Justice at last for victims of sterilization?

COMPENSATION for victims of eugenics will once again be on the list of legislative items the General Assembly will be debating when it convenes in January. Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, and Del. Patrick A. Hope, D-Arlington, are hopeful the legislation they introduced last year--HB 1529, the Justice for Victims of Sterilization Act--will be adopted this year and provide restitution to the approximately 7,325 who are still living and were involuntarily sterilized between 1924 and 1979.

As background, eugenics was the name Francis Galton, half cousin of Charles Darwin, gave to the research program, which he developed in 1883 to improve society through "selective breeding." He was committed to the belief that "human talent and character," more popularly known as intelligence, was genetically determined, and he spent the rest of his life attempting to demonstrate that heredity was the critical factor, rather than environment.

Thus, he proposed that individuals in the upper class (top 2 percent) should marry and procreate with those of the same class. In fact, it is Galton who coined the term "nature vs. nurture."

Herbert Spencer, a philosopher and scientist, a contemporary of Galton and a fellow hereditarian, formulated the expression "survival of the fittest," which most people incorrectly attributed to Darwin.

The zeitgeist during the late 19th century and first quarter of the 20th century provided a perfect storm for policymakers supporting "social Darwinism" (also incorrectly attributed to Darwin). They formulated this theory to justify the inevitability of class differences.

Social Darwinists were equipped with eugenics, the theory of survival of the fittest and restrictive immigration policies (the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924) as a means of controlling minorities, the poor and persons with disabilities.

HERE AT HOME

One of the chief proponents of eugenics and sterilization was E. Lee Trinkle, governor of Virginia from 1922-1926. Under his administration, Virginia passed the Virginia Eugenical Sterilization Act of 1924 and the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. Both of these laws were eugenics-related: The first law was aimed at forced sterilization, and the second law "defined a white person as having no trace of black blood and made it illegal for whites and non-Caucasians to marry."

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Justice at last for victims of sterilization?

Jonah Goldberg: Why is ‘Duck’ dust-up a surprise?

So rednecks need to be politically correct now?

Wait. Before the National Association of Rednecked Persons attacks me, let me be clear that I dont mean redneck as an insult. Indeed, redneck pride has been on the rise ever since Jeff Foxworthy got rich informing people they might be a redneck. (One clue: if your school fight song was Dueling Banjos.)

Redneck reality shows have been all the rage: Rocket City Rednecks, My Big Redneck Vacation, Hillbilly Handfishin and, of course, Swamp People.

But the gold standard is Duck Dynasty, which follows the Robertsons, a family that struck it rich selling duck calls. Its like a real-life version of The Beverly Hillbillies. All of the men look like they stepped out of the Hatfield-McCoy conflict to smoke a corncob pipe.

What all of these and countless other reality shows have in common is their shock value. And guess what? Sometimes the shock is manufactured. If the cameras werent on, the silicone life-forms on the various Real Housewives shows probably wouldnt be throwing wine in each others faces as much as they do. TLCs awful reality show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo tries its hardest to turn an uncouth Southern white family with a childrens beauty pageant fixation into the sort of genetic and cultural horror show that sparked the progressives to advocate eugenics. And everyone, everywhere, mugs for the camera.

But heres a twist. Phil Robertson (who shhh! has a masters degree from Louisiana Tech) gave an interview to GQ magazine in which he said that, as a Christian, he has problems with homosexuality. He got a bit too detailed with his anatomical analysis. But his real sin was calling homosexuality a sin comparable with bestiality.

In response, A&E has suspended Robertson from the reality show about his own family. That right there should give you a sense of how real this reality show is. If its about the family, some producer in New York City cant decide whos in or out of the family. If NBC News decided it simply didnt like the Republican Party anymore (not altogether implausible), it could decide not to report on the GOP. But it would stop being a news organization in the process. Instead, it would be producing a kind of reality show for which it makes up its own version of reality.

