February 28: The eugenics movement
Read:
1) Nielsen, A Disability History of the United States, pp. 100-102 (first section of chapter 6), 110-124 (section in ch. 6 entitled “Institutions and the Reproduction of the American Ideal)” [for background]
2) Martin Pernick, “Defining the Defective: Eugenics, Aesthetics, and Mass Culture in Early-Twentieth-Century America,” in The Body and Physical Difference: Discourses of Disability, ed. David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder (University of Michigan Press, 1997), pp. 89-110 (Blackboard)
3) R. D. K. Hermann, “Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Leprosy, Race, and Colonization in Hawai’I,” Journal of Historical Geography 27, no. 3 (July 2001): 319-337 (Blackboard)
Choose one of these questions to answer:
1) Drawing on at least two of the readings for today, discuss whether the eugenics movement is over. Are the ideas discussed in these readings still around today? Why or why not?
2) Alternatively, you can summarize in several sentences (or possibly a short paragraph each) your “muddiest point(s)” in at least two readings.
Pernick – This author wrote stories of eugenics in the early 20th century. Most of the eugenics movement was from around 1900 to as late as 1937. There seemed to be some writings in the 1990s. There wasn’t any information in the 21st century.
Longmore and Umansky- There books seem to be writings about disability and not particularly about eugencis. I think in these modern times people would not consider such an idea as eugenics. The thought of eugenics would horrify the population of today.
What is eugenics? From what I can understand eugenics is the concept of selective breeding in humans this selective breeding is to achieve or improve genetic or hereditary qualities that will strengthen and improve the human race. Eugenics in the 1910’s and 20’s were very unfair I’d say. According to Pernick babies with defects or an unknown or un-curable disease were often allowed to die because the doctor and/ or the parent think the baby will be “unfit” to society. They also believe that this inhumane practice will benefit the human race by eliminating the “ugly” people from the general population. The reading went further to say that often times young men and women were encouraged to select mates that are “beautiful” and “handsome” because being good looking at the time was considered healthy. “An attractive appearance goes hand in hand with health.” Defining the Defective: Eugenics pp-92.
Even though all of this is considered to be in the past and though the eugenics movement maybe legally over I do believe that eugenics is still practiced among us today. For example what about young women or young couples who decide to abort a fetus due to the fact that the unborn child will have a genetic disease or will be disabled? The difference would be the parent’s decision instead of the government’s but I don’t think the government would care about the loss of children that they themselves would have to pay millions of dollars to care for throughout the child’s entire lifetime. Another example of eugenics in today’s society is courtship. Growing up in India I can say that I have witnessed multiple situations where my friends and family members were forced to marry someone because of their wealth and how strong and built they are. This reflects back to the point in Pernick reading where young men and women were encouraged to select mates who are beautiful and handsome. The point that I’m trying to make is that even though eugenics isn’t enforced by the government anymore (in the U.S. that is), it still may be practiced or occurring based on the decisions we make.
I think some of the ideas surrounding eugenics are still around today. In the Nielsen reading she states, “Eugenics is the belief that the way to improve society is through better human breeding practices so that only those with ‘positive’ hereditary traits reproduce” (101). My first thought upon reading this is how media creates scenes in which infertile couples go though sperm donor books looking for the best candidate. Most of the time these are meant to be funny and I think they are. However, I think this practice fits the quote above as well. These couples looking for a sperm donor are looking at medical history, appearance, accomplishments, and more. Another example that comes to mind is medical practices, such as an amniocentesis, that can determine potential risks to the fetus.
In the reading on lepers, the only similarity that easily came to mind was how AIDS victims were initially treated. From what I have heard, they were segregated from the main population as much as possible. People were afraid!
“Eugenics is the belief that the way to improve society is through better human breeding practices so that only those with “positive” hereditary traits reproduce” (Nielsen, 101). The goal of eugenics was basically to improve the overall quality of the ideal human family. Yale professor Irving Fisher complained, “Eugenics is one of the few case in which a scientific term has come into popular use, but it is subject to a great deal of misconception” (Pernick, 89). Even still, it made people like Alexander Graham Bell and Oliver Wendell Holmes stand out – who declared in the Buck vs. Bell (forced sterilization) decision of 1927, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough” (Nielsen, 117).
