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[[Image:Eugenics congress logo.png|right|thumb|275px|"Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution": Logo from the [[Second International Eugenics Conference]], 1921, depicting it as a tree which unites a variety of different fields.<ref>{{cite book
  | last = Currell
  | first = Susan
  | authorlink = 
  | coauthors = Christina Cogdell
  | title = Popular Eugenics: National Efficiency and American Mass Culture in The 1930s
  | publisher = Ohio University Press
  | date = 2006
  | location = Athens, OH
  | pages = p203
  | url = 
  | doi = 
  | id = 
  | isbn = 082141691X}}</ref>]] 
'''Eugenics''' was an international scientific, political and moral [[ideology]] and movement which was at its height in first half of the twentieth century and was largely abandoned after the Nazi Holocaust and its future associations with [[racism]].<ref>See generally Edwin Black, War Against the Weak, Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. In addition to being practised in a number of countries it was internationally organised through the International Federation of Eugenic Organisations. (Black, p 240) Its scientific aspects were carried on through research bodies such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics (Black, p 286), the Cold Spring Harbour Carnegie Institution for Experimental Evolution (Black, p 40) and the [[Eugenics Record Office]] (Black, p 45). Its political aspects involved successful advocacy for changes of law to pursue eugenic objectives, for instance sterilization laws (e.g. U.S. sterilization laws, (Black, see Chapter 6 The United States of Sterilization)). Its moral aspects included rejection of the doctrine that all human beings are born equal and redefining morality purely in terms of genetic fitness(Black, p 237). Its racist elements included pursuit of a pure "Nordic" or "Aryan" genetic pool and the eventual elimination of less fit races (see Black, Chapter 5 Legitimizing Raceology and Chapter 9 Mongrelization).</ref> Eugenics was defined by Francis Galton as "the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations".<ref>cited in Black, p 18.</ref> 

Its advocates regarded it as a social [[philosophy]] for the improvement of [[human]] [[hereditary]] traits through various forms of intervention.<ref name="Osborn1937">The exact definition of ''eugenics'' has been a matter of debate since the term was coined. The definition of it as a "social philosophy" (that is, a philosophy with implications for social order) is not meant to be definitive, and is taken from "Development of a Eugenic Philosophy" by [[Frederick Osborn]] in ''[[American Sociological Review]]'', Vol. 2, No. 3 (Jun., 1937) , pp. 389-397.</ref> Today it is widely regarded as a brutal movement which inflicted massive human rights violations on millions of people.<ref>See for example EMBO Reports, European Molecular Biology Organization "In the name of science - the role of biologists in Nazi atrocities:  lessons for today's scientists" EMBO Reports Vol 2 No 10 2001, pp 871 et seq which discusses eugenics and its culmination in Nazi atrocities. It concludes "It was scientists who interpreted racial differences as the justification to murder ... It is the responsibility of today's scientists to prevent this from happening again."</ref> The movement, led by race scientists, financed by private philanthropies such as the [[Carnegie Institute]] and the [[Rockefeller Foundation]] and implemented by governments was practised in North America, Europe (particularly Nazi Germany), and Australia (among others). The "interventions" advocated and practised by eugenicists involved prominently the identification and classification of individuals and their families (including the poor, mentally ill, blind, 'promiscuous women', homosexuals) and entire "racial" groups (such as the [[Romani people|Roma]] and [[Jews]]) as "degenerate" or "unfit", the segregation or institutionalisation of such individuals and groups, their sterilization, their "euthanasia", and in the worst case of Nazi Germany, their mass extermination.<ref>See for example, Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race</ref> The practices engaged in by eugenicists involving violations of privacy, attacks on reputation, violations of the right to life, to found a family, to discrimination are all today classified as violations of [[human rights]].  The practice of negative racial aspects of eugenics, after World War II, fell within the definition of the new international crime of [[genocide]], set out in the [[Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide]].<ref>Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with [[Genocide#Intent to destroy|intent to destroy]], [[Genocide#In part|in whole or in part]], a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
:(a) Killing members of the group; 
:(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
:(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
:(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
:(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.  
See [[Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide]].</ref>

The modern field and term were first formulated by Sir [[Francis Galton]] in 1883,<ref>{{cite book

  | last = Galton
  | first = Francis
  | authorlink = Francis Galton
  | coauthors = 
  | title = Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development
  | publisher = Macmillan
  | date = 1883
  | location = London
  | pages = p199
  | url = 
  | doi = 
  | id = 
  | isbn = }}</ref> drawing on the recent work of his cousin [[Charles Darwin]]. From its inception eugenics was supported by prominent people, including [[H. G. Wells]], [[Woodrow Wilson]], [[Theodore Roosevelt]], [[Emile Zola]], [[George Bernard Shaw]], [[John Maynard Keynes]], [[Will Keith Kellogg|William Keith Kellogg]], [[Margaret Sanger]], [[Winston Churchill]], and [[Sidney Webb]].<ref>{{cite book
  | last =Gordon
  | first =Linda
  | authorlink =
  | coauthors =
  | title =The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America
  | publisher =University of Illinois Press
  | date =2002
  | location =
  | pages =p196
  | url =
  | doi =
  | id =  
  | isbn =0252027647 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Opening remarks: The Galton Lecture, 1946. The Eugenics Review, vol 38, no. 1, pp. 39-40|journal=[[The Eugenics Review]]|author=Keynes, John Maynard|volume=38|number=1|date=1946|pages=39–40}}</ref><ref name=Okuefuna/> Its most infamous proponent and practitioner was however [[Adolf Hitler]] who praised and incorporated Eugenic ideas in [[Mein Kampf]], and emulated Eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had been pioneered in the United States.<ref>Black, pp 274-295</ref> [[G. K. Chesterton]] was an early critic of the philosophy of eugenics, expressing this opinion in his book, ''[[s:Eugenics and other Evils|Eugenics and Other Evils]]''. Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and universities, and received funding from many sources.<ref>Allen, Garland E., [http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v5/n5/full/7400158.html Was Nazi eugenics created in the US?], Embo Reports, 2004</ref> Three [[International Eugenics Conference]]s presented a global venue for eugenicists with meetings in 1912 in London, and in 1921 and 1932 in New York. Eugenic policies were first implemented in the early 1900s in the [[United States]].<ref>Deborah Barrett and Charles Kurzman. Oct., 2004. ''Globalizing Social Movement Theory: The Case of Eugenics.'' Theory and Society, Vol. 33, No. 5, pp. 505</ref> Later, in the 1920s and 30s, the eugenic policy of [[compulsory sterilization|sterilizing]] certain mental patients was implemented in a variety of other countries, including [[Belgium]],<ref>''Science,'' New Series, Vol. 57, No. 1463 (Jan. 12, 1923), p. 46</ref> [[Brazil]],<ref>Sales Augusto dos Santos and Laurence Hallewell. Jan., 2002. ''Historical Roots of the "Whitening" of Brazil.'' Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 29, No. 1, Brazil: The Hegemonic Process in Political and Cultural Formation, pp. 81</ref> [[Canada]],<ref>McLaren, Angus. 1990. ''Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada, 1885-1945.'' McClelland and Steward Inc. Toronto.</ref> and [[Sweden]],<ref name="wsws"/> among others. The scientific reputation of eugenics started to decline in the 1930s, a time when [[Ernst Rüdin]] used eugenics as a justification for the [[Racial policy of Nazi Germany|racial policies]] of [[Nazi Germany]], and when proponents of eugenics among scientists and thinkers prompted a backlash in the public. Nevertheless, the second largest known eugenics program, created by [[Swedish Social Democratic Party|social democrats]] in [[Sweden]], continued until 1975.<ref name="wsws"/>

Since the [[World War II|postwar]] period, both the public and the scientific communities have associated eugenics with [[Nazism|Nazi]] abuses, such as enforced [[racial hygiene]], [[human experimentation]], and the [[extermination]] of undesired population groups. However, developments in genetic, genomic, and reproductive technologies at the end of the 20th century have raised many new questions and concerns about what exactly constitutes the meaning of ''eugenics'' and what its ethical and moral status is in the modern era.

==Meanings and types of eugenics==
The word ''eugenics'' [[Etymology|derives]] from the [[Greek language|Greek]] word ''eu'' (''good'' or ''well'') and the suffix ''-genēs'' (''born''), and was coined by [[Sir Francis Galton]] in 1883. 

Eugenics has, from the very beginning, meant many different things to many different people. Historically, the term has referred to everything from prenatal care for mothers to forced sterilization and [[euthanasia]]. Much debate has taken place in the past, as it does today--as to what exactly counts as eugenics.<ref>A discussion of the shifting meanings of the term can be found in Diane Paul, ''Controlling human heredity: 1865 to the present'' (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1995). ISBN 1-57392-343-5.</ref>  Some types of eugenics deal only with perceived beneficial and/or detrimental genetic traits.  These are sometimes called “pseudo-eugenics’ by proponents of strict eugenics.  

The term ''eugenics'' is often used to refer to movements and social policies 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.

Because of its [[Norm (philosophy)|normative]] goals and historical association with [[scientific racism]], as well as the development of the science of [[genetics]], the western scientific community has mostly disassociated itself from the term "eugenics", although one can find advocates of what is now known as ''[[liberal eugenics]]''.  Despite its ongoing criticism in the United States, several regions globally practice different forms of eugenics.

