View source for Eugenics

{{Short description|Effort to improve purported human genetic quality}}
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[[File:Eugenics Society Exhibit (1930s). Image from Wellcome Library.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|A 1930s exhibit by the [[Eugenics Society]]. Some of the signs read "Healthy and Unhealthy Families", "[[Heredity]] as the Basis of Efficiency", and "Marry Wisely".]]

{{Eugenics sidebar}}{{Nazism sidebar}}
'''Eugenics'''{{efn|({{IPAc-en|j|uː|ˈ|dʒ|ɛ|n|ᵻ|k|s}} {{respell|yoo|JEN|iks}}; {{etymology|grc|''[[wikt:εὐ̃|εύ̃]]'' (eû)|good, well||''[[wikt:-γενής|-γενής]]'' (genḗs)|born, come into being, growing/grown}})<ref>{{cite book |last=Galton |first=Francis |url=https://galton.org/books/human-faculty/text/galton-1883-human-faculty-v4.pdf |title=Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development |date=2002 |editor-last1=Tredoux |editor-first1=Gavan |pages=17, 30 |quote=what is termed in Greek, ''eugenes'' namely, good in stock, hereditarily endowed with noble qualities. This, and the allied words, ''eugeneia'', etc., are equally applicable to men, brutes, and plants. We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognisance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word ''eugenics'' would sufficiently express the idea; it is at least a neater word and a more generalized one than ''viriculture'' which I once ventured to use.... The investigation of human eugenics – that is, of the conditions under which men of a high type are produced – is at present extremely hampered by the want of full family histories, both medical and general, extending over three or four generations. |access-date=21 July 2023 |via=Online Galton Archives |orig-year=1883}}</ref>}} is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the [[genetics|genetic]] quality of a [[human population]].{{sfn|Black|2003|p=370}}<ref name=":0">{{cite encyclopedia|title=Eugenics – African American Studies|first=Daylanne K.|last=English|url= https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780190280024/obo-9780190280024-0029.xml |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190624141112/https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780190280024/obo-9780190280024-0029.xml |archive-date=24 June 2019 |date=28 June 2016|encyclopedia=Oxford Bibliographies |quote=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}}</ref><ref name="Galton 1904">{{cite journal |title=Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims |last=Galton |first=Francis |date=1904 |journal=The American Journal of Sociology |volume=X |issue=1 |pages=82 |doi=10.1038/070082a0 |bibcode=1904Natur..70...82. |access-date=1 January 2020 |url= http://galton.org/essays/1900-1911/galton-1904-am-journ-soc-eugenics-scope-aims.htm |doi-access=free |archive-date=1 March 2006 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060301165243/http://galton.org/essays/1900-1911/galton-1904-am-journ-soc-eugenics-scope-aims.htm |url-status=live |issn = 0028-0836 }}</ref> Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human [[Phenotype|phenotypes]] by inhibiting the fertility of those considered inferior, or promoting that of those considered superior.<ref name="Spektorowski">{{cite book |last1=Spektorowski |first1=Alberto |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zdkdAAAAQBAJ&q=Historically,+the+term+has+referred+to+everything+from+prenatal+care+for+mothers+to+forced+sterilization+and+euthanasia&pg=PA24 |title=Politics of Eugenics: Productionism, Population, and National Welfare |last2=Ireni-Saban |first2=Liza |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780203740231 |location=London |page=24 |quote=As an applied science, thus, the practice of eugenics referred to everything from prenatal care for mothers to forced sterilization and euthanasia.  Galton divided the practice of eugenics into two types—positive and negative—both aimed at improving the human race through selective breeding. |access-date=16 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211019203011/https://books.google.com/books?id=zdkdAAAAQBAJ&q=Historically,+the+term+has+referred+to+everything+from+prenatal+care+for+mothers+to+forced+sterilization+and+euthanasia&pg=PA24 |archive-date=19 October 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The contemporary [[history of eugenics]] began in the late 19th century, when a popular eugenics movement emerged in the United Kingdom,<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor=25054146 |title=Eugenic Ideas, Political Interests and Policy Variance Immigration and Sterilization Policy in Britain and U.S |date=1 January 2001 |journal=World Politics |doi=10.1353/wp.2001.0003 |pmid=18193564 |volume=53 |issue=2 |pages=237–263|last1=Hansen |first1=Randall |last2=King |first2=Desmond |s2cid=19634871}}</ref> and then spread to many countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=McGregor |first=Russell |date=2002 |title='Breed out the colour' or the importance of being white |url= https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10314610208596220 |journal=Australian Historical Studies |volume=33 |issue=120 |pages=286–302 |doi=10.1080/10314610208596220 |s2cid=143863018 |access-date=18 February 2021 |archive-date=25 February 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210225154624/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10314610208596220 |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}</ref> and most European countries (e.g., [[State Institute for Racial Biology|Sweden]] and [[Nazi eugenics|Germany]]). 

Historically, the idea of ''eugenics'' has been used to argue for a broad array of practices ranging from [[prenatal care]] for mothers deemed genetically desirable to the forced sterilization and murder of those deemed unfit.<ref name="Spektorowski" /> To [[Population genetics|population geneticists]], the term has included the avoidance of [[inbreeding]] without altering [[Allele frequency|allele frequencies]]; for example, British-Indian scientist [[J. B. S. Haldane]] wrote in 1940 that "the motor bus, by breaking up inbred village communities, was a powerful eugenic agent."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Haldane |first=J. |date=1940 |title=Lysenko and Genetics |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/haldane/works/1940s/lysenko.htm |url-status=live |journal=Science and Society |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=433–437 |doi=10.1177/003682374000400405 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110623073151/http://www.marxists.org/archive/haldane/works/1940s/lysenko.htm |archive-date=23 June 2011}}</ref> Debate as to what qualifies as eugenics continues today.<ref>A discussion of the shifting meanings of the term can be found in {{cite book |last=Paul |first=Diane |url=https://archive.org/details/controllinghuman00paul |title=Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present |date=1995 |publisher=Humanities Press |isbn=9781573923439}}</ref>

A [[progressivism|progressive social movement]] promoting eugenics had originated in the 19th century,<ref>[[Paul, Diane B.]] (1984). "[http://tankona.free.fr/dianepaul84.pdf Eugenics and the Left]". ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' 45 (4):567. {{doi|10.2307/2709374}}.</ref><ref>[[Leonard, Thomas C.]] (2016). ''[[Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era]]'' Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press {{ISBN|978-0-691-16959-0}}</ref><ref>Lucassen, Leo (2010). "A Brave New World: The Left, Social Engineering, and Eugenics in Twentieth-Century Europe." ''International Review of Social History'', 55(2), 265–296. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44583170</ref> with diverse support, but by the mid 20th century the term was closely associated with [[scientific racism]] and authoritarian coercion.  With modern [[medical genetics]], [[genetic testing]] and [[Genetic counseling|counseling]] have become common, and [[New eugenics|new or liberal eugenics]] rejects coercive programs in favor of individual parental choice.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=2022 |title=Eugenics |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/eugenics/ |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref>

== Common distinctions ==
[[File:ЛестерФВорд.jpeg|thumb|upright|[[Lester Frank Ward]] wrote the early paper: "Eugenics, Euthenics and Eudemics", making yet further distinctions.<ref>[[Ward, Lester Frank]] (1913). "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2763324.pdf Eugenics, Euthenics, and Eudemics]" (PDF). ''American Journal of Sociology'', 18(6), 737–754.</ref>]] Eugenic 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.<ref name="Spektorowski" /><ref>Wilkinson, Stephen A. (2010). "On the distinction between positive and negative eugenics". In Matti Häyry (ed.), ''Arguments and analysis in bioethics.'' Amsterdam: Rodopi. pp. 115–128. {{doi|10.1163/9789042028036_011}}.</ref>{{r|Buchanan 2000|pages=104-155}}

