birth defects Archives | Eugenics and Other Evils

The ‘Minimum Wage’ as a way to make ‘defectives stand out’ for possible eugenic selection, 1913

Filed under 1913, birth defects, compulsory sterilization, concentration camps, defectives, dysgenic breeding, Efficiency Movement, idiots, legislative eugenics, Progressive Era, Progressives, race, right to reproduce, segregation camps, sterilization, unemployable, Year

Henry R. Seager, “The Minimum Wage as Part of a Program for Social Reform.” 1913. [SOURCE] As the enumeration of these benefits suggests, important reform to accompany minimum wage be comprehensive provision for industrial and trade education vocational guidance. Starvation wages are due frequently to exploitation, frequently to physical, mental and moral defects in the …

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Carrel: eugenics asks for the sacrifice of many individuals.

Filed under 1939, applied biology, aristocratic, Biological Laws, birth defects, birth rate, civilization, compulsory marriage, conscious selection, defectives, degeneration, democracy, dysgenic breeding, education, eugenics, feeble-minded, feebleminded, Fit and Unfit, Genetics, hereditary courts, human breeding, IQ, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, lunacy, man as animal, marriage, mental defectives, miscegenation, national degeneration, national stock, Natural selection, planned evolution, population control, positive eugenics, poverty, psychiatry, rational selection, society, Soviet Union, unfit, Year

Alexis Carrel, Nobel Prize Winner. Man the Unknown, 1939. [Source] A choice must be made among the multitude of civilized human beings. We have mentioned that natural selection has not played its part for a long while. That many inferior individuals have been conserved through the efforts of hygiene and medicine. But we cannot prevent …

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CF Dight’s Crusade With Hitler for Genetic Counseling

Filed under 1933, Action T4 Program, birth defects, CF Dight, epilectics, eugenics, eugenics as a science, feeble-minded, German Eugenics, Germany, Hitler, Human Betterment Association, Minnesota, Nazis, race betterment, science, scientific racism, scientific world view, social body, Year

Many people believe the Nazis were entirely different animals than the rest of humanity, but the truth is that they had many ideological ‘friends’ elsewhere, and no, not in the circles of white supremacy. Rather, they were doctors and scientists and other professionals of good standing, well regarded in America at the time. CF Dight …

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Foster Kennedy: Euthanasia for “Nature’s Mistakes” up to the age of 5

Filed under 1941, Action T4 Program, adaptation, After-birth abortion, American Eugenics, American Psychiatric Association, applied biology, birth defects, breeders, breeding horses or cattle, Charity, civilization, compulsory sterilization, compulsory vaccination, conscious selection, death as creative, defectives, democracy, dysgenic breeding, eugenics, euthanasia, Evolution, feebleminded, Fit and Unfit, Foster Kennedy, genetic counseling, German Eugenics, hereditary courts, human breeding, humanitarianism, infanticide, IQ, medical killing, mental defectives, national degeneration, national stock, Oliver Wendell Holmes, sentimentalism, social body, social organism, Spartans, sterilization, suffering, The God Committee, unfit, useless eaters, vaccination, Year

Kennedy’s address at the 97th annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in 1941 encapsulates well how the acceptance of evolution and utilitarian thinking are tied into arguments for eugenics (and euthanasia), which is ironic, of course, since many advocates for euthanasia deny such connections and modern proponents of evolution become apoplectic at the insinuation …

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Julian Huxley: Population Control, Eugenics, and Birth Control all part of the same Program

Filed under 1962, altruism, American Eugenics, Andrew Carnegie, artificial insemination, birth control, birth defects, Britain, China, compulsory sterilization, compulsory vaccination, Contraception, Darwinism, defectives, degeneration, duty, dysgenic breeding, dysgenics, education, Efficiency Movement, eugenics, Evolution, Evolutionary Humanism, family planning, family size, fertility control, Ford Foundation, Francis Galton, genetic counseling, genetic load, Genetics, H.J. Muller, homosexuality, human breeding, Humanism, India, insane asylums, insanity, intelligence, IQ, Jamaica, Japan, John Rockefeller, Julian Huxley, liberalism, marriage, medical genetics, mental defectives, national efficiency, national stock, nature vs nurture, negative eugenics, Negro, over-population, Parasitism, philanthropy, planned evolution, population control, population explosion, positive eugenics, poverty, Progressives, public health, public welfare, race, race hygiene, rational selection, science, social organism, social problem group, sterilization, technology, United Nations, vaccination, vasectomy, Year

