Eugenics

Eugenics (United States) Ethically controversial aims to improve the genetic quality of the human population through selective breeding Eugenics (from Greek eugenes 'well-born' from eu, 'good, well' and genos, 'race, stock, kin') is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population by excluding (through a variety of morally criticized means) certain genetic groups judged to be inferior, and promoting other genetic groups judged to be superior. The definition of eugenics has been a major debate since the term was coined by Francis Galton in 1883. The concept predates the term; Plato suggested applying the principles of selective breeding to humans around 400 BC. Eugenics, in themodern understanding of the term, is seen as having close ties to white supremacism. While eugenic principles have been practiced as early asancient Greece, the contemporary history of eugenics began in the early 20th century, when a popular eugenics movement emerged in theUnited Kingdom, and then spread to many countries, including the United States, Canada, and most European countries. In this period, eugenic ideas were espoused across the political spectrum. Consequently, many countries adopted eugenic policies, intended to improve the quality of their populaons' genetic stock. Such programs included both positve measures, such as encouraging individuals deemed particularly 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 many of the defendants at the Nuremberg trials attempted to justify their human rights abuses by claiming there was little difference between the Nazi eugenics programs and the U.S. eugenics programs. In the decades following World War II, with more emphasis on human rights, many countries began to abandon eugenics policies, although some Western countries, including the United States, Canada, and Sweden among them, continued to carry out forced sterilizaons. Since the 1980s and 1990s, with new assisted reproductive technology procedures available, such as gestational surrogacy (available since 1985), preimplantation genetic diagnosis (available since1989), 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 major criticism of eugenics policies is that, regardless of whether negatve or positve policies are used, they are susceptible to abuse because the genetic selection criteria are determined by whichever group has polical power at the time. Furthermore, negatve eugenics in particular is criticized by many as a violation of basic human rights, which include 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 species resilience.