ERO).... [tags: Eugenics, ERO, sterilization]:: 3 Works Cited 1539 words(4.4 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Eugenics -Not the Way of the Future - Eugenics in the world today has become an issue because of its many positive uses furthermore its possible consequences. It is believed by many that eugenics does more harm than good, on the other hand there are exceptions; it is not the way of the future. There is no doubt that it could be extremely useful for preventing diseases such as cancer and others before we are even born. But, with this also comes the ability to give children genes before their born that will give them talent to run faster, jump higher, use more of their brain which will strictly discriminate them from the rest of society in a way where they will always stand out, the reason being is their extraordinary talents due... [tags: Eugenics, Genetic Engineering]722 words(2.1 pages)Good Essays[preview] The Ethics and Morality of Eugenics in Society - My research revolves around the ethics and morality of eugenics (Science of heredity and good breeding), and whether society should be in favor of influencing genetics in order to create a more favorable genetic pool. This topic interests me because I find great interest in political and cultural issues, and I have always been fascinated by whether eugenics would actually work and if governments should be in support of it. The sources I found were all scientific journals from credible books. I did this to because I needed to gain information on studies that have taken place in the name of eugenics as well as establish that eugenics is high priority within the scientific community.Taking this... [tags: disabled, eugenics, influencing genetics]:: 7 Works Cited 1598 words(4.6 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] The Three Stooges: Charles Darwin, Adolf Hitler and Margaret Sanger - Only the most imaginative mind could fathom the thought of human beings being selected or disregarded and even killed based on biological protocol. This scientific theory is responsible for the reproduction of superior genes through heredity by controversial means. This idea is based on the evolution of the human species or basically survival of the fittest. Charles Darwin who is the greatest known scientist to ever live popularized this theory and is responsible for the brutality and death of well over 100 million human beings.... [tags: Eugenics]:: 41 Works Cited 1299 words(3.7 pages)Strong Essays[preview] A Look at Eugenics - Introduction Eugenics is the conviction and practice of enhancing the hereditary nature of the human population. It is a social theory upholding the change of human hereditary qualities through the advancement of higher proliferation of individuals with coveted characteristics and decreased multiplication of individuals with less-wanted or undesired attributes. It alludes to the investigation of or faith in the likelihood of enhancing the characteristics of the human species or a human populace, especially by embracing varied hereditary qualities or pessimistic selective breeding.... [tags: Heredity Nature, Human Heredity Qualities]:: 4 Works Cited 1221 words(3.5 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The ethics of eugenics - The theory of eugenics has changed throughout time from its conception by Sir Francis Galton to its modern technological interpretation in the 21st century. The term has been embraced by Social Darwinists, Progressives, human genetic engineers, and Nazis, to just name a few. The theorys popularity has undergone cycles of approval and upheaval as it is a fairly conceptually fluid idea. Today its definition is still hazy, with both sides of its controversial spectrum debating what it really means.... [tags: Social Darwinists, Sir Francis Galton]:: 28 Works Cited 1675 words(4.8 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] The Misapplication of Eugenics - The concept of eugenics has to do with the belief or practice of improving the genetic quality of the human race (Eugenics 2010). The concept was first introduced by Francis Galton, a researcher who wished to apply Darwins theory of evolution to the human race. Much like many endeavors that start off with good intentions, the results of applying this concept in real life were gross crimes against humanity. The eugenics movement in the early 20th century perverted the original concept by employing morally objectionable techniques including forced sterilization, marriage restrictions, segregation, internment camps, and genocide (Black 2012).... [tags: Humans, Genetic Quality, Francis Galton]:: 4 Works Cited 1023 words(2.9 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The Downfall of Eugenics - In the twentieth-century politics has played a vital role in the way disease is perceived by the average person. Every aspect of disease became a political concern with eugenics publically taking on a major role in public policy. Giving credit to eugenics, many Americans began to worry more about their personal genetic traits as well as the traits that they may pass on to their children. Later society became interested with eugenics on a more community-oriented basis. The downfall of Eugenics came when reformers began to use it as a program of social control, promoting government intervention and coercion in human reproduction. Masturbation was once seen as degenerative disease that led... [tags: Medical Ethics]:: 4 Works Cited 1192 words(3.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Edwin Black's War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race - Edwin Black's War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race To the average American it seems unfathomable that US based research into the "scientific" practice of eugenics could have been the foundation and impetus for Hitler's Nazi genocide and atrocities. In addition, notions of racial superiority and the scientific quest for the development of a pure Aryan nation, both by the United States and foreign countries, particularly Germany, were funded and fueled by monies from such prominent families as the Rockefellers, Carnegies and Harriman's.... [tags: Edwin Black Eugenics Master Race Essays]1983 words(5.7 pages)Strong Essays[preview] What is Eugenics? - Introduction Eugenics is defined as a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed (1). The principles of eugenics have been used in many different countries for various reasons. In the United States, eugenics reached its peak in the pre-World War II period. It was believed that the most efficient way to deal with social problems, such as mental illness, poverty and crime, was to inhibit reproduction among people with such characteristics.... [tags: Science, Improving Hereditary Traits. Human]:: 20 Works Cited 1713 words(4.9 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] The Eugenics Movement - ... Both women selected Gregory Pincus to develop the contraceptive pill. Once the birth control pill was created, Pincus began collaborating with John Rock because the next step was to start human trials ("People & Events: Gregory Pincus"). The first study of the pill was conducted in 1954 (People & Events: The Pill and the Women's Liberation Movement). The test was successful, and showed a 100% effectiveness rate. Not a single woman who took part in the trials ovulated while taking the pill.... [tags: criminals, poverty, women, social class]2040 words(5.8 pages)Better Essays[preview] The Practice of Positive Eugenics - Since its inception in 1883, eugenics has long since been the subject of controversy and a forum for discussion on ethics and morality. Positive eugenics, defined as, "encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits," is considered a benevolent form of eugenics, but can be used for sinister purposes. Negative eugenics, officially defined as, "discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits," is perhaps the more well-known variety of eugenics, with notable examples such as the Holocaust and forced sterilization.... [tags: ethics and morality, reproduction]:: 13 Works Cited 1178 words(3.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Eugenics: Improving The Human Race? - The idea that one can improve the human race by careful selection of those who mate and produce offspring is called eugenics. It is better understood as the process of selective breeding can improve human society. The term eugenics is from the greek, meaning well-born. The idea of eugenics is to have a society be abundant with many wanted traits, during a movement called the melting pot where people tried to solve their problems with the use of technology. Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development, is the book in which Sir Francis Galton first mentioned the term eugenics.... [tags: Scientific Research ]:: 5 Works Cited 1135 words(3.2 pages)Better Essays[preview] Eugenics - Eugenics, the word that got its bad reputation years ago through an event that changed history: the Holocaust. First dubbed by Francis Galton in the 1880s, the word Eugenics stemmed from the words good and generation. (Eugenics-Meanings) Eugenics means the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population. This improvement is done through discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics); or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).... [tags: Genetic Engineering]:: 6 Works Cited 1552 words(4.4 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Eugenics - Taken from the Greek word eugenes meaning good in stock the term eugenics was coined in 1883 By Francis Galton (1822-1911). Today it is defined by the OED as Pertaining or adapted to the production of fine offspring, esp. in the human race. We will attempt to explain what eugenics was within in the context of its time and how it was to be applied to humans. We will also attempt to identify who its supporters were and the many different reasons why the eugenic doctrine appealed to them. The problem of what to do about the urban poor had been a continuing worry for the middle classes since the mid nineteenth century.... [tags: Sociology]2214 words(6.3 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Eugenics or Forced Sterilization Programs - Heredity: Like begets like. Eugenics or force sterilization programs were government policies that attempted to force people to undergo surgical sterilization, and also aim to assimilate any genetic deficiency (Keith 2011). The pseudo-science behind eugenics was based on a misconception of heredity that assumed that the deficient inevitably passed down their pathology to their progeny, and with this misconception, heredity became related to the crude term like begets like (Grekul 2008). This term was the foundation of what shaped the Eugenics movement into a dark and horrific period (McLaren 1990).... [tags: Sexual Sterilization Act, Canadian history]1630 words(4.7 pages)Better Essays[preview] The Eugenics Movement for Criminality - 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 societys flaws through the sterilization of the inferior. Due to an increased surge of criminality in many cities during the 1900s, eugenicists began to focus on the role of genes in determining criminal behavior.... [tags: genetics, violence, psychopathy]569 words(1.6 pages)Good Essays[preview] Eugenics: Solving Social Problems? - The melting pot was a movement to solve social problems of the population with the use of technology. Eugenics is the use of science to solve social problems. It is defined as the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits.... [tags: Scientific Research ]:: 9 Works Cited 1201 words(3.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Nazi Eugenics and Racial Hygiene - The Nazis perpetrated many horrors during the Holocaust. They enacted many cruel laws. They brainwashed millions into foolishly following them and believing their every word using deceitful propaganda tactics. They forced many to suffer doing embarrassing jobs and to live in crowded ghettos. They created mobile killing squads to exterminate their enemies. Finally, as part of The Final Solution to the Jewish Question, they made concentration and killing camps. Another thing the Nazis did was to use eugenics as another mean to micromanage the population.... [tags: Holocaust, Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler]:: 7 Works Cited 1198 words(3.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Eugenics: Man versus God - Eugenics: Man vs God The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it. -Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race Seven-foot, blonde haired, blue-eyed super-humans bearing the swastika and marching in perfect Aryan rhythm, bred to be smarter, stronger, superior. This is a typical image when people hear the word eugenics, but there are two distinct branches: negative eugenics, which looks at removing undesirables and degenerates from society, and positive eugenics, which looks to promote the positive hereditary traits within society.... [tags: improving genetic qualities of a population]974 words(2.8 pages)Strong Essays[preview] IVF and the New Eugenics - The addition of a child into a familys home is a happy occasion. Unfortunately, some families are unable to have a child due to unforeseen problems, and they must pursue other means than natural pregnancy. Some couples adopt and other couples follow a different path; they utilize in vitro fertilization or surrogate motherhood. The process is complicated, unreliable, but ultimately can give the parents the gift of a child they otherwise could not have had. At the same time, as the process becomes more and more advanced and scientists are able to predict the outcome of the technique, the choice of what child is born is placed in the hands of the parents.... [tags: Infertility]:: 8 Works Cited 1509 words(4.3 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Eugenics and Genetic Testing - 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.... [tags: Morality, Society, Science]1752 words(5 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Eugenics and Planned Parenthood - When one contemplates the concept of eugenics, few think of modern contraception and abortion when in reality they are one in the same. The American Eugenics Society, founded in 1923, proudly proclaimed that men with incurable conditions should be sterilized. However these conditions were often none that could be helped, such as, ones intelligence, race, and social class (Schweikart and Allen 529-532). The purpose of the society was to create the perfect class of men; elite in all ways.... [tags: Birth Control Movement]:: 12 Works Cited 1395 words(4 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Was Eugenics Ever Moral? - Eugenics is the study or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species. Sounds good, right. But the question here is, is it moral to sacrifice someones life or the ability for someone to create life in the name of science. Surely Francis Galton and Gregor Mendel thought so. In the nineteenth century, biology was at its peak. Charles Darwin, who just happens to be Galtons cousin, had just introduced his idea of survival of the fittest. Galton then took that thesis and dissected it.... [tags: human species, charles darwin]:: 7 Works Cited 1043 words(3 pages)Strong Essays[preview] International Eugenics - Throughout the history of international relations, the study of human diversity has held a key role in establishing the political principles and recognized shared culture that defines nationhood. Nations have traditionally been associated with a specific geographic location and political ideology, but they also have ethnical identifiers associated with this shared culture. These ethnical identifiers were thrust onto the world stage during the end of the nineteenth century with the introduction of the study of eugenics.... [tags: Sociology ]:: 13 Works Cited 1825 words(5.2 pages)Term Papers[preview] Social Darwinism: History of the Study of Eugenics - The study of eugenics has been around for many years. China has one of the leading birth control systems containing the one child policy and Eugenics. Eugenics is a system of improving human population by promoting the most socially desirable individuals to reproduce while preventing the socially undesirables from reproduction. Eugenics comes from the Greek word meaning good or well born. It is the belief that some people are genetically superior to others; and that one inherits their relatives mental and psychological traits.... [tags: one child policy, china]724 words(2.1 pages)Better Essays[preview] The Rise and Fall of the Eugnics Movement - Introduction According to Merriam-Webster.com, eugenics is defined as the theory dealing with the production or treatment of a fine, healthy race. Despite this seemingly innocent representation, eugenics is an extremely controversial science. Some even debate whether or not it is worthy of the label of science, or if its just a form of intellectual racism. Nevertheless, eugenics was greatly embraced and was behind a scientific and social revolution during the late 19th century through the Second World War.... [tags: A Historical Analysis of Eugenics]:: 10 Works Cited 3924 words(11.2 pages)Term Papers[preview] How the US introduced Eugenics to the World - Eugenics is defined as human improvement by genetic means to improve the hereditary qualities of a race or breed and it was coined by Francis Galton in 1869. Throughout history, the World has borne witness to such atrocities as genocide, where the roots of these movements have been to eliminate the undesirables to allow the strongest and purest an opportunity to thrive and exist. Many would believe that the eugenics movement first started in Europe when the Nazis tried to eradicate Jews, Gays, Gypsys or