1. Eugenics

2. ORIGINS The word “eugenics” was coined in 1883 by Sir Francis Galton
eu meaning good, and genes meaning born

3. Definition
“The science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage.”
- Galton, Eugenics: It’s Definition, Scope and Aims

4. Ancient History Plato (ca. 427 – 347 B.C.)
In The Republic, discusses the need to supply society with genetically improved human beings and how this could be done.
Rome and Sparta
Infanticide to weed out “weak” babies

5. Two Types of Eugenics
Positive Eugenics - Measures to increase reproduction in families with desirable traits (i.e. encouraging the “fit” to have more children)
Negative Eugenics - Measures to limit reproduction in families with undesirable traits (e.g. sterilization via vasectomy and tubal ligation) Negative eugenics was the predominant view

6. Eugenics was influenced by
Origin of Species: Natural Selection
“Survival of the fittest”
Mendel’s studies on the inheritance of traits
Agriculture/Animal Breeding

7. Unscientific Research
Eugenics claimed through science they were able to identify……
Undesirables
Pauperism
Alcoholism
Feeblemindedness
Promiscuity
Criminality
Desirables
Emotional stability
Strong character
Considerateness for other people
Intelligence
Tendency to uphold or improve moral standards
The quality which makes people feel a personal responsibility for the public welfare

8. 20th Century Eugenics The Eugenics Record Office (ERO)
1900 – 1920s, several organizations were formed
The Eugenics Record Office (ERO)
The American Breeders Association (ABA)
The Race Betterment Foundation
The American Eugenics Society
The Galton Society
International Eugenics Congresses of 1912, 1921 and 1932
Attended by the likes of Alexander Graham Bell and Winston Churchill

9. Teaching Eugenics
Courses offered in some of America’s top universities – Harvard, Columbia, Cornell – by 1914
Eugenics was a topic in 376 college courses
High school textbooks preached the “unfit” vs. “fit”
Fitter Families Contests in 1920s

10. US Laws supporting Eugenics
The Laws
Miscegenation laws against mixing races
-Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924, followed by Alabama and Georgia
Immigration Laws
- Immigration Restriction Act of 1924
- Limits on Eastern and Southern Europeans (based on IQ tests, inmate/asylum studies
Sterilization Laws
- Indiana was first in 1907
- Model Eugenical Sterilization Law (Laughlin, 1922) defines socially inadequate classes

11. The case of Buck vs. Bell Carrie Buck US Supreme Court Case
First to be sterilized in VA
Mother, Emma, was in asylum
Gave birth at age 17 out of wedlock
Daughter, Vivian, was examined at seven months and deemed feebleminded
Charged with feeblemindedness, immorality, prostitution, and untruthfulness
Click to read an article on Carrie Buck.

12. History of Eugenics in US
1902 Carnegie Institute (assign genetic ratings)
1907 IN legalizes forced sterilization
1910 American Breeder’s Assoc. forms Eugenic Records Office
1912 International Eugenics Congress (NY legalizes forced sterilization)
1912 USDA asks ERO to look into “southern negro problem”
1913 Pres. Theodore Roosevelt expresses support for positive eugenics

13. 1924 Immigration Restriction Act, VA Racial Integrity Act
1927 Buck v. Bell
,000+ state mandated sterilizations
1939 Nazis invaded Poland, ERO closes
Several states attempted to pass compulsory sterilization laws for welfare mothers
1965 Birth control legalized
1965- OEO offers family planning (several hundred thousands of sterilizations under Medicaid)
1970 Family Planning Services and Pop. Research Act

14. 1970 Indian Health Service initiates sterilization program,
HEW increased funding from $51 million to over $250 million
40% of Native American Women (60,000-70,000), 10% of Native American Men sterilized (Johansen 1998)
1973 Roe v. Wade
1974 Federal guidelines on sterilization
1978 Madrigal v. Quilligan
1979- Federal Sterilization Guidelines
states offer cash incentives for welfare recipients to use Norplant
1992 WI introduces one child cap on AFDC
1996 Personal Responsibility & Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act