Sarah Palin jumped into the fray. Free speech is an endangered species, she warned on her Facebook page. Those intolerants hatin and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us.

Well, yes and no. There are no constitutional free-speech rights involved when a private entertainment network decides to cut a character from a fake reality show. A&E has free-speech rights, too. Everyone has a right to an opinion, and everyone has a right to an opinion about that opinion.

But Palin is not entirely wrong, either. Liberals love free expression so long as you free-express things they agree with. Particularly when it comes to homosexuality, theres zero tolerance for dissent of any kind.

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Jonah Goldberg: Why is 'Duck' dust-up a surprise?

Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's

The Eugenics Archive utilizes Flash for enhanced search features, cross referencing, and interactive images created with Zoomifyer. Get the Flash plugin at Adobe.com.

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I prefer the original, HTML-only Eugenics Archive site, take me there.

Based on a task force recommendation, the North Carolina legislature is considering paying $50,000 to living individuals sterilized by the state against their will or without their knowledge. North Carolina reportedly sterilized 7,600 individuals between 1929 and 1974. However, other American states also passed laws legalizing sterilization; the first was passed in Indiana in 1907

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Examine the Chronicle of how society dealt with mental illness and other "dysgenic" traits in the final section of our website DNA Interactive. Meet four individuals who became objects of the eugenic movement's zeal to cleanse society of "bad" genes during the first half of the 20th century. Then meet a modern-day heroine for an account of mental illness and the lesson it holds for living in the gene age.

COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement

Eugenics in the United States – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eugenics, the social movement claiming to improve the genetic features of human populations through selective breeding and sterilization,[1] based on the idea that it is possible to distinguish between superior and inferior elements of society,[2] played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States prior to its involvement in World War II.[3]

Eugenics was practised in the United States many years before eugenics programs in Nazi Germany[4] and U.S. programs provided much of the inspiration for the latter.[5][6][7] Stefan Khl has documented the consensus between Nazi race policies and those of eugenicists in other countries, including the United States, and points out that eugenicists understood Nazi policies and measures as the realization of their goals and demands.[5]

A hallmark of the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th century, now generally associated with racist and nativist elements (as the movement was to some extent a reaction to a change in emigration from Europe) rather than scientific genetics, eugenics was considered a method of preserving and improving the dominant groups in the population.

The American eugenics movement was rooted in the biological determinist ideas of Sir Francis Galton, which originated in the 1880s. Galton studied the upper classes of Britain, and arrived at the conclusion that their social positions were due to a superior genetic makeup.[8] Early proponents of eugenics believed that, through selective breeding, the human species should direct its own evolution. They 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".[9]

The American eugenics movement received extensive funding from various corporate foundations including the Carnegie Institution, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Harriman railroad fortune.[6] In 1906 J.H. Kellogg provided funding to help found the Race Betterment Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan.[8] 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. As late as the 1920s, the ERO was one of the leading organizations in the American eugenics movement.[8][10] In years to come, the ERO collected a mass of family pedigrees and concluded that those who were unfit came from economically and socially poor backgrounds. Eugenicists such as Davenport, the psychologist Henry H. Goddard, Harry H. Laughlin, and the conservationist Madison Grant (all well respected in their time) began to lobby for various solutions to the problem of the "unfit". 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.[11] The Eugenics Record Office later became the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Eugenics was widely accepted in the U.S. academic community.[6] By 1928 there were 376 separate university courses in some of the United States' leading schools, enrolling more than 20,000 students, which included eugenics in the curriculum.[12] It did, however, have scientific detractors (notably, Thomas Hunt Morgan, one of the few Mendelians to explicitly criticize eugenics), though most of these focused more on what they considered the crude methodology of eugenicists, and the characterization of almost every human characteristic as being hereditary, rather than the idea of eugenics itself.[13]

