My research revolves around the ethics and morality of eugenics (Science of heredity and good breeding), and whether society should be in favor of influencing genetics in order to create a more favorable genetic pool. This topic interests me because I find great interest in political and cultural issues, and I have always been fascinated by whether eugenics would actually work and if governments should be in support of it. The sources I found were all scientific journals from credible books. I did this to because I needed to gain information on studies that have taken place in the name of eugenics as well as establish that eugenics is high priority within the scientific community.Taking this into consideration, my research question is: Is eugenics capable of being established and thriving in the contemporary society?
Source 1- Eugenics and Disability Discrimination, written by David Pfeiffer. This source will be helpful because it establishes how eugenics can affect those who are physically or mentally disabled which helps answer if eugenics would be a good thing for society. This source is credible because it is written in a journal titled “Disability and Society” which analyzes the issues that the disabled deal with every day in their normal lives and it is written by a professor for the Suffolk University School of Management. The source makes three main claims: 1 - There is continued discrimination against the disabled within the United States. 2 - Many in academia do not believe that discrimination exists or that there are laws that exist that heavily discriminate against the disabled. 3 - That Darwin’s evolutionary theory is wrongly used in being the driving force behind such wrongful attempts, and until such people use it ...
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...3.9422 (2004): 1742. Print.
Caplan, A. L., G. Mcgee, and D. Magnus. "What Is Immoral about Eugenics?" Bmj 319.7220 (1999): 1284. Print.
Fulda, K. G. "Ethical Issues in Predictive Genetic Testing: A Public Health Perspective." Journal of Medical Ethics 32.3 (2006): 143-47. Print.
Leonard, Thomas C. "Retrospectives: Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era." Journal of Economic Perspectives 19.4 (2005): 207-24. Print.
Pfeiffer, David. "Eugenics and Disability Discrimination." Disability & Society 9.4 (1994): 481-99. Print.
Sparrow, Robert. "In Vitro Eugenics." Journal of Medical Ethics (2013): n. pag. National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 4 Apr. 2013. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
Wertz, Dorothy C. "Eugenics Is Alive and Well: A Survey of Genetic Professionals around the World." Science in Context 11.3-4 (1998): n. pag. Pr
Galton, David J., and Clare J. Galton. "Francis Galton: And Eugenics Today." Journal of Medical Ethics, 24.2 (1998): 99-101. JSTOR. Web. 8 Mar. 2010.
“The problem with eugenics and genetic engineering is that they represent the one-sided triumph of willfulness over giftedness, of dominion over reverence, of molding over beholding” (Sandel, 2004, p.59).
Eugenics, which had started long before my time, had once been defined as including free love and prevention of conception… Recently it had cropped up again in the form of selective breeding. (Margaret Sanger)
The evolution of technology has been hand in hand with the human subjugation of earth, but the question persists, when does the use of technology go too far? Advances in medical science have increased the average human lifespan and improved the quality of life for individuals. Medical science and biology are steadily arriving at new ways to alter humans by the use of advanced genetic alteration. This technology gives rise to the question of how this new technology ought to be used, if at all. The idea of human enhancement is a very general topic, since humans are constantly “enhancing” themselves through the use of tools. In referring to human enhancement, I am referring specifically to the use of genetic intervention prior to birth. Julian Savulescu, in his, “Genetic Interventions and the Ethics of Enhancement of Human Beings,” argues that it is not only permissible to intervene genetically, but is a morally obligatory. In this paper, I will argue that it is not morally obligatory to intervene genetically even if such intervention may be permissible under certain criteria. I will show, in contrast to Savulescu’s view, that the moral obligation to intervene is not the same as the moral obligation to prevent and treat disease. In short, I will show that the ability of humans to intervene genetically is not sufficient to establish a moral obligation.
Rifkin, Jeremy. "The Ultimate Therapy: Commercial Eugenics on the Eve of the Biotech Century." Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. 7th ed. Ed.
The eugenics movement started in the early 1900s and was adopted by doctors and the general public during the 1920s. The movement aimed to create a better society through the monitoring of genetic traits through selective heredity. Over time, eugenics took on two different views. Supporters of positive eugenics believed in promoting childbearing by a class who was “genetically superior.” On the contrary, proponents of negative eugenics tried to monitor society’s flaws through the sterilization of the “inferior.”