15. Supreme Court Ruling:
“It is better for the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
1927, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

16. “I’m not saying it [illegitimacy] is only a Black problem
“I’m not saying it [illegitimacy] is only a Black problem. It’s just that there seems to be a culture of pregnancy in the Black community, I mean they keep having children generation after generation. Then they collect welfare because they can’t afford to take care of all of them. But nine generations is enough. These women have to learn to control themselves, to make the same effort as everyone else. If they can’t do it, or won’t do it, then something has to be done.”
1992, Former Wisconsin Representative, Susan Vergeront

17. “If the healthy and intelligent motherhood that is now becoming a hopeful reality in our society were the only factor in the situation to reckon with, all would be well. But to-day, as always in the past, such mothers find themselves surrounded by less healthy, less intelligent, less discriminating mothers. And the children of feeble-minded, the diseased and the mentally dwarfed drag down the standards of schools and society.”
1921, Margaret Sanger

18. “Individual rights must be balanced against the power of the government to control human reproduction. Some people have viewed the right to have children as a fundamental and inalienable right. Yet neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions the right to reproduce.”
John Holdren Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

19. Slide 14 – Eugenics Legislative Map
About Americans believed to have been sterilized based on eugenic principles

20. Eugenics Worldwide
Movements were founded in France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, and Japan.
Eugenic sterilization laws passed in Alberta (1928), Sweden and Norway (1934)

21. Eugenics around the World
1981-Present China one-child policy, Marriage age requirements, forced sterilization and abortion, seek asylum in the U.S.
2000-Present U.S. funds coercive family planning in Peru

22. Eugenics around the World Continued
1970-Present Roma women from former Czechoslovakia still have forced sterilization
People with disabilities sterilized to keep the public safe
Africa

23. Nazi Germany
Government adopts Laughlin’s Model Eugenical Sterilization Law, and by 1933, sterilize more than 350,000 people
Laughlin awarded honorary degree from the University of Heidelberg in 1936 for work in “the science of racial cleansing”

24. Nazi Germany Hitler’s “Aryan” society
Marriage Laws of 1935 prohibiting unions between “Aryans” and Jews and the eugenically unfit
~400,000 sterilized by 1939
The Final Solution
-killing of 6 million Jews
- 70,000 mental patients
- Gypsies, Slavs, and Social Democrats

25. Flaws of Eugenics Failure to recognize the complexity of human traits
Disregard of environmental/social factors
Skewed results
Linking undesirable traits with racial and ethnic groups
Disregard of effects on genetic diversity
Flawed IQ testing
Deemed a pseudo-science: mainly a social movement

26. The Fall of Eugenics Mainly due to atrocities committed by Nazis
Emerging evidence against Eugenic claims
Reginald Punnet
Hardy-Weinberg
Opposition from the Church

27. Part Two: Lifting the Curtain on a Shameful Era
Click on the link below to bring you to part one of the assignment
Eugenics webquest-Om9.doc
Part Two: Lifting the Curtain on a Shameful Era
Click on the link below to open selected articles from the Winston-Salem Journal. These articles won a several awards for investigative journalism.
\\ELKHS2\DATA\pelkeyd\Seminar\Sociology\Eugenics\Lifting the Curtain On a Shameful Era.doc
Answer the questions on the following slides after
reading the articles. You may type your answers in a
Word document. DO NOT print!! Send a copy of your
answers to my address.

28. Reproductive Racism in the United States
1) Based on this article, how does forced sterilization impact individuals, communities, and/or the world?
2) What did you learn from reading this article, and how does this topic impact you?
3) What does/might the author suggest we do to address the issue of forced sterilization?

29. Eugenics questions:
Should eugenics (in any form) be allowed with regards to
humans?
What is the difference between eugenics and genetic
engineering? How are they both similar?
What arguments could you make for Eugenics?
How can eugenics be used and to what end? Would it affect
the whole populace?
Would it be done only to remove things considered unhealthy or
would it grow out of control? What are the ultimate effects of
eugenics and what can be gained or lost?

30. Who Cares? Do we care? Should we care? Who is responsible?
Should it change?