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 Breeders Association was the first eugenic body in the U.S., established in 1906 under the direction of biologist Charles B. Davenport. 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. Membership included Alexander Graham Bell, Stanford president David Starr Jordan and Luther Burbank.[14][15] 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.[16] They promoted government intervention in attempts to promote the health of future citizens.[17][verification needed]

Several feminist reformers advocated an agenda of eugenic legal reform. The National Federation of Womens Clubs, the Womans Christian Temperance Union, and the National League of Women Voters were among the variety of state and local feminist organization that at some point lobbied for eugenic reforms.[18]

One of the most prominent feminists to champion the eugenic agenda was Margaret Sanger, the leader of the American birth control movement. Margaret 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.[19][20] Sanger also sought to discourage the reproduction of persons who, it was believed, would pass on mental disease or serious physical defect. She advocated sterilization in cases where the subject was unable to use birth control.[19] Unlike other eugenicists, she rejected euthanasia.[21] For Sanger, it was individual women and not the state who should determine whether or not to have a child.[22][23]

In the Deep South, womens 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.[24] Between 1915 and 1920, federated womens clubs in every state of the Deep South had a critical role in establishing public eugenic institutions that were segregated by sex.[25] For example, the Legislative Committee of the Florida State Federation of Womens Clubs successfully lobbied to institute a eugenic institution for the mentally retarded that was segregated by sex.[26] Their aim was to separate mentally retarded men and women to prevent them from breeding more feebleminded individuals.

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Eugenics in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eugenics: Compulsory Sterilization in 50 American States

Lutz Kaelber, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Vermont

Presentation about "eugenic sterilizations" in comparative perspective at the 2012 Social Science History Association: 1, 2.

American eugenics refers inter alia to compulsory sterilization laws adopted by over 30 states that led to more than 60,000 sterilizations of disabled individuals. Many of these individuals were sterilized because of a disability: they were mentally disabled or ill, or belonged to socially disadvantaged groups living onthe margins of society. American eugenic laws and practices implemented in the first decades of the twentieth century influenced the much larger National Socialist compulsory sterilization program, which between 1934 and 1945 led to approximately 350,000 compulsory sterilizations and was a stepping stone to the Holocaust. Even after the details of the Nazi sterilization program (as well as its role as a precursor to the "Euthanasia" murders) became more widely knownafter World War II (and which the New York Times had reported on extensively and in great detail even before its implementation in 1934), sterilizations in some American states did not stop. Some states continued to sterilize residents into the 1970s.

While Germany has taken important steps to commemorate the horrors of its past, including compulsory sterilization (however belatedly), the United States arguably has not when it comes to eugenics. For some states, there still is a paucity of reliable studies that show how and where sterilizations occurred. Hospitals, asylums, and other places where sterilizations were performed have so far typically chosen not to document that aspect of their history. Moreover, until now there has never been a websiteproviding an easily accessible overview of American eugenics for all American states.

This site provides such an overview. For each state for which information is available (see below), there is a short account of the number of victims (based on a variety of data sources), the known period during which sterilizations occurred, the temporal pattern of sterilizations and rate of sterilization, the passage of law(s), groups indentified in the law, the prescribed process of the law, precipitating factors and processes that led up a states sterilization program, the groups targeted and victimized, other restrictions placed on those identified in the law or with disabilities in general, major proponentsof state eugenic sterilization, feeder institutions and institutions where sterilizations were performed, and opposition to sterilization. A short bibliography is also provided.

While this research project was initially intended to giveshort accounts for each state, it quickly moved beyond this goal. For those states for which detailed monograph-length studies are availabe, it merely summarizes existing scholarship, but for other states for which such information is not readily available, it establishes the core parameters within which a state's eugenic sterilizations were carried out. As part of this research the current state of the facilities where sterilizations occurred or that served as feeder institutions is addressed.

