Eugenics

Eugenics is the study or practice of improving the human species by selectively mating people who hold desirable hereditary traits. An example of this is forced sterilization, also known as compulsory or coerced sterilization. This refers to any government-program that aims to involuntarily remove a person, primarily a woman's, ability to reproduce. It was believed that if you were a part of a minority, had a hereditary disability, an immigrant, or poor, you were "unfit" to reproduce, and would therefore likely become sterilized. We can identify a logical fallacy in this policy: slippery slope.

This report will breakdown the rate of and different factors that go into forced sterilization, geographic distribution of procedures & movements, and historical context behind eugenics.

Although Galton is the one who first used the term "eugenics", it did not start with him. Notions of eugenics and population control date back all the way to 4th century BC. Ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, outlined in books V and VI of "Republic" a detailed plan to control reproduction of the people in a Utopian city-state. "Children born with defects should be hidden away".

Eugenics was first defined by Francis Galton in London, England 1883. Galton derived the term from the Greek word "eugenes", which means "good in birth", & was first used in his book "Inquiries into Human Fertility & Its Development". Galton's main concern was how the "more talented" British families were contributing proportionately less children to the next generation than families that he ranked lower on various social measures, such as education, artistic talent, and wealth. He believed this trend would cause "humanity's demise", which is an example of the slippery slope logical fallacy.

Eugenics made its way to America in the late 1800's- early 1900's. In 1897, Michigan was the first state to introduce a compulsory sterilization bill. Indiana introduced the first sterilization statute in 1907. By 1920, eugenics had become a global movement. County fairs across America began participating in "Fitter Family Contests". One of the earliest of these contests occurred at the 1911 Iowa State Fair. After the first world war, the American Eugenics Society energetically supported such contests, which at their peak were held in approximately 40 states, some of which already had sterilization laws (seen in map above).

Support for eugenics was found in Germany, America, Italy, Mexico, Canada, and many others. The most well-known application of eugenics took place in Nazi Germany during WW2. From 1933-1945 the Nazi German racial state used policies like mass sterilization & interracial marriage patrol to "cleanse" the German people of "unwanted life". In 1935 the Nazi regime introduced a very extreme version of positive eugenics called "Lebensborn", a program in which people who best satisfied the Aryan race ideals were sent to camps to conceive and care for families in an ideal environment.

Nazi racial hygiene included forced sterilizations, as well. One example being in 1937, where 385 mixed-race African German and Vietnamese German children were forcibly sterilized and denounced as "Rhineland Bastards". These children were born around 1921, when troops drawn from the French colonial empire occupied the Rhineland. Hitlers 1925 racial/political manifesto- "Mein Kampf", discussed how compulsory sterilization would remedy what he regarded as "damage to the German nation's hereditary stock".

• Source used for map on US sterilization cases:  Eugenics: Compulsory Sterilization in 50 American States (uvm.edu) 
• source for spreadsheet:  Timeline • Eugenics Archive (eugenicsarchives.ca) 
• ArcGIS Express maps "US Sterilization cases": feature layer
• Lebensborn video:  https://youtu.be/Q_5YBKA3SYQ 
• "Best couple" - http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/static/images/29.html 
• Francis Galton IMG:  https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/sites/default/files/GALTON-F-01-01797.jpg 
• timeline source:  Eugenics: Its Origin and Development (1883 - Present) (genome.gov) 

Claiming the slippery slope fallacy over an argument that is based in extensive scientific research is reasonable but not often feasible. The slippery slope fallacy, when used in ethical debates, is often flawed because it fails to meet all components of its scheme. When eugenics was first introduced, the slippery slope fallacy was used in a plethora of arguments because many scientists and/or politicians claimed that eugenics would be the "end-all-be-all" to a better society. The debate about whether or not eugenics, and human gene editing as a whole, is ethical began about 60 years ago. The consensus formed was that gene editing on individuals to remove disease is acceptable, but no one should try and change the human species entirely. This distinction is now known as, somatic (individual) vs germline (species), and it has served as a moral limit on gene editing for decades.

• Eugenics has been "rebranded" as a more ethical version of gene editing and population control. This idea still causes concerns for many people, as gene editing is prohibited in at least 70 countries as of 2020.
• Advances in human genetic modification keeps the idea of a resurgence in eugenics a question in people's minds.
• In the year 2020, there were still reports of at least 20 women being forcibly sterilized in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in the US.
• According to a 2019 study, sex-selective abortions have resulted in at least 23 million less girls to be born, the majority of these abortions take place in China and India, the most populous countries.