In the 1940s, the judges who presided over the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi doctors who performed experiments on concentration camp prisoners saw a need for experiments involving human subjects to be watched carefully.* Thus, the Nuremberg Code was formulated in 1947.* It provided guidelines for research that are still followed today.* Also, recent protocols for research involving human subjects will require such things as informed consent and adherence to strict policies in order to protect the welfare of the subject being tested. Secondly, if human are involved in research at all, the study must be approved by an institutional review board before the research/program can begin. (Learned this in my Research class)
There are still many individuals in today’s society who support eugenic arguments against the decision to knowingly give birth to a child with a genetic disorder, cognitive impairment, or physical disability. Society, however, must accept that one person’s definition of “disabled” or “impaired” may be considerably different from another person’s. It leads to debates over questions like: Should someone be able to choose the way their babies look if they are artificially inseminated with someone else’s eggs? Or do you deem a disability bad if many people with it are successful and beneficial to our society?
*Researched online: Norrgard, K. (2008) Human testing, the eugenics movement, and IRBs. Nature Education 1(1)
I think that the eugenics movement is over. In Nielsen it talks about sterilizing people because they produce disabled people. I do not believe that this happens today. Also in the article about leprosy in Hawaii we do not separate people because of what we believe is an illness. In today time instead of trying to separate or get rid of people with disabilities now people are trying to find cures for disabled people.
The readings as well as personal experiences tell me that eugenics is still very prevalent in today’s society. Nielsen states that the verdict of Buck v. Bell has yet to be overturned and I highly doubt that is from any oversight. Perrick, while not stating outright that eugenics still exists, gives examples of ideas and practices that can still be seen today. On page 90, he discusses the idea of human pedigrees and how to achieve the best in human heredity. He goes on to discuss the idea of good-looking being related to good morally (and vice versa with bad-looking). This is shown in many fairy tales that have a juxtaposition of good versus evil (The Wizard of Oz, Snow White, etc). The ideas that he expresses on page 87 about Film censors editing out “ugly people” is evident today in TV shows and movies that hire the beautiful people to play leading roles. Generally those who are unnattractive are often problems and hiccups in the storyline. One idea that he mentioned is greatly exemplified in European countries today: defects in babies are rooted in parental responsibility. In Ukraine, it is customary for the doctor to ask, immediately following birth, if the mother wants to keep the child. Often those born with disablities are rejected and sent to orphanages (and later mental institutions or to survive on their own). These children are cared for so poorly that they often contract hydrocephalus and are greatly malnourished. While there are many other connections that can be gleaned from the reading, it is safe to say that based on the texts we read for this unit, eugenics and the ideas that surround it still exist today.
The idea of eugenics is still around today, though it’s face has changed quite a bit (pun not necessarily intended). From Pernick, I gather that eugenics is thought to be a mostly aesthetic “science.” Specifically, Pernick led me to think about how eugenics has changed. It used to be about preventing those people deemed “unfit” from reproducing, but now, with the aid of technology, we have the option to catch these “bad” qualities in the womb and reprogram cells, sometimes eliminating the “problem.”
Then with Herman, we see eugenics as a political device, and a means by which we can control populations. In Herman’s piece, we see eugenics being used to take the Hawaiian islands from it’s people, under the assumption that because they are diseased, they are immoral, and by extension, they are unfit to rule themselves. We still have this today, maybe not in the U.S, but in places like India (if I remember correctly). The Untouchable Class is a prime example. By birth, the lower class is deemed unfit to do a lot of things, a belief that is based in eugenics.
Eugenics, as it existed in the beginning of the twentieth century, does not still exist, but glimmers of the ideology still remain. Involuntary commitment to mental hospitals or group homes remains relatively rare, while Nielsen makes it seem fairly common practice in the early twentieth century. Yet, it is still possible with enough legal force to get individuals placed under the care of the state. Furthermore, just as Nielsen points out, these institutions serve to enforce societal norms and segregate just as much as they are benevolent, caregiving services. According to Pernick, eugenics was tied to appearance and heredity, symbolizing an overall movement to “improve” the population both aesthetically and genetically by restricting reproductive rights. The harsher aspects of the eugenics programs such as forced sterilizations and infanticide do not exist anymore. Yet several of the ideas that Pernick discusses remain. First, the idea that deformity and mental impairment are tied to morality still exists although perhaps that concept does not have the force behind it that it once did. Also, the idea of “bad” genes persists in a variety of incarnations. In the case of my brother, I’ve heard a number of explanations for his developmental disability ranging from vague moral faults on the part of my parents, drugs, inbreeding, and any number of other such arguments that essentially place blame on my parents whether by poor genetics or poor life choices. (For any curious parties, there was a complication at birth and he was deprived of oxygen for several minutes.) Finally, the idea of policing sexual encounters between the “defective” still remains. This does not entail forced sterilizations and the like, but sexual relationships between people with developmental disabilities are discouraged in one form or other. I would add that much like racism or sexism, these ideas are largely hidden because of political correctness, and would wager that a majority of people would still disagree with the idea of two people with genetically based disabilities having a child. Although, naturally there would be some qualifiers that needs to be attached to this statement based on what types of disabilities one would ask about.
