Category: Genetics

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 …

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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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The Roots of the Concentration Camp Were American and British Eugenicists, Not Nazis

For what its worth, the very idea of the ‘concentration camp’ was as much American and British, if not more, as it was Nazi Germany.  These ‘segregation’ camps were seen as humane and hygienic ways to prevent the breeding of ‘defective stock.’  Quotes from Eugenicists discussing such camps are provided below.  No attempt is made …

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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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The Promise of Race Culture, Abortion, and Every Child a Wanted Child

The Promise of Race Culture by Caleb Williams Saleeby Found in Readings in Evolution, Genetics, and Eugenics, edited by Horatio Hackett Newman, Professor of Zoology in the University of Chicago, in 1921; Newman also gave testimony at the ‘Scopes Monkey’ trial.   Page 503. Now no legislation conceivable will wholly cure this evil nor avert its …

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Subsidizing the Fit: An American Evolutionist and Eugenicist Endorses early German Efforts to Establish an Aryan Race

Chapter XXXV:  Human Conservation / subsection: Subsidizing the Fit by Herbert E. Walter Found in Readings in Evolution, Genetics, and Eugenics, edited by Horatio Hackett Newman, Professor of Zoology in the University of Chicago, in 1921; Newman also gave testimony at the ‘Scopes Monkey’ trial.   Page 480-481 The following unconfirmed newspaper clipping illustrates the point …

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