Eugenicists advocate specific policies that (if successful) they believe will lead to a perceived improvement of the human gene pool. Since defining what improvements are desired or beneficial is perceived by many as a [[cultural]] choice rather than a matter that can be determined objectively (e.g., by empirical, scientific inquiry), eugenics has often been deemed a [[pseudoscience]].<ref>{{Cite book| publisher = Thunder's Mouth Press| isbn = 1568583214, 9781568583211| page = 370| last = Black| first = Edwin| title = War Against the Weak| date = 2004}}</ref> The most disputed aspect of eugenics has been the definition of "improvement" of the human gene pool, such as what is a beneficial characteristic and what is a defect. This aspect of eugenics has historically been tainted with [[scientific racism]].

Early eugenicists were mostly concerned with perceived [[intelligence (trait)|intelligence]] factors that often correlated strongly with [[social class]]. Many eugenicists took inspiration from the [[selective breeding]] of animals (where [[purebred]]s are often strived for) 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. 

Eugenics has also been concerned with the elimination of [[hereditary diseases]] such as [[Haemophilia|hemophilia]] 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 [[Zygosity|heterozygote]] form may offer an advantage against, respectively, [[malaria]] and [[tuberculosis]]. Although some birth defects are uniformly lethal, disabled persons can succeed in life. 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]] (see also [[preimplantation genetic diagnosis]]).

Eugenic policies have been conceptually divided into two categories. Positive eugenics is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged. Possible approaches include financial and political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses, in vitro fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning.<ref name = "mywdhq">Glad, 2008</ref> Negative eugenics is aimed at lowering fertility among the genetically disadvantaged. This includes abortions, sterilization, and other methods of family planning.<ref name = "mywdhq"/> Both positive and negative eugenics can be coercive. [[Abortion]] by "[[Fitness (biology)|fit]]" women was illegal in [[Nazi Germany]] and in the [[Soviet Union]] during [[Stalin]]'s reign. 

During the 20th century, many countries enacted various eugenics policies and programs, including:
genetic screening, [[birth control]], promoting differential birth rates, marriage restrictions, segregation (both [[racial segregation]] as well as segregation of the mentally ill from the rest of the population), [[compulsory sterilization]], forced [[abortions]] or forced pregnancies, [[genocide]]. Most of these policies were later regarded as coercive and/or restrictive, and now few jurisdictions implement policies that are explicitly labeled as eugenic or unequivocally eugenic in substance. However, some private organizations assist people in [[genetic counseling]], and [[reprogenetics]] may be considered as a form of non-state-enforced liberal eugenics.

===Implementing eugenics===
There are three main ways by which the methods of eugenics can be applied.{{Fact|date=May 2008}} One is mandatory eugenics or authoritarian eugenics, in which the government mandates a eugenics program. Policies and/or legislation is often seen as being coercive and restrictive. Another is promotional voluntary eugenics, in which eugenics is voluntarily practiced and promoted to the general population, but not officially mandated. This is a form of non-state enforced eugenics, using a liberal or democratic approach, which can mostly be seen in the 1900s.<ref>{{cite book | last = Rose | first = Nikolas | authorlink = Nikolas Rose | coauthors = | title = The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century | publisher = Princeton University Press | date = 2007 | location = Princeton, New Jersey | pages = 372 | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 0691121915 }}</ref> The third is private eugenics, which is practiced voluntarily by individuals and groups, but not promoted to the general population.

==Leading Eugenicists==
[[Charles Davenport]], a scientist from the United States stands out as history's leading eugenicist.  He took eugenics from a scientific idea to a worldwide movement implemented in many countries.<ref>Black, p 34, describes Davenport as eugenics crusader-in-chief</ref>.  Davenport obtained funding to establish the Biological Experiment Station at Cold Spring Harbor in 1904<ref>Black, p 40</ref> and the Eugenics Records Office in 1910, which provided the scientific basis for later Eugenic policies.<ref>Black, p 47</ref>  He was eventually to become the first President of the International Federation of Eugenics Organisations (IFEO) in 1925, an organisation he was instrumental in building.<ref>Black, p 240</ref>.  In 1932 Davenport welcomed [[Ernst Rudin]], a prominent German eugenicist and race scientist, as his successor in the position of President of the IFEO.<ref>Black, p 286</ref>  Rudin worked closely with [[Alfred Ploetz]], his brother-in-law and co-founder with him of the German Society for the Racial Hygiene.<ref>Black, p 285.  Richard Weikart From Darwin to Hitler - Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, describes this as the world's first Eugenic organisation. (Weikart, p 15</ref>  Other prominent figures in the Eugenics included [[Harry Laughlin]] (United States), [[Irving Fischer]] (United States), [[Eugen Fischer]] (Germany), [[Madison Grant]] (United States), [[Lucien Howe]] (United States)<ref>See generally Black and index entries</ref>.

==History==
===Pre-Galtonian eugenic philosophies===
The basic ideals of eugenics can be found from the beginnings of humanity. Tribes such as the Fans, aboriginal tribes and ancient Prussian tribes all carried out policies reminiscent of eugenics.<ref>Allen G. Roper, Ancient Eugenics (Oxford: Cliveden Press, 1913), text at [1] 
</ref>The philosophy was most famously expounded by [[Plato]], who believed human reproduction should be monitored and controlled by the state. However, Plato understood this form of government control would not be readily accepted, and proposed the truth be concealed from the public via a fixed lottery. Mates, in Plato’s Republic, would be chosen by a “marriage number” in which the quality of the individual would be quantitatively analyzed, and persons of high numbers would be allowed to procreate with other persons of high numbers. In theory, this would lead to predictable results and the improvement of the human race. However, Plato acknowledged the failure of the “marriage number” since “gold soul” persons could still produce “bronze soul” children.{{Fact|date=October 2007}} This might have been one of the earliest attempts to mathematically analyze genetic inheritance, which was not perfected until the development of [[Mendel]]ian genetics and the mapping of the [[human genome]]. Other ancient civilizations, such as [[Rome]], [[Athens]]<ref>From Myth to Reason by Richard Buxton,ISBN 0753451107,1999, page 201,"But the exposure of deformed babies seems to have been a more widespread practice. For Athens, the most conclusive allusion is in Plato's Theaetetus"</ref> and [[Sparta]], practiced [[infanticide]] through [[exposure]] as a form of phenotypic selection. In Sparta, newborns were inspected by the city's elders, who decided the fate of the infant. If the child was deemed incapable of living, it was usually exposed<ref>Making Patriots by Walter Berns,2001,page 12,"and whose infants, if they chanced to be puny or ill-formed, were exposed in a chasm (the Apothetae) and left to die;"</ref> in the ''Apothetae'' near the [[Taygetus]] mountain. It was more common for boys than girls to be killed this way in Sparta.<ref>[http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/n-s/spartans1.html Channel 4 - History - The Spartans<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
Trials for babies included bathing them in wine and exposing them to the elements. To Sparta, this would ensure only the strongest survived and procreated.<ref>Allen G. Roper, ''Ancient Eugenics'' (Oxford: Cliveden Press, 1913), text at [http://www.euvolution.com/articles/ancient.htm]</ref> Adolf Hitler considered Sparta to be the first "[[Völkisch movement|Völkisch]] State," and much like [[Ernst Haeckel]] before him, praised [[Sparta]] due to its primitive form of eugenics practice of selective infanticide policy which was applied on deformed children though the Nazis believed the children were killed outright and not exposed.<ref>{{cite web
|first=
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|author=[[Ernst Haeckel|Haeckel, Ernst]]
|coauthors=
|title=The History of Creation, vol. I
|url=http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/Radical%20Ecology.htm#EUGENICS%20JUSTIFIED%20BY%20NATURE
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|publisher=New York: D. Appleton
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|date=1876
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|quote=Among the Spartans all newly born children were subject to a careful examination or selection.  All those that were weak, sickly, or affected with any bodily infirmity, were killed. Only the perfectly healthy and strong children were allowed to live, and they alone afterwards propagated the race. }}</ref><ref>{{cite book
 | author = [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler, Adolf]]
 | title = [[Hitler's Secret Book]]
 | year = 1961
 | publisher = Grove Press
 | location = New York
 
 | isbn = 0394620038
 | oclc = 9830111
 | pages = 8–9, 17–18
 | quote = At one time the Spartans were capable of such a wise measure, but not our present, mendaciously sentimental, bourgeois patriotic nonsense. The rule of six thousand Spartans over three hundred and fifty thousand Helots was only thinkable in consequence of the high racial value of the Spartans. But this was the result of a systematic race preservation; thus Sparta must be regarded as the first Völkisch State. The exposure of the sick, weak, deformed children, in short, their destruction, was more decent and in truth a thousand times more humane than the wretched insanity of our day which preserves the most pathological subject, and indeed at any price, and yet takes the life of a hundred thousand healthy children in consequence of birth control or through abortions, in order subsequently to breed a race of degenerates burdened with illnesses. }}</ref><ref>{{cite book
 | author = Hawkins, Mike
 | title = Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860-1945: nature as model and nature as threat
 | year = 1997
 | publisher = Cambridge University Press
 
 | isbn = 052157434X
 | oclc = 34705047
 | pages = 276
 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=SszNCxSKmgkC&pg=PA276&dq=Hitler%27s+Secret+Book+sparta&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=q5g40V7M6bHFNX8pm4ZD65FxH6s#PPA276,M1 }}</ref>

The [[Twelve Tables|Twelve Tables of Roman Law]], established early in the formation of the Roman Republic, [[Twelve_Tables#TABLE_IV_.28Parents_and_children.29|stated in the fourth table]] that deformed children must be put to death. In addition, patriarchs in Roman society were given the right to "discard" infants at their discretion. This was often done by drowning undesired newborns in the [[Tiber River]]. The practice of open infanticide in the ancient world did not subside until the [[Christianity|Christianization]] of the Roman empire.