Positive eugenics is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged, for example, the intelligent, the healthy, and the successful. Possible approaches include financial and political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses, ''in vitro'' fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning.<ref name="glad2008">{{cite book |last=Glad |first=John |author-link=John Glad |url=https://archive.org/details/futurehumanevolu00glad |title=Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century |date=2008 |publisher=Hermitage Publishers |isbn=9781557791542}}</ref> 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.<ref name="glad2008" /> Both positive and negative eugenics can be coercive; in Nazi Germany, for example, abortion was illegal for women deemed by the state to be superior.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pine |first=Lisa |url=https://archive.org/details/nazifamilypolicy0000pine |title=Nazi Family Policy, 1933–1945 |date=1997 |publisher=Berg |isbn=9781859739075 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/nazifamilypolicy0000pine/page/19 19] ff |access-date=11 April 2012 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

===As opposed to "euthenics"===
{{See also|Nature-nurture debate}}<!--Clearly a more recent variant of the same overall debate-->
{{Excerpt|Euthenics|hat=no|files=no}}{{Excerpt|Euthenics#Debate, misconceptions and opposition|hat=no|files=no}}

==Historical eugenics==
{{Main|History of eugenics}}

=== Ancient and medieval origins===
{{See also|Sparta#Birth and death}}
[[File:The selection of the infant Spartans, Giuseppe Diotti.jpg|thumb|250px|Giuseppe Diotti's ''The selection of the infant Spartans'' (1840)]]
 
According to [[Plutarch#Spartan lives and sayings|Plutarch]], in [[Sparta]] every proper citizen's child was inspected by the council of elders, the [[Gerousia]], which determined whether or not the child was fit to live.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hughes |first1=Bill |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_R6yDwAAQBAJ |title=A Historical Sociology of Disability: Human Validity and Invalidity from Antiquity to Early Modernity |date=26 September 2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780429615207 |series=Routledge Advances in Disability Studies |location=Abingdon |quote=The Spartan Council of Elders or Gerousia decided whether a new-born child brought before them would live or die. Impairment, deformity, even puny appearance was enough to condemn a child to death.|access-date=21 July 2023}}</ref> If the child was deemed unfit, the child was thrown into a chasm.<ref>''Making Patriots'' by [[Walter Berns]], 2001, page 12, "and whose infants, if they chanced to be puny or ill-formed, were exposed in a chasm (the Apothetae) and left to die;"</ref><ref>{{cite book | author-link=Plutarch | url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/lives/lycurgus*.html | last=Plutarch | title=Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans}}</ref> Plutarch is the sole historical source for the Spartan practice of systemic infanticide motivated by eugenics.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bayliss |first1=Andrew J. |title=4. Raising a Spartan |journal=The Spartans: A Very Short Introduction |date=26 May 2022 |pages=59–76 |doi=10.1093/actrade/9780198787600.003.0004|isbn=978-0-19-878760-0 }}</ref> While [[infanticide]] was practiced by Greeks, no contemporary sources support Plutarch's claims of mass infanticide motivated by eugenics.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Disability and Infanticide in Ancient Greece |journal=Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens |date=2021 |volume=90 |issue=4 |pages=747 |doi=10.2972/hesperia.90.4.0747 |last1=Sneed |s2cid=245045967 }}</ref> In 2007 the suggestion that infants were dumped near Mount Taygete was called into question due to a lack of physical evidence. Anthropologist Theodoros Pitsios' research found only bodies from adolescents up to the age of approximately 35.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2007-12-10 |title=Study finds no evidence of discarded Spartan babies |language=en-AU |work=ABC News |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-12-11/study-finds-no-evidence-of-discarded-spartan-babies/983848 |access-date=2023-10-12}}</ref><ref>"Ancient Sparta – Research Program of Keadas Cavern" https://web.archive.org/web/20131002192630/http://www.anthropologie.ch/d/publikationen/archiv/2010/documents/03PITSIOSreprint.pdf</ref>

[[Plato's political philosophy]] included the belief that human reproduction should be cautiously monitored and controlled by the state through [[selective breeding]].<ref>[[Galton, David J.]] (1998). "Greek theories on eugenics." ''Journal of Medical Ethics'', 24(4), 263–267. doi:10.1136/jme.24.4.263</ref><ref>The Republic, 457c10-d3</ref>

According to [[Tacitus]] ({{circa |56}} – {{circa |120}}), a Roman of the [[Roman Empire|Imperial Period]], the [[Germanic peoples|Germanic]] tribes of his day killed any member of their community they deemed cowardly, unwarlike or "stained with abominable vices", usually by drowning them in swamps.<ref>[[Tacitus]]. [[wikisource:Germania (Church & Brodribb)#XII|Germania.XII]] "Traitors and deserters are hanged on trees; the coward, the unwarlike, the man stained with abominable vices, is plunged into the mire of the morass, with a hurdle put over him."</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Sanders |first=Karin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FU4H-JKPbhkC&pg=PA62 |title=Bodies in the Bog and the Archaeological Imagination |date=2009 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=9780226734040 |page=62 |quote=Tacitus's Germania, read through this kind of filter, became a manual for racial and sexual eugenics |access-date=23 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801132652/https://books.google.com/books?id=FU4H-JKPbhkC&pg=PA62 |archive-date=1 August 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref> Modern historians see Tacitus' ethnographic writing as unreliable in such details.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Krebs |first=Christopher |title=A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus's Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich |date=2011 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=9780393062656 |location=New York |pages=48–49}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Simon |first=Emily T. |date=21 February 2008 |title=Ancient text has long and dangerous reach |url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/02/ancient-text-has-long-and-dangerous-reach/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200626023142/https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/02/ancient-text-has-long-and-dangerous-reach/ |archive-date=26 June 2020 |access-date=24 June 2020 |website=The Harvard Gazette}}</ref>

=== Academic origins ===
{{See also|Galton Laboratory|Eugenics Record Office}}
[[File:Sir Francis Galton by Gustav Graef.jpg|thumb|[[Francis Galton]] (1822–1911) was a British polymath who coined the term "eugenics".|203x203px]]
The term ''eugenics'' and its modern field of study were first formulated by [[Francis Galton]] in 1883,<ref>{{cite book |last=Galton |first=Francis |author-link=Francis Galton |title=Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development |url= https://archive.org/details/inquiriesintohu00galtgoog |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers]] |date=1883 |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/inquiriesintohu00galtgoog/page/n217 199]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=James D. |first1=Watson |url=https://www.amazon.com/DNA-The-Secret-Life-ebook/dp/B001PSEQAG |title=DNA: The Secret of Life |last2=Berry |first2=Andrew |author-link2=Andrew Berry (biologist) |date=2009 |publisher=Knopf |access-date=31 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210315093939/https://www.amazon.com/DNA-The-Secret-Life-ebook/dp/B001PSEQAG |archive-date=15 March 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Galton |first=Francis |author-link=Francis Galton |date=1874 |title=On men of science, their nature and their nurture |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_uE-bpGo2N4C&pg=PA227 |url-status=live |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain |volume=7 |pages=227–236 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727115814/https://books.google.com/books?id=_uE-bpGo2N4C&pg=PA227 |archive-date=27 July 2020 |access-date=7 June 2020}}</ref>{{efn|name=Stirpiculture|He concretely intended it to replace the word "[[Oneida stirpiculture|stirpiculture]]", which he had used previously but which had come to be mocked due to its perceived sexual overtones.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Lester Frank |last1=Ward |first2=Emily |last2=Palmer Cape |first3=Sarah Emma |last3=Simons |author-link1=Lester Frank Ward|author-link2=Emily Palmer Cape|title=Glimpses of the Cosmos |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=KDEZAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA382 |access-date=11 April 2012 |date=1918 |publisher=G.P. Putnam |pages=382 ff |chapter=Eugenics, Euthenics and Eudemics |archive-date=28 May 2013 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130528073057/http://books.google.com/books?id=KDEZAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA382 |url-status=live}}</ref>}} directly drawing on the recent work delineating [[natural selection]] by his half-cousin [[Charles Darwin]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://galton.org/letters/darwin/correspondence.htm |title=Correspondence between Francis Galton and Charles Darwin |publisher=Galton.org |access-date=28 November 2011 |archive-date=11 January 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120111120718/http://galton.org/letters/darwin/correspondence.htm |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/correspondence-volume-17 |work=Darwin Correspondence Project |title=The Correspondence of Charles Darwin |volume=Volume 17: 1869 |publisher=University of Cambridge |access-date=28 November 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120124215918/http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/correspondence-volume-17 |archive-date=24 January 2012}}</ref><ref name="Bowler 309">{{Citation |last=Bowler |first=Peter J |author-link=Peter J. Bowler|title=Evolution: The History of an Idea |date=2003 |pages=308–310 |edition=3rd |publisher=University of California Press}}</ref>{{efn|name=Weisman etc.|Though the origins of the concept also had to do with certain interpretations of [[Mendelian inheritance]] and the theories of [[August Weismann]].{{r|Blom 2008|pp=335–336}}}} He published his observations and conclusions chiefly in his influential book ''[[Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development]]''. Galton himself defined it as "the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations".<ref>Cited in {{harvnb|Black|2003|p=18}}</ref> The first to systematically apply Darwinism theory to human relations, Galton believed that various desirable human qualities were also [[Heredity|hereditary]] ones, although Darwin strongly disagreed with this elaboration of his theory.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hansen |first=Randall |title=Eugenics: Immigration and Asylum from 1990 to Present |date=2005 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |editor-last1=Gibney |editor-first1=Matthew J. |chapter=Eugenics |access-date=23 September 2013 |editor-last2=Hansen |editor-first2=Randall |chapter-url=http://www.credoreference.com/entry/abcmigrate/eugenics}}</ref>

Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and universities and received funding from various sources.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Allen |first=Garland E. |title=Was Nazi eugenics created in the US? |journal=EMBO Reports |volume=5 |issue=5 |pages=451–452 |date=2004 |doi=10.1038/sj.embor.7400158 |pmc=1299061}}</ref> Organizations were formed to win public support for and to sway opinion towards responsible eugenic values in parenthood, including the British [[Galton Institute|Eugenics Education Society]] of 1907 and the [[Society for Biodemography and Social Biology|American Eugenics Society]] of 1921. Both sought support from leading clergymen and modified their message to meet religious ideals.<ref name="Baker 2014 pp. 281–302">{{cite journal |last=Baker |first=G. J. |title=Christianity and Eugenics: The Place of Religion in the British Eugenics Education Society and the American Eugenics Society, {{circa|1907–1940}} |journal=Social History of Medicine |volume=27 |issue=2 |date=2014 |pages=281–302  |doi=10.1093/shm/hku008 |pmid=24778464 |pmc=4001825}}</ref> In 1909, the Anglican clergymen [[William Inge (priest, born 1860)|William Inge]] and [[James Peile]] both wrote for the 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]].<ref name="Baker 2014 pp. 281–302" />

Three [[International Eugenics Conferences]] presented a global venue for eugenicists, with meetings in 1912 in London, and in 1921 and 1932 in New York City. [[Eugenics in the United States|Eugenic policies in the United States]] were first implemented by state-level legislators in the early 1900s.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Barrett |first1=Deborah |last2=Kurzman |first2=Charles |author-link2=Charles Kurzman |title=Globalizing Social Movement Theory: The Case of Eugenics |journal=Theory and Society |volume=33 |issue=5 |pages=487–527 |date=October 2004 |doi=10.1023/b:ryso.0000045719.45687.aa |jstor=4144884 |s2cid=143618054 |url= https://kurzman.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1410/2011/06/Barrett_Kurzman_Eugenics.pdf |access-date=4 August 2025 |archive-date=24 May 2013 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130524163917/http://kurzman.unc.edu/files/2011/06/Barrett_Kurzman_Eugenics.pdf |url-status=live |quote=Policy adoption: In the pre–World War I period, eugenic policies were enacted only in the United States, which was both the hotbed of international eugenics activism and unusually decentralized politically, so that sub-national state units could adopt such policies in the absence of central state approval.}}</ref> Eugenic policies also took root in France, Germany, and Great Britain.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hawkins |first=Mike |title=Social Darwinism in European and American Thought |url= https://archive.org/details/socialdarwinisme00hawk |url-access=limited |date=1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521574341 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/socialdarwinisme00hawk/page/n71 62], 292}}</ref> Later, in the 1920s and 1930s, the eugenic policy of [[compulsory sterilization|sterilizing]] certain mental patients was implemented in other countries including Belgium,<ref>{{cite journal |title=The National Office of Eugenics in Belgium |journal=Science |volume=57 |issue=1463 |page=46 |date=12 January 1923 |doi=10.1126/science.57.1463.46 |bibcode=1923Sci....57R..46.}}</ref> Brazil,<ref>{{cite journal |first1=Sales Augusto |last1=dos Santos |first2=Laurence |last2=Hallewell |date=January 2002 |title=Historical Roots of the 'Whitening' of Brazil |journal=Latin American Perspectives |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=61–82 |jstor=3185072 |doi=10.1177/0094582X0202900104 |s2cid=220914100}}</ref> [[Compulsory sterilization in Canada|Canada]],<ref>{{cite book |last=McLaren |first=Angus |title=Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada, 1885–1945 |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1990 |isbn=9780771055447 |url-access=registration |url= https://archive.org/details/ourownmasterrace0000mcla}}{{page needed|date=June 2014}}</ref> [[Eugenics in Japan|Japan]] and [[Compulsory sterilisation in Sweden|Sweden]].

[[Frederick Osborn]]'s 1937 journal article "Development of a Eugenic Philosophy" framed eugenics as a [[social philosophy]]—a philosophy with implications for [[social order]].<ref name="Osborn1937">{{cite journal |last=Osborn |first=Frederick |author-link=Frederick Osborn |date=June 1937 |title=Development of a Eugenic Philosophy |journal=[[American Sociological Review]] |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=389–397 |doi=10.2307/2084871 |jstor=2084871}}</ref> 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 (medicine)|sterilization]] of people with less-desired or undesired traits ("negative eugenics").{{Citation needed|date=April 2025}}

In addition to being practiced in a number of countries, eugenics was internationally organized through the [[International Federation of Eugenics Organizations]].{{sfn|Black|2003|p=240}} Its scientific aspects were carried on through research bodies such as the [[Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics]],{{sfn|Black|2003|p=286}} the Cold Spring Harbor Carnegie Institution for [[Experimental Evolution]],{{sfn|Black|2003|p=40}} and the [[Eugenics Record Office]].{{sfn|Black|2003|p=45}} Politically, the movement advocated measures such as sterilization laws.{{sfn|Black|2003|loc=Chapter 6: The United States of Sterilization}} 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.{{sfn|Black|2003|p=237}} Its racist elements included pursuit of a pure "[[Nordic race]]" or "[[Aryan race|Aryan]]" genetic pool and the eventual elimination of "unfit" races.{{sfn|Black|2003|loc=Chapter 5: Legitimizing Raceology}}{{sfn|Black|2003|loc=Chapter 9: Mongrelization}}

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.<ref name ="Blom 2008">{{cite book |last=Blom |first=Philipp |author-link=Philipp Blom |title=The Vertigo Years: Change and Culture in the West, 1900–1914 |date=2008 |publisher=McClelland & Stewart |location=Toronto |isbn=9780771016301 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/vertigoyearschan0000blom/page/335 335–336] |url= https://archive.org/details/vertigoyearschan0000blom/page/335}}</ref><ref>Jones, S. (1995). ''The Language of Genes: Solving the Mysteries of Our Genetic Past, Present and Future'' (New York: Anchor).</ref><ref>King, D. (1999). ''In the name of liberalism: illiberal social policy in Britain and the United States'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press).</ref>

