How do eugenics work

Nevertheless, between and the s, there were more than 60, compulsory sterilizations performed in 33 states in the United States; California led the nation with over 20, Experts think many more sterilizations were likely performed, but not officially recorded. Adolf Hitler based some of his early ideas about eugenics on the programs practiced in the United States. He was its most infamous practitioner; the Nazis killed tens of thousands of disabled people and sterilized hundreds of thousands deemed inferior and medically unfit.

However, sterilization programs continued in many states until the mids. Today, safeguards have been established to ensure that the ethical implications of new technologies are discussed and debated before being employed on a large scale. In this way, the benefits and advances arising from scientific research and medical procedures can be achieved both ethically and humanely. Many people fear that new advances in genetics could lead to a new era of eugenics.

However, these advances lead to sometimes difficult ethical questions, particularly related to reproductive technologies and embryo screening. A new, morally responsible eugenics may well be defensible , and new genetic technologies must be assessed on their own terms. But we also need to consider the broader political context. If the betterment of individual traits were to be presented as a key strategy to improve human welfare, this would look very much like the individualisation of social problems that was such a central feature of the old eugenics.

The father of the eugenics movement was the English explorer and scientist Francis Galton He also believed that social problems such as poverty, vagrancy and crime were ultimately caused by the inheritance of degenerate traits from parent to child. The first half of the 20th century saw the enactment of a variety of eugenic policies.

Eugenics is often equated with Nazi atrocities, but many other brutal acts were committed in its name, usually targeting disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, such as the poor, disabled and ill.

As part of the negative eugenic effort, forced sterilisation was conducted on a large scale, not only in Nazi Germany but also in the Scandinavian countries in Sweden , this practice continued until the s and in the US where it was revealed that involuntary sterilisation of female prisoners occurred as late as Modern eugenics, more often called human genetic engineering, has come a long way—scientifically and ethically—and offers hope for treating many devastating genetic illnesses.

Even so, it remains controversial. He also suggested a variety of mating rules to help create an optimal society. For instance, men should only have relations with a woman when arranged by their ruler, and incestuous relationships between parents and children were forbidden but not between brother and sister.

In the late 19th century, Galton—whose cousin was Charles Darwin —hoped to better humankind through the propagation of the British elite. His plan never really took hold in his own country, but in America it was more widely embraced.

Eugenics made its first official appearance in American history through marriage laws. As the concept of eugenics took hold, prominent citizens, scientists and socialists championed the cause and established the Eugenics Record Office. The office tracked families and their genetic traits, claiming most people considered unfit were immigrants, minorities or poor.

The Eugenics Record Office also maintained there was clear evidence that supposed negative family traits were caused by bad genes, not racism, economics or the social views of the time.

Eugenics in America took a dark turn in the early 20th century, led by California. From to , around 20, sterilizations occurred in California state mental institutions under the guise of protecting society from the offspring of people with mental illness.

Many sterilizations were forced and performed on minorities. Thirty-three states would eventually allow involuntary sterilization in whomever lawmakers deemed unworthy to procreate.

In , the U. Supreme Court ruled that forced sterilization of the handicapped does not violate the U. In the s, the governor of Puerto Rico , Menendez Ramos, implemented sterilization programs for Puerto Rican women.

Ramos claimed the action was needed to battle rampant poverty and economic strife; however, it may have also been a way to prevent the so-called superior Aryan gene pool from becoming tainted with Latino blood. According to a Government Accountability Office investigation, between 25 and 50 percent of Native Americans were sterilized between and In some cases, health care for living children was denied unless their mothers agreed to sterilization.

In fact, he referred to American eugenics in his book, Mein Kampf. He believed Germans should do everything possible, including genocide , to make sure their gene pool stayed pure. And in , the Nazis created the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring which resulted in thousands of forced sterilizations. During World War II, concentration camp prisoners endured horrific medical tests under the guise of helping Hitler create the perfect race.

Josef Mengele , an SS doctor at Auschwitz , oversaw many experiments on both adult and child twins. He used chemical eyedrops to try and create blue eyes, injected prisoners with devastating diseases and performed surgery without anesthesia.

Thanks to the unspeakable atrocities of Hitler and the Nazis, eugenics lost momentum in after World War II, although forced sterilizations still happened.