===Galton's theory===
[[Image:Francis Galton 1850s.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Sir [[Francis Galton]] initially developed the ideas of eugenics using social statistics.]]

Sir [[Francis Galton]] systematized these ideas and practices according to new knowledge about the evolution of man and animals provided by the theory of his cousin [[Charles Darwin]] during the 1860s and 1870s. After reading Darwin's ''[[Origin of Species]]'', Galton built upon Darwin's ideas 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; and only by changing these social policies could society be saved from a "reversion towards mediocrity," a phrase he first coined in statistics and which later changed to the now common "[[regression towards the mean]]."<ref>See Chapter 3 in [[Donald A. MacKenzie]], ''Statistics in Britain, 1865-1930: The social construction of scientific knowledge'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981).</ref> 

Galton first sketched out his theory in the 1865 article "Hereditary Talent and Character," then elaborated further in his 1869 book ''Hereditary Genius''.<ref>Francis Galton, [http://www.mugu.com/galton/essays/1860-1869/galton-1865-hereditary-talent.pdf "Hereditary talent and character"], ''Macmillan's Magazine'' 12 (1865): 157-166 and 318-327; [[Francis Galton]], [http://www.mugu.com/galton/books/hereditary-genius/ ''Hereditary genius: an inquiry into its laws and consequences''] (London: Macmillan, 1869).</ref> He began by studying the way in which human intellectual, moral, and personality traits tended to run in families. Galton's basic argument was [[inheritance of intelligence|"genius" and "talent" were hereditary traits in humans]] (although neither he nor Darwin yet had a working model of this type of heredity). He concluded since one could use [[artificial selection]] to exaggerate traits in other animals, one could expect similar results when applying such models to humans. As he wrote in the introduction to ''Hereditary Genius'':

:I propose to show in this book that a man's natural abilities are derived by inheritance, under exactly the same limitations as are the form and physical features of the whole organic world. Consequently, as it is easy, notwithstanding those limitations, to obtain by careful selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses gifted with peculiar powers of running, or of doing anything else, so it would be quite practicable to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations.<ref>Galton, ''Hereditary Genius'': 1.</ref>

Galton claimed that the less intelligent were more fertile than the more intelligent of his time. Galton did not propose any selection methods; rather, he hoped 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'',<ref>{{harvnb|Larson|2004|p=179}} "Galton coined the word "eugenics" in his 1883 book, ''Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development''.</ref> 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, hereditary 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 cognizance 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 ''viticulture'' which I once ventured to use.<ref>Francis Galton, [http://www.mugu.com/galton/books/human-faculty/ ''Inquiries into human faculty and its development''] (London, Macmillan, 1883): 17, fn1.</ref>

In 1904 he clarified his definition of eugenics as "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."<ref>Francis Galton, [http://www.mugu.com/galton/essays/1900-1911/galton-1904-am-journ-soc-eugenics-scope-aims.htm "Eugenics: Its definition, scope, and aims,"] ''The American Journal of Sociology'' 10:1 (July 1904).</ref>

Galton's formulation of eugenics was based on a strong [[statistics|statistical]] approach, influenced heavily by [[Adolphe Quetelet]]'s "social physics". Unlike Quetelet, however, Galton did not exalt the "average man" but decried him as mediocre. Galton and his statistical heir [[Karl Pearson]] developed what was called the [[biometrics|biometrical]] approach to eugenics, which developed new and complex statistical models (later exported to wholly different fields) to describe the heredity of traits. However, with the rediscovery of [[Gregor Mendel]]'s hereditary laws, two separate camps of eugenics advocates emerged. One was made up of statisticians, the other of biologists. Statisticians thought the biologists had exceptionally crude mathematical models, while biologists thought the statisticians knew little about biology.<ref>See Chapters 2 and 6 in MacKenzie, ''Statistics in Britain''.</ref> 

Eugenics eventually referred to human selective reproduction with an intent to create children with desirable traits, generally through the approach of influencing [[differential birth rates]]. These policies were mostly divided into two categories: ''positive eugenics'', the increased reproduction of those seen to have advantageous hereditary traits; and ''negative eugenics'', the discouragement of reproduction by those with hereditary traits perceived as poor. Negative eugenic policies in the past have ranged from attempts at [[Racial segregation|segregation]] to [[compulsory sterilization|sterilization]] and even [[genocide]]. Positive eugenic policies have typically taken the form of awards or bonuses for "fit" parents who have another child. Relatively innocuous practices like [[marriage counseling]] had early links with eugenic ideology. 

Eugenics is superficially related to what would later be known as [[Social Darwinism]]. While both claimed intelligence was hereditary, eugenics asserted 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).<ref>Donald MacKenzie, "Eugenics in Britain," Social Studies of Science 6(3) (1975): 503.</ref>

===Germany===
{{mainarticle|Nazi eugenics}}
[[Image:EnthanasiePropaganda.jpg|thumb|left|Nazi propaganda for their compulsory [[T-4 Euthanasia Program|"euthanasia" program]]: "This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 [[German Reichsmark|Reichsmark]] during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too."]]
[[Image:Wir stehen nicht allein.jpg|thumb|200px|"We do not stand alone": Nazi poster from 1936 with flags of other countries with, or considering introducing, [[compulsory sterilization]] legislation.]]

[[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 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 one American eugenics advocate to seek an expansion of their program, with one complaining that "the Germans are beating us at our own game".<ref>Quoted in Selgelid, Michael J. 2000. Neugenics? ''Monash Bioethics Review'' 19 (4):9-33</ref> The Nazis went further, however, killing tens of thousands of the institutionalized disabled through compulsory "[[euthanasia]]" programs.<ref>The Nazi eugenics policies are discussed in a number of sources. A few of the more definitive ones are Robert Proctor, ''Racial hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis'' (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988) and Dieter Kuntz, ed., ''Deadly medicine: creating the master race'' (Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2004) ([http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/deadlymedicine/ online exhibit]). On the development of the [[racial hygiene]] movement before National Socialism, see Paul Weindling, ''Health, race and German politics between national unification and Nazism, 1870-1945'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).</ref>

They also implemented a number of "positive" eugenics policies, giving awards to "[[Aryan race|Aryan]]" women who had large numbers of children and encouraged a service in which "racially pure" single women could deliver illegitimate children. Allegations that such women were also impregnated by [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] officers in the ''[[Lebensborn]]'' were not proven at the Nuremberg trials, but new evidence (and the testimony of Lebensborn children) has established more details about Lebensborn practices.<ref>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article626101.ece 'Himmler was my godfather']</ref> Also, "racially valuable" children from occupied countries were forcibly removed from their parents and adopted by German people. Many of their concerns for eugenics and racial hygiene were also explicitly present in their systematic killing of millions of "undesirable" people including [[Jew]]s, [[Poles]], [[Roma people|Gypsies]], [[Jehovah's Witnesses]] and [[homosexuality|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.<ref>See Proctor, ''Racial hygiene'', and Kuntz, ed., ''Deadly medicine.''</ref>

Two scholars, [[John Glad]] and [[Seymour W. Itzkoff]] of [[Smith College]], have questioned the relation between eugenics and the [[Holocaust]].  They argue that, contrary to popular beliefs Hitler did not regard the Jews as intellectually inferior and did not send them to the concentration camps on these grounds.  They argue that Hitler had different reasons for his genocidal policies toward the Jews.<ref>[http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/archives/vol4no1/rl-black.html TOQ-Richard Lynn-Black BR-Vol 4 No 1<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> [[Seymour W. Itzkoff]] writes that [[the Holocaust]] was "a vast dysgenic program to rid Europe of highly intelligent challengers to the existing Christian domination by a numerically and politically minuscule minority". Therefore, according to Itzkoff, "the Holocaust was the very antithesis of eugenic practice."<ref>{{cite book
|url = http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:9N0JmKW9S_4J:www.whatwemaybe.org/txt/Glad.John.2008.FHE.Meisenberg-abridgement.doc+itzkoff+antithesis+eugenic+practice&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=se&client=firefox-a
|title = Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century
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|author = Glad, John
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|quote = I would like to add a comment to Dr. Glad’s clear and decisive puncturing of the balloon of myths surrounding the Nazi perversion of eugenics. (For that matter, they also claimed to be a party of socialism!) If we define eugenics as encompassing programs of human betterment, physical as well as mental, practices that benefit community in the local sense as well as the species in general, we can say that the Holocaust was the antithesis of eugenic practice.
}}</ref> However, this proposition is not supported by most researchers. Hitler did regard Jews as being intelligent, but also considered them inferior in all other ways - morally, spiritually, artistically and physically. In his view, their intelligence enabled them to thrive, but only by undermining and perverting the civilisation of other races. The extensive Nazi propaganda comparing Jews to plagues of [[rat]]s demonstrates that the Holocaust was indeed a eugenics program in its conception.{{Or|date=March 2008}}

===United States===
In the USA, eugenic supporters included [[Theodore Roosevelt]], the [[National Academy of Sciences]], the [[American Medical Association]] and the [[National Research Council]]. Research was funded by distinguished philanthropies and carried out at prestigious universities.{{Fact|date=November 2008}} It was taught in college and high school classrooms.
[[Margaret Sanger]] founded [[Planned Parenthood of America]] to urge the legalization of [[contraception]] for the lower classes. In its time eugenics was touted by some as scientific and progressive, the natural application of knowledge about breeding to the arena of human life. Before the realization of death camps in [[World War II]], the idea that eugenics would lead to [[genocide]] was not taken seriously by the average American, though Sanger's books and letters clearly outlined these ultimate social-engineering goals to include selective contraception, forced sterilization, and even forced euthanasia on "the feeble minded" or "ignorant".  If the government was not about to force such measures on women, Sanger believed it was her duty to provide these options to the 'lesser' of society in an effort to stay off their cycle of breeding ignorance.