anyone else they deemed not a part of the master race dreamed up by Hitler.... [tags: sterilization, genetics, Germany, race]:: 10 Works Cited 1022 words(2.9 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Eugenics: America's Dark Past and Future - The idea of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed race is often credited to Adolf Hitler. The not as well-known part is that this idea was around before Hitler and actually was spread to Germany by eugenics scientists in the United States. In this paper we will look into the full history of eugenics and how the idea was spread across the world. Along the journey we will encounter many major donors that may be of surprise to some of us. Eugenics has been a dark presence in the history of America and will continue to be until real strides are made to end racism.... [tags: blonde-haired, blue-eyed race, hitler]:: 9 Works Cited 1460 words(4.2 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Genetic Engineering: Cloning: Dolly and Eugenics - Cloning is vital in American society because it will help us further our knowledge in genetics. Also cloning will make us realize how much scientists can actually accomplish knowing how to clone. Scientists were able to clone an animal in 1997. That accomplishment made all the scientists theories about cloning possible. It gave the scientists hope that one day they will maybe be able to clone a human because they were able to clone a mammal. Eugenics is also vital to American society. Eugenics is the practice of improving humans genetic quality of the human population as a whole.... [tags: dna, science, god]:: 13 Works Cited 1691 words(4.8 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Eugenics in America - Eugenics in America Eugenics profoundly impacted the culture of the twentieth century. Coined in 1893 by Sir Francis Galton, it studied the heredity and selection of favorable traits. Born out of the social tumults of the late nineteenth century, it represented the Western elites attempt to protect itself from so called inferior cultures of the colonies and new wave immigration. The late eighteenth century was a turbulent time throughout America. An influx of immigrants packed into massive cities such as New York and Chicago.... [tags: Sociology Essays Research Papers]710 words(2 pages)Better Essays[preview] Reprogenetics and Eugenics - Reprogenetics and Eugenics Advantages: Reprogenetics will enable parents to give their children genes that they themselves do not carry, thereby increasing their offspring's chances for health, longevity, happiness, and success -- this is an appalling prospect for many bio ethicists. Eugenics embodies the desire and attempts of a society's leaders to control the breeding practices of its citizens, including the forcible sterilization or murder of those deemed as carrying undesirable genes.... [tags: Papers]862 words(2.5 pages)Better Essays[preview] Eugenic Decision-Making - Eugenics is defined, in some way or the other, as the process of reshaping the human race by determining the kinds of people who will be born. As such, there is much debate in the field of eugenics, with authors, like Philip Kitcher, who support laissez-faire or a minimalist approach of eugenics in which eugenic decision-making should be limited only to avoid neurological illnesses and in which parental free choice is valued. Gregory Stocks essay, The Enhanced and Un-Enhanced, presents otherwise by supporting the position of maximalist eugenics, allowing individuals the full extent in the selection of genes.... [tags: Gattaca, Laissez-Faire, Maximalist Eugenics]1482 words(4.2 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The Understanding of Eugenics, and the Move Forward from Past Failures. - The Understanding of Eugenics, and the Move Forward from Past Failures. Eugenics, from the Greek word Eu-genes, which means well-born or of good stock, In 1869 was the name given to the work produced by scientist Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911). Sir Francis Galtons work was based primarily on the theories of biological evolution, first developed by Charles Darwin, and was published in his book The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 1859. Charles Darwin theorized that all species of life descended from common ancestors, and that natural selection had a profound effect by using selective breeding to enhance its worth.... [tags: Sir Francis Galton, Bilogical Evolution, Biology]:: 4 Works Cited 938 words(2.7 pages)Better Essays[preview] Atrocities Associated with the Eugenics Movement - Atrocities Associated with the Eugenics Movement Among the fears of many environmentalists is that of overpopulation. Acutely aware of the finite resources that the planet possesses and the limitations of renewable resources, there are concerns that the planet may soon reach its maximum caring capacity. Since the First Great Transition ten thousand years ago, the planet has experienced an astounding increase in population. Generations later, the planet is beginning to feel the effects of continual population expansion.... [tags: Exploratory Essays Research Papers]:: 4 Works Cited 1243 words(3.6 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Eugenics - The roots of eugenics can be traced back to Britain in the early 1880s when Sir Francis Galton generated the term from the Greek word for well-born. He defined eugenics as the science of improving stock, whether human or animal. According to the American Eugenics Movement, todays study of eugenics has many similarities to studies done in the early 20th century. Back then, Eugenics was, quite literally, an effort to breed better human beings by encouraging the reproduction of people with "good" genes and discouraging those with "bad" genes. (www.eugenicsarchive.org) According to Merriam-Webster, the modern day definition of eugenics is, a science that deals with t... [tags: essays research papers]1049 words(3 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Neo-Eugenics The Social and Biological Ethics of Designer Babies - Neoeugenics is the idea of new, neo, eugenics or a new way of creating a healthier race. Eugenics was first defined in the late 1800s by a man named Sir Francis Galton who said that it was basically the study of traits that will cause an advantage or disadvantage in the traits of future generations. Eugenics soon turned from being about the use of artificial selection of breeding to create a stronger species, to being about the advancement of certain races over others. When talking about neo eugenics, it is believed that it may turn into something similar to that of eugenics in that the use of artificial selection would now be used to bring the upper class higher in standards of health and... [tags: Healthier Reace, Future Generations]:: 2 Works Cited 1586 words(4.5 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Eugenics - Eugenics President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." The Civil War was fought to save the republic and free the enslaved. World War II was fought to save the world and stop a group which thought they were a superior race. What do these two wars have in common. They were fought, in part, for equality.... [tags: Papers]1119 words(3.2 pages)Good Essays[preview] Eugenics Should be Abolished - Eugenics Should be Abolished Since the end of the 19th century, eugenics has had a significant role in the development of Western society. There have been laws established by its presence and a war fought to cease its progress. To analyze the philosophy of and the actions due to eugenics, one must look at the past and see what contributions eugenics has made to events in history. One must also look at the present applications of eugenics and how they affect the lives of people. With these two directions, one can see that because it is racist, encourages immoral actions and is biologically unsound, eugenics is iniquitous and should be abolished from modern medical and political thought.... [tags: Papers]3259 words(9.3 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Ethics of Genocide and Eugenics - Gene Therapy: Genocide and Eugenics or Striving for a More Perfect Population Controversy and Ethics Just as there are different types of people who look at one glass of water and describe it as half full or half empty, the public has many different views on the future of our society. Gene therapy is also a glass that can be viewed in different angles different perspectives. Some say it has great potential to shape the ideals of our future, while others believe it signifies intolerance for disabilities, imperfections that supposedly deplete from a persons interests, opportunities and welfare (quoted by Peter Singer, xviii).... [tags: Biology Medical Biomedical Genetics]:: 2 Works Cited 1413 words(4 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Euthanasia Essay: Eugenics To Euthanasia - Eugenics To Euthanasia This essay presents the appeal which euthanasia has to modern society. What is this appeal based on. Is it a valid appeal. These and other questions are addressed in this paper. See if this story sounds familiar: A happily married couple - she is a pianist; he a rising scientist - have their love suddenly tested by a decline in the wife's health. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she falls victim to a steady loss of muscle control and paralysis. The desperate husband uses all his professional skills to save her.... [tags: Free Euthanasia Essay]:: 1 Works Cited 1001 words(2.9 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Genetic Engineering and Eugenics - Genetic Engineering and Eugenics The idea of genetic engineering has been a very heated topic of discussion lately. The possibilities of this topic range from cloning to gene therapy and eugenics. The most recent type, eugenics through gene therapy has created a lot of controversy. Eugenics is the study of how to improve human genetic heritage. This basically is the engineering of babies. The thought of these new designer babies raises many new questions. What are the consequences of these advances.... [tags: Exploratory Essays Research Papers]1108 words(3.2 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The American Eugenics Movement - The idea of eugenics was first introduced by Sir Francis Galton, who believed that the breeding of two wealthy and successful members of society would produce a child superior to that of two members of the lower class. This assumption was based on the idea that genes for success or particular excellence were present in our DNA, which is passed from parent to child. Despite the blatant lack of research, two men, Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Jon Alfred Mjoen, played to the white supremacists desires and claimed that white genes were inherently superior to other races, and with this base formed the first eugenics society.... [tags: essays research papers fc]:: 3 Works Cited 1421 words(4.1 pages)Strong Essays[preview] In Opposition of Eugenics and Human Embryo Research - In Opposition of Eugenics and Human Embryo Research There are a variety of views of eugenics and all that it entails. The definition of eugenics is "the science of improving the physical and mental qualities of human beings through control of the factors influencing heredity," ( Funk and Wagnall's, 1984). Others think eugenics is the social control of human genetic evolution, an ideology of racism and genocide, thought to improve society and halt disease while others think only of the Nazi Regime (Saetz, 1985 and McGee, 1997).... [tags: Argumentative Persuasive Essays]667 words(1.9 pages)Better Essays[preview] Ethical Complications of Genetic Engineering and Eugenics - Genetic engineering is currently the fastest growing and perhaps most controversial field of science. Genetic engineering is decoding and manipulating DNA to use for scientific and medical purposes. "The discovery that human cells can be grown in a petri dish has opened up breathtaking possibilities for curing disease - and a morass of ethical complications" (Allen 9). Genetic engineering has already started to be most helpful in the field of medicine. The map of the human genome offers many cures and potentially successful medical procedures.... [tags: Exploratory Essays Research Papers]:: 6 Works Cited 3149 words(9 pages)Strong Essays[preview] To What Extent are American Scientist and Institutions Responsible for Nazi Eugenics? - During Adolf Hitlers reign many American companies and scientist contributed towards advances in eugenic studies, are they to blame for the atrocities that occurred in the Second World War. It started in the late 1800s by Francis Galton who believed that to raise the present miserably low standard of the human race breeding the best with the best had to happen. Although the United States had a large amount of involvement, many European scientists and governments aided the research. In the late 1800s many rich businessmen and prior slave owners were most likely upset as slavery had been abolished, so through science they wanted to make Africans and Asians an inferior race.... [tags: adolf hitler, second world war, racism]:: 7 Works Cited 1043 words(3 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Josef Mengele and The Inhumane Experiments in Auschwitz - He cut into me, without anesthetic, . . .The pain was indescribable. I felt every slice of the knife. Then I saw my kidney pulsating in his hand. I cried like a madman, I cried out the prayer; Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one . . . And I prayed to die, that I might not suffer this agony any more (Hall). This was said by a patient of Dr. Josef Mengele, Mr.Yitzhak Ganon. Mr. Ganon was of the survivors of the inhumane experiments that took place in Auschwitz by the hand of the abominable man that is Josef Mengele.... [tags: angel of death, evil, eugenics]:: 10 Works Cited 1323 words(3.8 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The Humanities of Science - The philosophy of science is to improve our knowledge about the world and how our bodies behave to enhance our well-being. Science has aid us in many ways such as increasing our lifespan, improving medicine, and advancing technology. Provided that the government of Canada and Quebec want to improve the quality of life for its people and encourage the growth of scientific discoveries, they should invest in scientific research that will continue to expand our knowledge and use that newly acquired knowledge to continue improving our quality of life.... [tags: lifespan, medicine, technology, eugenics]817 words(2.3 pages)Better Essays[preview] Stereotypes where the Mentally Handicapped People are Ignorant - In history, stereotypes in society have been negative towards people with disabilities and that often led to discrimination. Colonial Americans, in the 1700s, referred to people with handicaps as lunatics. Lunatic by todays definition is someone crazy or insane. However, the root word, lunar, means, moons. Back then, people thought that a full moon had something to do with the mental illness that the child was born with. Some thought that the baby could be affected by being conceived, being born under, or sleeping in the light of a full moon.... [tags: disabilities, lunatic, eugenics]627 words(1.8 pages)Better Essays[preview] Eugenics: An Excuse To Be A Racist Or A Means To A Better Tomorrow? - Eugenics: An Excuse to be a Racist or a Means to a Better Tomorrow. The term eugenics was coined in the late 19th century. Its goal was to apply the breeding practices and techniques used in plants and animals to human reproduction. Francis Galton stated in his Essays in Eugenics that he wished to influence "the useful classes" in society to put more of their DNA in the gene pool. The goal was to collect records of families who were successful by virtue of having three or more adult male children who have gain superior positions to their peers.... [tags: essays research papers]1102 words(3.1 pages)Strong Essays[preview] American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism - American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism Works Cited Missing Nancy Ordover argues that current attempts to regulate marginalized social groups are eugenicist movements couched in new language. While "today, the preoccupation with immigrant fertility is couched in concerns over expenditures rather than in classic eugenicist worries over the depletion of the national gene pool" (54), that supposed strain on the national economy presented by immigration is still located in immigrant's reproduction, although it is less frequently explicitly the "whiteness" of the nation that is threatened.... [tags: Sociology Sociological Essays]1123 words(3.2 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Methods of Experimentation and Research in the Natural Sciences that are Limited due to Ethical Considerations - The production of knowledge, the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject (New Oxford), has constantly been accomplished throughout the history of man as a result of the characteristics of creativity and curiosity. These attributes, besides ethics, have set humans apart from the other species allowing for constant and rapid development. According to (Rest), an ethical judgment is the process by which an individual determines that one alternative is morally right and another alternative is morally wrong.... [tags: eugenics, animal testing, ethical judgement]:: 8 Works Cited 1459 words(4.2 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Altering Human Genome - Altering Human Genome The gene pool could use a little chlorine. -Bumper Sticker Consider Gods handiwork; who can straighten what He hath made crooked? -Ecclesiastes 7:13, from Gattaca I not only think that we will tamper with Mother Nature. I think Mother wants