Source: Donald T. Critchlow in Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government in Modern America. (Oxford University Press, 1999). Pages 186-187. Italics his, bold ours. The letters he cites he references are: Mrs. Cordelia Scaife May to John D. Rockefeller 3rd, November 7, 1974, John D. Rockefeller 3rd Papers (unprocessed), RA Mrs. Cordelia …
Category: compulsory abortion
The Jaffe Memo and Eugenics
After World War 2, it became unwise to advocate for eugenics openly. However, since eugenicists believed that they were only extending scientific principles, and felt that they stood on the bedrock of Darwinian truth, they could not just abandon the program. They explicitly took to covert means of advancing their agenda, and, deprived of coercive …
Defective Genes are Like Pathogenic bacteria and viruses the Law Must Control
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 …
Eugenics Quote of the Day: Compulsory Abortion is Constitutional–says John Holdren
QUOTE: Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society. [HT] Other quotes by John Holdren: AND: One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate …
Eugenics and Family Planning Associated Together from the Beginning, Family Planning and Population Control Likewise
One of the ‘pioneers’ of ‘family planning,’ Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was also an avowed eugenicist and advocate for population control. That is, like many advocates of ‘family planning,’ out of one side of their mouth they talk about a “woman’s right to choose” while on the other side they say, “but …
Abortion As Eugenics Tool: Harrison Brown and “The Challenge of Man’s Future”
Today, abortion is nearly always described in terms of a woman’s reproductive right in relation to family planning, but it is not understood that abortion was widely seen by eugenicists as a means of reducing the human population, and especially certain sub-populations (eg, black people, handicapped people, etc). Part of this is intentional–if it was …
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