Eugenics was supported by [[Woodrow Wilson]], and, in 1907, helped to make [[Indiana]] the first of more than thirty states to adopt legislation aimed at [[compulsory sterilization]] of certain 
individuals.<ref>Indiana Supreme Court Legal History Lecture Series, 
"Three Generations of Imbeciles are Enough:" 
Reflections on 100 Years of Eugenics in Indiana, at [http://www.in.gov/judiciary/citc/special/eugenics/index.html]</ref> Although the law was overturned by the [[Indiana Supreme Court]] in 1921,<ref>''Williams v. Smith'', 131 NE 2 (Ind.), 1921, text at [http://www.bioethics.iupui.edu/Eugenics/SMith%20vs%20Williams.pdf] </ref> the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] upheld the constitutionality of a [[Buck v. Bell|Virginia law]] allowing for the [[compulsory sterilization]] of patients of state mental institutions in 1927.<ref>{{harvnb|Larson|2004|p=194-195}} Citing [[Buck v. Bell]] 274 U.S. 200, 205 (1927)</ref>

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 Benedict Davenport|Charles B. Davenport]], a prominent American [[biology|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.<ref>The history of [[eugenics in the United States]] is discussed at length in Mark Haller, ''Eugenics: Hereditarian attitudes in American thought'' (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1963) and [[Daniel Kevles]], ''In the name of eugenics: Genetics and the uses of human heredity'' (New York: Knopf, 1985), the latter being the standard survey work on the subject.</ref>

One of the earliest modern advocates of eugenics (before it was labeled as such) was [[Alexander Graham Bell]]. In 1881 Bell investigated the rate of [[deaf]]ness on [[Martha's Vineyard]], [[Massachusetts]]. From this he concluded that deafness was hereditary in nature and, through noting that congenitally deaf parents were more likely to produce deaf children, tentatively suggested that couples where both were deaf should not marry, in his lecture ''Memoir upon the formation of a deaf variety of the human race'' presented to the [[United States National Academy of Sciences|National Academy of Sciences]] on 13 November 1883.<ref>{{cite web
  | last =Bell
  | first =Alexander Graham
  | authorlink =Alexander Graham Bell
  | coauthors =
  | title =Memoir upon the formation of a deaf variety of the human race
  | work =
  | publisher =Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf
  | date =1883
  | url =http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED033502&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED033502
  | format =
  | doi =
  | accessdate = 2007-12-13 }}</ref> However, it was his hobby of livestock breeding which led to his appointment to biologist [[David Starr Jordan]]'s Committee on Eugenics, under the auspices of the American Breeders Association. The committee unequivocally extended the principle to man.<ref>{{cite book
  | last =Bruce
  | first =Robert V
  | authorlink =
  | coauthors =
  | title =Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude 
  | publisher =Cornell University Press
  | date =1990
  | location =
  | pages = 410; 417
  | url =
  | doi =
  | id =  
  | isbn = 0801496918}}</ref> 

During the 20th 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 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-20th century.  All in all, 60,000 Americans were sterilized.<ref name="sfgate"/>

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 [[psychology|psychologist]] [[Henry H. Goddard]] 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.)<ref>See Kevles, ''In the name of eugenics.''</ref> Though their methodology and research methods are now understood as highly flawed, at the time this was seen as legitimate scientific research.<ref>See Pg. 23 " 'Human Progress’ through Eugenics" from Psychology of Mental Fossils, toward an Archeo-psychology by Douglas Keith Candland at [http://www.douglascandland.com/images/chapter7.pdf] </ref> It did, however, have scientific detractors (notably, [[Thomas Hunt Morgan]], one of the few [[Mendel]]ians 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.<ref>Hamilton Cravens, ''The triumph of evolution: American scientists and the heredity-environment controversy, 1900-1941'' (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978): 179.</ref>

Some states sterilized "imbeciles" for much of the 20th century. The [[Supreme Court of the United States|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 [[compulsory sterilization|eugenic sterilization]] was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States.<ref>Paul Lombardo, "Eugenic Sterilization Laws," essay in the Eugenics Archive, available online at http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay8text.html.</ref> A favorable report on the results of sterilization in [[California]], the state with the most sterilizations by far, 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.<ref name="sfgate">The connections between U.S. and Nazi eugenicists is discussed in Edwin Black, "[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/09/ING9C2QSKB1.DTL Eugenics and the Nazis -- the California connection]", ''San Francisco Chronicle'' (9 November 2003), as well as Black's ''War Against the Weak'' (New York: Four Wars Eight Windows, 2003). Stefan Kühl's work, ''The Nazi connection: Eugenics, American racism, and German National Socialism'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), is considered the standard scholarly work on the subject.</ref>

[[Image:Kallikaks chart1.jpg|200px|right|thumb|A [[pedigree]] chart from ''[[The Kallikak Family]]'' meant to show how one illicit tryst could lead to an entire generation of [[imbecile]]s.]] 

The idea of "genius" and "talent" is also considered by [[William Graham Sumner]], a founder of the American Sociological Society (now called the American Sociological Association). He maintained that if the government did not meddle with the social policy of ''laissez-faire'', a class of genius would rise to the top of the system of social stratification, followed by a class of talent. Most of the rest of society would fit into the class of mediocrity. Those who were considered to be defective (mentally retarded, handicapped, etc.) had a negative effect on social progress by draining off necessary resources. They should be left on their own to sink or swim. But those in the class of delinquent (criminals, deviants, etc.) should be eliminated from society ("Folkways", 1907).

However, methods of eugenics were applied to reformulate more restrictive definitions of white racial purity in existing state laws banning [[interracial marriage]]: the so-called [[anti-miscegenation laws]]. The most famous example of the influence of eugenics and its emphasis on strict racial segregation on such "anti-[[miscegenation]]" legislation was Virginia's [[Racial Integrity Act of 1924]]. The [[U.S. Supreme Court]] overturned this law in 1967 in [[Loving v. Virginia]], and declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.

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.<ref>{{cite book
  | last =Watson
  | first =James D.
  | authorlink =
  | coauthors =Andrew Berry
  | title =DNA: The Secret of Life
  | publisher =Alfred A. Knopf
  | date =2003
  | location =New York
  | pages = 29–31
  | url =http://www.scribd.com/doc/959616/Watson-James-The-Secret-of-Life
  | doi =
  | id =  
  | isbn = 0375415467}}</ref>  This reduced the number of immigrants from abroad to 15 percent from previous years, to control the number of "unfit"{{Fact|date=January 2008}} individuals entering the country. While eugenicists did support the act, the most important backers were union leaders like [[Samuel Gompers]]<ref>Steve Sailer, "Free To Choose? Insemination, Immigration, And Eugenics," http://www.vdare.com/sailer/050705_immigration.htm</ref>. 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.<ref>Paul Lombardo, "Eugenics Laws Restricting Immigration," essay in the Eugenics Archive, available online at http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay9text.html.</ref> 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]].<ref>Paul Lombardo, "Eugenic Laws Against Race-Mixing," essay in the Eugenics Archive, available online at http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay7text.html.</ref>

[[Image:Anthropometry exhibit.jpg|250px|thumb|right|[[Anthropometry]] demonstrated in an exhibit from a 1921 eugenics conference.]]

[[Stephen Jay Gould]] asserted that restrictions on [[immigration]] passed in the United States during the 1920s (and overhauled in 1965 with the [[Immigration and Nationality Act]]) were motivated by the goals of eugenics. During the early 20th century, the United States and Canada began to receive far higher numbers of Southern and Eastern European immigrants. Influential eugenicists like [[Lothrop Stoddard]] and [[Harry Laughlin]] (who was appointed as an expert witness for the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in 1920) presented arguments they would pollute the national gene pool if their numbers went unrestricted.{{Fact|date=January 2008}} It has been argued that this stirred both Canada and the United States into passing laws creating a hierarchy of nationalities, rating them from the most desirable [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo-Saxon]] and [[Nordic race|Nordic]] peoples to the Chinese and Japanese immigrants, who were almost completely banned from entering the country.<ref>See Lombardo, "Eugenics Laws Restricting Immigration"; and [[Stephen Jay Gould]], ''The mismeasure of man'' (New York: Norton, 1981).</ref> However, several people, in particular [[Franz Samelson]], [[Mark Snyderman]] and [[Richard Herrnstein]], have argued, based on their examination of the records of the congressional debates over immigration policy, Congress gave virtually no consideration to these factors. According to these authors, the restrictions were motivated primarily by a desire to maintain the country's [[culture|cultural]] integrity against a heavy influx of foreigners.<ref>[[Richard Herrnstein]] and [[Charles Murray]], ''[[The Bell Curve]]'' (Free Press, 1994): 5; and [[Mark Syderman]] Richard Herrnstein, "Intelligence tests and the Immigration Act of 1924," ''American Psychologist'' 38 (1983): 986-995.</ref>

Oregon repealed its forced sterilization law in 1983, with the last known forced sterilization having been done in 1978 [http://www.people1.org/eugenics/eugenics_article_2.htm].