us to. -Willard Gaylin, from Gattaca With the scientific breakthroughs of the recent decades the humans have become more powerful than ever in their mastery of Nature. The genetic engineering that allows extracting and modifying the genetic makeup of the future person or animal is in a sense the power of Creation.... [tags: Eugenics Genetics Science Essays]:: 14 Works Cited 1425 words(4.1 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Genetic Engineering: Pros and Cons - Our world has finally begun its long-predicted descent into the depths of chaos. We may not yet realize it, but more and more problems plague the very state of our humanity with each passing day, such as cancer, famine, genetic disorders, and social elitism. It seems as though there is little hope, although a new solution has finally emerged, in the form of genetic engineering. It is apparent, however, that currently we cannot proceed, because while there are an abundant amount of advantages to genetic engineering, it is not a utopian process; criticism includes its practicality, theological implications, and changes in modern social structure.... [tags: Eugenics, Ethics]:: 5 Works Cited 1212 words(3.5 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Allegiance and Loyalty to Totaltarian Society in The Anthem by Ayn Rand - Totalitarian societies include government control over every part of life of the people in that society. The government often has a ruler who is a dictator and has absolute control over the public and private life of the citizens. The leaders of these societies, both real and fictionalized, enforce the rule that children have to live apart from their families because they want loyalty and allegiance to the government, collectivism among the people, and the practice of eugenics. Allegiance to the government is the most important factor in totalitarian societies because it helps dictatorial leaders manipulate the people of the society.... [tags: governement, eugenic, collectivism]629 words(1.8 pages)Better Essays[preview] History and culture of Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let me Go uses a dystopian fantasy world to illustrate the author's view that our real world practice of eugenics is as equally immoral and degrading as the world he describes. The eugenic-soaked world of Never Let me Go is dystopian, and our real world, with its quiet adoption of 'soft' eugenics, is equally dystopian. Ishiguro's point is that utopia can never be attained in either realm if it contains the contagion of eugenics. By depicting unfair struggles that eugenics rigged "pre-destination" imposes on his oh so human characters, Ishiguro portrays the Eugenist's utopian wet dream as a nightmarish perversion of humanity's social contract.... [tags: Literature]:: 1 Works Cited 1330 words(3.8 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Trying to Improve the Human Race by Controlling Reproduction - Trying to Improve the Human Race by Controlling Reproduction THE idea of "Natural Equality" is one of the most deluded ideas that have ever afflicted itself upon mankind. It is simply a figment of the human imagination. Nature knows no equality. She thrives on the idea of the survival of the fittest. The exact definition of eugenics is "The study of methods to improve the human race by controlling reproduction." Therefor eugenics is a pseudo science. It is about the selective prevention or encouragement of births for social, racial, or political ends.... [tags: Papers]390 words(1.1 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Review of a Website - If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday, quoted Pearl Buck. Most everyone has a time in their life where history becomes important to them. Whether that be tracing back family heritage, writing a research essay, or just out of curiosity. All and all, history is very influential to peoples lives and what better way to learn about history then to visit the website Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement. This credible website offers an opportunity for the public to learn more about our American history in an interactive and creative way.... [tags: Website Review, Reliable Sources]973 words(2.8 pages)Better Essays[preview] Role of Doctors Under Nazis - Role of Doctors in Nazis Racial Hygiene Germany was out to establish a new utopian world order where everything worked in harmony. They wanted to become a healthy and vibrant organism of healthy Aryans. The German doctors were mobilized to create this new world. The German bureaucrats believed all their social burdens were brought on by the handicapped, incurables and homosexuals as well as the Jews and gypsies. The physicians were to use all their medical knowledge and scientific expertise in the treatment for their new world.... [tags: essays research papers fc]:: 2 Works Cited 2232 words(6.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Genetic Engineering in Humans - Author Chuck Klosterman said, The simple truth is that were all already cyborgs more or less. Our mouths are filled with silver. Our nearsighted pupils are repaired with surgical lasers. We jam diabetics full of delicious insulin. Almost 40 percent of Americans now have prosthetic limbs. We see to have no qualms about making post-birth improvements to our feeble selves. Why are we so uncomfortable with pre-birth improvement? Despite Klostermans accurate observation, there are reasons people are wearisome toward pre-birth enhancement.... [tags: Genetic Engineering ]859 words(2.5 pages)Better Essays[preview] The High Cost of Genetic Engineering - The High Cost of Genetic Engineering Genetic research on human embryos, in correlation with the human genome, is the key to gene therapy, genetic diagnosis, and even to genetically engineered human beings. Knowing which gene controls what trait and causes what genetic disease will arm doctors with a powerful tool to treat their patients at the molecular level. On the other hand, this allows people to possibly manipulate genes to enhance specific traits or create the perfect baby. Genetic research on human embryos has two implications. A practical one in therapeutic research (to detect, and hopefully correct gene flaws), and then the potentiality of allowing parents to decide how the... [tags: Persuasive Argumentative Essay Examples]:: 9 Works Cited 1197 words(3.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] An Enhanced Genotype: Ethical Issues Involved with Genetic Engineering and their Impact as Revealed by Brave New World - An Enhanced Genotype: Ethical Issues Involved with Genetic Engineering and their Impact as Revealed by Brave New World Human society always attempts to better itself through the use of technology. Thus far, as a species, we have already achieved much: mastery of electronics, flight, and space travel. However, the field in which the most progress is currently being made is Biology, specifically Genetic Engineering. In Aldous Huxleys Brave New World, humanity has taken control of reproduction and biology in the same way that we have mastered chemistry and physics.... [tags: Genetic Engineering ]:: 6 Works Cited 2288 words(6.5 pages)Term Papers[preview] History And Procedures of Gene Therapy - The History And Procedures of Gene Therapy Abstract: Over the course of history there has been the idea of gene therapy has inspired many great scientists. The history of eugenics is important to the history of gene therapy because it is how gene therapy originated. Eugenics has driven many people to take extreme measures to try and make a better human race, this includes the Nazi party and the movement in the 1930s inspired by Francis Galton. After that, research in eugenics continued and the human genome project sprung from the minds of scientists.... [tags: Biology Medical Biomedical Genetics]:: 2 Works Cited 1810 words(5.2 pages)Term Papers[preview] The indoctrination of the Concept of Racial Hygiene: The Begining of t - The Indoctrination of the Concept of Racial Hygiene: The Beginning of the End The idea of biological degeneration had been studied by doctors, psychiatrists, and scientists many decades before the 1930s and the Nazi regime were ever in power. The idea that the integrity of populations was being undermined by behaviors of alcoholism, criminality, or mental deficiency was a topic for researchers before anyone even knew who Adolf Hitler was. In this essay I will discuss the evolution of a concept that would become known as racial hygiene.... [tags: essays research papers fc]:: 2 Works Cited 2296 words(6.6 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Engineering the Perfect Human - For centuries, mankind has been fascinated by the idea of perfection. In recent decades, the issue has been raised regarding the perfect human and whether scientists are able to engineer and create this. Attempts have been made in the past to engineer this said perfect human, through eugenics and scientific racism, but until now, these attempts have been ineffective. Only now, with modern technology, are scientists able to make more significant progress in altering the human genome to the produce desired characteristics of perfection.... [tags: Genetic Engineering ]:: 21 Works Cited 1831 words(5.2 pages)Term Papers[preview] Whats Genetic Engineering? - You are unique. Born into a family, you are the culmination of months worth of waiting and patience from your parents. The moment you are born may very well be the best day of their lives. Though you may not be very respectful at times, they still love you just as much as they did before. If they could change you thoughif they could have put you together before you were bornwould they. In the society of today, technology and human intellect are increasing at an astonishing rate. While the two may be equal at this moment, there will come a time where technology will overtake human intellect and may very well change the way we look at society today more than it ever has before.... [tags: biotechnology, scientific breakthroughs]:: 9 Works Cited 1281 words(3.7 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The Truth Behind The Holocaust - The twentieth century was a time of change. With two world wars occurring within roughly three decades, it was no surprise that society became forever changed. These two world wars, however, resulted in perhaps one of the most significant and catastrophic events in history - the Holocaust. The Holocaust saw about six million Jews killed by command of German dictator Adolf Hitler. Despite resulting from World War II, however, Hitlers massive genocide of European Jews was planned before the Second World War, and therefore was intentionalism, because of the blame from post-World War I Germany, the twentieth century movement of eugenics as a racial hygiene, and the actions to exterminate Jews... [tags: adolf hitler, nazis, treaty of versailles,germany]:: 9 Works Cited 1675 words(4.8 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] A Comparison of Myself to Adolf Hitler - Struggle is the father of all things. It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle. If you do not fight, life will never be won. (Hitler) For most of the world, Adolf Hitler's name is synonymous with thoughts of hatred, criminality, and pure evil. Although he is responsible for the greatest genocide known to humanity, Hitler is now known to be one of the most influential World leaders weve ever known.... [tags: Essay About Myself]:: 5 Works Cited 1230 words(3.5 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Atwood's Oryx and Crake: Chaos Then, Chaos Now, Chaos Later - One brilliant man alone tore down the world, in an attempt to create the perfect people. Instead of creating his ideal world, he created utter chaos, where the number of healthy and living humans fell rapidly. After the complete disorder came to an end, destruction and damage were not the only remnants left behind. A new world was begun with the end of the human race and the birth of the perfect race, which was made up of creatures of flawlessness and excellence. Margaret Atwood tells a story of an end, revolving in the time of a society of the future.... [tags: Literature]:: 6 Works Cited 1489 words(4.3 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Perfect Society: The Effects of Human Genetic Engineering - Many citizens strive to make our society a better one for everyone. By attempting to filter out genetic inferiorities, many believed there were positive effects to the idea of eugenics. Many historic eugenicists thought society would be better by preventing the births of people afflicted with these inheritable diseases. This sterilization movement was very flawed in the early 20th century. Much of the data collected and methods used by eugenicists determined why certain individuals were malleable to a society.... [tags: eugencies, sterilization, diversity]1451 words(4.1 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Darwin and History - Following 1859, The Origin of Species had at last entered public consciousness. While the theories presented by Darwin were simultaneously being celebrated, condemned or challenged, it triggered a new form of self-awareness. Because Darwin initially avoided addressing the ultimate question of human evolution until The Descent of Man published in 1871, it would lead others to pursue the matter with diverse explanations. Known as the father of German Darwinism, Ernst Haeckels Natrliche Schpfungsgeschichte (The History of Creation) was first published in German in 1868 and translated into English in 1876.... [tags: Scientific Research ]:: 6 Works Cited 1149 words(3.3 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Euthanasia: An End to Misery - Thomas More, in describing a utopian community, envisaged such a community as one that would facilitate the death of those whose lives had become burdensome as a result of torturing and lingering pain (Voluntary Euthanasia). Euthanasia is an act that would be used to relieve suffering patients. Before one can argue for or against the legalization of euthanasia, he must understand the difference between the different types of euthanasia: active versus passive, voluntary versus non-voluntary and involuntary, and euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.... [tags: Ethics ]:: 6 Works Cited 1369 words(3.9 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Genetic Discrimination - In the 1920s the United States became the world center of eugenic activity and social policy. From 1907-1960 more than 100,000 innocent Americans were sterilized in more than 30 states. The American eugenics movements of the 1920s and 1930s recognized human beings as being either cherished or substandard. They established degeneration programs to improve races of low grade causing racism to intend more rapidly. The main targets of degeneration were the usual victims of racism Jews, Indians, Blacks, and many more minorities.... [tags: Discrimination ]584 words(1.7 pages)Good Essays[preview] The Nazi Euthanasia Programme Based on Racial Purity Theories - The Nazi Euthanasia Programme Based on Racial Purity Theories While the actual program of 'euthanasia' was initiated by Hitler in 1939 the whole idea of racial purity, Social Darwinism and eugenics had been on the rise In Europe and more importantly Germany for quite some years. The issue that called for the commencement of the program was in fact written at the end of October but was predated 1st of September to coincide with the start of the war, as it was interestingly enough seen as a paralleled war by the Nazis.... [tags: Papers]2513 words(7.2 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Main Points of an Essay by an Author Regarding Racism in the South - The essays of the authors in this book focus on the different views of racial segregation in the south. There are many different dimensions of racial discrimination brought to the light by these well-educated authors. This book shows the perspective of segregation of blacks and whites in the south. Over all this book of essays assess the costs of segregations impact on the entire nation. The author of this book, a civil rights historian, recounts the pilgrimage of black teachers in the south. This book gives a comprehensive understanding of how blacks and whites exist side-by-side after slavery is abolished.... [tags: Civil Rights, Discrimination]587 words(1.7 pages)Good Essays[preview] Genetic Engineering is Unethical - Genetic engineering is a technology that has been created to alter DNA of different species to try and make them more improved. This essay will discuss the eugenics, the religious point of view about genetic engineering, genetically modified food and the genetic screening of embryos. In this essay it will be said wether genetic engineering is ethical or unethical. During 1924 Hitler said that everyone needs to be blond hair, blue eyes and white. This is known as Eugenics, thanks to a new science known as biotechnology in a few decades.... [tags: Genetic Engineering Essays]492 words(1.4 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Franz Boas Discuss the Contribution of Anthropology - Franz Boas has been considered by many as the "Father of American Anthropology", as he was a pioneer in breaking down the American isolationism, intolerance and misinformation about and biological diversity and linguistics. Born in Minden, Westphalia, Germany, in 1858, from a Jewish family, Boas early thinking was based on the ideals of the 1848 German revolution and followed his parents intellectual freedom (Stocking, 1974). However, Boas did not set out with the specific ambition to study human cultures, and after attending the universities of Heidelberg, Bonn and Kiel, in 1881 he earned a PhD.... [tags: Deconstructing, Discrediting, Concept of Race ]:: 14 Works Cited 1247 words(3.6 pages)Strong Essays[preview]