As a social movement, eugenics reached its greatest popularity in the early decades of the 20th century, when it was practiced around the world and promoted by governments, institutions, and influential individuals. Many countries enacted<ref>{{cite book |last=Ridley |first=Matt |author-link=Matt Ridley |title=Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters |url= https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780965213677 |url-access=limited |date=1999 |publisher=HarperCollins |location=New York |isbn=9780060894085 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780965213677/page/290 290]–291}}</ref> various eugenics policies, including: [[genetic screening]]s, [[birth control]], promoting differential birth rates, [[Marriage law#Marriage restrictions|marriage restrictions]], segregation (both [[racial segregation]] and sequestering the mentally ill), [[compulsory sterilization]], [[forced abortion]]s or [[forced pregnancies]], ultimately culminating in [[genocide]]. By 2014, gene selection (rather than "people selection") was made possible through advances in [[genome editing]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Reis |first1=Alex |last2=Hornblower |first2=Breton |last3=Robb |first3=Brett |last4=Tzertzinis |first4=George |date=2014 |title=CRISPR/Cas9 and Targeted Genome Editing: A New Era in Molecular Biology |url= https://www.neb.com/tools-and-resources/feature-articles/crispr-cas9-and-targeted-genome-editing-a-new-era-in-molecular-biology |journal=NEB Expressions |issue=I |access-date=8 July 2015 |archive-date=23 June 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150623030918/https://www.neb.com/tools-and-resources/feature-articles/crispr-cas9-and-targeted-genome-editing-a-new-era-in-molecular-biology |url-status=live}}</ref> leading to what is sometimes called ''[[new eugenics]]'', also known as "neo-eugenics", "consumer eugenics", or "liberal eugenics"; which focuses on individual freedom and allegedly pulls away from racism, sexism or a focus on intelligence.<ref>{{Citation |last=Goering |first=Sara |title=Eugenics |date=2014 |url= https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/eugenics/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Fall 2014 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=4 May 2022 |archive-date=7 November 2020 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20201107184738/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/eugenics/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

====Early opposition====
Early critics of the philosophy of eugenics included the American sociologist [[Lester Frank Ward]],<ref>{{cite book |first=Joan |last=Ferrante |title=Sociology: A Global Perspective |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=AwnIIXI6y38C&pg=PA259 |date=2010 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=9780840032041 |pages=259 ff |access-date=7 June 2020 |archive-date=1 August 2020 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200801114104/https://books.google.com/books?id=AwnIIXI6y38C&pg=PA259 |url-status=live}}</ref> the English writer [[G. K. Chesterton]], and Scottish tuberculosis pioneer and author [[Halliday Sutherland]].{{efn|note=Sutherland|He had identified eugenicists as a major obstacle to the eradication and cure of tuberculosis in his 1917 address "Consumption: Its Cause and Cure",<ref>"Consumption: Its Cause and Cure" – an address by Dr Halliday Sutherland on 4 September 1917, published by the Red Triangle Press.</ref>}} Ward's 1913 article "Eugenics, Euthenics, and Eudemics", Chesterton's 1917 book [[s:Eugenics and other Evils|''Eugenics and Other Evils'']],<ref name="Chesterton22">{{cite book |last=Chesterton| first=G. K.|author-link=G. K. Chesterton |title=Eugenics and Other Evils |date=1922 |publisher=Cassell and Company |url= https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/25308}}</ref> and [[Franz Boas]]' 1916 article "[[s:Eugenics|Eugenics]]" (published in ''[[The Scientific Monthly]]'')<ref>{{cite book |last=Turda |first=Marius |chapter=Race, Science and Eugenics in the Twentieth Century |editor1-last=Bashford |editor1-first=Alison |editor2-last=Levine |editor2-first=Philippa |title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2010 |isbn=9780199888290 |pages=72–73}}</ref> were all harshly critical of the rapidly growing movement.

Several biologists were also antagonistic to the eugenics movement, including [[Lancelot Hogben]].<ref>"Lancelot Hogben, who developed his critique of eugenics and distaste for racism in the period...he spent as Professor of Zoology at the University of Cape Town".  Alison Bashford and Philippa Levine, ''The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics''. Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2010 {{ISBN|0199706530}} (p. 200)</ref> Other biologists who were themselves eugenicists, such as [[J. B. S. Haldane]] and [[Ronald Fisher|R. A. Fisher]], however, also expressed skepticism in the belief that sterilization of "defectives" (i.e. a purely negative eugenics) would lead to the disappearance of undesirable genetic traits.<ref>"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).</ref>

Among institutions, the [[Catholic Church]] opposes sterilization for eugenic purposes.<ref>{{cite book |last=Congar |first=Yves M.-J. |author-link=Yves Congar |date=1953 |title=The Catholic Church and the Race Question |url= http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0000/000028/002893eo.pdf |location=Paris |publisher=UNESCO |access-date=3 July 2015 |pages= 22–24|archive-date=4 July 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150704070018/http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0000/000028/002893eo.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Attempts by the Eugenics Education Society to persuade the British government to legalize voluntary sterilization were opposed by Catholics and by the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]].<ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Ml4vDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA105 |title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics |first1=Alison |last1=Bashford |first2=Philippa |last2=Levine |date=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |via=Google Books |isbn=9780195373141 |access-date=31 December 2018 |archive-date=1 August 2020 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200801110400/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ml4vDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA105|url-status=live}}</ref> The [[Society for Biodemography and Social Biology|American Eugenics Society]] initially gained some Catholic supporters, but Catholic support declined following the 1930 papal encyclical ''[[Casti connubii]]''.<ref name="Baker 2014 pp. 281–302" /> In this, [[Pope Pius XI]] explicitly condemned sterilization laws: "Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason."<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121930_casti-connubii_en.html |title=Casti connubii |author=Pope Pius XI |access-date=15 March 2020 |archive-date=10 April 2009 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090410192842/http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121930_casti-connubii_en.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

The eugenicists' political successes in [[Germany]] and [[Scandinavia]] were not at all matched in such countries as [[Poland]] and [[Czechoslovakia]], even though measures had been proposed there, largely because of the Catholic church's moderating influence.<ref>[[Roll-Hansen, Nils]] (1988). "The Progress of Eugenics: Growth of Knowledge and Change in Ideology." ''History of Science'', xxvi, 295-331.</ref>

=== Eugenic feminism ===
{{Excerpt|Eugenic feminism}}

===North American eugenics===
{{multiple image|perrow = 2|total_width=300
| image1 = Henry H. Goddard.jpg 
| image2 = Madison Grant.jpg
| image3 = Lothrop Stoddard.JPG
| image4 = Jack London young.jpg
| footer = American eugenicists generally pursued more public-facing work and accordingly became widely known for their racism ''in particular.'' Along these lines, they were often harshly criticized by their British counterparts.<ref>Heron, D. (9 November 1913). "English expert attacks American eugenic work", ''New York Times'', part V, 1</ref>
}}
{{Excerpt|Eugenics in the United States|files=no}}

====Eugenics in Mexico====
{{Excerpt|Eugenics in Mexico}}
{{Excerpt|Eugenics in Mexico#Neo-Lamarckian eugenics|hat=no}}