This researchbrought into relief one particularpiece of information that might notbe known even to the specialists in the field. In Nazi Germany, during the peak years of sterilization between 1934 and 1939, approximately 75-80 sterilizations occurred per year per 100,000 residents. In Delaware, during the peak period of sterilizations (late 1920s to late 1930s), the rate was 18, about one fourth to one fifth ofGermany's during its peak period, orhalf of Bavarias in 1936.[1]While the difference in the sterilization rate for a totalitarian regime with a federal sterilization law soon to commit mass murder on a historically unprecedented scale and a democratically governed state in a democratic nation remains significant,[2] it is much smaller than one might perhaps expect.

Contributions to this project were made by sophomore honors students at the University of Vermont as part of an Honors College course on Disability as Deviance. These students wrote up the primary accounts, which were then edited and amended by Lutz Kaelber, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Vermont, who is solely responsible for its contents and any errors or omissions. Research that went into this project was supported in parts by grants of the College of Arts and Sciences Deans Office and the Center for Teaching and Learning, and by funds of the University of Vermont's Honors College.

Update 2011: A new group of students in the Honors College at the University of Vermont, together with students in a senior-level sociology course, took on the project of revising and updating all existing states' webpages. This project was commenced in the fall of 2010 and concluded in the spring of 2011. The literature under consideration was expanded to include many undergraduate, master's, and doctoral theses at various institutions, as well as the most recent available scholarly literature and journalistic reports. Web-based information was also updated.

Link to "Eugenics" and Nazi "Euthanasia" Crimes gateway page.

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Eugenics: Compulsory Sterilization in 50 American States

BlackGenocide.org | The Truth About Margaret Sanger

(This article first appeared in the January 20, 1992 edition of Citizen magazine)

How Planned Parenthood Duped America At a March 1925 international birth control gathering in New York City, a speaker warned of the menace posed by the "black" and "yellow" peril. The man was not a Nazi or Klansman; he was Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, a member of Margaret Sanger's American Birth Control League (ABCL), which along with other groups eventually became known as Planned Parenthood.

Sanger's other colleagues included avowed and sophisticated racists. One, Lothrop Stoddard, was a Harvard graduate and the author of The Rising Tide of Color against White Supremacy. Stoddard was something of a Nazi enthusiast who described the eugenic practices of the Third Reich as "scientific" and "humanitarian." And Dr. Harry Laughlin, another Sanger associate and board member for her group, spoke of purifying America's human "breeding stock" and purging America's "bad strains." These "strains" included the "shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of antisocial whites of the South."

Not to be outdone by her followers, Margaret Sanger spoke of sterilizing those she designated as "unfit," a plan she said would be the "salvation of American civilization.: And she also spike of those who were "irresponsible and reckless," among whom she included those " whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers." She further contended that "there is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped." That many Americans of African origin constituted a segment of Sanger considered "unfit" cannot be easily refuted.

While Planned Parenthood's current apologists try to place some distance between the eugenics and birth control movements, history definitively says otherwise. The eugenic theme figured prominently in the Birth Control Review, which Sanger founded in 1917. She published such articles as "Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics" (June 1920), "The Eugenic Conscience" (February 1921), "The purpose of Eugenics" (December 1924), "Birth Control and Positive Eugenics" (July 1925), "Birth Control: The True Eugenics" (August 1928), and many others.

These eugenic and racial origins are hardly what most people associate with the modern Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), which gave its Margaret Sanger award to the late Dr. Martin Luther King in 1966, and whose current president, Faye Wattleton, is black, a former nurse, and attractive.

Though once a social pariah group, routinely castigated by religious and government leaders, the PPFA is now an established, high-profile, well-funded organization with ample organizational and ideological support in high places of American society and government. Its statistics are accepted by major media and public health officials as "gospel"; its full-page ads appear in major newspapers; its spokespeople are called upon to give authoritative analyses of what America's family policies should be and to prescribe official answers that congressmen, state legislator and Supreme Court justiices all accept as "social orthodoxy."