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AMERICA LATINA REBELDE | Spectacle Theater

The conquest of the Americas did not end with the defeat of the Aztecs and Incas, it was only the initiation of a procession of protests, strikes, and uprisings between the indigenous peoples and colonizers, immigrant workers and landowners, slaves and masters, mass movements and dictatorships. The films that retell these struggles portray a dramatic history fixed in flux.

The ability for South American artists to capture such struggles changes with the regimesif one favorable to the people manages to obtain power, the heroism and atrocities of previous generations may finally be told. Argentinian director Hector Olivera is a case in point, his sometimes satirical but always deadly serious work focuses on the individuals who struggle through dark times of political violence. In 1973 he made a REBELLION IN PATAGONIA, a film telling the story of a Patagonian wool farmers strike in the 1920s, based on a previously banned book by the anarchist writer Osvaldo Bayer. When the dictatorship returned the book and its adaptation were once again banned. With a renewal of democracy in the 1980s Olivera was free to make political work again, telling the story of the dictatorships torture and execution of student activists in NIGHT OF THE PENCILS.

With a majority indigenous population, many of whom continue to live a largely traditional lifestyle, landlocked Bolivia historically lagged behind the economic advances of its neighbors. In the 20th century, the States solution to lagging modernization occasionally relied on neo-eugenics, and Jorge Sanjiness BLOOD OF THE CONDOR tells of an uprising of an indigenous village against North American Progress Corp volunteers who they believe sterilized women without their consent.

Together with the indigenous at the lowest rung of the caste system was the African slave, who, likewise, had a long history of struggle against their masters. The Maroon culture developed independently in Brazil with the Quilombos, the Black Seminoles in Floria, and Palenques in Colombia and Cuba. In the Cuban film MALUALA, a village of runaway slaves is depicted in colorful detail, both in terms of their music, traditions, and fashion, and their lifestyle of constant resistance to renewed subjugation.

REBELLION IN PATAGONIA(aka LA PATAGONIA REBELDE)Dir. Hector Olivera, 1974.Argentina. 110 minutes.In Spanish with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 7:30PMWEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 7:30PMFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 7:30PMSATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 10PMMONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26 10PM

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Oswaldo Bayers historical novel Patagonia Rebelde, about an anarcho-syndicalist labor unions insurrectionary uprising against the Argentinian elite in the 1920s, was banned and publicly burned in the 70s before becoming a bestseller and feature film. The story begins with a hotel workers strike so successful one forgets why the working class would ever lose given its objective strength. But as the victorious anarchists sing their anthem, a group of Chilean laborers, immigrants among immigrants, sit quietly in the back of the labor hall. Although they have been elevated to equals by the principal of international solidarity, their silence foreshadows the bloodshed to come.

For decades, Argentinian politics swung between the Nationalist populism of Juan Peron and a series of military coups, eventually centrally coordinated under Operation Condor, aimed at suppressing the socialist elements that made him so widely popular.

In 1970 Bayers book was banned and publicly burned, but with Perons return in 1973, the leftist Jorge Cepernic was elected governor of the Patagonian state of Santa Cruz. He worked with Bayer and director Hector Olivera to create an epic film version of Patagonia Rebelde, featuring large scale protest and battle sequences. In 1976 the military seized power once again, ushering in a brutal 7 year dictatorship in which the film was banned, Bayer, Olivera, and several of the films actors were blacklisted, and Cepernic was imprisoned. In jail, he asked his warden if he deserved such cruel treatment simply for being a member of a Left-of-center party. No, youre not a prisoner because of your affiliation, the warden reportedly said. Youre a prisoner because you allowed Rebellion in Patagonia to be filmed.

THE NIGHT OF THE PENCILS(aka EL NOCHE DE LOS LAPICES)Dir. Hector Olivera, 1986.Argentina. 105 minutes.In Spanish with English subtitles.

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The repression of Operation Condor was centrally organized by military commanders of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Broliva, and Brazil, aiming to finally wipe out any traces of marxist or revolutionary thought. Argentina saw the highest numbers of disappeared and executed leftists, between 15-30,000. When democracy returned to Argentina in 1983, Olivera was free to make films about the State terror he witnessed. El Noche de los Lapices depicts the organization of a student strike against increased bus fares in La Plata. Only a few months into the dictatorship, some of these students were kidnapped, raped, tortured, starved, and killed.

Beginning with an seemingly innocent protest against the increase of bus fares in La Plata, a student march is attacked by police. In the night, several of the organizers are rounded up by men posing as police and taken to a dungeon. Used as test subjects for torture, the fate of the students would mirror tens of thousands of others in the coming years. A cultural element in the process for justice and reconciliation, which included the imprisonment of some of the students torturers in 1985, Olivera used the testimony of one of the few survivors for his adaptation.

BLOOD OF THE CONDOR(aka YAWAR MALLKU)Dir. Jorge Sanjines, 1969.Bolivia. 70 minutes.In Quechua, English, and Spanish with English subtitles.

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Ignacio, the tragic hero of Jorge Sajiness first film, was a perfect stand-in for the utterly impotent situation Bolivias indigenous population faced in the 1960s. When his wifes third consercutive pregnancy terminates, he is driven into a rage, and she is the target. A series of flashbacks and flashforwards shows more violence in every direction. We soon find out the reason for all of it is the sketchy, but outwardly well-meaning American aid workers who recently appeared in the village.

Inspired by anti-Imperialist Marxism and new wave European cinema, this was the first feature of Sanjines, who would become one of Bolivias most awarded directors and a central figure in Latin Americas Third Cinema movement. The heavy-handed villainy of the Progress Corps gringos and the obedient facilitation of their schemes against the indigenous population by Bolivian authorities represents a political cosmology that radiates through the history of post-Colonial South America.

Sanjines worked with native actors and audiences alike, designing the film to be watched in indigenous communities that were not yet familiar with cinema. The results were mixed, as many did not understand narrative motifs such as the flashback sequences. Overall, the film was influential enough that repelling Peace Corps volunteers became a cause of cultural autonomism, and they were expelled altogether in 1971. Although its unlikely the Peace Corps was running a sterilization program, the history of condescension, instrumentalisation, and exploitation of indigenous people made the allegations ring true. Their very presence, along with the self-congratulatory Western doctor character, were symptomatic of an all-pervasive imperialist influence, alluded to by use of rock music and the culturally assimilated but still helplessly subservient Sixto, ensuring repressive hierarchies, and the violence inherent within them, remain firmly in place at every level.

MALUALADir. Sergio Giral, 1979.Cuba. 95 minutes.In Spanish with English subtitles.

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With several historical films reflecting on the experience of slavery in Cuba, Sergio Giral is perhaps Cubas best known Afro-Cuban director. In Maluala, he takes up the subject of Cubas Palenques, a network of about 30 communities hidden in Cubas Eastern coast mountains comprised of runaway slaves with different ethnic origins, but a common cultural rejection of the bondage that brought them across the Atlantic.

Among these was Maluala, whose chief, Gallo, present a petition to be left alone by the Colonial government. The counteroffer is for the habitants of the Palenques to turn themselves in before being formally freed, a proposition three other chiefs accept, but Gallo refuses in a conflict reminiscent of Gillo Pontecorvos divide-and-conquer epic BURN!, only from the colonizeds perspective.

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Free gattaca Essays and Papers

Title Length Color Rating Gattaca, A Film by Andrew Niccol - Gattaca, A Film by Andrew Niccol Exactly five seconds after he came into the world, Vincent Freeman was already considered to be a loser. His first genetic test revealed high probabilities of hyperactivity, sight troubles and serious heart diseases, a life expectancy of 30 years and 2 months and quite low intellectual faculties. At that time, the artificial insemination of test tube babies selected according to their genetic potential had become for many people the natural way of making children.... [tags: Movie Films Gattaca Niccol Essays]1596 words(4.6 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] A Brave New World and Gattaca - Anti-humanity; people arent even people. Could you possibly visualize that type of world. A world where people are invented and controlled. 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They do this by genetically cloning individuals for organ harvesting and attempting to create a perfect world by creating perfect humans. Living in a world where they have successfully created human clones for organ donations, is not a great achievement to mankind in any way, shape, or form. It makes you wonder, where exactly do you draw the... [tags: genetics, cloning, humans, perfect]828 words(2.4 pages)Better Essays[preview] Gattaca - Gattaca is a movie directed by Andrew Niccol and the film is set in the "not too distant future." Andrew Niccol's perception of the future isn't what most people expect, but once thought about carefully it seems quite believable. This movie presents us with a new method in which society strives for perfection and it also makes us wonder if genetic engineering is morally correct. Your place in society in Gattaca is based on your genetic makeup and the way you were born. People born the way we know as natural are "in-valids".... 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MSNBC In Cover-Up Of Manifestly Provable Population …

Paul Joseph WatsonPrison Planet.comWednesday, June 16, 2010

As part of his obsessive drive to smear anti-big government activists as insanely paranoid and dangerous radicals, Chris Matthews and his guest, establishment neo-lib David Corn, previewed tonights Rise of the New Right hit piece by claiming that the elites agenda to enact dictatorial population control measures was a conspiracy theory.

As we have documented on numerous occasions, while Matthews points fingers at his political adversaries for preparing to engage in violence, the only real violence were witnessing out on the streets is being committed by Obama supporters, MSNBC thugs and other leftists who refuse to tolerate free speech that counters their propaganda.

However, MSNBCs goal is not just to demonize the Tea Party and anti-big government activists as dangerous radicals as an avenue through which to sick the police state on them and crush their free speech, theyre also desperate to prevent Americans from lending any credence to what people like Alex Jones have to say by acting as gatekeepers to prevent such information from becoming mainstream.

A perfect example of an issue that Matthews and his ilk want to sideline is the manifestly provable fact that elitists have for decades publicly stated their desire to reduce global population by around 80 per cent and as much as 99 per cent.

During MSNBCs Hardball show on Tuesday, Corn characterized the notion that there is a planetary elite that literally has a secret plan to kill 80 to 99 percent of the population, as a conspiracy theory.

Watch the clip.

