Francis Galton coined the term “Eugenics” in his 1883 book, Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development, but the concept has been discussed at least since Plato considered the selective breeding of humans close to 400 B.C.E. During the early nineteenth century, the philosophy of eugenics spread and gained popularity throughout Western Europe and North America. This “old-school” form of eugenics influenced public policy in a major way– governments created programs which encouraged the reproduction of certain people, while preventing the reproduction of others including criminals, individuals with low IQ scores, the physically disabled, and members of disfavored ethnic groups. In Nazi Germany, eugenic ideologies contributed a great deal to the holocaust, while many other countries (including the United States) adopted policies of castration and sterilization for criminals. While these policies have largely fallen out of favor because of their obvious violations to human rights, “old-school” eugenics has been used surprisingly recently. China’s one-child policy which was intended to control certain populations in particular was in effect until 2015. As recently as 2013, some inmates in California were sterilized without informed consent.
“Old-school” eugenics is very clearly unethical and inhumane, but some contemporary scientists and academics believe that advances in gene-editing technology have made “modern” eugenics an ethical possibility. For example, geneticists can prevent the birth of children with serious birth defects through a process called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, however this brings up an obvious ethical concern for many people. Other people argue that “modern” eugenics may lead to the consumerization of reproduction. If people are able to identify the traits of a potential child prior to its birth, parents might want to select for “preferred traits”. It seems that both “old-school” and “modern” eugenics present far too many ethical issues to be acceptable in practice. According to leading geneticists Steven K. Hoge and Paul S. Appelbaum, “advances in neuropsychiatric genetics hold great hopes for improved prevention, diagnosis and treatment (of birth defects). However, the power of genetic testing to identify individuals at increased risk for disorders and to convey information about relatives creates a set of complex ethical issues.” Perhaps it is because “modern” eugenics exists in the shadow of “old-school” eugenics, but it seems that any form of eugenics presents too many ethical concerns to be acceptable in our society today.
acknowledgements:
Steven K. Hoge, Paul S. Appelbaum; Ethics and neuropsychiatric genetics: a review of major issues, International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, Volume 15, Issue 10, 1 November 2012, Pages 1547–1557, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1461145711001982