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Eugenics Ethical Dilemmas

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The world has tried to continually, and in some instances, successfully fight injustice, inequality and discrimination brought about by slavery, colonization, and racism. The human race seems to still labor from yet another form of injustice and discrimination being championed by eugenics. Eugenics is defined by many scholars in similarly many ways, but for purposes of this paper, one definition shall suffice. Eugenics is “the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population” (Burke & Castaneda, 2007). This paper looks at the practice of eugenics in North Carolina and will present the legal and ethical argument against eugenics both historically and in the present debate.
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These arguments are based on both legal and ethical reasons. On one hand, those opposed to eugenics dismiss it as a perpetuation of discrimination in that it does not seek justice and widens the inequality gap. Since we live in a society of unequal chances where on one hand we have the rich who can afford all they want while on the other we have the poor who barely afford what they need. The practice of eugenics has a danger of dividing the society into two groups namely; the genetic overclass and underclass. The replacement of the natural law of selection (genetic lottery according to Rawls) becomes replaced by the choice of the science, the inequalities in society become programmed hence not only passing social disadvantages into future generations but also genetically embedding …show more content…

However, with the advent of technology, eugenics has been advanced to even encourage parents to carry out a selection of the kind of babies they want to give birth to resulting in the term “designer babies” through prenatal testing (Asch, 1999). If parents notice that their expected baby might suffer some form of disability they usually resort to eugenics whereby they can choose to terminate the pregnancy. Disability rights advocates oppose prenatal testing that results in genetic enhancement because they view it as discriminatory against the disabled. This holds true because genetic enhancement and improvement of fetuses that would have been otherwise born with some impairment discriminate against existing people with disabilities as it sends a clear message to those living with disabilities that they should never have been born. Prenatal testing and genetic enhancing as a means of eugenics mostly result in selective abortion of disabled fetuses thus sending a very loud discriminatory message to those that are already living with disabilities. This kind of discrimination is very unethical as it undermines the efforts to create an equal world where every human being is viewed as a creation of God and should be respected as such in the eyes of the world (Asch,

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Darwinists in turn, believed biology to be destiny and that if one's ancestors were unfit their children would be as well. Much like in evolution, Spencer assumed that the unfit populations would decline overtime due to their failure to compete, however paranoia led some Americans to speed up this process, introducing eugenics. Eugenics were supposed to improve men, ridding the undesirable traits of the unfit and changing genetic structure to create more fit individuals. The Eugenics movement in America took people of color, the mentally ill or disabled, LGBTQ individuals, and other members of society deemed unfit, and conducted experimentation ranging from forced breeding, involuntary sterilization, or institutionalization on them. Although the movement was eventually stomped out, it violated thousands of

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The supreme court was approaching the subject by looking out for the population as a whole, rather than as individuals. The intentions of the movement were to eliminate the passing of specific traits that socially unfit person’s possessed and to isolate traits that were considered socially superior. The social incentives were based off of a utilitarian point of view, in that it may have hurt individuals, but it will ultimately better society. The values of this time period can be seen as continuing segregation, not just with race, but with disability and mental illnesses. The reasoning behind the eugenics movement, as stated by the supreme court, was “instead of waiting to execute degenerative offspring for crime… society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind”.

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“They (eugenicists) believe that human beings are inherently no different than animals, and therefore we can and should be bred like animals.” Eugenicists think that since we humans and animals are both mammals, that we can both endure the same dangerous tests. The results will be different for different animals and humans. It is true that the human race is animals, but in no way should we be treated as animals. Eugenicists use the same tests that are used on cows for testing as they do for humans.

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According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, eugenics is: “a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed”. ("Definition of Eugenics by Merriam-Webster") The most common example of this concept would be the Holocaust, which was the extermination of Jewish people and others deemed “unfit” for society in World War Ⅱ. But little do many know, the Nazi’s were not the only people practicing eugenics in the early 1900’s, eugenics was being practiced in the United States long before the Holocaust. The American Eugenics Society aimed to educate American people on the science of Eugenics.

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