Blaming Families Sanger's obsession with eugenics can be traced back to her own family. One of 11 children, she wrote in the autobiographical book, My Fight for Birth Control, that "I associated poverty, toil, unemployment, drunkenness, cruelty, quarreling, fighting, debts, jails with large families." Just as important was the impression in her childhood of an inferior family status, exacerbated by the iconoclastic, "free-thinking" views of her father, whose "anti-Catholic attitudes did not make for his popularity" in a predominantly Irish community.

The fact that the wealthy families in her hometown of Corning, N.Y., had relatively few children, Sanger took as prima facie evidence of the impoverishing effect of larger families. The personal impact of this belief was heightened 1899, at the age of 48. Sanger was convinced that the "ordeals of motherhood" had caused the death of her mother. The lingering consumption (tuberculosis) that took her mother's life visited Sanger at the birth of her own first child on Nov. 18, 1905. The diagnosis forced her to seek refuge in the Adirondacks to strengthen her for the impending birth. Despite the precautions, the birth of baby Grant was "agonizing," the mere memory of which Sanger described as "mental torture" more than 25 years later. She once described the experience as a factor "to be reckoned with" in her zealous campaign for birth control.

From the beginning, Sanger advocacy of sex education reflected her interest in population control and birth prevention among the "unfit." Her first handbook, published for adolescents in 1915 and entitled, What Every Boy and Girl Should Know, featured a jarring afterword:

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BlackGenocide.org | The Truth About Margaret Sanger

Aborting the disabled: 'Wrongful birth' or unborn eugenics?

(AP)

Christian communities can become alarmist when it comes to stories about biotechnology. In June 2013 the news that the UK would be the first country to permit what were called 'three parent babies' was reacted to with wide negativity among many in the Church. However many people became less concerned when it was properly explained that said babies would have 20,000 genes from their parents, and only 37 from an external female donor, and no embryos need be destroyed.

Given the fundamentality of life that comes with any attempt to deal with research and issues surrounding genetics and embryology, it's understandable that Christian communities become concerned. But we must be wary of becoming too sensitive and criticising too often lest our protests be ignored as expected and clichd when a really important issue emerges. An important issue like the slowly rising number of 'wrongful birth' cases, the lack of legal protections around sex selective abortion, and the question of whether or not we are sleepwalking into a situation of eugenics for the unborn.

Since 1990 it has been possible, at least in the US certainly, for people to use IVF to pre-select a baby's sex (albeit at tremendous expense of $500,000 US), but it has been widely understood that in the UK it isn't legal to abort a pregnancy purely on the basis of whether it is male or female. After all, this is a practice that has resulted in a massive gender imbalance in China and many other parts of South Eastern Asia and only emerges because of what even many in China would regard as outdated gender role politics and archaic views about the place of women and their lesser position in failing to bear the family name in marriage. Surely such practices couldn't have a home in the UK?

Since October 2013 that hasn't been clear. The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, made the decision in the earlier part of that month to not prosecute two doctors secretly filmed by the Daily Telegraph permitting a gender-motivated elective abortion. In an expanded memorandum explaining the situation, Mr Starmer said: "The law does not, in terms, expressly prohibit gender-specific abortions; rather it prohibits any abortion carried out without two medical practitioners having formed a view, in good faith, that the health risks of continuing with a pregnancy outweigh those of termination."

But this assurance counts for very little, since Mr Starmer also revealed that this two-medical professional signature defence is routinely circumvented. Indeed, he said that "an abortion can be performed without either medical practitioner having actual direct contact with the woman requesting an abortion".

As much as medical professionals are intelligent and accomplished people, it's difficult to see how they can make a judgement about whether or not the risks of continuing the pregnancy outweigh those of an abortion without actually meeting the pregnant woman in question. A Care Quality Commission investigation revealed that in Hereford, 10 out of 20 forms permitting an abortion were "pre-signed" before the doctors ever met the patients, and out of a later investigation of 463 abortion cases, 236 of them contained photocopied signatures. Despite these findings however, no prosecutions have been brought forward.

