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 …
Category: compulsory sterilization
On the Elimination of Defectives: Hitler, in Mein Kampf
Note the utilitarian appeal to the reduction of suffering, the appeal to the ‘common good’, and the basic belief that all he is doing is applying biological principles. Hitler, in Mein Kampf. [Source] In this field the People’s State will have to repair the damage that arises from the fact that the problem is at …
Eugenics Quote of the Day: Eugenics is Not likely to Infringe on Individual Freedom
Paul Popenoe in his widely used 1920 textbook, Applied Eugenics. pg 364-365. “Not likely” indeed! It is charged that eugenics infringes on the freedom of the individual. This charge (really that of the individualists more than of socialists, strictly speaking) is based mainly on a misconception of what eugenics attempts to do. Coercive measures have …
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 …
Buck vs. Bell Supreme Court Decision, Opinion by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1927)
Oliver Wendell Holmes delivering the Supreme Court’s decision in Buck vs. Bell [Source] 274 U.S. 200 Buck v. Bell (No. 292) Argued: April 22, 1927 Decided: May 2, 1927 143 Va. 310, affirmed. Syllabus 1. The Virginia statute providing for the sexual sterilization of inmates of institutions supported by the State who shall be found …
Helen Keller: Physicians Juries for Defective Babies, Article in the New Republic, 1915
Due to the successful sanitization of the past in regards to eugenics, it is largely unknown how pervasive eugenics attitudes were, and how expansive eugenicists believed their program to be. Here we have Helen Keller, writing in a prominent liberal magazine, advocating explicitly for infanticide–in the name of the race. For more information and the …
Gordon Rattray Taylor: “The Biological Time Bomb” — the remaking of society via eugenics, family planning, and education
Gordon Rattray Taylor’s 1968 book, The Biological Time Bomb, was referenced in the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court ruling as providing insight on future developments in America. Taylor’s book was released at a time when the term ‘eugenics’ had not yet fallen out of favor. Though he does not explicitly endorse many of the things …
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 …
The Eugenic Roots of Genetic Counseling
Charity requires us to believe that most contemporary genetic counselors are not at all motivated by considerations that we would term ‘eugenic.’ However, the founders of the field left no doubt about their motivations, stating them plainly and explicitly, and characterizing them as definitely constituting eugenics. The following material raises more than reasonable doubt that …
Mass Extermination and ‘Lethal Chambers’ Widely Considered by Eugenicists in America, England, and Germay
Long before the Nazis implemented the ‘Final Solution,’ American and English eugenicists had talked often of the use of ‘lethal chambers’ to deal with the pressing problem of the ‘unfit.’ You can imagine Hitler’s surprise, when, after acting on precisely what elites in America and England had long been advocating for, he was perceived as …
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