Corns role in covering-up the depopulation agenda is unsurprising given his habitual tactic of trying to discredit anyone who exposes government criminality and corruption. One critic labeled Corn as someone who serves, As a Neo-Con-lite version of someone who dismisses those who have investigated the crimes of the U.S. government, in reference to how he tried to undermine the work of the late Gary Webb, an award-winning investigative journalist who exposed the CIAs involvement in the drug trade.

Despite Corns claims to the contrary, the global elite have been forthright, public, and unashamedly enthusiastic about their open intention to cull at least 80 per cent of humanity in the name of saving the planet.

There are still large numbers of people amongst the general public, in academia, and especially those who work for the corporate media, who are still in denial about the on-the-record stated agenda for global population reduction, as well as the consequences of this program that we already see unfolding.

We have compiled a compendium of evidence to prove that the elite have been obsessed with eugenics and its modern day incarnation, population control, for well over 100 years and that goal of global population reduction is still in full force to this day.

The Worlds Elite Are Discussing Population Reduction

During a recent TED conference, an organization which is sponsored by one of the largest toxic waste polluters on the planet, Gates told the audience that vaccines need to be used to reduce world population figures in order to solve global warming and lower CO2 emissions to almost zero.

Stating that the global population was heading towards 9 billion, Gates said, If we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services (abortion), we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 per cent.

Quite how an improvement in health care and vaccines that supposedly save lives would lead to a lowering in global population is an oxymoron, unless Gates is referring to vaccines that sterilize people, which is precisely the same method advocated in White House science advisor John P. Holdrens 1977 textbook Ecoscience, which calls for a dictatorial planetary regime to enforce draconian measures of population reduction via all manner of oppressive techniques, including sterilization.

Gates eugenicist zeal is shared by his fellow Bilderberg elitists, many of whom have advocated draconian policies of population control in their own public speeches and writings. Indeed, the Rockefeller family funded eugenics research in Germany through the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institutes in Berlin and Munich. The Rockefeller Foundation praised Hitlers sterilization program in Nazi Germany. David Rockefeller attended the first Bilderberg meeting in 1954 and is now the head of Bilderbergs steering committee.

A joint World Health Organization-Rockefeller inoculation program against tetanus in Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines in the early 1990s was in fact a covert trial on using vaccines to medically abort womens babies.

Comite Pro Vida de Mexico, a Roman Catholic lay organization, became suspicious of the motives behind the WHO program and decided to test numerous vials of the vaccine and found them to contain human Chorionic Gonadotrophin, or hCG, writes historian F. William Engdahl in his article, Bill Gates And Neo-Eugenics: Vaccines To Reduce Population. That was a curious component for a vaccine designed to protect people against lock-jaw arising from infection with rusty nail wounds or other contact with certain bacteria found in soil. The tetanus disease was indeed, also rather rare. It was also curious because hCG was a natural hormone needed to maintain a pregnancy. However, when combined with a tetanus toxoid carrier, it stimulated formation of antibodies against hCG, rendering a woman incapable of maintaining a pregnancy, a form of concealed abortion. Similar reports of vaccines laced with hCG hormones came from the Philippines and Nicaragua.

Gates recently announced that he would be funding a sterilization program that would use sharp blasts of ultrasound directed against a mans scrotum to render him infertile for six months. The foundation has funded a new sweat-triggered vaccine delivery program based on nanoparticles penetrating human skin. The technology is described as a way to develop nanoparticles that penetrate the skin through hair follicles and burst upon contact with human sweat to release vaccines, writes health researcher Mike Adams.

As was reported last year by the London Times, a secret billionaire club meeting in early May 2009 which took place in New York and was attended by David Rockefeller, Ted Turner, Bill Gates and others was focused around how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the worlds population.

We questioned establishment media spin which portrayed the attendees as kind-hearted and concerned philanthropists by pointing out that Ted Turner has publicly advocated shocking population reduction programs that would cull the human population by a staggering 95%. He has also called for a Communist-style one child policy to be mandated by governments in the west. In China, the one child policy is enforced by means of taxes on each subsequent child, allied to an intimidation program which includes secret police and family planning authorities kidnapping pregnant women from their homes and performing forced abortions.

Of course, Turner completely fails to follow his own rules on how everyone else should live their lives, having five children and owning no less than 2 million acres of land.

In the third world, Turner has contributed literally billions to population reduction, namely through United Nations programs, leading the way for the likes of Bill & Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet (Gates father has long been a leading board member of Planned Parenthood and a top eugenicist).

The notion that these elitists merely want to slow population growth in order to improve health is a complete misnomer. Slowing the growth of the worlds population while also improving its health are two irreconcilable concepts to the elite. Stabilizing world population is a natural byproduct of higher living standards, as has been proven by the stabilization of the white population in the west. Elitists like David Rockefeller have no interest in slowing the growth of world population by natural methods, their agenda is firmly rooted in the pseudo-science of eugenics, which is all about culling the surplus population via draconian methods.

David Rockefellers legacy is not derived from a well-meaning philanthropic urge to improve health in third world countries, it is born out of a Malthusian drive to eliminate the poor and those deemed racially inferior, using the justification of social Darwinism.

As is documented in Alex Jones seminal film Endgame, Rockefellers father, John D. Rockefeller, exported eugenics to Germany from its origins in Britain by bankrolling the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute which later would form a central pillar in the Third Reichs ideology of the Nazi super race. After the fall of the Nazis, top German eugenicists were protected by the allies as the victorious parties fought over who would enjoy their expertise in the post-war world.

As Dr. Len Horowitz writes, In the 1950s, the Rockefellers reorganized the U.S. eugenics movement in their own family offices, with spinoff population-control and abortion groups. The Eugenics Society changed its name to the Society for the Study of Social Biology, its current name.

The Rockefeller Foundation had long financed the eugenics movement in England, apparently repaying Britain for the fact that British capital and an Englishman-partner had started old John D. Rockefeller out in his Oil Trust. In the 1960s, the Eugenics Society of England adopted what they called Crypto-eugenics, stating in their official reports that they would do eugenics through means and instruments not labeled as eugenics.

With support from the Rockefellers, the Eugenics Society (England) set up a sub-committee called the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which for 12 years had no other address than the Eugenics Society. This, then, is the private, international apparatus which has set the world up for a global holocaust, under the UN flag.

In the latter half of the 20th century, eugenics merely changed its face to become known as population control. This was crystallized in National Security Study Memorandum 200, a 1974 geopolitical strategy document prepared by Rockefellers intimate friend and fellow Bilderberg member Henry Kissinger, which targeted thirteen countries for massive population reduction by means of creating food scarcity, sterilization and war.

Henry Kissinger: In the now declassified 1974 document, National Security Memorandum 200, Kissinger outlines the plan to use food scarcity as a weapon in order to achieve population reduction in lesser-developed countries.

The document, declassified in 1989, identified 13 countries that were of special interest to U.S. geopolitical objectives and outlined why population growth, and particularly that of young people who were seen as a revolutionary threat to U.S. corporations, was a potential roadblock to achieving these objectives. The countries named were India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia and Colombia.

The study outlined how civil disturbances affecting the smooth flow of needed materials would be less likely to occur under conditions of slow or zero population growth.

Development of a worldwide political and popular commitment to population stabilization is fundamental to any effective strategy. This requires the support and commitment of key LDC leaders. This will only take place if they clearly see the negative impact of unrestricted population growth and believe it is possible to deal with this question through governmental action, states the document.

The document called for integrating family planning (otherwise known as abortion) with routine health services for the purposes of curbing the numbers of LDC people, (lesser-developed countries).

The report shockingly outlines how withholding food could be used as a means of punishment for lesser-developed countries who do not act to reduce their population, essentially using food as a weapon for a political agenda by creating mass starvation in under-developed countries.

The allocation of scarce PL480 (food) resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production, states the document.

Later in the document, the idea of enforcing mandatory programs by using food as an instrument of national power is presented.

The document states that the program will be administered through the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), thereby avoiding the danger that some LDC leaders will see developed-country pressures for family planning as a form of economic or racial imperialism; this could well create a serious backlash.

As Jean Guilfoyle writes, NSSM 200 was a statement composed after the fact. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the U.S. had worked diligently behind the scenes to advance the population-control agenda at the United Nations, contributing the initial funding of $1 million.

A Department of State telegram, dated July 1969, reported the support of John D. Rockefeller III, among others, for the appointment of Rafael Salas of the Philippines as senior officer to co-ordinate and administer the UN population program. The administrator of the UN Development Program reported confidentially that he preferred someone such as Salas who had the advantage of color, religion (Catholic) and conviction.

A comprehensive outline of what is contained in the National Security Memorandum document can be read at http://www.theinterim.com/july98/20nssm.html

Evidence of the actual consequences of this program can be found with the link between vaccines and sterilization, as well as other diseases such as cancer, in both the west and the third world.

In the following video clips, women of the Akha tribe who live predominately in Thailand, describe how they miscarried shortly after taking vaccines when they were eight months pregnant. The videos below highlight the efforts of supporters of the Akha tribe to get answers from the University of Oregon and the United Nations, who provided funding for the vaccination and sterilization programs.

Further evidence of the link between vaccinations, birth control, cancer and other diseases can be researched here.

In the 21st century, the eugenics movement has changed its stripes once again, manifesting itself through the global carbon tax agenda and the notion that having too many children or enjoying a reasonably high standard of living is destroying the planet through global warming, creating the pretext for further regulation and control over every facet of our lives.

As we have tirelessly documented, the elites drive for population control is not based around a benign philanthropic urge to improve living standards, it is firmly routed in eugenics, racial hygiene and fascist thinking.

According to the The London Times report, the secret billionaire cabal, with its interest in population reduction, has been dubbed The Good Club by insiders. This couldnt be further from the truth. Anyone who takes the time to properly research the origins of the population control movement will come to understand that the Rockefeller-Turner-Gates agenda for drastic population reduction, which is now clearly manifesting itself through real environmental crises like chemtrails, genetically modified food, tainted vaccines and other skyrocketing diseases such as cancer, has its origins in the age-old malevolent elitist agenda to cull the human chattel as one would do to rodents or any other species deemed a nuisance by the central planning authorities.

Sterilization And Eugenics Returns In Popular Culture

We are now seeing the return of last centurys eugenicist movement through the popular promotion of sterilization as a method of birth control.

A popular womens magazine in the UK recently featured an article entitled, Young, Single and Sterilized, in which women in their 20s discussed why they had undergone an operation to prevent them from ever having children. The article is little more than PR for a womens charity called Marie Stopes International, an organization that carries out abortions and sterilizations and was founded by a Nazi eugenicist who advocated compulsory sterilization of non-whites and those of bad character.

In the article, sterilization is lauded as an excellent method of birth control by Dr. Patricia Lohr of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.

The article includes an advertisement that encourages women to seek more information about sterilization by contacting Marie Stopes International. We read that, Over the past year, a quarter of the women who booked a sterilization consultation with womens charity Marie Stopes were aged 30 or under.

Marie Stopes was a feminist who opened the first birth control clinic in Britain in 1921 as well as being Nazi sympathizer and a eugenicist who advocated that non-whites and the poor be sterilized.

Stopes, a racist and an anti-Semite, campaigned for selective breeding to achieve racial purity, a passion she shared with Adolf Hitler in adoring letters and poems that she sent the leader of the Third Reich.

Stopes also attended the Nazi congress on population science in Berlin in 1935, while calling for the compulsory sterilization of the diseased, drunkards, or simply those of bad character. Stopes acted on her appalling theories by concentrating her abortion clinics in poor areas so as to reduce the birth rate of the lower classes.

Stopes left most of her estate to the Eugenics Society, an organization that shared her passion for racial purity and still exists today under the new name The Galton Institute. The society has included members such as Charles Galton Darwin (grandson of the evolutionist), Julian Huxley and Margaret Sanger.

Marie Stopes, the Nazi and pioneering eugenicist who sent love letters to Hitler, honored recently by the Royal Mail.

Ominously, The Galton Institute website promotes its support and funding initiative for the practical delivery of family planning facilities, especially in developing countries. In other words, the same organization that once advocated sterilizing black people to achieve racial purity in the same vein as the Nazis is now bankrolling abortions of black babies in the third world.

While the issue of abortion is an entirely different argument, most would agree that no matter how extreme it sounds, a woman has the right to sterilize herself if she so chooses, just as a man has the right to a vasectomy.

But when a magazine aimed primarily at young women all but encourages girls as young as 20 to have their fallopian tubes tied in order to prevent the irritation of children entering their lives and then advertises an organization founded by a Nazi eugenicist that can perform the operation, something has to be amiss.

Even more shocking than this is the fact that the majority of people in the UK routinely express their support for societys undesirables to be forcibly sterilized by the state, harking back to a time when such a thing was commonplace right up to the 1970s in some areas of America and Europe.