Mr Starmer also admitted: "The discretion afforded to doctors under the current law in assessing the risk to the mental or physical health of a patient is wide and, having consulted an experienced consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, it appears that there is no generally accepted approach among the medical profession."

This lack of accepted medical procedure for the justification of abortions has also been highlighted in New Zealand. David Fergusson, a psychology professor from the University of Otago last month published new research revealing that despite 90% of pregnancy terminations in NZ being justified on mental health grounds, abortions in fact are associated with small to moderate increases in anxiety, alcohol misuse, illicit drug use and suicidal behaviour. Describing this issue as an "elephant in the room", Fergusson claimed that the law in NZ had been subverted to allow a large number of women to have abortions. Essentially, Fergusson argued, doctors were making decisions "on the basis of diagnostic criteria for which they have no evidence".

This seeming complete lack of understanding and proper oversight of the means by which an abortion can be legally justified is made even more startling when you factor in the 'wrongful birth' lawsuits that have cost the NHS 54 million over the previous half decade. The most recent case is that of Joanne Chinnock who is suing the law firm Veale Wasbrough and barrister Karen Rea for professional negligence after they advised the dropping of a case against Liverpool Women's Hospital NHS in 2001.

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Aborting the disabled: 'Wrongful birth' or unborn eugenics?

Rand Paul: Eugenics possible with today’s technology

LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) Tea Party hero Rand Paul warned scientific advancements could lead to eugenics during a Monday visit at Liberty University, looking to boost the political fortunes of fellow Republican Ken Cuccinellis bid for governor.

During a visit to the Christian school founded by Jerry Falwell, Paul looked to energize conservative supporters by warning that genetic tests could identify those who are predisposed to be short, overweight or less intelligent so that they could be eliminated. With one week remaining before Election Day, Cuccinelli is hoping the joint appearance with the U.S. senator from Kentucky will encourage the far-right flank of his party to abandon third-party libertarian spoiler Robert Sarvis.

In your lifetime, much of your potential - or lack thereof - can be known simply by swabbing the inside of your cheek, Paul said to a packed sporting arena on Libertys campus. Are we prepared to select out the imperfect among us?

Some states ran eugenics programs that sterilized those considered defective in the 1900s, though all were abandoned by the 1970s after scientists discredited the idea.

Campaigning later in the day on Virginia Techs campus, Democrat Terry McAuliffe renewed criticism of Cuccinelli as a candidate who doesnt believe in science and sought to remind voters that Cuccinelli unsuccessfully sued a University of Virginia researcher under the states anti-fraud law.

He doesnt believe in climate science, McAuliffe said. So Cuccinelli, a skeptic of climate change, went on what McAuliffe called a witch hunt against Michael Mann, McAuliffe said.

The University of Virginia, a public school, spent $600,000 to defend itself. The state Supreme Court dismissed Cuccinellis complaint.

We cannot grow Virginias economy by suing scientists, McAuliffe added.

Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton said genetics is helping doctors identify individuals at greater risk for illness and advising them to get tested earlier. Clinton, a McAuliffe pal who is campaigning with him, said the science is saving lives, not costing them.

We are now learning things that will help us deal with Alzheimers and various kinds of cancers. Weve already identified the genetic markers that are high predictors of breast cancers, said Clinton, who as president announced the first map of the human genome.

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Rand Paul: Eugenics possible with today’s technology

Paul: Eugenics possible through technology, abortion

LYNCHBURG, Va. Tea party hero Rand Paul warned scientific advancements could lead to eugenics during a visit today at Liberty University, looking to boost the political fortunes of fellow Republican Ken Cuccinelli's bid for governor.

During a visit to the Christian school founded by Jerry Falwell, Paul looked to energize conservative supporters by warning that people who are short, overweight or less intelligent could be eliminated through abortion. With one week remaining, Cuccinelli is hoping the joint appearance with the U.S. senator from Kentucky will encourage the far-right flank of his party to abandon third-party libertarian spoiler Robert Sarvis.