===Nazism and the decline of eugenics ===
{{See also|Nazi eugenics|Racial hygiene|Life unworthy of life|Scientific racism}}
[[File:Alkoven Schloss Hartheim 2005-08-18 3589.jpg|thumb|left|[[Schloss Hartheim]], a former center for Nazi Germany's [[Aktion T4]] campaign]]
The reputation of eugenics started to decline in the 1930s, a time when [[Ernst Rüdin]] used eugenics as a justification for the [[Racial policy of Nazi Germany|racial policies of Nazi Germany]]. [[Adolf Hitler]] had praised and incorporated eugenic ideas in {{lang|de|[[Mein Kampf]]}} in 1925 and emulated eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had been pioneered in the United States once he took power.{{sfn|Black|2003|pp=274–295}} Some common early 20th century eugenics methods involved identifying and classifying individuals and their families. This included [[Race (classification of human beings)|racial groups]] (such as the [[Romani people|Roma]] and [[Jews in Nazi Germany]]), the poor, mentally ill, blind, deaf, developmentally disabled, [[promiscuous women]], and homosexuals as "degenerate" or "unfit". This led to segregation, institutionalization, sterilization, and [[mass murder]].{{sfn|Black|2003}} The Nazi policy of identifying German citizens deemed unfit and then systematically murdering them with poison gas, referred to as the ''[[Aktion T4]]'' campaign, paved the way for the [[The Holocaust|Holocaust]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Longerich |first=Peter |title=Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=2010 |isbn=9780192804365 |pages=179–191}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Burleigh |first=Michael |title=Holocaust: Origins, Implementation, Aftermath |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=2000 |isbn=0415150361 |editor-last=Bartov |editor-first=Omer |location=London |pages=43–57 |chapter=Psychiatry, German Society, and the Nazi "Euthanasia" Programme}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Snyder |first=Timothy |title=Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin |publisher=[[Basic Books]] |date=2010 |isbn=9781441761460 |location=New York |pages=256–258}}</ref>
{{quote box|quote="All practices aimed at eugenics, any use of the human body or any of its parts for financial gain, and [[human cloning]] shall be prohibited."|source=[[Hungarian Constitution]]<ref>[[Constitution of Hungary]] (2011),  [https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Hungary_2011.pdf Section 3, ''Freedom and Responsibility'', Article III (3).]</ref>|bgcolor=Cornsilk|width=30%|align=right|salign=right}}
By the end of [[World War II]], many eugenics laws were abandoned, having become associated with [[Nazi Germany]].<ref name="Black">{{cite book |last=Black |first=Edwin |author-link=Edwin Black |title=War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race |publisher=Four Walls Eight Windows |date=2003 |isbn=9781568582580 |url= https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781568582580}}</ref> [[H. G. Wells]], who had called for "the sterilization of failures" in 1904,<ref name="jt">{{cite book |first=Jacky |last=Turner |title=Animal Breeding, Welfare and Society |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=2010 |isbn=9781844075898 |page=296}}</ref> 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".<ref>{{cite book |first=Andrew |last=Clapham |title=Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=2007 |isbn=9780199205523 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/humanrights00andr/page/29 29–31] |url= https://archive.org/details/humanrights00andr/page/29}}</ref> 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]].<ref>Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with [[Genocide#Crime|the intent to destroy, in whole or in part]], a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such as:
* Killing members of the group;
* Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
* Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
* Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
* Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
See the [[Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide]].</ref> The [[Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union]] also proclaims "the prohibition of eugenic practices, in particular those aiming at selection of persons".<ref>{{cite web |url= https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Rights_of_the_European_Union |title=Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union |at=Article 3, Section 2 |access-date=17 September 2013 |archive-date=26 October 2013 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131026133612/http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Rights_of_the_European_Union |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== In Singapore ===
{{Main|Population control in Singapore#Demographic transition and the Graduate Mothers Scheme}}
[[Lee Kuan Yew]], the [[Founding Father|founding father]] of [[Singapore]], actively promoted eugenics as late as 1983.<ref>{{cite web |last=Chan |first=Ying-kit |date=4 October 2016 |title=Eugenics in Postcolonial Singapore |url=http://www.blynkt.com/issue-1/eugenics-in-postcolonial-singapore |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171008232753/http://www.blynkt.com/issue-1/eugenics-in-postcolonial-singapore |archive-date=8 October 2017 |access-date=19 October 2017 |website=Blynkt.com |location=Berlin}}</ref> In 1984, Singapore began providing financial incentives to highly educated women to encourage them to have more children. For this purpose was introduced the "Graduate Mother Scheme" that incentivized graduate women to get married as much as the rest of their populace.<ref>See Diane K. Mauzy; Robert Stephen Milne, ''Singapore politics under the People's Action Party'' (Routledge, 2002).</ref> The incentives were extremely unpopular and regarded as eugenic, and were seen as discriminatory towards Singapore's non-Chinese ethnic population. In 1985, the incentives were partly abandoned as ineffective, while the government matchmaking agency, the [[Social Development Network]], remains active.<ref name="LOC1989">{{cite web |title=Singapore: Population Control Policies |url=http://www.photius.com/countries/singapore/society/singapore_society_population_control_p~11008.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110411115633/http://www.photius.com/countries/singapore/society/singapore_society_population_control_p~11008.html |archive-date=11 April 2011 |access-date=11 August 2011 |work=Library of Congress Country Studies (1989) |publisher=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref><ref name="natgeo">{{Cite magazine |last=Jacobson |first=Mark |date=January 2010 |title=The Singapore Solution |url=http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/01/singapore/jacobson-text |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091220125820/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/01/singapore/jacobson-text/5 |archive-date=20 December 2009 |access-date=26 December 2009 |magazine=[[National Geographic Magazine]]}}</ref><ref name="pushingforbabies">{{cite news |last=Webb |first=Sara |date=26 April 2006 |title=Pushing for babies: S'pore fights fertility decline |url=http://www.singapore-window.org/sw06/060426re.htm |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716052445/http://www.singapore-window.org/sw06/060426re.htm |archivedate=16 July 2011 |access-date=15 July 2024 |work=Singapore Window |agency=Reuters}}</ref>

== Modern eugenics ==
{{See also|New eugenics}}
Liberal eugenics, also called new eugenics, aims to make genetic interventions morally acceptable by rejecting coercive state programs and relying on parental choice.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Agar |first=Nicholas |date=1998 |title=Liberal Eugenics |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40441188 |journal=Public Affairs Quarterly |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=137–155 |jstor=40441188 |pmid=11657329 |issn=0887-0373}}</ref><ref name=":2" /> Bioethicist [[Nicholas Agar]], who coined the term, argues that the state should intervene only to forbid interventions that excessively limit a child’s ability to shape their own future.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hauskeller |first=Michael |date=November 2, 2005 |title=Liberal Eugenics: In Defence of Human Enhancement |url=https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/liberal-eugenics-in-defence-of-human-enhancement/ |website=Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews}}</ref> Unlike "authoritarian" or "old" eugenics, liberal eugenics draws on modern scientific knowledge of [[genomics]] to enable informed choices aimed at improving well-being.<ref name=":2" /> [[Julian Savulescu|Julien Savulescu]] further argues that some eugenic practices, like [[Prenatal diagnosis|prenatal screening]] for [[Down syndrome]], are already widely practiced, without being labeled "eugenics", as they are seen as enhancing freedom rather than restricting it.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2005-10-09 |title=The ideas interview: Julian Savulescu |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/oct/10/genetics.research |access-date=2024-10-30 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

[[UC Berkeley]] sociologist [[Troy Duster]] argued that modern genetics is a "back door to eugenics".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Epstein |first=Charles J. |date=1 November 2003 |title=Is modern genetics the new eugenics? |journal=Genetics in Medicine |volume=5 |issue=6 |pages=469–475 |doi=10.1097/01.GIM.0000093978.77435.17 |pmid=14614400 |doi-access=free}}</ref> This view was shared by then-White House Assistant Director for Forensic Sciences, [[Tania Simoncelli]], who stated in a 2003 publication by the Population and Development Program at [[Hampshire College]] that advances in [[pre-implantation genetic diagnosis]] (PGD) are moving society to a "new era of eugenics", and that, unlike the Nazi eugenics, modern eugenics is consumer driven and market based, "where children are increasingly regarded as made-to-order consumer products".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Simoncelli |first=Tania |author-link=Tania Simoncelli |date=2003 |title=Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis and Selection: From disease prevention to customized conception |url=http://genetics.live.radicaldesigns.org/downloads/200303_difftakes_simoncelli.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Different Takes |volume=24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131018034037/http://genetics.live.radicaldesigns.org/downloads/200303_difftakes_simoncelli.pdf |archive-date=18 October 2013 |access-date=18 September 2013}}</ref> The United Nations' [[International Bioethics Committee]] also noted that while [[human genetic engineering]] should not be confused with the [[History of eugenics|20th century eugenics movements]], it nonetheless challenges the idea of human equality and opens up new forms of discrimination and stigmatization for those who do not want or cannot afford the technology.<ref>{{cite web |date=2 October 2015 |title=Report of the IBC on Updating Its Reflection on the Human Genome and Human Rights |url=http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002332/233258E.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151008133850/http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002332/233258E.pdf |archive-date=8 October 2015 |access-date=22 October 2015 |publisher=International Bioethics Committee |page=27 |quote=The goal of enhancing individuals and the human species by engineering the genes related to some characteristics and traits is not to be confused with the barbarous projects of eugenics that planned the simple elimination of human beings considered as 'imperfect' on an ideological basis. However, it impinges upon the principle of respect for human dignity in several ways. It weakens the idea that the differences among human beings, regardless of the measure of their endowment, are exactly what the recognition of their equality presupposes and therefore protects. It introduces the risk of new forms of discrimination and stigmatization for those who cannot afford such enhancement or simply do not want to resort to it. The arguments that have been produced in favour of the so-called liberal eugenics do not trump the indication to apply the limit of medical reasons also in this case.}}</ref>