As we highlighted at the time, respondents to a Daily Mail article about Royal Mail honoring Marie Stopes by using her image on a commemorative stamp were not disgusted at Royal Mail for paying homage to a racist Nazi eugenicist, but were merely keen to express their full agreement that those deemed not to be of pure genetic stock or of the approved character should be forcibly sterilized and prevented from having children.

A lot of people should be sterilized, IMO. Its still true today, wrote one.

Just imagine what a stable, well-ordered society wed have if compulsory sterilisation had been adopted years ago for the socially undesirable, states another respondent, calling for a satellite-carried sterilisation ray to be installed in space to zap the undesirables.

Shockingly, another compares sterilization and genocide of those deemed inferior to the breeding and culling of farmyard animals, and says that such a move is necessary to fight overpopulation and global warming. Here is the comment in full from Karen in Wales;

We breed farm animals to produce the best possible stock and kill them when they have fulfilled their purpose. We inter-breed pedigree animals to produce extremes that leave them open to ill-health and early death. It is only religion that says humans are not animals. The reality is that we are simply intelligent, mammalian primates.

The world population of humans has increased from 2 billion to 6.5 billion in the last 50 years. This planet can support 2 billion humans comfortably. 6.5 billion humans use too many resources and leads to global warming, climate change and a very uncertain future for all of us humans and all other life sharing this planet with us.

Marie Stopes believed in population control and in breeding the best possible humans. So did Hitler. Neither of the aims are bad in themselves. It is how they are achieved that is the problem. The fact that we still remember Marie Stopes is an achievement in itself.

The nature of these comments is so fundamentally sick and twisted that one is tempted to dismiss them as a joke but these people are deadly serious. Presumably they would also agree with Chinas one child policy, which is routinely enforced by intimidation as young pregnant women are grabbed off the streets by state goons and taken to hospitals where forced abortions are carried out.

Now with popular womens magazines advising women in their 20s where they can go to be sterilized and ensure a lifetime of partying and carefree sex, its no surprise that experts predict that by 2010 one in four western women will be child free for life.

The yearning to have children is the most beautiful, natural and innate emotion either a man or a woman can possibly experience. That is not to say that its always wrong for some people not to have children extreme circumstances can justify such a decision. But to have yourself sterilized because you find children to be an irritant and want to live a life free of responsibility or consequences is an awful message to send to young women, especially in the sex-saturated entertainment culture that we are now forced to endure.

Furthermore, the outright promotion of Marie Stopes International as the place to go to get sterilized if youre under 30 is stomach-churning considering the fact that the origins of this organization can be found in Nazi ideology, racist and backward early 20th century eugenics and a long-standing agenda to cull the population of undesirables, an abhorrent belief still held by elites across the planet today.

Genocidal Population Reduction Programs Embraced By Academia

One such individual who embraces the notion that humans are a virus that should be wiped out en masse for the good of mother earth is Dr. Eric R. Pianka, an American biologist based at the University of Texas in Austin.

Dr Erik Pianka, the American biologist who advocated the mass genocide of 90% of the human race and was applauded by his peers.

During a speech to the Texas Academy of Science in March 2006, Pianka advocated the need to exterminate 90% of the worlds population through the airborne ebola virus. The reaction from scores of top scientists and professors in attendance was not one of shock or revulsion they stood and applauded Piankas call for mass genocide.

Piankas speech was ordered to be kept off the record before it began as cameras were turned away and hundreds of students, scientists and professors sat in attendance.

Saying the public was not ready to hear the information presented, Pianka began by exclaiming, Were no better than bacteria!, as he jumped into a doomsday malthusian rant about overpopulation destroying the earth.

Standing in front of a slide of human skulls, Pianka gleefully advocated airborne ebola as his preferred method of exterminating the necessary 90% of humans, choosing it over AIDS because of its faster kill period. Ebola victims suffer the most tortuous deaths imaginable as the virus kills by liquefying the internal organs. The body literally dissolves as the victim writhes in pain bleeding from every orifice.

Pianka then cited the Peak Oil fraud as another reason to initiate global genocide. And the fossil fuels are running out, he said, so I think we may have to cut back to two billion, which would be about one-third as many people.

Later, the scientist welcomed the potential devastation of the avian flu virus and spoke glowingly of Chinas enforced one child policy, before zestfully commenting, We need to sterilize everybody on the Earth.

At the end of Piankas speech the audience erupted not to a chorus of boos and hisses but to a raucous reception of applause and cheers as audience members clambered to get close to the scientist to ask him follow up questions. Pianka was later presented with a distinguished scientist award by the Academy. Pianka is no crackpot. He has given lectures to prestigious universities worldwide.

Indeed, the notion that the earths population needs to be drastically reduced is a belief shared almost unanimously by academics across the western hemisphere.

In 2002, The Melbourne Age reported on newly uncovered documents detailing Nobel Peace Prize winning microbiologist Sir Macfarlane Burnets plan to help the Australian government develop biological weapons for use against Indonesia and other overpopulated countries of South-East Asia.

From the article;

Sir Macfarlane recommended in a secret report in 1947 that biological and chemical weapons should be developed to target food crops and spread infectious diseases. His key advisory role on biological warfare was uncovered by Canberra historian Philip Dorling in the National Archives in 1998.

Specifically to the Australian situation, the most effective counter-offensive to threatened invasion by overpopulated Asiatic countries would be directed towards the destruction by biological or chemical means of tropical food crops and the dissemination of infectious disease capable of spreading in tropical but not under Australian conditions, Sir Macfarlane said.

The Victorian-born immunologist, who headed the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, won the Nobel prize for medicine in 1960. He died in 1985 but his theories on immunity and clonal selection provided the basis for modern biotechnology and genetic engineering.

Controversy surrounding the comments of another darling of scientific academia, geneticist James Watson, who told a Sunday Times newspaper interviewer that black people are inherently less intelligent than whites, should come as no surprise to those who are aware of Watsons role in pushing the dark pseudo-science of eugenics.

Watson told the interviewer that he was inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa because all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours whereas all the testing says not really.

Watson was the Head of the Human Genome Project until 1992 and is best known for his contribution to the discovery of DNA, an achievement that won him the Nobel Peace prize in 1962.

But what most people are unaware of is the fact that Watson has played an integral role in advancing the legitimacy of the eugenics/population reduction movement for decades.

Watson is a strong proponent of genetic screening, a test to determine whether a couple is at increased risk of having a baby with a hereditary genetic disorder.

Since such screening obviously increases the rate of abortions of babies considered imperfect, many have slammed its introduction as nothing more than a camouflage for eugenics or voluntary eugenics as British philosophy professor Philip Kitcher labeled it.

Read the rest here:

MSNBC In Cover-Up Of Manifestly Provable Population ...

The Philippines: Underdeveloped, but not Overpopulated …

UPDATE: It has come to my attention that, almost a year and a half after its publication, this essay sill remains the most popular entry on Out of Purgatory, and, as such,its link is still being widely circulated. If any readers are interested in a printer-friendly, PDF version, it is available upon request. Please email me at tasio@mail2philippines.com.

September 1, 2012

The Philippines:Underdeveloped, but NotOverpopulated

March 18, 20111

CONTENTS:

Part I, The Philippines Reproductive Health Bill: Rooted in Pseudo-Economics and Neo-Colonialism

The Problems with the Bill

Overpopulated?

The World Bank Report is Wrong

Population and Economics

Save the Nation!

When the U.S. Opposed Imperialism

A More Just Global Financial System

Part II, Environmentalism as Neo-Eugenics

The Infamous NSSM 200

What is a Natural Resource?

The Climate Change Hoax

The WWF: Enemies of Progress

Epilogue: Reproductive Health Revisted

Notes

__________

Introduction

A great deal of controversy has been made of the proposed reproductive health legislation that is currently being debated in the Philippine Congress. The general argument is usually portrayed as such: those representing the Catholic Church are fighting against the bill because of their opposition to artificial contraception; they are concerned that a government initiative to promote the usage of such devices will lead to an acceptance of a sexually immoral culture. Conversely, those individuals and groups supporting such legislation claim that it will alleviate problems such as the increase in illegal abortions, and the rapid growth in the numbers of poor Filipinos. This unbridled population boom, they allege, mainly stems from the fact that these unfortunate and uneducated people are simply having too much unprotected sex. The pro-RH camp sees the Churchs stance as not only archaic, but also overreaching into the state affairs of the only major nation in an overpopulated East Asia where she has considerable social and political influence.

This political cartoon depicts well the heated debate over the RH Bill.

This political cartoon depicts the heated debate over the RH Bill.

I have no intention at this time to entertain a theological debate about the immorality of artificial contraception, to investigate the charges that some types can be used as abortifacients, or to discourse on whether or not the Church is justified in her attempts to influence government policy regarding this issue. Those legitimate concerns about the providing of adequate health care for women or aiding them in dealing with unintended pregnancies, about fighting infant mortality and caring for abandoned babies and homeless children, about the eradication of sexually transmitted diseases, and about all other societal ills related to sex and pregnancyall of these should be seriously addressed and dealt with by state, church, and citizenry. But the firm stance I do wish to take in regards to the RH Bill and related matters is that the Filipino people should not tolerate, under any circumstances, any sort of government policy for population reduction.

I. The Philippines Reproductive Health Bill: Rooted in Pseudo-Economics and Neo-Colonialism

The Problems with the Bill

Take note of the two following excerpts:

The State shall promote programs thatenable couples, [et.al.] to have the numberof children they desire with due consideration to the health of women and resources available[and] analyze demographic trends towards sustainable human development

[T]he mitigation of the population growth rate is incidental to the promotion of reproductive health and sustainable human development

The limited resources of the country cannot be suffered to be spread so thinly to service a burgeoning multitude that makes the allocations grossly inadequate and effectively meaningless

[E]ducation shall be integrated in all relevant subjects and shall includepopulation and development [and] family planning methods

The State shallencourage [parents, et.al.] to have two children as the ideal family size

[State agencies] shall initiate and sustain a heightened nationwide multimedia campaign to raise the level of public awareness of the protection and promotion of reproductive health and rights including family planning and population and development,[and f]acilitate reproductive health care service delivery andthe production, distribution and delivery of quality reproductive health and family planning supplies and commodities to make them accessible and affordable to ordinary citizens.

The Population Commissionshall[c]onduct sustained and effective information drives on sustainable human development and on all methods of family planning to prevent unintended, unplanned and mistimed pregnancies.

______________________________

[B]y means of the press,[electronic media], cinema, handbills, short brochures, educational statements, and the like, the population must be convinced over and over again how harmful it is to have a lot of children. The costs ought to be cited, and then what could have been bought instead. The great dangers to womens health that can arise in childbearing could be spelled out, and so forth [A]dvocacy and dissemination of contraceptives[should not] be illegal It is obvious that by systematic application of the above measures, considerable success can be achieved

When we have converted the mass ofpeople to belief in the one- or two-child system, we shall have arrived at the goal we stipulated.

The authors of those excerpts take a somewhat similar approach in addressing what they obviously recognize as a population problem. Both recognize that mass media and educational forums are indispensable tools for making the public realize that population growth is a problem. Both look at the solutions to that population problem in utilitarian economic terms. Both agree that two children per couple is the most preferable family size. And both advocate that contraceptives should be made as widely available as possible. The first quote is a composite of various passages from the consolidated version of the The Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Act of 2011.2 I will reveal the source of the second quote later, by which the reasons for its inclusion will be made more clear.

Some voices of opposition to the bill have indeed already cited the fact that population control seems to be its driving intention. And conversely, supporters have cited that the bill does clearly state that [a]ttaining the ideal family size [of two children] is neither mandatory nor compulsory. Furthermore, a Senate version, SB 2378, states in its explanatory note that the bill does not dictate any form of population control.

However, such reassurances seem to be classic cases where the legislators and those working with them do protest too much, since the inclusion of such language only rules out overt methods of population control. At this point in time, the legalization of abortion or compulsory sterilization would be politically impossible in a principled republic like the Philippines.3 Thus, a subtler and more appealing approach to the issue is of course needed. And, lo and behold, here we have a bill being promoted as pro-poor and pro-womens rights.

Although the issue of population control has already been raised by others, what I find necessary in making a case against the bill, but lacking amongst those who oppose it, however, is a more thorough analysis of the proper relationship between population and economics. To launch an effective attack on the forces pushing for population control, we must strike at the underlying assumptions that are upheld in the legislation.

Overpopulated?

