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Eugenics (/jˈɛnɪks/; from Greek εὐ- "good" and γενής "come into being, growing")[2][3] is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population,[4][5] historically by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior and promoting those judged to be superior.[6]

The concept predates the term; Plato suggested applying the principles of selective breeding to humans around 400 BC. Early advocates of eugenics in the 19th century regarded it as a way of improving groups of people. In contemporary usage, the term eugenics is closely associated with scientific racism and white supremacism.[3] Modern bioethicists who advocate new eugenics characterise it as a way of enhancing individual traits, regardless of group membership.

While eugenic principles have been practiced as early as ancient Greece, the contemporary history of eugenics began in the early 20th century, when a popular eugenics movement emerged in the United Kingdom,[7] and then spread to many countries, including the United States, Canada,[8] and most European countries. In this period, people from across the political spectrum espoused eugenic ideas. Consequently, many countries adopted eugenic policies, intended to improve the quality of their populations' genetic stock. Such programs included both positive measures, such as encouraging individuals deemed particularly "fit" to reproduce, and negative measures, such as marriage prohibitions and forced sterilization of people deemed unfit for reproduction. Those deemed "unfit to reproduce" often included people with mental or physical disabilities, people who scored in the low ranges on different IQ tests, criminals and "deviants," and members of disfavored minority groups.

The eugenics movement became associated with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust when the defense of many of the defendants at the Nuremberg trials of 1945 to 1946 attempted to justify their human-rights abuses by claiming there was little difference between the Nazi eugenics programs and the U.S. eugenics programs.[9] In the decades following World War II, with more emphasis on human rights, many countries began to abandon eugenics policies, although some Western countries (the United States, Canada, and Sweden among them) continued to carry out forced sterilizations.

Since the 1980s and 1990s, with new assisted reproductive technology procedures available, such as gestational surrogacy (available since 1985), preimplantation genetic diagnosis (available since 1989), and cytoplasmic transfer (first performed in 1996), concern has grown about the possible revival of a more potent form of eugenics after decades of promoting human rights.

A criticism of eugenics policies is that, regardless of whether negative or positive policies are used, they are susceptible to abuse because the genetic selection criteria are determined by whichever group has political power at the time.[citation needed] Furthermore, many criticize negative eugenics in particular as a violation of basic human rights, seen since 1968's Proclamation of Tehran[10] as including the right to reproduce. Another criticism is that eugenics policies eventually lead to a loss of genetic diversity, thereby resulting in inbreeding depression due to a loss of genetic variation. Yet another criticism of contemporary eugenics policies is that they propose to permanently and artificially disrupt millions of years of evolution, and that attempting to create genetic lines "clean" of "disorders" can have far-reaching ancillary downstream effects in the genetic ecology, including negative effects on immunity and on species resilience.



Seneca the Younger

Origin and development[edit]


Francis Galton was an early eugenicist, coining the term itself.[16]

The idea of a modern project of improving the human population through a statistical understanding of heredity used to encourage good breeding was originally developed by Francis Galton and, initially, was closely linked to Darwinism and his theory of natural selection.[17] Galton had read his half-cousin Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which sought to explain the development of plant and animal species, and desired to apply it to humans. Based on his biographical studies, Galton believed that desirable human qualities were hereditary traits, although Darwin strongly disagreed with this elaboration of his theory.[18] In 1883, one year after Darwin's death, Galton gave his research a name: eugenics.[19] With the introduction of genetics, eugenics became associated with genetic determinism, the belief that human character is entirely or in the majority caused by genes, unaffected by education or living conditions. Many of the early geneticists were not Darwinians, and evolution theory was not needed for eugenics policies based on genetic determinism.[17] Throughout its recent history, eugenics has remained controversial.[20]

Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and universities and received funding from many sources.[21] Organizations were formed to win public support and sway opinion towards responsible eugenic values in parenthood, including the British Eugenics Education Society of 1907 and the American Eugenics Society of 1921. Both sought support from leading clergymen and modified their message to meet religious ideals.[22] In 1909, the Anglican clergymen William Inge and James Peile both wrote for the British Eugenics Education Society. Inge was an invited speaker at the 1921 International Eugenics Conference, which was also endorsed by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York Patrick Joseph Hayes.[22] The book The Passing of the Great Race (Or, The Racial Basis of European History) by American eugenicist, lawyer, and amateur anthropologist Madison Grant was published in 1916. Though influential, the book was largely ignored when it first appeared, and it went through several revisions and editions. Nevertheless, the book was used by people who advocated restricted immigration as justification for what became known as “scientific racism”.[23]

Three International Eugenics Conferences presented a global venue for eugenists with meetings in 1912 in London, and in 1921 and 1932 in New York City. Eugenic policies were first implemented in the early 1900s in the United States.[24] It also took root in France, Germany, and Great Britain.[25] Later, in the 1920s and 1930s, the eugenic policy of sterilizing certain mental patients was implemented in other countries including Belgium,[26] Brazil,[27] Canada,[28] Japan and Sweden. Frederick Osborn's 1937 journal article "Development of a Eugenic Philosophy" framed it as a social philosophy—a philosophy with implications for social order.[29] That definition is not universally accepted. Osborn advocated for higher rates of sexual reproduction among people with desired traits ("positive eugenics") or reduced rates of sexual reproduction or sterilization of people with less-desired or undesired traits ("negative eugenics").


In addition to being practiced in a number of countries, eugenics was internationally organized through the International Federation of Eugenics Organizations.[30] Its scientific aspects were carried on through research bodies such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics,[31] the Cold Spring Harbor Carnegie Institution for Experimental Evolution,[32] and the Eugenics Record Office.[33] Politically, the movement advocated measures such as sterilization laws.[34] In its moral dimension, eugenics rejected the doctrine that all human beings are born equal and redefined moral worth purely in terms of genetic fitness.[35] Its racist elements included pursuit of a pure "Nordic race" or "Aryan" genetic pool and the eventual elimination of "unfit" races.[36][37] Many leading British politicians subscribed to the theories of eugenics. Winston Churchill supported the British Eugenics Society and was an honorary vice president for the organization. Churchill believed that eugenics could solve "race deterioration" and reduce crime and poverty.[38][39][40]




Nazism and the decline of eugenics[edit]

Schloss Hartheim, a former euthanasia center (2005)


By the end of World War II, many eugenics laws were abandoned, having become associated with Nazi Germany.[52] H. G. Wells, who had called for "the sterilization of failures" in 1904,[53] stated in his 1940 book The Rights of Man: Or What Are We Fighting For? that among the human rights, which he believed should be available to all people, was "a prohibition on mutilation, sterilization, torture, and any bodily punishment".[54] After World War II, the practice of "imposing measures intended to prevent births within [a national, ethnical, racial or religious] group" fell within the definition of the new international crime of genocide, set out in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.[55] The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union also proclaims "the prohibition of eugenic practices, in particular those aiming at selection of persons".[56] In spite of the decline in discriminatory eugenics laws, some government mandated sterilizations continued into the 21st century. During the ten years President Alberto Fujimori led Peru from 1990 to 2000, 2,000 persons were allegedly involuntarily sterilized.[57] China maintained its one-child policy until 2015 as well as a suite of other eugenics based legislation to reduce population size and manage fertility rates of different populations.[58][59][60] In 2007, the United Nations reported coercive sterilizations and hysterectomies in Uzbekistan.[61] During the years 2005 to 2013, nearly one-third of the 144 California prison inmates who were sterilized did not give lawful consent to the operation.[62]

Modern resurgence of interest[edit]





Prenatal screening can be considered a form of contemporary eugenics because it may lead to abortions of children with undesirable traits.[70] A system was proposed by California Senator Skinner to compensate victims of the well-documented examples of prison sterilizations resulting from California's eugenics programs, but this did not pass by the bill's 2018 deadline in the Legislature.[71]

Meanings and types[edit]

The term eugenics and its modern field of study were first formulated by Francis Galton in 1883,[72] drawing on the recent work of his half-cousin Charles Darwin.[73][74] Galton published his observations and conclusions in his book Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development.