I believe that eugenics is still prevalent in today’s time. Our society is still obsessed with aesthetics. You can see it clearly through our television and advertisements. There’s always some new gadget or magical medical miracle that will help you look beautiful to the world. When a person is looking for their future husband or wife, the outside appearance is the first thing you notice and if they seem pleasing to eye you will get to know their inside.
In Pernick, the line that stuck out to me was “Good-looking people are better morally on the average, than ugly people.” This, to me, is so wrong in so many ways but in a small way it’s a correct statement. People who are better-looking have an easier time in their life than someone who is different. The thing that crossed the line is when they talked about “defective” babies. These are human beings and should be given a chance regardless of what they look like.
In Herman’s article, it struck me as the government was treating them (Hawaiian natives) like they can’t control their own land. The way they separated the people who were infected from the one’s who weren’t reminded me of, how Whitney described, the whole AIDS epidemic in the 80’s. People thought they would catch the virus just by breathing the same air as the infected person which, as we know today, is not true.
Nielson describes in the chapter how people with disabilities were discriminated because of physical “defects.” “Eugenics belief is a way to improve society through better human breeding practices only with
positive” heredity traits…” (p.101). A person who even seemed to look like they had a disability or “defect” was considered to have bad heredity traits. It also talks about the “degenerated class” and how it not only consisted people with disabilities, but also sexual perverts, prostitutes, and criminals. The government had forced several sterilization laws amongst the United States in order to “limit the numbers of socially inadequate.” This was later taken up from Adolf Hitler when he was experimenting on infants for racial purity. The sterilization laws also remind of women’s suffrage movement when they were fighting for women’s right to vote and political participation. Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic while she believed in negative eugenics meaning that sterilization be applied to those with incurable, hereditary disabilities. I definitely think that eugenics is practiced today away from the the state and federal laws.
Pernick describes in his article how some infants were allowed to die because they were “defective.” Health was based on the appearance of the individual and not the body health itself. For example, they would try to eliminate the “ugly” people because they did not benefit the beauty of the community. One of the interesting questions that I found interesting that he asked states, “Should laws protecting the disabled against discrimination apply to those who are simply judged unattractive?”(p.90) This is something that i definitely can go back and forth with because it all depends on how specific would these laws be and would they benefit the community for those who are disabled.
My initial response to the questions of whether the practice of eugenics is over in society today was, of course it is. However, after reading both the article by Pernick, “Defining the Defective – Eugenics, Aesthetics, and Mass Culture in Early-Twentieth – Century America” and A Disability History of the United States, I would have to say the more drastic practices may be over but many of the ideals are not.
In A Disability History of the United States, Neilsen describes the practices of Eugenics in a chapter entitled, “Three Generations of Imbeciles Are Enough.” The chapter begins by telling the story of Alice Smith. New Jersey passed a law in 1911 that forced Ms. Smith to be sterilized because she was epileptic. The fact that Alice Smith was sexually active and became pregnant at a young age by a black man was used as a reason to describe her as “moral and intellectually feeble-minded.” After much debate, it was determined that it would be best for the life of Alice Smith and for the “greater good” of society for her to be sterilized. During the time, more than 30 states passed forced sterilization laws. The reasons for sterilization included: feeblemindedness, insanity, criminalistic, epileptic, inebriated, diseased, blind, deaf, deformed, and dependent ( including orphans, tramps, and paupers.) The chapter also discussed a court case that has yet to be overturned, Buck Vs. Bell. In the case, Judge Oliver Wendall Holmes concluded that “three generations of imbecils are enough” and that the forced sterilization of the institutionalized did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Carrie Buck, in many ways resembled Alice Smith. She was young, poor, and had a baby out of wedlock, and forced to be sterilized. After release from the institution, she was married for 25 years.