"In your lifetime, much of your potential or lack thereof can be known simply by swabbing the inside of your cheek," Paul said to a packed sporting arena on Liberty's campus. "Are we prepared to select out the imperfect among us?"

Some states ran eugenics programs that sterilized those considered defective in the 1900s, though all were abandoned by the 1970s after scientists discredited the idea.

Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton joined Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe on the road for a second day in what is shaping up to be a campaign that will be decided by the furthest flanks of both parties.

Cuccinelli, who trails McAuliffe in polls and money, was fighting to reset the race that has slipped from his grasp. A four-day visit from Clinton along with the millions of dollars he has helped raise was set to boost the Democrats in the state. With turnout expected to be 40 percent of registered voters or less, the results were likely to be decided by how effective each candidate could be at turning out strong partisans.

Cuccinelli has turned to conservative base issues such as abortion rights, coal and guns to make sure his allies show up for Nov. 5's election. He has also turned to tea party leaders, such as Paul, to convince Republicans to cast their ballot for him and not for Sarvis.

Sarvis, a former GOP candidate, has the backing of 11 percent of Republicans, according to a Quinnipiac University poll last week. While those voters alone aren't enough to put Cuccinelli in the lead, they signal a discomfort among some Republicans about Cuccinelli's deep conservative beliefs.

The appeal to conservatives was high on Clinton's mind a day earlier as he campaigned with McAuliffe, decrying "political extremism."

"If you can get somebody into a fanatic frame of mind where everyone who doesn't agree with them is their enemy, and everybody who doesn't agree with them is out to get them, and you can turn every news story into something that makes the steam come out of your ears instead of a light come on in your brain ... they will vote," Clinton said in Richmond.

Read this article:

Paul: Eugenics possible through technology, abortion

Paul: Eugenics possible with today's technology

LYNCHBURG, Va. Tea party hero Rand Paul warned scientific advancements could lead to eugenics during a visit today at Liberty University, looking to boost the political fortunes of fellow Republican Ken Cuccinelli's bid for governor.

During a visit to the Christian school founded by Jerry Falwell, Paul looked to energize conservative supporters by warning that people who are short, overweight or less intelligent could be eliminated through abortion. With one week remaining, Cuccinelli is hoping the joint appearance with the U.S. senator from Kentucky will encourage the far-right flank of his party to abandon third-party libertarian spoiler Robert Sarvis.

"In your lifetime, much of your potential or lack thereof can be known simply by swabbing the inside of your cheek," Paul said to a packed sporting arena on Liberty's campus. "Are we prepared to select out the imperfect among us?"

Some states ran eugenics programs that sterilized those considered defective in the 1900s, though all were abandoned by the 1970s after scientists discredited the idea.

Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton joined Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe on the road for a second day in what is shaping up to be a campaign that will be decided by the furthest flanks of both parties.

Cuccinelli, who trails McAuliffe in polls and money, was fighting to reset the race that has slipped from his grasp. A four-day visit from Clinton along with the millions of dollars he has helped raise was set to boost the Democrats in the state. With turnout expected to be 40 percent of registered voters or less, the results were likely to be decided by how effective each candidate could be at turning out strong partisans.

Cuccinelli has turned to conservative base issues such as abortion rights, coal and guns to make sure his allies show up for Nov. 5's election. He has also turned to tea party leaders, such as Paul, to convince Republicans to cast their ballot for him and not for Sarvis.

Sarvis, a former GOP candidate, has the backing of 11 percent of Republicans, according to a Quinnipiac University poll last week. While those voters alone aren't enough to put Cuccinelli in the lead, they signal a discomfort among some Republicans about Cuccinelli's deep conservative beliefs.

The appeal to conservatives was high on Clinton's mind a day earlier as he campaigned with McAuliffe, decrying "political extremism."