The origins of the concept began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance and the theories of August Weismann.[75] The word eugenics is derived from the Greek word eu ("good" or "well") and the suffix -genēs ("born"); Galton intended it to replace the word "stirpiculture", which he had used previously but which had come to be mocked due to its perceived sexual overtones.[76] Galton defined eugenics as "the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations".[77]

Historically, the term eugenics has referred to everything from prenatal care for mothers to forced sterilization and euthanasia.[6] To population geneticists, the term has included the avoidance of inbreeding without altering allele frequencies; for example, J. B. S. Haldane wrote that "the motor bus, by breaking up inbred village communities, was a powerful eugenic agent."[78] Debate as to what exactly counts as eugenics continues today.[79]


Karl Pearson in 1912

Early eugenicists were mostly concerned with factors of perceived intelligence that often correlated strongly with social class. These included Karl Pearson and Walter Weldon, who worked on this at the University College London.[18]


Eugenic policies have been conceptually divided into two categories.[6] Positive eugenics is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged; for example, the reproduction of the intelligent, the healthy, and the successful. Possible approaches include financial and political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses, in vitro fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning.[84] The movie Gattaca provides a fictional example of a dystopian society that uses eugenics to decide what people are capable of and their place in the world. Negative eugenics aimed to eliminate, through sterilization or segregation, those deemed physically, mentally, or morally "undesirable". This includes abortions, sterilization, and other methods of family planning.[84] Both positive and negative eugenics can be coercive; abortion for fit women, for example, was illegal in Nazi Germany.[85]


Scientific and moral legitimacy[edit]

Scientific validity[edit]

The first major challenge to conventional eugenics based on genetic inheritance was made in 1915 by Thomas Hunt Morgan. He demonstrated the event of genetic mutation occurring outside of inheritance involving the discovery of the hatching of a fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) with white eyes from a family with red eyes,[87] demonstrating that major genetic changes occurred outside of inheritance.[87] Additionally, Morgan criticized the view that certain traits, such as intelligence and criminality, were hereditary because these traits were subjective.[88] Despite Morgan's public rejection of eugenics, much of his genetic research was adopted by proponents of eugenics.[89][90]

The heterozygote test is used for the early detection of recessive hereditary diseases, allowing for couples to determine if they are at risk of passing genetic defects to a future child.[91] The goal of the test is to estimate the likelihood of passing the hereditary disease to future descendants.[91]



Pleiotropy occurs when one gene influences multiple, seemingly unrelated phenotypic traits, an example being phenylketonuria, which is a human disease that affects multiple systems but is caused by one gene defect.[93] Andrzej Pękalski, from the University of Wrocław, argues that eugenics can cause harmful loss of genetic diversity if a eugenics program selects a pleiotropic gene that could possibly be associated with a positive trait. Pekalski uses the example of a coercive government eugenics program that prohibits people with myopia from breeding but has the unintended consequence of also selecting against high intelligence since the two go together.[94]

Loss of genetic diversity[edit]


Edward M. Miller claims that, in any one generation, any realistic program should make only minor changes in a fraction of the gene pool, giving plenty of time to reverse direction if unintended consequences emerge, reducing the likelihood of the elimination of desirable genes.[96] Miller also argues that any appreciable reduction in diversity is so far in the future that little concern is needed for now.[96]

While the science of genetics has increasingly provided means by which certain characteristics and conditions can be identified and understood, given the complexity of human genetics, culture, and psychology, at this point there is no agreed objective means of determining which traits might be ultimately desirable or undesirable. Some diseases such as sickle-cell disease and cystic fibrosis respectively confer immunity to malaria and resistance to cholera when a single copy of the recessive allele is contained within the genotype of the individual.[97] Reducing the instance of sickle-cell disease genes in Africa where malaria is a common and deadly disease could have severe consequences.[original research?]