In 2025, geneticist [[Peter Visscher]] published a paper in ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]],'' arguing genome editing of human embryos and germ cells may become feasible in the 21st century, and raising ethical considerations in the context of previous eugenics movements.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Visscher |first1=Peter M. |last2=Gyngell |first2=Christopher |last3=Yengo |first3=Loic |last4=Savulescu |first4=Julian |date=2025-01-08 |title=Heritable polygenic editing: the next frontier in genomic medicine? |journal=Nature |volume=637 |issue=8046 |pages=637–645 |language=en |doi=10.1038/s41586-024-08300-4 |issn=0028-0836 |doi-access=free|pmid=39779842 |pmc=11735401 |bibcode=2025Natur.637..637V }}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |date=2025-01-09 |title=We need to talk about human genome editing |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=637 |issue=8045 |pages=252 |doi=10.1038/d41586-025-00015-4 |issn=0028-0836 |doi-access=free|pmid=39780015 |bibcode=2025Natur.637..252. }}</ref> A response argued that human embryo genetic editing is "unsafe and unproven".<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last1=Carmi |first1=Shai |last2=Greely |first2=Henry T. |last3=Mitchell |first3=Kevin J. |date=2025-01-08 |title=Human embryo editing against disease is unsafe and unproven — despite rosy predictions |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04105-7 |journal=Nature |volume=637 |issue=8046 |pages=554–556 |language=en |doi=10.1038/d41586-024-04105-7 |pmid=39779987 |bibcode=2025Natur.637..554C |issn=0028-0836 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> ''Nature'' also published an editorial, stating: "The fear that polygenic gene editing could be used for eugenics looms large among them, and is, in part, why no country currently allows genome editing in a human embryo, even for single variants".<ref name=":4" />

== Contested scientific status ==
<!--Note that these are isomorphic discussions in which basically all the same accusations and defenses are/were employed-->
[[File:Eugenics Quarterly to Social Biology.jpg|thumb|In the decades after [[World War II]], the term "eugenics" had taken on a negative connotation and as a result, the use of it became increasingly unpopular within the scientific community. Many organizations and journals that had their origins in the eugenics movement began to distance themselves from the philosophy which spawned them, as when ''Eugenics Quarterly'' was renamed ''Social Biology'' in 1969.]]

One general concern is that the reduced [[genetic diversity]] that may be a feature of long-term, species-wide eugenics plans<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Galton |first=David |author-link=David J. Galton |title=Eugenics: The Future of Human Life in the 21st Century |publisher=Abacus |date=2002 |isbn=0349113777 |location=London |pages=48}}</ref> could eventually result in [[inbreeding depression]],<ref name=":1" /> increased spread of [[infectious disease]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lively |first=Curtis M. |date=June 2010 |title=The Effect of Host Genetic Diversity on Disease Spread |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/652430 |journal=The American Naturalist |language=en |volume=175 |issue=6 |pages=E149–E152 |doi=10.1086/652430 |issn=0003-0147 |pmid=20388005|bibcode=2010ANat..175E.149L |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=King |first1=K. C. |last2=Lively |first2=C. M. |date=June 2012 |title=Does genetic diversity limit disease spread in natural host populations? |journal=Heredity |volume=109 |issue=4 |pages=199–203 |doi=10.1038/hdy.2012.33 |pmc=3464021 |pmid=22713998|bibcode=2012Hered.109..199K }}</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]]).|date=January 2025}} and decreased resilience to changes in the environment.<ref name="Withrock et al 2015" />{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]]).|date=January 2025}}

===Arguments for scientific validity===
{{See also|Selective breeding|De novo domestication|List of domesticated animals|List of domesticated plants|Self-domestication}}
In his original lecture "Darwinism, Medical Progress and Eugenics", [[Karl Pearson]] claimed that everything concerning eugenics fell into the field of medicine.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Salgirli |first=S. G. |date=July 2011|title=Eugenics for the doctors: Medicine and social control in 1930s Turkey |journal=Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences |volume=66 |issue=3 |pages=281–312 |doi=10.1093/jhmas/jrq040 |pmid=20562206 |s2cid=205167694}}</ref> Anthropologist [[Aleš Hrdlička]] said in 1918 that "[t]he growing science of eugenics will essentially become applied anthropology."<ref>[[Hrdlička, Aleš]] (1918). "A Physical Anthropology, Its Scope and Aims." ''[[American Journal of Physical Anthropology]],'' [https://dn790002.ca.archive.org/0/items/americanjournalo01wistuoft/americanjournalo01wistuoft.pdf Volume 1] (PDF), p. 21</ref> The economist [[John Maynard Keynes]] was a lifelong proponent of eugenics and described it as a branch of sociology.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Freedland |first=Jonathan |date=17 February 2012 |title=Eugenics: the skeleton that rattles loudest in the left's closet {{!}} Jonathan Freedland |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/17/eugenics-skeleton-rattles-loudest-closet-left |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210716080945/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/17/eugenics-skeleton-rattles-loudest-closet-left |archive-date=16 July 2021 |access-date=15 June 2020 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Keynes, John Maynard |year=1946 |title=The Galton lecture, 1946: Presentation of the society's gold medal |journal=Eugenics Review |volume=38 |issue=1 |pages=39–40 |pmc=2986310 |pmid=21260495 |quote=On February I4th, I946, before a large gathering of Fellows, Members and guests at Manson house, London, Lord Keynes, On behalf of the Eugenics Society, presented the first Galton Medal... Opening the proceedings, Lord Keynes said: It is a satisfaction to take part in the presentation of the first Galton Gold Medal, both in piety to the memory of the great Galton and in recognition of a worthy and appropriate recipient of a medal established in his name.}}</ref>

In a 2006 newspaper article, [[Richard Dawkins]] said that discussion regarding eugenics was inhibited by the shadow of Nazi misuse, to the extent that some scientists would not admit that breeding humans for certain abilities is at all possible. He believes that it is not physically different from breeding domestic animals for traits such as speed or herding skill. Dawkins felt that enough time had elapsed to at least ask just what the ethical differences were between breeding for ability versus training athletes or forcing children to take music lessons, though he could think of persuasive reasons to draw the distinction.<ref>{{cite news |title=From the Afterword |first=Richard |last=Dawkins |author-link=Richard Dawkins |work=[[The Herald (Glasgow)|The Herald]] |location=Glasgow |date= 20 November 2006 |url= http://www.heraldscotland.com/from-the-afterword-1.836155 |access-date=17 October 2013 |archive-date=10 May 2014 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140510235345/http://www.heraldscotland.com/from-the-afterword-1.836155 |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Objections to scientific validity ===
Amanda Caleb, Professor of Medical Humanities at [[Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine]], says "Eugenic laws and policies are now understood as part of a specious devotion to a pseudoscience that actively dehumanizes to support political agendas and not true science or medicine."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Caleb |first=Amanda |date=27 January 2023 |access-date=18 February 2023 |title=The Holocaust: Remembrance, Respect, and Resilience |chapter=Eugenics and (Pseudo-) Science |chapter-url= https://psu.pb.unizin.org/holocaust3rs/chapter/1-2-eugenics-and-pseudo-science/ |publisher=Pennsylvania State University}}</ref>