===Japan ===
{{main|Eugenics in Showa Japan}}

In the early part of the [[Shōwa era]], Japanese governments executed a eugenic policy to limit the birth of children with "inferior" traits, as well as aiming to protect the life and health of mothers.<ref>"The National Eugenic Law" The 107th law that Japanese Government promulgated in 1940　(国民優生法) 第一条　本法ハ悪質ナル遺伝性疾患ノ素質ヲ有スル者ノ増加ヲ防遏スルト共ニ健全ナル素質ヲ有スル者ノ増加ヲ図リ以テ国民素質ノ向上ヲ期スルコトヲ目的トス, Kimura, Jurisprudence in Genetics, http://www.bioethics.jp/licht_genetics.html </ref> 

The ''Race Eugenic Protection Law'' was submitted from 1934 to 1938 to the Diet.  After four amendments, this draft was promulgated as the ''National Eugenic Law''  in 1940 by the [[Konoe]] government <ref> "The Eugenic Protection Law" (国民優生法)The 107th law that Japanese Government promulgated in 1940　(国民優生法) 第二条　本法ニ於テ優生手術ト称スルハ生殖ヲ不能ナラシムル手術又ハ処置ニシテ命令ヲ以テ定ムルモノヲ謂フ , http://www.res.otemon.ac.jp/~yamamoto/be/BE_law_04.htm</ref>. According to the ''Eugenic Protection Law'' (1948), sterilization could be enforced on criminals "with genetic predisposition to commit crime", patients with genetic diseases such as total color-blindness, [[hemophilia]], [[albinism]] and [[ichthyosis]], and mental affections such as [[schizophrenia]], manic-depressiveness and [[epilepsy]]. <ref>[http://www.soshiren.org/shiryou/yuseihogohou.html SOSHIREN / 資料・法律−優生保護法<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>. Mental illnesses were added in 1952.

The ''Leprosy Prevention laws'' of 1907, 1931 and 1953, the last one only repealed in 1996, permitted the segregation of patients in sanitarium where forced abortions and sterilization were common, even if the laws did not refer to it, and authorized punishmement of patients "disturbing peace" as most Japanese leprologists believed that the body constitution vulnerable to the disease was inheritable. <ref>Michio Miyasaka, ''A Historical and Ethical Analysis of Leprosy Control Policy in Japan'', [http://www.clg.niigata-u.ac.jp/~miyasaka/hansen/leprosypolicy.html]</ref> There were a few Japanese leprologists such as Noburo Ogasawara who argued against the "isolation-sterilization policy" but he was denounced as a traitor to the nation at 15th conference of the Japanese Association of Leprology in 1941. <ref>Michio Miyasaka, [http://www.clg.niigata-u.ac.jp/~miyasaka/hansen/leprosypolicy.html]</ref> 

Center staff also attempted to discourage marriage between Japanese women and Korean men who had been recruited from the peninsula as laborers following its annexation by Japan in 1910. In 1942, a survey report argued that "the Korean laborers brought to Japan, where they have established permanent residency, are of the lower classes and therefore of inferior constitution...By fathering children with Japanese women, these men could lower the caliber of the Yamato minzoku." <ref>Jennifer Robertson, ''Blood Talks'', [http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:48YqAbt7joIJ:sitemaker.umich.edu/jennifer.robertson/files/blood_talks__eugenic_modernity_anthro___hist_2002.pdf+%22blood+talks%22+robertson+korean&hl=fr&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca]
</ref>

One of the last eugenic measure of the Shōwa regime was taken by the [[Higashikuni]] government. On 19 August 1945, the Home Ministry ordered local government offices to establish a [[prostitution]] service for allied soldiers to preserve the "purity" of the "Japanese race". The official declaration stated that : "Through the sacrifice of thousands of "Okichis" of the [[Shōwa era]], we shall construct a [[wikt:dike|dike]] to hold back the mad frenzy of the occupation troops and cultivate and preserve the purity of our race long into the future...." <ref>Herbert Bix, ''Hirohito and the making of modern Japan'', 2001, p. 538, citing Kinkabara Samon and Takemae Eiji, ''Showashi : kokumin non naka no haran to gekido no hanseiki-zohoban'', 1989, p.244.</ref>

===Canada===
In Canada, the eugenics movement took place early in the 20th century, particularly in [[compulsory sterilization|Alberta]], and was quite popular. The [[Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta]] was enacted in 1928, focusing the movement on the sterilization of [[mental deficiency|mentally deficient]] individuals, as determined by the [[Alberta Eugenics Board]]. The campaign to enforce this action was backed by groups such as the United Farm Women's Group, including key member [[Emily Murphy]].{{Fact|date=May 2007}}

Individuals were assessed using [[IQ tests]] like the Stanford-Binet. This posed a problem to new [[Canadian immigrants|immigrants]] arriving in Canada, as many had not mastered the English language, and often their scores denoted them as having impaired intellectual functioning. As a result, many of those sterilized under the Sexual Sterilization Act were immigrants who were unfairly categorized.{{Fact|date=May 2007}}

The popularity of the eugenics movement peaked during the [[Great Depression|Depression]]. Individuals sought an explanation for the financial problems of the nation, and the notion of defective breeding became a [[scapegoat]]; citizens blamed individuals considered to be subhuman. The end of the Canadian eugenics movement was brought about when the Sexual Sterilization Act was repealed in 1972.{{Fact|date=May 2007}}

===Australia===
The policy of removing [[Indigenous Australians|Aboriginal]] children from their parents emerged from an opinion based on Eugenics theory in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Australia that the 'full-blood' [[tribal]] Aborigine would be unable to sustain itself, and was doomed to inevitable extinction, as at the time huge numbers of aborigines were in fact dying out, from diseases caught from European settlers.<ref>Russell McGregor, ''Imagined Destinies. Aboriginal Australians and the Doomed Race Theory, 1880-1939'', Melbourne: MUP, 1997</ref> An [[ideology]] at the time held that mankind could be divided into a civilisational hierarchy. This white supremacist notion supposed that Northern [[Europe]]ans were superior in civilisation and that Aborigines were inferior. According to this view, the increasing numbers of mixed-descent children in Australia, labelled as 'half-castes' (or alternatively 'crossbreeds', 'quadroons' and 'octoroons').                                                                
In the first half of the twentieth century, this led to policies and legislation that resulted in the removal of children from their tribe.<ref>[http://nla.gov.au/nla.aus-vn672744-2x Aborigines Act of 1905]</ref> 
The stated aim was to [[Cultural assimilation|culturally assimilate]] [[multiracial|mixed-descent]] people into contemporary Australian society. In all states and territories legislation was passed in the early years of the twentieth century which gave Aboriginal protectors guardianship rights over Aborigines up to the age of sixteen or twenty-one. Policemen or other agents of the state (such as Aboriginal Protection Officers), were given the power to locate and transfer babies and children of mixed descent, from their communities into institutions. In these Australian states and territories, half-caste institutions (both government or [[missionary]]) were established in the early decades of the twentieth-century for the reception of these separated children.<ref>[http://www.tim-richardson.net/misc/stolen_generation.html Stolen Generation by Tim Richardson]</ref><ref>[http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special//rsjproject/rsjlibrary/hreoc/stolen/stolen13.html Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission - Bringing them Home - The Report]</ref> The 2002 movie [[Rabbit-Proof Fence (film)|Rabbit-Proof Fence]] portrays this system and the harrowing consequences of attempting to overcome it.

In 1915 [[A.O. Neville]] was appointed the second Western Australia State ''[[Protector of Aborigines|Chief Protector of Aborigines]]''. During the next quarter-century, he presided over the now notorious 'Assimilation' policy of removing mixed-race [[Australian Aborigine|Aboriginal]] children from their parents. This policy in turn created the [[Stolen Generations]] and set in motion a grieving process that has become known as the {{Who|date=July 2008}} concept of trans-generational grief,{{Fact|date=July 2008}} and would affect many generations to come. In 1936 Neville became the ''Commissioner for Native Affairs'', a post he held until his retirement in 1940.

Neville believed that biological absorption was the key to 'uplifting the Native race.' Speaking before the [[Moseley Royal Commission]], which investigated the administration of Aboriginals in 1934, he defended the policies of [[Forced settlement of Australian aboriginals|forced settlement]], removing children from parents, surveillance, discipline and punishment, arguing that "they have to be protected against themselves whether they like it or not. They cannot remain as they are. The sore spot requires the application of the surgeon's knife for the good of the patient, and probably against the patients will."

In his twilight years Neville continued to actively promote his policy. Towards the end of his career, Neville published ''Australia's Coloured Minority'', a text outlining his plan for the biological absorption of aboriginal people into white Australia.<ref>{{cite book | last=Jacobs | first=Pat | title=Mister Neville, A Biography | publisher=Fremantle Arts Centre Press | isbn=0-949206-72-5 | year=1990}}</ref>
<ref>{{cite book | last=Kinnane| first=Stephen | title=Shadow Lines | publisher=Fremantle Arts Centre Press | isbn=1-86368-237-6 | year=2003}}</ref>

===Sweden===
{{See also|Homo Sapiens 1900|Herman Lundborg}}

In [[Sweden]], the "Sterilization Act of 1934" provided for the voluntary sterilization of some mental patients. The law was passed while the [[Swedish Social Democratic Party]] was in power, though it was also supported by all other political parties in Parliament at the time, as well as the [[Lutheran Church]] and much of the medical profession.<ref>Lena Lennerhed, Lena. ''Sterilisation on Eugenic Grounds in Europe in the 1930s: News in 1997 but Why?'' Reproductive Health Matters, Vol. 5, No. 10, The International Women's Health Movement (Nov., 1997), pp. 156</ref> From about 1934 to until 1975, [[Sweden]] sterilized more than 62,000 people, with [[Herman Lundborg]] in the lead of the project.<ref>[http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~d95-nwa/rasII.html Rastänkandet i Sverige<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Sweden sterilized more people than any other European state except Nazi Germany.<ref name="pred"/> More people were sterilized in 1948 than any other year. 