Societal and political consequences of eugenics call for a place in the discussion on the ethics behind the eugenics movement.[98] Many of the ethical concerns regarding eugenics arise from its controversial past, prompting a discussion on what place, if any, it should have in the future. Advances in science have changed eugenics. In the past, eugenics had more to do with sterilization and enforced reproduction laws.[99] Now, in the age of a progressively mapped genome, embryos can be tested for susceptibility to disease, gender, and genetic defects, and alternative methods of reproduction such as in vitro fertilization are becoming more common.[100] Therefore, eugenics is no longer ex post facto regulation of the living but instead preemptive action on the unborn.[101]




Some have described potential "eugenics wars" as the worst-case outcome of eugenics. This scenario would mean the return of coercive state-sponsored genetic discrimination and human rights violations such as compulsory sterilization of persons with genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized and, specifically, segregation and genocide of races perceived as inferior.[52] Health law professor George Annas and technology law professor Lori Andrews are prominent advocates of the position that the use of these technologies could lead to such human-posthuman caste warfare.[104][105] According to eugenics advocate Richard Lynn, the criticism of eugenics that "it inevitably leads to measures that are unethical" is a slippery slope argument.[106]





In his book A Theory of Justice (1971), American philosopher John Rawls argued that "Over time a society is to take steps to preserve the general level of natural abilities and to prevent the diffusion of serious defects".[112] The Original position, a hypothetical situation developed by Rawls, has been used as an argument for negative eugenics.[113][114]

In fiction[edit]

The film Gattaca (1997) provides a fictional example of a dystopian society that uses eugenics to decide what people are capable of and their place in the world. Although critically acclaimed, Gattaca was not a box office success, but it is said to have crystallized the debate over the controversial topic of human genetic engineering.[115][116] The film's dystopian depiction of "genoism" has been cited by many bioethicists and laypeople in support of their hesitancy about, or opposition to, eugenics and the societal acceptance of the genetic-determinist ideology that may frame it.[117] In a 1997 review of the film for the journal Nature Genetics, molecular biologist Lee M. Silver stated that "Gattaca is a film that all geneticists should see if for no other reason than to understand the perception of our trade held by so many of the public-at-large".[118]

See also[edit]