The first major challenge to conventional eugenics based on genetic inheritance was made in 1915 by [[Thomas Hunt Morgan]]. He demonstrated the event of [[Mutation|genetic mutation]] occurring outside of inheritance involving the discovery of the hatching of a [[Drosophila melanogaster|fruit fly (''Drosophila melanogaster'')]] with white eyes from a family with red eyes,{{r|Blom 2008|pp=336–337}} demonstrating that major genetic changes occurred outside of inheritance.{{r|Blom 2008|pp=336–337}}{{Clarify|date=July 2024}} Morgan criticized the view that traits such as [[Heritability of IQ|intelligence]] or criminality were hereditary, because these traits were [[Subjectivity|subjective]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Social Origins of Eugenics |url=http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay5text.html |access-date=19 October 2017 |website=Eugenicsarchive.org}}</ref>{{efn|name=Morgan|Despite Morgan's public rejection of eugenics, much of his genetic research was adopted by proponents of eugenics.<ref>{{cite web |last=Carlson |first=Elof Axel |date=2002 |title=Scientific Origins of Eugenics |url=http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay2text.html |access-date=3 October 2013 |work=Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement |publisher=Dolan DNA Learning Center, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Leonard |first=Thomas C. (Tim) |date=Fall 2005 |title=Retrospectives: Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era |url=https://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/retrospectives.pdf |url-status=live |journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives |volume=19 |issue=4 |pages=207–224 |doi=10.1257/089533005775196642 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170820132528/https://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/retrospectives.pdf |archive-date=20 August 2017 |access-date=3 October 2013 |doi-access=free}}</ref>}}

[[Pleiotropy]] occurs when one [[gene]] influences multiple, seemingly unrelated [[phenotypic trait]]s, an example being [[phenylketonuria]], which is a human disease that affects multiple systems but is caused by one gene defect.<ref name="Stearns">{{cite journal |last=Stearns |first=F. W. |date=2010 |title=One Hundred Years of Pleiotropy: A Retrospective |journal=Genetics |volume=186 |issue=3 |pages=767–773 |doi=10.1534/genetics.110.122549 |pmc=2975297 |pmid=21062962}}</ref> Andrzej Pękalski, from the [[University of Wrocław|University of Wroclaw]], 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. Pękalski 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 were associated.<ref name="pekalski">{{cite journal |last=Jones |first=A. |date=2000 |title=Effect of eugenics on the evolution of populations |journal=European Physical Journal B |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=329–332 |bibcode=2000EPJB...17..329P |doi=10.1007/s100510070148 |s2cid=122344067}}</ref>

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 conditions 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, so eliminating these genes is undesirable in places where such diseases are common.<ref name="Withrock et al 2015">{{ cite journal |last=Withrock |first=Isabelle |title=Genetic diseases conferring resistance to infectious diseases |journal=Genes & Diseases |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=247–254 |date=2015 |pmc=6150079 |pmid=30258868 |doi=10.1016/j.gendis.2015.02.008}}</ref>

[[Edwin Black]], journalist, historian, and author of ''War Against the Weak'', argues that eugenics is often deemed a [[pseudoscience]] because what is defined as a genetic improvement of a desired trait is a cultural choice rather than a matter that can be determined through objective scientific inquiry.{{sfn|Black|2003|p=370}} This aspect of eugenics is often considered to be tainted with [[scientific racism]] and pseudoscience.{{sfn|Black|2003|p=370}}<ref>{{cite news |last=Worrall |first=Simon |date=24 July 2016 |title=The Gene: Science's Most Dangerous Idea |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/07/gene-history-siddhartha-mukherjee-science-eugenics/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170912102002/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/07/gene-history-siddhartha-mukherjee-science-eugenics/ |archive-date=12 September 2017 |access-date=12 September 2017 |work=National Geographic}}</ref>
[[File:Eugenics congress logo.png|thumb|class=skin-invert-image|Logo from the [[Second International Eugenics Conference]], 1921. The bottom text reads: "Like A Tree, Eugenics Draws Its Materials From Many Sources And Organizes Them Into An Harmonious Entity" (such sources, i.e. roots, purportedly including e.g. [[genetics]], [[physiology]], [[mental testing]], [[anthropology]], [[statistics]], [[medicine]], [[politics]] and [[sociology]]).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Currell |first1=Susan |title=Popular Eugenics: National Efficiency and American Mass Culture in The 1930s |last2=Cogdell |first2=Christina |date=2006 |publisher=[[Ohio University Press]] |isbn=9780821416914 |location=Athens, Ohio |page=203}}</ref>|alt=]]

==Contested ethical status==

===Contemporary ethical opposition===
{{See also|Larry Arnhart|Leon Kass|Preimplantation genetic diagnosis#Religious objections}}
In a book directly addressed at socialist eugenicist [[J. B. S. Haldane#Social and scientific views|J.B.S. Haldane]] and his once-influential ''[[Daedalus; or, Science and the Future|Daedalus]]'', [[Political views of Bertrand Russell#Eugenics|Betrand Russell]] had one serious objection of his own: eugenic policies might simply end up being used to reproduce existing power relations "rather than to make men happy."<ref>{{cite book|last=Russell|first=Bertrand|author-link=Political views of Bertrand Russell#Eugenics|title=Icarus, or, The future of science|date=1924|publisher= E.P. Dutton & Co.|location=New York|url=https://archive.org/download/icarusorfutureof00russ/icarusorfutureof00russ.pdf|pages=5}}</ref>

[[environmental ethics|Environmental ethicist]] [[Bill McKibben]] argued against [[germinal choice technology]] and other advanced biotechnological strategies for human enhancement. He writes that it would be morally wrong for humans to tamper with fundamental aspects of themselves (or their children) in an attempt to overcome universal human limitations, such as vulnerability to [[aging]], [[maximum life span]] and biological constraints on physical and cognitive ability. Attempts to "improve" themselves through such manipulation would remove limitations that provide a necessary context for the experience of meaningful human choice. He claims that human lives would no longer seem [[Meaning of life|meaningful]] in a world where such limitations could be overcome with technology. Even the goal of using germinal choice technology for clearly therapeutic purposes should be relinquished, he argues, since it would inevitably produce temptations to tamper with such things as cognitive capacities. He argues that it is possible for societies to benefit from renouncing particular technologies, using [[Ming dynasty|Ming China]], [[Tokugawa shogunate|Tokugawa Japan]] and the contemporary [[Amish]] as examples.<ref name="McKibben 2003">{{cite book |last=McKibben |first=Bill |author-link=Bill McKibben |title=Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age |publisher=Times Books |date=2003 |isbn=9780805070965 |oclc=237794777}}</ref>

===Contemporary ethical advocacy===
{{See also|Peter Sloterdijk#Reprogenetics dispute}}

[[Bioethics|Bioethicist]] Stephen Wilkinson has said that some aspects of modern genetics can be classified as eugenics, but that this classification does not inherently make modern genetics immoral.<ref>{{cite book |title=Eugenics and the Ethics of Selective Reproduction |first1=Stephen |last1=Wilkinson |first2=Eve |last2=Garrard |publisher=Keele University |date=2013 |url= http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/65644/1/Eugenics_and_the_ethics_of_selective_reproduction_Low_Res_1.pdf |access-date=18 September 2013 |isbn=9780957616004 |archive-date=6 November 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20151106183611/http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/65644/1/Eugenics_and_the_ethics_of_selective_reproduction_Low_Res_1.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>

Historian [[Nathaniel C. Comfort]] has claimed that the change from state-led reproductive-genetic decision-making to individual choice has moderated the worst abuses of eugenics by transferring the decision-making process from the state to patients and their families.<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Eugenics Impulse |journal=The Chronicle of Higher Education |first=Nathaniel |last=Comfort |author-link=Nathaniel C. Comfort| date=12 November 2012 |url= http://chronicle.com/article/The-Eugenic-Impulse/135612/ |access-date=9 September 2013 |archive-date=21 September 2013 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130921085344/http://chronicle.com/article/The-Eugenic-Impulse/135612/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Comfort |first=Nathaniel |author-link=Nathaniel C. Comfort| title=The Science of Human Perfection: How Genes Became the Heart of American Medicine |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=9780300169911 |date=25 September 2012}}</ref> 