Sweden's large-scale eugenics program targeted the deviant and the mentally ill. Most sterilizations were voluntary{{Fact|date=October 2008}}(though voluntary does not necessarily mean free from persuasion or exhortation), but nine per cent of the sterilized were more or less forced to do so. As was the case in other programs, ethnicity and race were believed to be connected to mental and physical health. Still, a comprehensive critical investigation appointed by the government showed there is no evidence the Swedish sterilization programme targeted ethnic minorities <ref>[http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c4/28/64/212fc81a.pdf Steriliseringsfrågan i Sverige 1935 - 1975], SOU 2000:20, in Swedish with an English summary.</ref>. 

There is proof that the program targeted women. The goal of the program was to decrease deviant offspring. If one member of a family was considered deviant the whole family became the target of an investigation. It was perceived to be easier to persuade a woman to be sterilized than it was to persuade a man. For this reason women were more often sterilized than men, despite the fact that the medical procedure involved in the sterilization was simpler to carry out on a man.

Even as far as 1996, social democrats rejected paying compensation to victims, which was criticized by some former members of the party.<ref name="pred">Even in Sweden By Allan Richard Pred</ref> In 1999 the Swedish government began paying compensation to the victims and their families, but only 21,000 USD and only to those who had "not consented" and who applied for the compensation.<ref name="wsws">[http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/mar1999/euge-19m.shtml Social Democrats implemented measures to forcibly sterilise 62,000 people], World Socialist Web Site</ref>

===Britain===
[[Image:Galton class eugenics.svg|right|thumb|300px|Galton's view of the British class structure was the basis and emphasis of the eugenics movement in Britain.]] In Britain, eugenics never received significant state funding, but it was supported by many prominent figures of different political persuasions before World War I, including Labour's leading [[welfare state]] advocates such as [[William Beveridge]] and [[John Maynard Keynes]], [[Fabian Society|Fabian socialists]] such as Irish author [[George Bernard Shaw]], [[H. G. Wells]] and [[Sidney Webb]], and [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservatives]] such as [[Arthur Balfour]] and the future Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]].<ref name=Okuefuna>{{cite web
  | last =Okuefuna
  | first =David
  | authorlink =
  | coauthors =
  | title =Racism: a history
  | work =
  | publisher =[[British Broadcasting Corporation]]
  | date =
  | url =http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/racism-history.shtml
  | format =
  | doi =
  | accessdate = 2007-12-12 }}</ref> Furthermore, its emphasis was more upon class, rather than race.<ref name="rnwmif">{{cite journal|last=Porter|first=Dorothy|date=1999|title=Eugenics and the sterilization debate in Sweden and Britain before World War II|journal=Scandinavian Journal of History|volume=24|pages=145–62|issn=03468755|doi=10.1080/03468759950115773}}</ref> Indeed, Galton expressed these views during a lecture in 1901 in which he placed the British society into groups. These groupings are shown in the figure and indicate the proportion of society falling into each group and their perceived genetic worth. Galton suggested that negative eugenics (i.e. an attempt to prevent them from bearing offspring) should be applied only to those in the lowest social group (the "Undesirables"), while positive eugenics applied to the higher classes. However, he appreciated the worth of the higher working classes to society and industry.

Sterilisation programmes were never legalised, although some were carried out in private upon the mentally ill by clinicians who were in favour of a more widespread eugenics plan.<ref name = "rnwmif"/>  (Sterilization had, in fact, been carried out to prevent masturbation in mentally ill patients since the 1820s, long before the eugenics movement.)  Indeed, those in support of eugenics shifted their lobbying of Parliament from enforced to voluntary sterilization, in the hope of achieving more legal recognition.<ref name = "rnwmif"/>  But leave for the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] [[Member of Parliament]] [[Archibald George Church|Major A. G. Church]], to propose a [[Private Member's Bill]] in 1931, which would legalise the operation for voluntary sterilization, was rejected by 167 votes to 89.<ref>King and Hansen, 1999. B.J.Pol.S. 29, 77–107 [http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FJPS%2FJPS29_01%2FS000712349900004Xa.pdf&code=08b5beb5671077a67005a5003ed21b36]</ref> 

The popularity of eugenics in Britain was reflected by the fact that only two universities established courses in this field ([[University College London]] and [[Liverpool University]]), and the position of a professorship in eugenics was never created at either. The [[Galton Institute]], affiliated to UCL, was headed by Galton's protégé, [[Karl Pearson]].

===Other countries===

Almost all non-Catholic Western nations adopted some eugenic legislations. In July 1933 [[Germany]] passed a law allowing for the involuntary sterilization of "hereditary and incurable drunkards, sexual criminals, lunatics, and those suffering from an incurable disease which would be passed on to their offspring."<ref>"Sterilisation of the unfit - Nazi legislation," ''The Guardian'' (26 July 1933). Available online at [http://century.guardian.co.uk/1930-1939/Story/0,6051,126942,00.html].</ref> Two provinces in Canada carried out thousands of [[compulsory sterilization]]s, and these lasted into the 1970s. Many [[First Nations]] (native Canadians) were targeted, as well as immigrants from Eastern Europe, as the program identified racial and ethnic minorities to be genetically inferior{{Fact|date=May 2007}}. Besides the large-scale program in the [[United States]], other nations included [[Australia]], [[Norway]], [[France]], [[Finland]], [[Denmark]], [[Estonia]], [[Iceland]], and [[Switzerland]] with programs to sterilize people the government declared to be mentally deficient. [[Singapore]] practiced a limited form of eugenics that involved discouraging marriage between [[university]] graduates and the rest through segregation in matchmaking agencies, in the hope that the former would produce better children.<ref>There are a number of works discussing eugenics in various countries around the world. For the history of eugenics in Scandinavia, see Gunnar Broberg and Nils Roll-Hansen, eds., ''Eugenics And the Welfare State: Sterilization Policy in Demark, Sweden, Norway, and Findland'' (Michigan State University Press, 2005). Another international approach is Mark B. Adams, ed., ''The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).</ref>

===Marginalization after World War II===
[[Image:Eugenics Quarterly to Social Biology.jpg|right|thumb|300px|In the decades after [[World War II]], eugenics became increasingly unpopular within academic science. Many organizations and journals that had their origins in the eugenics movement began to distance themselves from the philosophy, such as when ''Eugenics Quarterly'' became ''Social Biology'' in 1969.]]

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."<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/eng.htm | title=Universal Declaration of Human Rights | accessdate=2006-08-26}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/d_prejud.htm | title=Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice | accessdate=2006-08-26}}</ref> 

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.<ref>A discussion of the general changes in views towards genetics and race after World War II is: Elazar Barkan, ''The retreat of scientific racism: changing concepts of race in Britain and the United States between the world wars'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).</ref>

The [[American Life League]], an opponent of abortion, charges that eugenics was merely "re-packaged" after the war, and promoted anew in the guise of the population-control and environmentalism movements. They claim, for example, that [[Planned Parenthood]] was funded and cultivated by the Eugenics Society for these reasons. [[Julian Huxley]], the first Director-General of [[UNESCO]] and a founder of the [[World Wildlife Fund]] was also a Eugenics Society president and a strong supporter of eugenics<ref>American Bioethics Advisory Commission, [http://www.all.org/abac/eugen02.htm "Eugenics,"] ABAC website</ref>

<blockquote>[E]ven though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable. --Julian Huxley<ref>''UNESCO: Its Purpose and its Philosophy'' (Washington D.C. 1947), cited in Liagin, Excessive Force: Power Politics and Population Control, at 85 (Washington, D.C.: Information Project for Africa 1996)</ref></blockquote>

High school and college textbooks from the 1920s through the '40s 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]] (1922–94) during the second half of the 20th 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 essay ''[[Tragedy of the Commons|The Tragedy of the Commons]]''.

In the United States, the eugenics movement had largely lost most popular and political support by the end of the 1930s while forced sterilizations mostly ended in the 1960s with the last performed in 1981.<ref>See Broberg and Nil-Hansen, ed., ''Eugenics And the Welfare State'' and Alexandra Stern, ''Eugenic nation: faults and frontiers of better breeding in modern America'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005)</ref> Many US states continued to prohibit biracial marriages with "anti-miscegenation laws" such as Virginia's  [[Racial Integrity Act|The Racial Integrity Act]] of 1924, until they were over-ruled by the Supreme Court in 1967 in [[Loving v. Virginia]].<ref>[http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay_7_fs.html Essay 7: Marriage Laws<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> The [[Immigration Act of 1924|Immigration Restriction Act]] of 1924, which was designed to limit the immigration of "dysgenic" Italians, and eastern European Jews, was repealed and replaced by the [[Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965|Immigration and Nationality Act]] in 1965.<ref>[http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay_9_fs.html Essay 9: Immigration Restriction<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

However, some prominent academics continued to support eugenics after the war. In 1963 the [[Ciba Foundation]] convened a conference in London under the title “Man and His Future,” at which three distinguished biologists and Nobel laureates ([[Hermann Muller]], [[Joshua Lederberg]], and [[Francis Crick]]) all spoke strongly in favor of eugenics.<ref>John Glad: "Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century", Hermitage Publishers</ref> 

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.