Contemporary advocates for birth control exhibit no awareness whatsoever that birth control was always conceived in the context of ‘eliminating the unfit,’ ie., eugenics. Eugenics, in turn, was considered a straight-forward logical extension of Darwinism. Eugenics was seen as human control of human evolution, and was always tied into discussions on ‘population control.’ These are …

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Eugenics Quote of the Day: Birth Control is about Weeding out the Unfit; so says Margaret Sanger

Filed under 1920, abortion, American Eugenics, applied biology, birth control, birth defects, conscious selection, Contraception, dysgenic breeding, Efficiency Movement, eugenics, eugenics quote of the day, every child a wanted child, family planning, feebleminded, Fit and Unfit, human weeds, Margaret Sanger, Natural selection, Oops!, race, racial progress, rational selection, Women and the New Race, Year

“Birth control itself … is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives.” So says MARGARET SANGER.

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Davenport: Death is Nature’s Great Blessing to the Race. Why Keep Defectives Alive?

Filed under 1914, American Eugenics, Artificial Selection, birth defects, Charity, Charles Davenport, criminals, death, death as creative, death rate, defectives, education, eugenics, feebleminded, laws of heredity, legislative eugenics, marriage, mental defectives, Natural selection, negative eugenics, Oops!, positive eugenics, race betterment, race hygiene, racial progress, rational selection, religion, segregation, society, sterilization, the State, Year

Charles Davenport, in The Eugenic Programme And Progress in its Achievement (1914) [italics in original, bold added] The lowest stratum of society has, on the other hand, neither intelligence nor self-control enough to justify the State to leave its matings in their own hands. On the contrary, the defectives and criminalistic are, so far as …

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Defective Genes are Like Pathogenic bacteria and viruses the Law Must Control

Filed under 1989, abortion, American Eugenics, applied biology, Biological Laws, birth defects, compulsory abortion, compulsory sterilization, compulsory vaccination, defectives, degeneration, dysgenics, Efficiency Movement, eugenics, eugenics as a science, every child a wanted child, Frederick Osborn, genetic counseling, genetic engineering, Genetics, Year

As quoted in The New Diagnostics by Dorothy Nelkin and Laurence Tancredi, 1989 (pg 13-14) Although the old eugenic generalizations have been cast off, the logic behind them persists, refueled from diagnostic tests and justified in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, and cost. Thus some geneticists suggest the social importance of improving the “gene pool.” For …

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The Geneticists Manifesto (1939) or Social Biology and Population Improvement, by H.J. Muller

Filed under 1939, abortion, American Eugenics, applied biology, Biological Laws, birth control, birth defects, civilization, communism, compulsory sterilization, conscious selection, Contraception, Darwinism, defectives, degeneration, Dobzhansky, duty, education, eugenics, eugenics as a science, Evolution, family planning, fertility control, genetic engineering, genetic load, Genetics, H.J. Muller, intelligence, J.B.S. Haldane, Lamarck, man as animal, Natural selection, one world government, progress, propaganda, race, religion, science, scientific world view, sterilization, the State, Year

Social Biology and Population Improvement (aka, the Geneticist’s Manifesto) by H.J. Muller [Source #1, Source #2] The Seventh International Congress of Genetics adjourned at Edinburgh only three days before World War II got under way. It is interesting to recall that just before the shooting started a group of geneticists at that Congress-informally formulated what …

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Bentley Glass: “No parent will have the right to burden society with a defective child”

Filed under 1970, American Eugenics, applied biology, birth defects, defectives, eugenics, every child a wanted child, genetic counseling, medical genetics, mental defectives, science, social body, society, Year

Excerpt from Dangerous Diagnostics by Dorothy Nelkin and Laurence R. Tancredi (pg 12, 1994) [Source] And in the same year [1970], Bentley Glass, in his retirement address as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, called for “the use of the new biology to assure the quality of all new babies. … …

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Category: birth defects