"If you can get somebody into a fanatic frame of mind where everyone who doesn't agree with them is their enemy, and everybody who doesn't agree with them is out to get them, and you can turn every news story into something that makes the steam come out of your ears instead of a light come on in your brain ... they will vote," Clinton said in Richmond.

Link:

Paul: Eugenics possible with today's technology

This Company Wants To "Breed" The Perfect Chair, Using Eugenics

Imagine using computers to bring countless generations of chairs to life, then forcing them to mate with one another in an orgiastic rut of successive DNA pairings until you finally have the uberstuhl: a perfectly designed chair. It's not exactly a conventional approach, but that's what FormNation is doing with Chairgenics, a program to "breed" the ultimate chair thanks to a little help from eugenics and evolutionary theory.

"Every designer I've ever met wants to design a chair in [his or her] lifetime, but when we were thinking of doing one, we questioned what we could do that hadn't been done before," FormNation's founder Jan Habraken tells Co.Design in an email. Favoring a Darwinist approach to design, Habraken and his team began looking to the world of evolutionary theory for a fresh approach. Habraken was inspired by Plato's famous diatribe about controlled breeding in a chapter of Republic and started wondering if the principles of eugenics could be applied to chairs. The result was Chairgenics, FormNation's five-year chair breeding program.

Starting from a pool of about 10 chair "thoroughbreds," FormNation applied numeric values to each chair according to criteria such as durability, construction, cost and aesthetics, as well as the shape of various chair parts. "If you look at almost any iconic chair--the Pantone Chair, The Zig-Zag Chair, Bertoia's Wire Mesh Chair, and so on--you'll see that at the time of its origin, there was a technological breakthrough that allowed it to come into being," Habraken says. This is why, for the Chairgenics base stock, FormNation chose iconic chairs that contained a certain "X" factor in their DNA. Bred together, their offspring were examined for chromosomal deficiencies--missing ergonomic values, for example, or lopsided durability-cost pairings--and then bred with even more Chairgenics chairs to improve their stock.

Short of pheromone bombing the MoMA, how do you convince two chairs to breed together? The answer, of course, lies in digital modeling. "The closest you can get to "breeding" with a computer is really morphing," says Habraken. The app they used to pursue their Chairgenics was called Symvol, a volume-based tool from Norwegian startup Uformia that can compare two objects and then create a morph based upon them according to their mathematical middle. FormNation modified the software to escape some logical problems that could arise from modeling breeding as the average between two different parts. Recessive genes, for example, are modeled by allowing Chairgenics chairs to inherit traits not only from their parents, but their ancestors as well.

Of course, mutant chairs do come up, but as a whole, FormNation tends to look upon these as happy (and fascinating) design accidents. "There are a sea of freak chairs coming out of the program right now, and my feeling is that we have reached just the tip of the iceberg," Habraken remarks. "We have even started wondering if we could begin an interspecies Chairgenics program, coming up with entirely new pieces of furniture through breeding." For example, a chair and table could be bred together to make the ligers and tigrons of the furniture world: chables and tairs.

Right now, the Chairgenics program does not take into account ergonomics, so even the best Chairgenics chairs tend to be for looking, not for sitting. Nonetheless, the first Chairgenics chairs are now being 3D printed non-commercially by Materialise, and FormNation hopes to follow up this prototyping with a full-scale aluminum reconstruction of one of the Chairgenics' program's uberstuhls, at a date and price to be determined.

While many Chairgenics chairs may be unviable designs at the end of the day, Habraken thinks that his company's experiments breeding chairs together have been worthwhile. "Chairs are one of the world's most designed objects," says Habraken. "To make leaps in design, you have to think outside the box."

FormNation's Chairgenics will be on display in New York City from October 14 to July 6, 2014, as part of the MAD Museums Out Of Hand: Materializing The Postdigital exhibit.

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This Company Wants To "Breed" The Perfect Chair, Using Eugenics