==Modern eugenics, genetic engineering, and ethical re-evaluation==
Beginning in the 1980s, the history and concept of eugenics were widely discussed as knowledge about [[genetics]] advanced significantly. Endeavors such as the [[Human Genome Project]] made the effective modification of the human species seem possible again (as did Darwin's initial theory of evolution in the 1860s, along with the rediscovery of [[Mendelian inheritance|Mendel's laws]] in the early 20th century). The difference at the beginning of the 21st century was the guarded attitude towards eugenics, which had become a watchword to be feared rather than embraced.

===Suggestions and ideas===
A few scientific researchers such as psychologist [[Richard Lynn]], psychologist [[Raymond Cattell]], and scientist [[Gregory Stock]] have openly called for eugenic policies using modern technology, but they represent a minority opinion in current scientific and cultural circles.<ref>See, i.e., [[Richard Lynn]], ''Eugenics: A Reassessment (Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence)'' (Praeger Publishers, 2001).</ref> One attempted implementation of a form of eugenics was a "[[Repository for Germinal Choice|genius sperm bank]]" (1980–99) created by [[Robert Klark Graham]], from which nearly 230 children were conceived (the best known donors were [[Nobel Prize]] winners [[William Shockley]] and [[James D. Watson|J.D.Watson]]). In the U.S. and Europe, though, these attempts have frequently been criticized as in the same spirit of classist and racist forms of eugenics of the 1930s. Because of its association with compulsory sterilization and the racial ideals of the Nazi Party, the word ''eugenics'' is rarely used by the advocates of such programs.

Eugenicists have argued that immigration from countries with low [[national IQ]] is undesirable. According to [[Raymond Cattell]] "when a country is opening its doors to immigration from diverse countries, it is like a farmer who buys his seeds from different sources by the sack, with sacks of different average quality of contents."<ref>Cattell, R. B. (1987). Beyondism: Religion from science. New York: Praeger, p. 187</ref>

===Cyprus===
A similar screening policy (including prenatal screening and abortion) intended to reduce the incidence of [[thalassemia]] exists on both sides of the island of [[Cyprus]]. Since the program's implementation in the 1970s, it has reduced the ratio of children born with the hereditary blood disease from 1 out of every 158 births to almost zero. Tests for the gene are compulsory for both partners, prior to church wedding.

===United States===

There are some states that require a blood test prior to marriage.<ref>[http://www.coolnurse.com/marriage_laws2.htm Marriage Laws in the US - Blood Tests<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>  While these tests are typically restricted to the detection of the [[sexually transmitted disease]] [[syphilis]] (which was the most common STD at the time these laws were enacted), some partners will voluntarily test for other diseases and genetic incompatibilities.

Harris polls in 1986 and 1992 recorded majority public support for limited forms of germ-line intervention, especially to prevent "children inheriting usually fatal genetic disease".<ref>[http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/0300126.html The Eugenic Temptation (March-April 2000)<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

In 1971, lobbying by the US organization [[EngenderHealth|The International Association for Voluntary Sterilization]] (AVS), led politicians and officials at the Office for Equal Opportunity to pay for voluntary sterilization of low income Americans for birth-control purposes.{{Fact|date=January 2008}} AVS also focused on the International community, and its lobbying led to a US foreign policy and funding from the [[USAID|U.S. Agency for International Development]] to encourage [[Third World]]/[[Developing World]] countries to utilise abortion and sterilization in order to control their population growth.{{Fact|date=January 2008}} For further information see [[EngenderHealth]].

===Dor Yeshorim===
{{main|Dor Yeshorim}}
Dor Yeshorim, a program which seeks to reduce the incidence of [[Tay-Sachs disease]], [[Cystic Fibrosis]], [[Canavan disease]], [[Fanconi anemia]], [[Familial Dysautonomia]], [[Glycogen storage disease]], [[Bloom's Syndrome]], [[Gaucher Disease]], [[Niemann-Pick Disease]], and [[Mucolipidosis IV]] among certain [[Orthodox Judaism|Jewish communities]], is another screening program which has drawn comparisons with [[liberal eugenics]].<ref>http://www.shidduchim.info/medical.html</ref> In [[Israel]], at the expense of the state, the general public is advised to carry out genetic tests to diagnose these diseases before the birth of a baby. If an unborn baby is diagnosed with one of these diseases among which Tay-Sachs is the most commonly known, the pregnancy may be terminated, subject to consent. Most other [[Ashkenazi]] Jewish communities also run screening programs because of the higher incidence of genetic diseases. In some Jewish communities, the ancient custom of matchmaking (shidduch) is still practiced, and in order to attempt to prevent the tragedy of infant death which always results from being [[homozygous]] for Tay-Sachs, associations such as the strongly observant Dor Yeshorim (which was founded by a rabbi who lost four children to Tay-Sachs with the purpose of preventing others from suffering the same tragedy) test young couples to check whether they carry a risk of passing on fatal conditions. If both the young man and woman are Tay-Sachs carriers, it is common for the match to be broken off. Judaism, like numerous other religions, discourages abortion unless there is a risk to the mother, in which case her needs take precedence. The effort is not aimed at eradicating the hereditary traits, but rather at the occurrence of homozygosity. The actual impact of this program on [[allele]] frequencies is unknown, but little impact would be expected because the program does not impose genetic selection. Instead, it encourages [[disassortative mating]].

===Ethical re-assessment===

Modern inquiries into the potential use of genetic engineering have led to an increased invocation of the history of eugenics in discussions of [[bioethics]], most often as a cautionary tale. Some [[bioethics|ethicists]] suggest that even non-coercive eugenics programs would be inherently unethical{{Fact|date=July 2007}}, though this view has been challenged by such thinkers as [[Nicholas Agar]].<ref>For example, [[Nicholas Agar]], ''Liberal Eugenics: In Defence of Human Enhancement'' (Blackwell, 2004).</ref>

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 "[[designer baby|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 20th-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. But critics note that [[Francis Galton]] did not advocate coercion when he defined the principles of eugenics.<ref>{{cite book|last=Buchanan|first=Allen |coauthors=Dan W. Brock, Norman Daniels, Daniel Wikler|title=From Chance to Choice|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, England|date=2001|chapter=Violations of reproductive freedoms|isbn=0-521-66977-4}}</ref> In other words, eugenics does not mean coercion. It is, according to Galton who originated the term, the proper label for bioengineering of better human beings.

[[Daniel Kevles]] argues that eugenics and the conservation of natural resources are similar propositions. Both can be practiced foolishly so as to abuse individual rights, but both can be practiced wisely.

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.<ref>[[James D. Watson]], ''A passion for DNA: Genes, genomes, and society'' (Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2000): 202.</ref>

Distinguished geneticists including Nobel Prize-winners [[John Sulston]] ("I don't think one ought to bring a clearly disabled child into the world")<ref>Quoted in Brendan Bourne, "Scientist warns disabled over having children" ''The Sunday Times (Britain)'' (13 October 2004). Available online at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1337781,00.html.</ref> and Watson ("Once you have a way in which you can improve our children, no one can stop it")<ref>Quoted in Mark Henderson, "Let's cure stupidity, says DNA pioneer", ''The Times'' (28 February 2003). Available online at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2-593687,00.html.</ref> 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.<ref>[[Philip Kitcher]], ''The Lives to Come'' (Penguin, 1997). Review available online at http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/genome/geneticsandsociety/hg16f009.html.</ref>

Some modern [[subculture]]s advocate different forms of eugenics assisted by [[human cloning]] and [[human genetic engineering]], sometimes even as part of a [[new religious movement]] (see [[Raëlism]], [[Cosmotheism]], or [[Prometheism (eugenics)|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, depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, sexual behavior (and orientation) and criminality.{{Fact|date=September 2008}}

==Criticism==
{{ActiveDiscuss}}

===Diseases vs. traits===
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 disorder|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. The other traits that are discussed have positive as well as negative effects and are not generally targeted at present anywhere.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}

===Slippery slope===
A common criticism of eugenics is that it inevitably leads to measures that are unethical (Lynn 2001). A hypothetical scenario posits that if one racial [[minorities|minority]] group is on average less intelligent than the racial majority group, then it is more likely that the racial minority group will be submitted to a eugenics program rather than the least intelligent members of the whole population.

H. L. Kaye wrote of "the obvious truth that eugenics has been discredited by Hitler's crimes," (Kaye 1989). R. L. Hayman argued "the eugenics movement is an anachronism, its political implications exposed by the Holocaust," (Hayman 1990). 

[[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:

<Blockquote>But the 20th 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.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/books/tbs/media_articles/2002_10_30_upi.html | title=United Press International: Q&A: Steven Pinker of 'Blank Slate | accessdate=2006-08-26}}</ref></Blockquote>

[[Richard Lynn]] broadens his criticism of eugenics, by arguing 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 allowed for the killing of large numbers of innocent people by [[Crusades|Crusaders]]. Lynn argues the appropriate response is to condemn these killings, but believes Christianity does not "inevitably [lead] to the extermination of those who do not accept its doctrines," (Lynn 2001).

===Genetic diversity===
Eugenic policies could also lead to loss of [[genetic diversity]], in which case a culturally accepted improvement of the gene pool would very likely, as evidenced in numerous instances in isolated island populations (e.g. the [[Dodo]], Raphus cucullatus, of Mauritius) result in extinction due to increased vulnerability to disease, reduced ability to adapt to environmental change and other factors both known and unknown. A long-term eugenics plan might lead to a scenario similar to this because the elimination of traits deemed undesirable would reduce genetic diversity by definition. (Galton 2001, 48).