In the article by Pernick, the author discusses the role of mass culture in the eugenics movement when he states, “I believe the history of eugenics is valuable because it makes so dramatically visible the cultural value judgements that are an inevitable part of defining any human difference as a disease or a disability and identifying any specific factors as the cause.” This article describes how the eugenics movement equated fitness and health with beauty. It is with this thought in mind that I have to say that the ideals of “Eugenics” is not completely over. In society, we still judge by “what is on the outside.” We equate intelligence and health with the way someone looks. We make superstars of stick thin models that aren’t necessarily healthy at all. The culturally accepted definition of beauty as tall and thin is one in which most people strive. People have made millions on helping people achieve that goal. Alice Smith and Carrie Buck may not have been “culturally beautiful or worthy” but they both deserved to have a chance and to be accepted.
As disturbing as it may seem, I believe that eugenics still acts as a major subconscious decision maker in many people’s day to day life. Although it is understandable that euthanasia is, and was, an unfavorable opinion, Pernickety makes it seem as though the doctors during this time period were more focused on the well being of the “mass culture” rather than actually helping the people who needed it most. The idea that “everyone has the right to live, but not the right to reproduce its kind” is a terrible excuse to strengthen control over disabled culture with the guise of helping out the majority. It seems this idea of control is furthered reading Nielson’s account of the extreme conditions faced by Indians who were said to be defective. The BIA, completely and totally disconnected from the Indians traditions and values, made decisions that in the long run did more harm than good.
I believe the eugenics movement is not completely over even though it is no longer as prevalent in our community as in the past. People’s pride of background, race, and heritage still play a role of how some see themselves in their community’s social standings. That is why we still hear and see discrimination among gender and race issues and how after so many years people are still fighting to fit in and to be heard. In Pernick’s conclusion he explains, “Aesthetic and moral values played a key role in eugenic constructions of the hereditarily “fit” and the “defective,” and these values were products of complex struggles to impose meaning on mass culture.” (100-101) People and parents of the so called “fit” believed that it was their responsibility to continue to instill these opinions of racial and gender superiority regardless of cost of life. We see in Hermann’s reading that they would not only let the young die if they deemed them as “defective” but would set up asylums for them to not be able to assimilate with the rest of the community.
The idea of eugenics is still around today even if the formal movement no longer exists. According to Pernick doctors such as in a Harrv Hiselden would allow young children to die simply because they believe them to be “defective”. I agree with Dane’s point that today this practice is continued through abortions. Today, couples can elect to allow their fetus to die simply because it is unwanted or possibly disabled. According to Kim Nielsen the formal eugenics movement ended around 1937. However, I do not believe this is the case. The Holocaust is evidence that disability is still very much tied to race as well as physical appearance and mental abilities. In my opinion eugenics is mostly about aesthetics if someone appears to be normal they can be allowed to Whether or not the eugenics movement is over depends on how you define the term. Is eugenics merely selective breeding, or is it the practice of isolating and/or killing “people considered to be inferior”? If if it is the latter I believe eugenics ended with World War II. However if it is the former I believe that the eugenics movement is not over nor will it ever be over.
I do not believe that the eugenics movement is over. In Pernick, the idea of someone must be physically beautiful or handsome in order to have a higher social status is still practiced today. This are drugs and numerous health products available to help people “become more beautiful” and this multibillion dollar industry is around because of the ideas that people hold about a physical beauty and what that means in society. As covered in Herman, although leprosy is not as common today and can be treated with medication, the idea that people with disabilities should be placed in communal homes is still often practiced today. Society has become accustomed to the idea of out of sigh out of mind. They also think that often people with disabilities live a wonderful life and they are well provided for by the government, which in often not the case. Within Neilsen, the idea that there is a degree of parental responisablities is still a common idea in society. Society feels that not only should these parents be responisble for the disabled child they had but they also are often blamed for the disablity. Often the parents are thought of not getting good enough medical attention or something in thier past caused their child to be born disabled. Unfortantaly there are ways to know before the child is born if there are certion disabilities and the general public thinks that all people must be crazy if they don’t take full advantages of these options. So with the ablity to prediagonis infant before they are born and the ability to preselect an embro I do not believe that the ideas of eugenics is gone and I believe it is an idea that is here to stay.
Eugenics as we think of it is not as prevalent today as it was back then. Forced sterilization and massive murders of people who are considered “unfit” may not be happening in society today, but the ideas behind those acts do still exist. For example, the Nielsen reading mentioned that many eugenicists believed that physical defects were a reflection of moral defects. In some conservative Christian churches today people believe that anyone can be cured if they just have enough faith.
