infanticide 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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Sterilization May Lead to Sexual Promiscuity, Frank C. Richmond, 1934

Filed under capital punishiment, Charity, compulsory sterilization, criminals, family planning, infanticide, marriage, mental defectives, mental deficient, public health, segregation, social body, society, the State, vasectomy, Wisconsin, Year

Frank C. Richmond, Sterilization in Wisconsin, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 25, Issue 4 (November-December), Winter, 1934. Page: 593. Human surgical sterilization may lead to sexual promiscuity and incidentally to spread of venereal disease. Voluntary sterilization tends to promote social evils in this way and answers why sterilization should be practiced only on …

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Leon Cole on the Social Body and Our Duty to Future Generations

Filed under 1907, 1911, 1914, American Eugenics, applied biology, breeding horses or cattle, Charity, defectives, duty, eugenics, Evolution, feeble-minded, First Conference for Race Betterment (1914), Fit and Unfit, Francis Galton, Herbert Spencer, infanticide, Karl Pearson, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, life unworthy of life, man as animal, medical genetics, medical killing, national stock, Natural selection, nature vs nurture, philanthropy, Progressive Era, race betterment, racial progress, rational selection, right to life, sanctity of life, social body, social organism, Year

From The Relation of Philanthropy and Medicine to Race Betterment by Leon J. Cole, University of Wisconsin, at the First Conference for Race Betterment (1914) Among those who have in their treatment of this subject emphasized the importance of the natural selection viewpoint may be mentioned especially Herbert Spencer, Francis Galton, and Karl Pearson, the …

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Helen Keller: Physicians Juries for Defective Babies, Article in the New Republic, 1915

Filed under 1915, Action T4 Program, After-birth abortion, American Eugenics, birth defects, compulsory sterilization, criminals, defectives, euthanasia, German Eugenics, Harry J. Haiselden, Helen Keller, hereditary courts, human weeds, idiots, infanticide, life unworthy of life, medical genetics, medical killing, mental defectives, Nazis, Neonatal Euthanasia, Oops!, Parasitism, sanctity of life, sentimentalism, useless eaters

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 …

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

Filed under 1972, abortion, Action T4 Program, American Eugenics, amniocentesis, Andre Hellegers, birth defects, Contraception, defectives, Down Syndrome, Elaine Freeman, euthanasia, genetic counseling, Genetics, German, infanticide, life unworthy of life, meningomyelocele, mongolism, Nazis, New York Times, Papal Commission on birth control, sanctity of life, spina bifida, The God Committee, Year

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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Mass Extermination and ‘Lethal Chambers’ Widely Considered by Eugenicists in America, England, and Germay

Filed under 1890, 1900, 1908, 1910, 1911, 1914, 1915, 1922, 1930, American Eugenics, birth control, birth rate, capital punishiment, carbonic acid gas, Charity, compulsory sterilization, Constitution, Contraception, defectives, degeneration, eugenics, Eugenics Education Society, euthanasia, feeble-minded, Frank Taussig, George Bernard Shaw, George William Hunter, idiots, imbecile, infanticide, laisser-faire, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, lethal chamber, life unworthy of life, man as animal, Margaret Sanger, minimum wage, Nazis, sanctity of life, segregation, self-defense, society, sterilization, The Pivot of Civilization, W. Duncan McKim, Year

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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Abortion As Eugenics Tool: Harrison Brown and “The Challenge of Man’s Future”

Filed under 1973, abortion, Aldous Huxley, American Eugenics, artificial insemination, birth control, birth rate, collectivization, compulsory abortion, Contraception, death rate, defectives, degeneration, eugenics, Evolution, family planning, family size, Fit and Unfit, Genetics, Harrison Brown, individual freedom, infanticide, John Holdren, legislative eugenics, mental defectives, Natural selection, one world government

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 Obstacle of Sentiment and Sentimentalists to Pure Scientific Application

Filed under 1879, 1900, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1921, 1922, 1930, Alexander Tille, altruism, American Eugenics, birth control, birth defects, breeders, Charity, compulsory sterilization, concentration camps, Darwinism, defectives, dysgenic breeding, E. W. MacBride, education, England, equal rights, eugenics, euthanasia, Evolution, family planning, feeble-minded, Fit and Unfit, Harry J. Haiselden, Helen Keller, hereditary courts, Hermann Klaatch, humanitarianism, idiots, imbecile, imbeciles, infanticide, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, legislative eugenics, lethal chamber, life unworthy of life, Madison Grant, man as animal, marriage, Melting Pot, mental defectives, National Socialists, philanthropy, Progressives, public school, quote collections, race, race betterment, rational selection, Richard Weikart, right to reproduce, sanctity of life, scientific world view, segregation, segregation camps, sentimentalism, Spartans, sterilization, The Passing of the Great Race, Theodore Roosevelt, W. Duncan McKim, Wisconsin, Year

One of the common themes that surfaces in eugenic writings is their annoyance that others do not act on the logical implications of Science. Note that, in the main, they are not taking issue with people who do not agree with their conclusions, but rather those who do agree–but will not act on them. This …

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Category: infanticide