Proponents of eugenics argue that in any one generation any realistic program would make only minor changes in the gene pool, giving plenty of time to reverse direction if [[unintended consequence]]s emerge, reducing the likelihood of the elimination of desirable genes. Proponents of eugenics argue that any appreciable reduction in diversity is so far in the future that little concern is needed for now.<ref>Edward M. Miller: "Eugenics: Economics for the Long Run", 1997</ref>

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's Syndrome rights also consider Down's Syndrome (Trisomy-21) a form of neurodiversity.{{Fact|date=August 2007}}

===Heterozygous recessive traits===
In some instances efforts to eradicate certain single-gene mutations would be nearly impossible. In the event the condition in question was a [[Zygosity|heterozygous]] [[recessive trait]], the problem is that by eliminating the visible unwanted trait, there are still many carriers for the genes without, or with fewer, phenotypic effects due to that gene. 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.

However, there are examples of eugenic acts that managed to lower the prevalence of recessive diseases, although not influencing the prevalence of heterozygote carriers of those diseases. The elevated prevalence of certain genetically transmitted diseases among the Ashkenazi Jewish population ([[Tay-Sachs]], [[Cystic Fibrosis]], Canavan's disease and Goucher's disease), has been decreased in current populations by the application of genetic screening.<ref>[http://www.jewishpress.com/page.do/18624/The_Book_Shelf.html Title: Fatal Gift: Jewish Intelligence and Western Civilization<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

==See also==
* [[Bioethics]]
* [[Abortion]]
* [[Liberal eugenics]]
* [[Alberta Eugenics Board]]
* [[A.O. Neville]]
* [[Biological determinism]]
* [[Genetic engineering in fiction]]
* [[Genetic determinism]]
* [[Genetics and violence]]
* [[Inheritance of intelligence]]
* [[Leilani Muir]]
* [[John M. MacEachran]]
* [[Bénédict Morel]]
* [[Nature versus nurture]]
* [[Nazi eugenics]]
* [[One-child policy]]
* [[Race and intelligence]]
* [[Racial hygiene]]
* [[Repository for Germinal Choice]]
* [[Social Darwinism]]
* [[Social Justice]]
* [[Stolen Generation]]
* [[State racism]], a concept coined by [[Michel Foucault]]
* [[Transhumanism]]

==References==
{{citation style}}
{{reflist|2}}

==Sources==
*{{Harvard reference
 | Surname     = Larson
 | Given       = Edward J.
 | Authorlink  = Edward J. Larson
 | Year        = 2004
 | Title       = Evolution
 | Publisher   = Modern Library
 | ID          = ISBN 0-679-64288-9
 }} 
;Histories of eugenics (academic accounts)
*Elof Axel Carlson, ''The Unfit: A History of a Bad Idea'' (Cold Spring Harbor, New York: Cold Spring Harbor Press, 2001). ISBN 0-87969-587-0 
*[[Daniel Kevles]], ''In the name of eugenics: Genetics and the uses of human heredity'' (New York: Knopf, 1985). 
*Dieter Kuntz, ed., ''Deadly medicine: creating the master race'' (Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2004). [http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/deadlymedicine/ online exhibit]
*[[Ruth C. Engs]], ''The Eugenics Movement: An Encyclopedia.'' (Westport CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005). ISBN 0-313-32791-2.
*[[John Glad]], ''Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century.'' (Hermitage Publishers, 2008). ISBN 1-55779-154-6.[http://www.whatwemaybe.org/txt/txt0000/Glad.John.2008.FHE.Meisenberg-abridgement.en.pdf]

;Histories of hereditarian thought
*Elazar Barkan, ''The retreat of scientific racism: changing concepts of race in Britain and the United States between the world wars'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 
*[[Stephen Jay Gould]], ''The mismeasure of man'' (New York: Norton, 1981). 
*Ewen & Ewen, ''Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality'' (New York, Seven Stories Press, 2006).
;Criticisms of eugenics, historical and modern
*[[Edwin Black]], ''War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race'' (Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003). [http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/] ISBN 1-56858-258-7
*[[Dinesh D'Souza]], ''The End of Racism'' (Free Press, 1995) ISBN 0-02-908102-5
*[[Galton, David]], ''Eugenics: The Future of Human Life in the 21st Century'' (Abacus, 2002) ISBN 0-349-11377-7
*Robert L. Hayman, ''Presumptions of justice: Law, politics, and the mentally retarded parent''. ''Harvard Law Review'' 1990, 103, 1202-71. (p. 1209)
*Joseph, J. (2004)[http://www.jayjoseph.net/GeneIllusion.html . ''The Gene Illusion: Genetic Research in Psychiatry and Psychology Under the Microscope''.]New York: Algora. (2003 United Kingdom Edition by PCCS Books)
*Joseph, J. (2005). The 1942 “Euthanasia” Debate in the American Journal of Psychiatry. ''History of Psychiatry, 16,'' 171-179.  
*Joseph, J. (2006). [http://www.jayjoseph.net/MissingGene.html''The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity, and the Fruitless Search for Genes''.]New York: Algora.
*H. L. Kaye, ''The social meaning of modern biology'' 1987, New Haven, CT Yale University Press. (p. 46)
*[[Tom Shakespeare]], "Back to the Future? New Genetics and Disabled People", ''Critical Social Policy'' 46:22-35 (1995)
*Wahlsten, D. (1997). Leilani Muir versus the Philosopher King: eugenics on trial in Alberta. ''Genetica'' '''99''': 185-198.
*[[Tom Shakespeare]], ''Genetic Politics: from Eugenics to Genome'', with Anne Kerr (New Clarion Press, 2002).
*Nancy Ordover, ''American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism'' (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 2003). ISBN 0-8166-3559-5
*Gina Maranto, "Quest for Perfection: The Drive to Breed Better Human Beings" Diane Publishing Co. (June 1996) ISBN 0-7881-9431-3
*Andrea Smith, ''Conquest: Sexual Violence and the American Indian Genocide'' (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2005).

==Films and documentaries==
*''[[Wall-E]]'', Director: [[Andrew Stanton]] 2008
*''[[Gattaca]]'', Director: [[Andrew Niccol]], 1997
*''[[Homo Sapiens 1900]]'', Director: [[Peter Cohen]], 1998
*''[[Idiocracy]]'', Director: [[Mike Judge]], 2006

==External links==
{{commons}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Wikisourcecat}}

===Pro-eugenics websites===
*[http://www.onelife.com/ethics/eugenics.html Eugenics - a planned evolution for life]
*[http://www.eugenics.net Future Generations Eugenics Portal]
*[http://www.mankindquarterly.com/ Mankind Quarterly]
*[http://www.whatwemaybe.org/ Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century by John Glad]

===Anti-eugenics and historical websites===
*[http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/ Eugenics Archive - Historical Material on the Eugenics Movement] (funded by the [[Human Genome Project]])
*[http://www.shoaheducation.com/pNEW.html Shoaheducation.com:Eugenics]
*[http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/library/historical/eugenics/index.cfm University of Virginia Historical Collections: Eugenics]
*[http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/deadlymedicine/ "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race"] (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibit)
*[http://www.uvm.edu/~eugenics/ Vermont Eugenics: A documentary history]
*[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/dna/episode5/ DNA: Pandora's Box] - [[PBS]] documentary about DNA, the [[Human Genome Project]], and questions about a "new" eugenics
* [http://www.wfu.edu/~caron/ssrs/Dorr.rtf ''Fighting Fire with Fire: African Americans and Hereditarian Thinking, 1900-1942''] - article on the support of eugenics by African American thinkers
* [http://personal.uncc.edu/jmarks/eugenics/eugenics.html "Eugenics -- Breeding a Better Citizenry Through Science"], a historical critique from physical anthropologist [[Jonathan Marks]]
*[http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/2000/9/22/article_02.htm "The Quest for a Perfect Society"], from ''[[Awake!]]'' magazine (September 22, 2000)
*[http://dur.ac.uk/martin.ward/gkc/books/eugenics.htm "Eugenics and other Evils"],G K Chesterton's "Eugenics and other Evils." (1922)
*[http://www.georgetown.edu/research/nrcbl/publications/scopenotes/sn28.htm "Eugenics"] - National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature Scope Note 28, features overview of eugenics history and annotated bibliography of historical literature

===Other===
*[http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=437879 "Do not have children if they won't be healthy!"] Tamara Traubmann, [[Haaretz]] June 16, 2004.
*[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEED8113AF932A15754C0A9629C8B63&sec=health&pagewanted=1 "As Gene Test Menu Grows, Who Gets to Choose?"] Amy Harmon, ''New York Times'' (21 July 2004).
*[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0228786/ "The Crimson Rivers"] -- a fiction movie in 2000.
*[http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/021500-02.htm  Yale Study: U.S. Eugenics Paralleled Nazi Germany by David Morgan] Published on Tuesday, February 15, 2000 in the [[Chicago Tribune]]
*[http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1683254&blobtype=pdf Eugenics: past, present, and the future]
*[http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=1829 1907 Indiana Eugenics Law]
*[http://www.quaqua.org/eugenics.htm Quaqua Society -- Eugenics Movement]

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[[Category:Eugenics|*]]
[[Category:Bioethics]]
[[Category:Applied genetics]]
[[Category:Population]]
[[Category:Human evolution]]
[[Category:Social philosophy]]
[[Category:Race and intelligence controversy]]
[[Category:Racism]]
[[Category:Pseudoscience]]

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