One reason that eugenics may not be as visible today is censorship. According to the Pernick reading, even eugenicist thinking was popular the media exercised some censorship over the topic because it was not thought to be fit for entertainment. If the media acceptance of eugenics when it was at its height was so limited, anything even remotely related to the topic today would probably be met with similar caution.
In the Nielsen reading Eugenics is the belief that the way to improve society is through better human breeding practices… After reading Pernick’s essay about the eugenics movement I believe that the movement is still present even in today’s society. Although the mass culture of today seems to be more sensitized to the movement and the conditions in place to achieve those “pure genetics.” The four questions regarding eugenics are still present in the minds of people today. For example, today when women are pregnant they have the option to check on the physical and mental status of their baby before the baby is even born. If a baby is to be born with a birth defect and or a mental in capability depending on how severe the pregnant woman is made aware of it and preparations can be made. Obviously at the time of Hailsdens practice this said defective baby would be left to die. Now doctors would not let a baby die because of a “defect,” but eugenics is still contemplated by the public and in medical practices. Back to Nelson’s idea of better breeding through human practices, Pernick also talks about this when he states how people believed that to have fit and beautiful children people must mate with those that are fit and beautiful because people were at this time equating beauty with fitness.
It is very sad to read that newborn babies were not treated for their illnesses and that eugenics was seen as ok. Everybody deserves the right to medical care if they are in need. When i hear the term eugenics it does make me think back to Hitler and the “pure race” he was trying to create. However, I do believe a form of eugenics does still exist. It is why our mothers want us to marry doctors or lawyers, so we can have this fairy tale happily ever after life. So our children can grow up with certain privileges and also be doctors and lawyers. For the same reason that some men will meet your mother and if she does not look desirable in her old age they make the assumption that you will look the same in your old age. Also there are women who have these long lists of what they want in a man, tall, smart, handsome, etc. Because these are the traits that we consider to be desirable. So i guess it could be called a some sort of social eugenics.
The eugenics movement as it existed in its heyday, no longer exists. However, there are elements of thinking of disabled persons as defective and unproductive additions to society, which stems in part due to the legacy left behind by the eugenics movement.
Class, gender, and race issues came into play then, and may still to an extent today. In the case of Alice Smith, beyond her health and sexual indiscretions, the charges against her seem to have been stacked higher, once it became known that the father of her child was an African American male, crossing multiple boundaries of what was considered expected during that time (Nielsen, p. 112). An illegitimate child was considered bad enough, that the child was fathered by an African American made it considered even worse.
In the power play for nativists, ugliness was called a disability by some eugenicists (Pernick, p. 94). These “ugly” persons, however, tended to be immigrants coming into the country, as well as African Americans. The superiority of certain groups of people was definitely a factor in how eugenics came into its own.
Race and immorality were also large factors in how the spread of leprosy in Hawaii was dealt with (Herman, p. 322). By declaring the native people to be unclean, both physically and morally, the Americans were able to weaken the power structure on the island, with the idea of an inferior people group.
Many of these things can still be seen today, with things such as white supremacist groups arguing for the superiority of persons like themselves (both racial and economic class wise). Eugenics as it was in the early 1900s does not currently exist, but many of the ideas and prejudices still do.
I believe presence or absence of eugenics is a debatable topic. According to Chief Justice Harry Olson of the municipal court of Chicago in 1911, United States had to limit “undesirable” categories to be successful- he referred to generate immigrants as one of the undesirable categories.” (Nielsen pg, 101). Today, United States immigration policies still revolve around same eugenic inclinations but in a concealed (or latent) fashion. The process of getting visas to come to America is faster, easier and has fewer restrictions if you came from some parts of the world. Citizens of Britain, Canada and Switzerland are almost guaranteed of securing visas to come to America unlike citizens of Kenya, Bolivia, Thailand or Egypt. Citizens of the latter must have visas to enter the U.S.A. People coming to America from most Third World Countries must prove they have funds in excess of US $50,000 in form of bank statements no more than six months old to be considered. Company sponsorship is not allowed; bank accounts should be from an individual. Ironically, very few ordinary Americans can prove $ 50,000 cash circulation within a period of six months. If eugenics is non-existent, why are there variations for people from different countries, even countries that have no terrorist attachments? I believe eugenics can come in different ways; financial, place of origin, health and political. Eugenics is like discrimination; you can force people to quit by law, but you cannot change peoples’ attitudes