Whenever the rapid population growth of not only the Philippines, but the rest of the underdeveloped world in general, is addressed in most public forums, there tend to be not only many misconceptions, but even views rooted in outright, malicious fabrications about the interrelated subjects of population growth, economics, and human civilizations impact on the so-called natural environment. Worse still, there is the appearance of a consensus among those who exert the greatest influence on public opinionpoliticians, academics, and a purportedly truth-seeking pressthat human population growth is the dominant threat to our economic and ecological stability. It is also apparent that the advocates for a population control policy, along with those who campaign for environmental issues like curbing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting sustainable development, are fond of insisting that such policy changes are looking out for the best interests of the worlds poorsince they will be the ones to suffer the most from these alleged social and environmental crises. These axioms are indeed embedded in the RH legislation, which implies that sustainable human development is contingent on reducing population growth and essential to protect[ing] the life opportunities of future generations and the natural ecosystem on which all life depends because resources are limited and cannot support a burgeoning multitude.

The thinking behind RH Bill lazily assumes that poor Filipinos are victims of overpopulation, rather than severe failures in economic policy.

Perhaps to most readers, such assertions do not sound as if they are rooted in an explicitly sinister and fascist intent. Thus, we will have to examine the origins of these concepts, and the motive for pushing them on the people of the Philippines.

The World Bank Report is Wrong

Let us begin with investigating an argument for aggressive population control by citing the evidence from the World Banks recent report, The Philippines: Fostering More Inclusive Growth, which was summarized in a recent series of newspaper editorials.4 Citations from this report claim that population growth contributes to a vicious cycle of impoverishment by creating a surplus in the younger strata of working-age Filipinos. Thus, since there are not enough employment opportunities for that age group in the Philippines, that younger generation becomes a burden on the older strata of the working-age population. The youth, in turn, tend to produce offspring of their own and thus create a new generation of useless eaters that the Philippine economy cannot support. Therefore, the report apparently concludes, solutions to the Philippines economic woes include instituting measures for checking population growth.

But the report also implicitly contradicts itself, since it cites that the highest concentration of poor Filipinos live in rural areas. Other economists and demographerswho are perhaps more competent than those at the World Bankhave already pointed out that if overpopulation leads to impoverishment, then why do the people of the more sparsely-populated, rural areas tend to suffer from worse living conditions than those in the more developed, densely-populated, urbanized areas? Is it not true that urban areas tend to have lower poverty rates because cities are designed to support larger and denser populations? Should not the solutions therefore focus on incorporating the urban and rural areas as an agro-industrial model of modern economy?5

Thus, those purportedly professional economists at the World Bank and elsewhere, who would conclude such incompetent and detrimental nonsolutions in the form of policy suggestions for more effective family planning6 seem to have little intention for seriously solving the Philippines economic problems. Do they instead prefer to cling to the conventional academic dogmas of Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus that have taught them to believe that the relationship between an economic system and human population remains cyclical and void of any intelligent and rational foresight?7 If the economy cannot support the population, their logic supposes, then the population needs to be reduced. In their approach to economic science, do they ever bother to ask that since economic systems are created by human activity, they should be driven by a political intention to better serve the needs of a growing population? The rapid increase in the numbers of the poor in underdeveloped nations like the Philippines is clearly a result of the absence of combined, international economic policy initiatives designed to facilitate those nations in pursuing their sovereign right to economic development. And, as we will see, the global initiative for population reduction is directed by the same forces who seek to undermine the sovereignty of the worlds nation-states.8

To get the most competent view of this issue as possible, we must investigate the true relationship between population growth and economics. And doing so will require us to examine both past and present economic and political developments in the Philippines, and the world

Population and Economics

The global economic system is in a state of collapse. Despite the fanciful reports that we can now expect the benefits of a recovery, the central banks of the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and elsewhere have desperately flooded the currency markets with money in a doomed attempt to revive a dead global banking system that has been kept in a kind-of zombie state since the late summer of 2007. This collapse is caused by an insanely overleveraged and speculation-driven financial system that produces no real physical wealth for the benefit of the peoples of the world. To quite the contrary, it has gorged itself by looting that physical wealth, and bailing the system out has only worsened things by creating an even wider chasm between physical economic conditions, and the financial schemes created to generate fictitious wealth.9

The recent report by the U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), chaired by one Philip Angelides, not only documents how this parasitic system gestatedand grew over the last thirty years, but also concludes that little to nothing has been done by the U.S. government to correct the problemin particular, an Obama presidency that claimed it would change things.10 The conclusions of that report should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the U.S. statesman and economist, Lyndon LaRouche; as it concurs with what he had specifically forecast would take place in the world economy during a public address in July of 2007.11

LaRouches (inset) Triple Curve function illustrates how the decoupling of a financial system from actual physical economic progress will result in hyperinflation and physical economic collapse.

In fact, LaRouche has been warning of such a collapse process for decades. In the 1960s, he announced that a series of currency crises would lead to the dismantling of the post-war Bretton Woods agreements, which would then open the door to currency speculation and the unbridled looting of national economies by international finance. Later, in his 1983 book, There Are No Limits to Growth, LaRouche provided a specific refutation of the allegations of a population problem. Although great feats of economic and social progress are possible in this modern age, he wrote, most of the worlds inhabitants continue to tolerate [miserable living] conditionswhich even existing technologies are capable of solving[because] some people with a great deal of power over the periodicals, universities, financial institutions, and political parties of much of the world, simply do not wish society to solve these problems.

It is the deliberate policies of globalization and neocolonialism that have led to the slide toward lower orders of the economic and technological potential vital for nations to support their growing populations at ever-improving living conditions. Todays result is a degenerated economic state where population growth continues at a deceleration, and with the masses supported at only near-minimal living standards. The population growth among the poor that has been the subject of so much debate is thus another hallmark of the economic collapse we are facingthe complete inverse of the claim that it is a leading cause of hindering the Philippine economy from progressing.12

As distinct from the dominant approach to economics as a speculative science that over-relies on econometric statistical forecasting, LaRouche speaks of a science of physical economy.13 This approach had led him to the discovery that progress in economics can be most accurately measured by potential relative population-density. To effectively expound on this curious dynamic created by the interaction of scientific discoveries, technological advances, and social and political progress is beyond the scope of this essay; but perhaps a general idea can best be briefly illustrated to the reader by the historical example of mans discovery and utilization of electricity.14

World-wide population growth. Notice how surges in population occur following cultural and scientific renaissances.

The twentieth century saw unprecedented, exponential growth in worldwide population (see graph).15This was made possible, in large part, by the economic transformation that occurred in the same era due to electrification. Electricity has revolutionized everythingfrom agriculture, to medical science, to industry, to infrastructure and transportation. It has enabled economies a greater potential tosupport growing populations at better living standards in more concentrated areas. It has even contributed to allowing large cities to exist in parts of the world where the potential for dense human habitation was previously impossible. (Therefore, an increase in the potential relative population-density.) It has truly changed mans relationship to nature and proves that the Earths (or even the Solar Systems) carrying capacity for human habitation is not something of a fixed order.

Save the Nation!

If we view the Philippine economy from this standpoint, we see how adequately servicing the populations need for electricity is not possible with the current levels of infrastructure. This, and many other areas of what LaRouche defines as the physical economy need rapid modernization and expansion to support dignified living standards for a population that is over 95 millionand beyond.16

But, yet, the Philippines does not lack the potential workforce needed for such a task. She has long since proven herself capable of producing very competent professionals and skilled workers in many fieldsobserve how many OFWs are health care workers, technical operators, or engineers, for example. The dilapidated condition of this country should tell us that the solution lies in the creation and utilization of a large portion of skilled, productive labor to solve many of the logistical problems hindering her from becoming a great nation.

These are the kind of employment opportunities that the government should cultivate for the youthinstead of pretending the solution lies in attracting foreign investors to set up things like call centers, simply because Filipinos speak English and are willing to work much cheaper than the average Westerner. The problems presented by the World Bank representatives and others are not simply that there are too many young Filipinos without decent job opportunities, it is that their right to have access to meaningful employment in their own country has been denied to them. It is evident that the Philippine government needs a policy outlook that is every bit as bold the New Deal programs of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt if it is to solve the nations economic problems.17

However, the Philippines faces a very different world than that of America in the 1930s. She is a poor nation in an integrated global system that did not exist before World War II, and economic policy changes will therefore require Filipino leaders to fight for major initiatives like those being prescribed by LaRouches affiliates of the Save the Nation movement.18

Included among the movements urgent proposals is a call for the Philippine government to declare a moratorium on the debt incurred through the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and those related institutions who have successfully enslaved the Filipino people to service a ballooning national debt inflated by the arbitrary manipulation of interest rates and currency values. If we take the amount of debt that, in actuality, the Philippines originally incurred, it is found thatshe has grossly overpaid the amount owed to her creditors.19 Yet, still the costs of continuing to service this illegitimate debt is reported to consume a vast percentage of government revenue, rather than being used to invest in the desperately needed improvements for the Filipino people.20

When the U.S. Opposed Imperialism

In order for one to understand how such injustices are permitted to be perpetrated in our civilized age, we must look at the history of the global financial system. We begin during the twilight of World War II, when Roosevelt began to work toward establishing a more organized system of international finance with the intention to serve the sovereign nations making up the world community. Such a system could not only facilitate the rebuilding of those countries viciously ravaged by the war, but also those that had been bled dry by colonial exploitation. This was the intention for holding the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, which was successful in establishing an approximation of just such a system.

Although the Bretton Woods agreements would indeed prove indispensable to the task of rebuilding Europe after the war, and allowed the opportunity for some steps of progress to be made in parts of the former colonial sector, Roosevelts unfortunate death in the April of 1945, the succession of Harry S Truman, the U.S. support for the recolonization of liberated peoples, and the declaration of the Cold War by Winston Churchill would all mean the termination of FDRs vision for economic and technological progress under a global New Deal. The United States would instead form a Special Relationship with her historical adversary: the British Empire.21

Filipino patriot Carlos P. Romulo accurately recognized that only the U.S. possessed the clout to pressure the European powers to let go of their Asian colonies after World War II. A great opportunity forefieted by the pro-imperialist Truman Administration.

The Bretton Woods system finally came to an end in August 1971, and its fixed-exchange rates would be replaced with the currency speculation that LaRouche had warned of.22 As a result, we now have an international financial system that has been allowed to operate largely outside of the control of the worlds sovereign statesa parasitic imperialism that sucks the life out of nations and governments.

Opponents to this new imperialism in the Philippines and elsewhere have been quick to denounce todays United States as an American Empire. Although some of these observations are not lacking in insight, such denunciations actually misidentify the true nature of the beast that many anti-imperialists believe themselves to be fighting. While the prewar United States flirted considerably with colonialism (the Philippines are, of course, a testament to this fact) and todays U.S. commonly acts as the primary enforcer for todays global imperialism, these practices must be recognized as a deviation from the founding intentions of modern U.S republicanismthe very same intentions that the Philippine Republic based herself upon.23

Those decriers would do well to study that fact, while also observing how even the once-powerful U.S. economy has also suffered at the hands of this present financial system. Major cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and Baltimore that were once centers for productive industry and commerce are now post-industrial hell-holes with ever-higher rates of poverty, crime, and disease that are comparable to those in the underdeveloped countries. The majority of the States public infrastructure is, at best, undermaintained, and, at worst, literally falling apart. Many state and municipal governments are faced with fiscal emergencies that have forced them to cut essential social programs, and lay off large numbers of police, firefighters, teachers, and other public employees. This has led to mass protests by the American citizenrya citizenry that has fallen victim to the eagerness of both the Bush and Obama presidencies to ignore their Constitutional obligations to promote the General Welfare, and instead subject their people to fascist austerity measures in order to finance massive bail-outs of the investment banking system.24 LaRouche has warned that the policy of flooding that banking system with monetary capital will lead to a hyper-inflationary breakdown like that of Germany in 1923which is now becoming evident in the spikes in commodity and food prices. These are the empirical manifestations of economic collapse, done at the bidding of a global financial apparatus largely operating from the City of Londonwhat LaRouche has rightfully identified as the modern, post-war form of the British Empire.25

A More Just Global Financial System

To counter these post-war developments, LaRouche has been campaigning for decades to have the U.S. government reclaim the historical tradition of FDRs anti-imperial strategy to promote nation-building in the former colonial sector. Using Roosevelts legacy as a precedent, LaRouche has called for a domestic policy spear-headed by a restoration of the Glass-Steagall standard which would separate and protect commercial banking for productive purposes from the speculative schemes of investment banking.