  3. ^ a b "Eugenics – African American Studies". Oxford Bibliographies. Retrieved 25 July 2019. Racially targeted sterilization practices between the 1960s and the present have been perhaps the most common topic among scholars arguing for, and challenging, the ongoing power of eugenics in the United States. Indeed, unlike in the modern period, contemporary expressions of eugenics have met with widespread, thoroughgoing resistance
  5. ^ Galton, Francis (1904). "Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims". The American Journal of Sociology. X (1): 82. Bibcode:1904Natur..70...82.. doi:10.1038/070082a0. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
  9. ^ Bashford, Alison; Levine, Philippa (3 August 2010). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. Oxford University Press. p. 327. ISBN 978-0199706532. Retrieved 26 February 2020. Eugenics was prominent at the Nuremberg trials [...] much was made of the similarity between U.S. and German eugenics by the defense, who argued that German eugenics differed little from that practiced in the United States [...].
  10. ^ Proclamation of Tehran, Final Act of the International Conference on Human Rights, Teheran, 22 April to 13 May 1968, U.N. Doc. A/CONF. 32/41 at 3 (1968), United Nations, May 1968 - "16. The protection of the family and of the child remains the concern of the international community. Parents have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and the spacing of their children [...]
  13. ^ The Laws of the Twelve Tables, c. 450 BC "A dreadfully deformed child shall be quickly killed"
  17. ^ a b Bowler, Peter J. (2003). Evolution: The History of an Idea, 3rd Ed., University of California Press, pp. 308–310.
  20. ^ Blom 2008, p. 336.
  23. ^ Lindsay, J.A. (1917). "The Passing of the Great Race, or the Racial Basis of European History", The Eugenics Review 9 (2), pp. 139–141.
  30. ^ Black 2003, p. 240.
  31. ^ Black 2003, p. 286.
  32. ^ Black 2003, p. 40.
  33. ^ Black 2003, p. 45.
  34. ^ Black 2003, Chapter 6: The United States of Sterilization.
  35. ^ Black 2003, p. 237.
  36. ^ Black 2003, Chapter 5: Legitimizing Raceology.
  37. ^ Black 2003, Chapter 9: Mongrelization.
  38. ^ Blom, P. (2009). The Vertigo Years: Change and Culture in the West, 1900-1914 (Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart).
  39. ^ Jones, S. (1995). The Language of Genes: Solving the Mysteries of Our Genetic Past, Present and Future (New York, NY: Anchor).
  40. ^ King, D. (1999). In the name of liberalism: illiberal social policy in Britain and the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
  43. ^ "Consumption: Its Cause and Cure" – an address by Dr Halliday Sutherland on 4 September 1917, published by the Red Triangle Press.
  45. ^ "Whatever their disagreement on the numbers, Haldane, Fisher, and most geneticists could support Jennings's warning: To encourage the expectation that the sterilization of defectives will solve the problem of hereditary defects, close up the asylums for feebleminded and insane, do away with prisons, is only to subject society to deception". Daniel J. Kevles (1985). In the Name of Eugenics. University of California Press. ISBN 0520057635 (p. 166).
  47. ^ Bashford, Alison; Levine, Philippa (2010). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. Oxford University Press, US. ISBN 9780195373141 – via Google Books.
  48. ^ Pope Pius XI. "Casti connubii".
  51. ^ Black 2003, pp. 274–295.
  52. ^ a b c Black 2003.
  54. ^ Clapham, Andrew (2007). Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. pp. 29–31. ISBN 978-0199205523.
    • Killing members of the group;
    • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
    • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
  56. ^ "Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union". Article 3, Section 2. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  66. ^ Chan, Ying-kit (4 October 2016). "Eugenics in Postcolonial Singapore". Berlin. Archived from the original on 8 October 2017. Retrieved 19 October 2017.
  71. ^ Skinner, Nancy (18 February 2019). SB-1190 – Eugenics Sterilization Compensation Program. State of California.
  75. ^ Blom 2008, pp. 335–336.
  76. ^ Ward, Lester Frank; Palmer Cape, Emily; Simons, Sarah Emma (1918). "Eugenics, Euthenics and Eudemics". Glimpses of the Cosmos. G.P. Putnam. pp. 382 ff. Retrieved 11 April 2012.
  77. ^ Cited in Black 2003, p. 18
  80. ^ a b Black 2004, p. 370.
  84. ^ a b Glad, John (2008). Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century. Hermitage Publishers. ISBN 978-1-55779-154-2.
  87. ^ a b Blom 2008, pp. 336–337.
  88. ^ "Social Origins of Eugenics". Retrieved 19 October 2017.
  95. ^ (Galton 2001, 48)[full citation needed]
  97. ^ Withrock, Isabelle (2015). "Genetic diseases conferring resistance to infectious diseases". Genes & Diseases. 2 (3): 247–254. doi:10.1016/j.gendis.2015.02.008. PMC 6150079. PMID 30258868.
  105. ^ Annas, George; Andrews, Lori; Isasi, Rosario (2002). "Protecting the endangered human: Toward an international treaty prohibiting cloning and inheritable alterations". American Journal of Law & Medicine. 28 (2–3): 151–78. PMID 12197461.
  115. ^ Jabr, Ferris (2013). "Are We Too Close to Making Gattaca a Reality?". Retrieved 30 April 2014. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  116. ^ Pope, Marcia; McRoberts, Richard (2003). Cambridge Wizard Student Guide Gattaca. Cambridge University press. ISBN 0-521-53615-4.
  117. ^ Kirby, D.A. (2000). "The New Eugenics in Cinema: Genetic Determinism and Gene Therapy in GATTACA. Science Fiction Studies, 27: 193-215". Retrieved 8 January 2008. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  118. ^ Silver, Lee M. (1997). "Genetics Goes to Hollywood". Nature Genetics. 17 (3): 260–261. doi:10.1038/ng1197-260.


Histories of eugenics (academic accounts)[edit]

Histories of hereditarian thought[edit]

Criticisms of eugenics[edit]

External links[edit]

  • Works related to Eugenics at Wikisource
  • Quotations related to Eugenics at Wikiquote