Category: Contraception

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 …

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Frederick Osborn: “birth control and abortion are turning out to be great eugenic advances”

In March 1973, two months after Roe was handed down, Frederick Osborn, a former head of the American Eugenics Society and the president of the Rockefeller funded Population Council, changed its name to the “Society for the Study of Social Biology.” The announcement said: “The change of name of the Society does not coincide with any change of …

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Frederick Osborn, Galton and Mid-Century Eugenics, 1956 Eugenics Review published lecture and “Voluntary Unconscious Selection”

Frederick Osborn, president of the Population Council and steadfast advocate for eugenics, in a 1956 speech recorded in the Eugenics Review.  [SOURCE] […] Galton never envisaged any system of arbitrary controls, except for the more serious mental and physical handicaps, which should be treated like a form of communicable disease.  But he did propose that …

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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 …

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Elaine Freeman in “The ‘God’ Committee”: infanticide and euthanasia logically flow from arguments for aborting children with birth defects

Elaine Freeman, The ‘God’ Committee, published May 21, 1972, in the New York Times [excerpt] [Opening vignette by Freeman] The baby is a mongoloid born with duodenal atresia, an intestinal obstruction.  The parents, professional people in Maryland, refuse permission for the surgery that will enable the infant to survive, deciding that it would be unfair …

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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 …

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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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Amicus Curiae Brief submitted in support of abortion by the Zero Population Growth and a Chapter of the National Organization for Women

What is below was compiled and produced by Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel in their Before Roe v. Wade:  Voices that shaped the abortion debate before the Supreme Court’s ruling.  The ellipses reflect deletions by those authors.  Anyone who can locate the full, unabridged text, is kindly asked to contact the administrators of this …

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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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