For foreign policy, he was the first to publicly call for a New Bretton Woods conference to reestablish a global financial system based on fixed-exchange rates, and has also organized for the establishment of an economic alliance between the United States and the great Eurasian giants of Russia, China, and India. These Four Powers represent well over a third of the worlds population, are abundant in natural resources, and also possess the powerful, high-technology manufacturing capabilities necessary for the development of the major infrastructure projects needed to aid the poorer and smaller nations of the world. Such an alliance would act as the catalyst for the establishment of what LaRouche refers to as a Hamiltonian credit system of world finance, and provide the necessary counterbloc to the destruction wrought by the exploitive, feudal-monetarist system that is typified by the City of London and Wall Street. This would be the equivalent of applying the Glass-Steagall standard on an international scale, where a group of respectively sovereign nations declare that all of the illegitimate toxic gambling debt of the neo-feudalist financiers will be frozen, and then audited and investigated later (i.e. after crisis conditions have been effectively dealt with), thus freeing up the capital being injected into the investment banking system in the form of bail-outs to instead finance much-needed major infrastructure projects.26 The nations of the world can either adopt this model in the immediate term, or, LaRouche has warned, face an economic collapse comparable to the dark age of the 14th century.

For the Philippines, the alternative to fighting for such changes in global policies, as well as implementing an emergency domestic program like that now being advocated by the Save the Nation campaign, is to willingly dive into the mudslide toward dark age. The drive to legislate a program for controlling population growth is simply a reflection of a deeper problem, namely that many Filipino policy makers would seem to prefer to give up on establishing economic self-reliance, and further capitulate to those ill-intentioned, imperialist interests who are destroying their countrys economy.

__________

II. Environmentalism as Neo-Eugenics

The Infamous NSSM 200

Now that we have begun to recognize how population growth and economic development are actually interrelated, we can turn our attention toward examining the background for those ill-intentioned, imperialist interests that are subverting the Philippine government to adopting a population reduction program.

I will first refer the reader to the infamous U.S. National Security Study Memorandum 200. Written by National Security Adviser and British Foreign Office agent Henry A. Kissinger in 1974, and adopted as policy by the Ford Administration in 1975, this document explicitly names 13 underdeveloped countriesone being the Philippinesto be pressured into adopting policies that would severely limit their population growth through initiating contraception and sterilization programs. It also discussed the possibility of having the U.S. Agency for International Development withhold food aid as a way to get these poorer nations to comply with population reduction measures. Although not stated explicitly, the usage of the USAID option would result in curbing overpopulation by contributing to famine. Kissinger also made note of the fact that the United States already contributed more than half of the total funds for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which could be used, along with other U.N. agencies, to carry out the mission he was advocating.

Kissingers justification for such genocide? He believed that economic control over the worlds finite resources was better off in the hands of America and her European allies, ostensibly claiming that they would be needed in the fight against the Soviets. Population growth (and, consequently, economic development) in these resource-rich countries was a threat to that hegemony, as such expansion would require them to draw upon that resource base in their drive to establish themselves as strong, sovereign nation-states, rather than poor, post-colonial banana republics.27

What is a Natural Resource?

Although the ecological effects of population growth were not the main focus of Kissingers report, his assumption in the scarcity of the worlds resources was also expressed throughout policy-making circles and was very much popularized in the late 60s and early 70s by academics such as Paul Ehrlich and Dennis Meadows.28Such theories, which assert that human population growth is exceeding the Earths carrying capacity by depleting natural resources and destroying the equilibrium of nature, provide much of the basis for the ideology popularly referred to as environmentalism.

Ehrlichs Population Bomb (1968) and Meadows Limits to Growth (1972) widely propagandized the fears about an overpopulated planet.

There are, of course, issues and concerns raised by a scientific approach to the management of Earths biosphere and resources that are not illegitimate. Environmentalism as it is commonly preached, however is founded not upon science and reason, but upon dogmas about man and his place in the universe that are not unlike those of a pagan cult. It is a dogma that rejects the Judeo-Christian concept of man being made in the image of his Creator and therefore in possession of qualities which set him apart from the rest of the natural world. In environmentalist ideology, man has no ability to participate in Creation and wilfully change and improve his relationship to the universe; he is instead confined to live like all other creaturesas Earth-Goddess Gaias passive victim within a limited and cyclical natural balance.29

If we accept the misanthropic viewpoint of individuals who think like Kissinger, Ehrlich, and Meadows, we have no choice but to ignore the facts about the history of human progress. For example, when it comes to defining a natural resource, we must ask how a natural substance comes to be made useful for human activity in the first place. Coal, oil, uraniumall of these have existed on Earth long before humanityand when our species finally does arrive on the scene, these materials continue to stay in the ground for millennia, untouched. But civilization has eventually proven itself capable of producing great minds that possess a rigorous drive for knowledge, men and women who have discovered more efficient sources of power from substances that previous generations would have found little use for.

Still, such revolutionary discoveries do little good for the cause of mankind unless they are coupled with the political will and foresight needed to apply them to benefit the economic condition of the general populace. Even nuclear fissionthe most powerful and efficient energy source that man has mastered thus farhas yet to be applied and utilized on the mass scale necessary to solve many of humanitys current problems.

Elements of what later became Germanys Nazi movement were rooted in proto-environmentalist, Wagnerian nature cults (depicted on the left) who disdained artificial industrial society. These groups later fed the membership of the Thule Society (middle), which in turned later spawned the Nazi Party. Nazi eugenic propaganda (right) focused on the economic burdens caused by the excess numbers of useless eaters (e.g., the less-advantaged).

-The Climate Change Hoax-

However, the reporting from much of the worlds predominantly English-speaking media outletswhich tend to be very proud to claim they represent a balanced and impartial viewpointleads us to conclude that there is a regimented scientific consensus stating that the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil produces industrial gas emissions that are causing a catastrophic change in the Earths climate. And, in a similar vein, nuclear power is once again being presented as too dangerous a technology for man to control.30

Since climate change being caused by carbon dioxide is as plain a textbook fact as the Earth being round, and the potential danger of nuclear energy proves that there is such a thing as too much technological progress, the recommended solution is to instead move to more sustainable (i.e., inefficient) sources of power generation like wind and solar.31

But, in reality, much of the alleged proof about both the anthropogenic causes of climate changelike the charges against nuclear energyhave been thoroughly refuted by not a few qualified scientists and other experts in numerous fields. While such rebuttals are worth reading for oneself, they are not to be the main subject of our focus at this time,32 since it is the underlying political intentions of the environmentalist campaign against industrialization (particularly in the developing world) that are to be exposed here in this essay.

Once industrial gas emissions are identified as the driving cause of altering the planets climate, human expansion becomes seen as an enemy in the battle to save the Earth. However, most of the worlds developing nations desperately need to industrialize in order to attain adequate living conditions for their peoples. But, instead of receiving the level of assistance from the more advanced sector that will aid them in becoming industrialized and self-sufficient, they are told that highly inefficient and costly technologies like solar panels and wind mills are the only environmentally-sustainable solution. They are told that they cannot strive to attain the levels of energy consumption (e.g. adequate and dignified living standards) that has been achieved in the developed countries, and that their non-industrialized, sustainable economies will help to enable the industrialized world to offset their greenhouse gas emissions.33

It is not difficult to hear the echoes of the 19th century imperialism that condemned colonial countries to remain as poor, backward agrarian economies, and where any industrialization or infrastructure built was limited and designed only for the benefit of the colonial power. Like the god Zeus who sought to enslave mankind by denying him the ability to control fire, any effective modern imperial policywhether it be the British Empire of the 18th and 19th centuries, or her modern-day bastard, Globalizationthrives on forbidding technological and economic progress for the masses. The not unintended results are the most effective methods that empires have relied upon to check population growth: famine, epidemic disease, and civil discord. Policies influenced by the sinister ideology of sustainable growth thus become a death sentence for the billions of the worlds poor.

The WWF: Enemies of Progress

Of the many international environmental NGOs that are at the forefront of such pro-genocidal, anti-human propaganda campaigns, there is one that is deserving of particular attentionboth because of brevity, and because of its wide influence in the Philippines and other post-colonial countriesand that is the World Wildlife Fund/Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).34 The WWF insists that it is mans overpopulationin and of itselfthat has disturbed the ecological balance, whether it be by encroachment and deforestation (which is usually the result of poor farmers forced to use backwards and outdated methods of agriculture), or by overconsumption and industrialization.35

Those readers who have not yet begun to ponder upon the economic implications of what the environmentalist movement actually advocatesand still think that usage of terms like genocidal and anti-human are sensationalist or hyperbolicshould familiarize themselves with the indisputable influence that eugenics still has on todays environmentalism.36

Read more from the original source:

The Philippines: Underdeveloped, but not Overpopulated ...

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Facts to counteract the normalization of neo-nazis This Political …

This past weekend, Richard Spencer was punched while giving an interview to an Australian outlet. Now certain media is wondering whether punching a neo nazi is the right thing to do. Spencer vehemently argues that he is not a neo nazi and most media profiles are not challenging this assertion, further complicating the morality of punching a neo nazi (since he argues he is not a neo-nazi, then whoever punched him took a jab at a victim of anti free speech violence or so goes one of the lines of thinking).

Richard Spencer, founder of the so called alt-right has been on record numerous times stating that his desired political goal is to dress extreme right, white supremacist ideas in an acceptable shell. In an extensive profile published in October 2016, he explained this ultimate goal:

In order to reach these goals, Spencer uses numerous neologisms and newspeak to refer to old Nazi and white supremacists ideas. Instead of referring to eugenics, for example, he uses human biological diversity which is the way white supremacists attempt to introduce these ideas to the mainstream.

Yesterday I posted a critical analysis of the ways that mainstream media is playing right into his hands of mainstreaming neo-nazi ideology and pushing the boundaries of acceptable discourse. The whole thread can be read here:

I have already written about the way the fashion profiles of Richard Spencer and other known neo-nazis in mainstream media are normalizing these discourses and making these people appealing to the public, sexy and desirable even. As recent as November 2016, Spencer was filmed giving a speech where his followers broke into Sieg Heil Nazi salutes and Spencer himself used words such as lugenpresse (lying press) that have a long history within Nazism. However, since these interviews and profiles rarely (if ever) point to this mans history of neo-nazi advocacy (including eugenics and mass extermination), heres a rundown of the past seven years of Richard Spencer, in his own words, calling for ethnic cleansing, mass sterilization and a whites only ethnostate.

2010 Spencer begins the promo tour announcing he is starting a new political movement with the aim to push the boundaries of discourse.

In March of the same year, he officially starts the movement he named Alternative Right. On his first public forays as leader of this new movement, Spencer starts the rhetoric obfuscation:

As Ari Feldman explains in this article, human biological diversity is a neologism for eugenics

As an aside, Milo Yiannopoulos has spouted this neo-eugenics garbage in a couple of articles.

This heavily sourced article, from 2010, about the founding of the alternative right, already traces the many links between Richard Spencer and advocates of old school nazi ideas such as revoking citizenship for Black people.

2011 via Internet Archives Wayback Machine, a screenshot of the white nationalist conference Spencer hosted where, among other topics, speakers discussed eugenics (Dysgenics is the study of factors producing the accumulation and perpetuation of defective or disadvantageous genes and traits in offspring of a particular population or species) and again, Human Biological Diversity.

A journalist at Media Matters attended the conference and reported thusly

The journalist was also subjected to a variety of phrenology theories that extolled the virtues of the white craniums inherent superiority.

Another speaker at this conference organized by Richard Spencer was Samuel Dickson, former lawyer to the Georgia Ku Klux Klan. The journalist pointed out that Spencer cloaks his supremacist views behind veils of fairness and fringe science.

2013 In a speech at at the 2013 American Renaissance conference, he advocates for ethnic cleansing so that in the aftermath a white ethnostate can be created

On the same year he spoke about ethnic cleansing, he also advocated for mass sterilizations of Black people (which would be an unequivocally nazi way to achieve the ethnic cleansing he was hoping for)

Also, in 2013, the glamorizing fashion profiles already started. He explained the reasoning behind them (though obviously nobody took him seriously) and how it was part of the strategy to make the alt-right attractive to new followers

At the nationalist conference he hosted, these were the books offered for sale:

Notice The Chosen People, a study of Jewish intelligence and achievement on that table. VDARE, the white nationalist hate site that Spencer used to be part of before he went on to start his own neo nazi cart has an extensive review of the book and its analysis of IQ of Jewish people.

2014 At a far right conference in Hungary

2016 At yet another conference hosted by Richard Spencer, Alt-Right Leaders: We Arent Racist, We Just Hate Jews

Richard Spencer at the Republican convention in 2016

Next time someone claims Richard Spencer is a dissenter or a politician or some such nonsense, point them to this list of Richard Spencer in his own words. He has been spouting racist violence for years and we should not allow the normalization of his rhetoric as part of the acceptable boundaries of political discourse. Advocating for mass sterilization of Black people or the elimination of Jewish people are not topics of political debate. They are the machinations of cruel, immoral people who should not be allowed to promote these views unchallenged.

I am an independent writer with no affiliations. If you find value in the type of work I do, please consider making a donation. Any funds, no matter how small will allow me to continue this ongoing research and analysis. Follow me on Twitter for daily updates.

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Facts to counteract the normalization of neo-nazis This Political ...