death Archives | Eugenics and Other Evils

Margaret Sanger on “human weeds” — “Real Facts About Birth Control”

Filed under 1923, Annie Besant, Bertrand Russell, birth control, birth rate, China, Dean Inge, death rate, feeble-minded, feminism, fertility control, H. G. Wells, Havelock Ellis, human weeds, immigration, infanticide, IQ, Japan, John Stuart Mill, legislative eugenics, Malthus, Margaret Sanger, Progressive Era, race suicide, scientific racism, scientism, unfit

Margaret Sanger, “Apostle of Birth Control Sees Cause Gaining Here,” 8 Apr 1923. Source. Which asserts it comes from from the “New York Times, Apr. 8, 1923, XII..” and also says: “This article was reprinted by the American Birth Control League in a flyer with two other newspaper articles as “Real Facts About Birth Control,” …

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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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Taussig: The breeding of men, eugenics, and progress. 1911

Filed under 1911, American Eugenics, aristocratic, birth rate, breeding horses or cattle, civilization, criminals, death rate, defectives, duty, eugenics, family (the institution of), family planning, Frank Taussig, human breeding, John Stuart Mill, laws of heredity, national stock, Parasitism, pauperism, paupers, Political Economy, poverty, progress, Progressive Era, Progressives, race suicide, racial progress, rational selection, science, Scientific Management, society, Year

SOURCE: Frank Taussig, Principles of Economics, Volume II, 1911. Pages 233-237. This movement is steadily extending, and is gradually affecting not only those who are usually thought of as being in a more special sense “native born,” but the descendants of the immigrants as well. The influence of free institutions and of free opportunities is …

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Sydney Webb: The parasites should not be allowed to compete as wage-earners, for it prevents natural selection from working…

Filed under 1920, Charitable organizations, Charity, criminals, death as creative, defectives, degeneration, Fit and Unfit, idiots, lunacy, mental defectives, minimum wage, moral perverts, morality, national efficiency, Natural selection, Parasitism, pauperism, poverty, Progressive Era, public welfare, social organism, Year

Sydney Webb in Industrial Democracy (regarding the minimum wage) – 1920 The problem of the Unemployable is not created by the fixing of a National Minimum by law. The Unemployable we have always with us. With regards to certain sections of the population, this unemployment is not a mark of social disease, but of social …

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Julian Huxley: The History of Population Control–Malthus and Darwin and Birth Control

Filed under 1929, 1963, Annie Besant, birth control, birth rate, breeders, Charles Darwin, Contraception, Darwinism, death control, death rate, every child a wanted child, Evolution, family planning, Japan, John Stuart Mill, Julian Huxley, Latin America, Malthus, Margaret Sanger, Marie Stopes, Natural selection, over-population, Planned Parenthood, population control, population explosion, religion, World Population Conference (1929), Year

Today, one can hear people talking endlessly about ‘birth control’ without remembering that just a few decades ago, it was synonymous with ‘population control’ (see this excerpt from the same book quoted below) and that the population control advocates themselves saw themselves as merely applying the laws Malthus discovered and Darwin proved–the very same outlook …

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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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Charity a Hindrance to Natural Selection

Filed under 1914, alcoholism, American Eugenics, Artificial Selection, Biological Laws, birth rate, breeders, breeding horses or cattle, Charitable organizations, Charity, conscious selection, Darwinism, death as creative, death rate, defectives, definition of eugenics, education, eugenics, eugenics as a science, Evolution, family planning, Francis Galton, human breeding, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, legislative eugenics, man as animal, Plato, poverty, race betterment, science, tuberculous, Year

In the following foreword from a compilation of 12 eugenic lectures (1914), we see that eugenics is perceived as merely applied evolution. Furthermore, ‘modern man,’ being a sympathetic being, keeps alive those that should die. With luck, principles of breeding already used with animals will be brought to bear on humans. ——————- Foreword by Lewellys …

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On the Elimination of Defectives: Hitler, in Mein Kampf

Filed under birth defects, compulsory sterilization, death as creative, defectives, degeneration, education, eugenics, family size, Fit and Unfit, genetic counseling, Hitler, human breeding, humanitarianism, laws of heredity, medical genetics, Nazis, race, race betterment, race hygiene, racial progress, suffering, Utilitarianism

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 …

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

Filed under 1956, adaptation, American Eugenics, applied biology, Biological Laws, birth control, birth defects, Britain, Contraception, crypto-eugenics, death rate, defectives, degeneration, dysgenic breeding, education, England, eugenics, eugenics as a science, euthenics, Evolution, family (the institution of), family planning, family size, Fit and Unfit, Francis Galton, Frederick Osborn, genetic counseling, Genetics, heredity clinic, inferior people, marriage, medical genetics, mental defectives, national stock, Natural selection, planned evolution, population control, positive eugenics, rational selection, science, social body, Year

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

Filed under 1968, abortion, American Eugenics, applied biology, artificial insemination, Artificial Selection, Aryan, birth control, birth rate, breeders, Britain, Catholics, China, compulsory sterilization, Contraception, Darwinism, death rate, defectives, degeneration, democracy, Einstein, eugenics, every child a wanted child, Evolution, family (the institution of), family planning, family size, fertility control, Fit and Unfit, Fred Hoyle, gay marriage, genetic counseling, Genetics, George Bernard Shaw, Germany, Gordon Rattray Taylor, H.J. Muller, heredity clinic, Hitler, homosexuality, individual freedom, Kingsley Davis, laws of heredity, Lyndon Johnson, Malthus, monogamy, National Academy of Science, Nazis, negative eugenics, Ordensburgen, over-population, planned evolution, Plato, population control, population explosion, positive eugenics, Progressives, public school, Rand Corporation, rational selection, Roe vs. Wade, science, Scientific Management, scientific world view, sterilization, United Nations, Year

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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