Perkins, H.F.. A Decade of Progress in Eugenics: Scientific Papers of the Third International Congress of Eugenics. 1993 Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins Company.
The history of harmful eugenic practices, spurring from the Nazi implementations of discrimination towards biologically inferior people has given eugenics a negative stigma (1,Kitcher, 190). Genetic testing, as Kitcher sees it through a minimalistic perspective, should be restrained to aiding future children with extremely low qualities of life (2,Kitcher, 190). He believes that genetic engineering should only be used to avoid disease and illness serving the role of creating a healthier human race. He promotes laissez-faire eugenics, a “hands off” concept that corresponds to three components of eugenic practice, discrimination, coercion and division of traits. It holds the underlying works of genetic testing, accurate information, open access, and freedom of choice. Laissez-faire eugenics promises to enhance reproductive freedom preventing early child death due to genetic disease (3,Kitcher, 198). However there are dangers in Laissez-faire that Kitcher wants to avoid. The first is the historical tendency of population control, eugenics can go from avoiding suffering, to catering to a set of social values that will cause the practice of genetics to become prejudiced, insensitive and superficial. The second is that prenatal testing will become limited to the upper class, leaving the lower class with fewer options, creating biologically driven social barriers. Furthermore the decay of disability support systems due to prenatal testing can lead to an increased pressure to eliminate those unfit for society (4,Kitcher, 214).
Black, Edwin. War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race. Dialog Press, 2012. Print.
"Eugenics: Did the Eugenics Movement Benefit the United States?" History in Dispute. Ed. Robert J. Allison. Vol. 3: American Social and Political Movements, 1900-1945: Pursuit of Progress. Detroit: St. James Press, 2000. 17-23. Canada In Context. Web. 19 Feb. 2014.
Ricci, Mariella Lombardi. "Assisted Procreation And Its Relationship To Genetics And Eugenics." Human Reproduction & Genetic Ethics 15.1 (2009): 9-29. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
When created in 1923, the American Eugenics Society exemplified an air of reform with a seemingly positive purpose, however this cannot be further from the truth. In reality, the society polluted the air with myths of weeding out imperfections with the Galtonian ideal, the breeding of the fittest (Carison). The founder of the society, Charles Davensport , preached that those who are imperfect should be eliminated(Marks). From the school desk to the pulpit, the fallacies of the eugenics movement were forced into society. Preachers often encouraged the best to marry the best while biology professors would encourage DNA testing to find out ones fate (Selden). A...
During the Progressive Era, eugenics was first perceived as a possible method to eradicate unfavored races and nationalist from American society. The eugenic movement soon became concerned with the creation of minimum wages since it could “[rid] the labor force of the ‘unemployable” and that “the most ruinous to the community is to allow them to unrestrainedly compete as wage earners.” (Leonard 213). The science grew rapidly as it “ it appealed to an extraordinary range of political ideologies, not just progressives” (Leonard 216). Eugenics also pushed for child labor bans “because the unfit poor would be unable to put their children to work and thus would have fewer children, a eugenic goal” (Leonard
The study of eugenics has been around for many years. China runs the largest and most successful eugenics program in the world. This is becoming more common and accepted by many people. However, simply because it is accepted does not make it right. Eugenics comes from the Greek word meaning “good” or “well born”. It is the belief that some people are genetically superior to others; and that one inherits their relatives’ mental and psychological traits. Eugenics started off as a positive theory, encouraging educated people (positive eugenics) to bear more children and raise them in a constructive manner, but has become a negative theory threatening the sterilization of people with unwanted traits (negative eugenics).
New technological advances are being mad every day, especially in genetics. With great innovations comes concerns whether it will have a good cause or be used for bad intentions. One of these is eugenics, the idea to improve genetic composition in humans most specifically in future fetuses. The idea started in 1883 by Sir Francis Galton who wanted to selectively breed humans using desired traits to create a perfect human race. This lead to many unethical moments in history such as the sterilization of unfit humans in the 19th century as well as Hitler’s use of eugenics during WWII. However, current use helps identify possible inherited diseases/conditions in unborn children and remove those traits from the DNA. Although eugenics has been used