In their book published in 2000, ''From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice'', bioethicists [[Allen Buchanan]], [[Dan Brock]], [[Norman Daniels]] and [[Daniel Wikler]] argued that liberal societies have an obligation to encourage as wide an adoption of eugenic enhancement technologies as possible (so long as such policies do not infringe on individuals' [[reproductive rights]] or exert undue pressures on prospective parents to use these technologies) in order to maximize [[public health]] and minimize the inequalities that may result from both natural genetic endowments and unequal access to genetic enhancements.<ref name="Buchanan 2000">{{cite book |last1=Buchanan |first1=Allen |last2=Brock |first2=Dan W. |last3=Daniels |first3=Norman |last4=Wikler |first4=Daniel |title=From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=2000 |isbn=9780521669771 |oclc=41211380}}</ref>

==In popular culture ==
{{see also|Speculative evolution|Evolution in fiction|Genetics in fiction}}
[[File:CLA building complex.JPG|thumb|In the movie, "''Gattaca''" also refers to the [[futuristic]] building complex that hosts the astronauts for an ongoing [[space colonization]] program.]]
The novel ''[[Brave New World]]'' by the English author [[Aldous Huxley]] (1931), is a [[Utopian and dystopian fiction|dystopian]] [[social science fiction]] novel which is set in a futuristic [[World government|World State]], whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based [[social hierarchy]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Brave New World |url=https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/b/brave-new-world/book-summary |website=CliffsNotes |access-date=2025-08-18}}</ref>

Various works by the author [[Robert A. Heinlein]] mention the [[Howard families|Howard Foundation]], a group which attempts to improve human longevity through [[selective breeding]].{{Citation needed|date=April 2025}}

Among [[Frank Herbert]]'s other works, the ''[[Dune (franchise)|Dune]]'' series, starting with [[Dune (novel)|the eponymous 1965 novel]], describes selective breeding by a powerful sisterhood, the ''[[Bene Gesserit]]'', to produce a supernormal male being, the ''Kwisatz Haderach''.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Koboldt |first1=Daniel |date=29 August 2017 |title=The Science of Sci-Fi: How Science Fiction Predicted the Future of Genetics |url=https://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/16677-genetics-science-fiction-future |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180719233445/https://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/16677-genetics-science-fiction-future |archive-date=19 July 2018 |access-date=19 July 2018 |website=Outer Places}}</ref>

The [[Star Trek]] franchise features a race of genetically engineered humans which is known as "Augments", the most notable of them being [[Khan Noonien Singh]]. These "supermen" were the cause of the [[Eugenics Wars]], a dark period in Earth's fictional history, before they were deposed and exiled.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Edwards |first1=Richard |title=Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Augments, Illyrians and the Eugenics Wars |url=https://www.space.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-augments-illyrians-and-the-eugenics-wars |website=Space.com |date=27 June 2023 |access-date=29 May 2024}}</ref>{{efn|name=Singh|Similarly, the author [[Edwin Black]] has described potential "eugenics wars" as the worst-case outcome of eugenics.{{Page needed|date=July 2024}} In his view, this scenario would mean the return of coercive state-sponsored [[genetic discrimination]] and [[Human rights violations#Human rights violations|human rights violations]] such as the [[compulsory sterilization]] of persons with genetic defects, the [[involuntary euthanasia|killing of the institutionalized]] and, specifically, the [[racial segregation|segregation]] and [[genocide]] of [[Social interpretations of race|races]] which are considered inferior.{{sfn|Black|2003}}<p>Law professors [[George Annas]] and [[Lori Andrews]] have similarly argued that the use of these technologies could lead to such human-[[posthuman]] [[caste]] warfare.<ref name="Darnovsky Crossroads">{{cite web |last=Darnovsky |first=Marcy |title=Health and human rights leaders call for an international ban on species-altering procedures |date=2001 |url= http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?id=2809 |access-date=21 February 2006 |archive-date=22 November 2010 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20101122090944/http://geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?id=2809 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Annas 2002">{{cite journal |author-link=George Annas |last1=Annas |first1=George |author2-link=Lori Andrews |last2=Andrews |first2=Lori |author3-link=Rosario Isasi |last3=Isasi |first3=Rosario |title=Protecting the endangered human: Toward an international treaty prohibiting cloning and inheritable alterations |journal=American Journal of Law & Medicine |volume=28 |date=2002 |issue=2–3 |pages=151–78 |doi=10.1017/S009885880001162X |pmid=12197461 |s2cid=233430956 |url= https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2233&context=faculty_scholarship |access-date=5 December 2021 |archive-date=16 March 2022 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220316111620/https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2233&context=faculty_scholarship |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}</ref></p>}} Spin-offs like ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' and ''[[Star Trek: Strange New Worlds]]'' present the Eugenics Wars as the main reason why genetic enhancement is illegal in the [[United Federation of Planets]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Orquiola |first=John |date=2020-07-26 |title=Star Trek: How TOS' Khan Helped Create DS9's Dr. Bashir |url=https://screenrant.com/star-trek-tos-khan-ds9-bashir-genetically-altered-human/ |access-date=2025-06-12 |website=ScreenRant |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Stowe |first=Dusty |date=2023-04-23 |title=Strange New Worlds' Illyrians Return: Revisiting Star Trek's Darkest Hidden History |url=https://screenrant.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-illyrians-explained/ |access-date=2025-06-12 |website=ScreenRant |language=en}}</ref>

Naoki Urasawa's manga [[Monster (manga)|Monster]] and its anime adaptation of the same name mention the "The Eugenics Experiment" conducted in the premises of 511 Kinderheim, a clandestine East German orphanage where the main antagonist [[Johan Liebert]] grew up into a psychopathic serial killer.

<section begin=Gattaca1997/>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. The title alludes to the letters [[guanine|G]], [[adenine|A]], [[thymine|T]] and [[cytosine|C]], the four [[nucleobase]]s of [[DNA]], and depicts the possible consequences of [[genetic discrimination]] in the present societal framework. Relegated to the role of a cleaner owing to his genetically projected death at age 32 due to a heart condition (being told: "The only way you'll see the inside of a spaceship is if you were cleaning it"), the protagonist observes enhanced astronauts as they are demonstrating their superhuman athleticism. Although it was not a box office success, it was critically acclaimed and influenced the debate over [[human genetic engineering]] in the public consciousness.<ref name="Jabr">{{Cite news |last1=Jabr |first1=Ferris |title=Are We Too Close to Making Gattaca a Reality? |newspaper=San Francisco Chronicle |date=2013 |url= http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Gattaca-a-Not-So-Perfect-Specimen-Hawke-only-2799938.php |access-date=30 April 2014 |archive-date=9 December 2019 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20191209172904/https://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Gattaca-a-Not-So-Perfect-Specimen-Hawke-only-2799938.php |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="popemcroberts">{{cite book |last1=Pope |first1=Marcia |last2=McRoberts |first2=Richard |title=Cambridge Wizard Student Guide Gattaca |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |date=2003 |isbn=0521536154}}</ref>{{efn|name=Silver|It has been cited by many [[bioethicist]]s and laypeople in support of their hesitancy about, or opposition to, eugenics and the [[genetic determinism|genetic determinist]] ideology that may frame it.<ref name="kirby">{{Cite journal |last1=Kirby |first1=D.A. |title=The New Eugenics in Cinema: Genetic Determinism and Gene Therapy in GATTACA |journal=Science Fiction Studies |volume=27 |date=2000 |pages=193–215 |doi=10.1525/sfs.27.2.0193 |url= http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/essays/gattaca.htm |access-date=8 January 2008 |author-link=David A. Kirby |archive-date=27 March 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120327205741/http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/essays/gattaca.htm |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}</ref><p>Accordingly, [[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".<ref name="silver">{{Cite journal |last=Silver |first=Lee M. |title=Genetics Goes to Hollywood |date=1997 |volume=17 |issue=3 |doi=10.1038/ng1197-260 |author-link=Lee M. Silver |journal=[[Nature Genetics]] |pages=260–261 |s2cid=29335234}}</ref></p>}} As to its accuracy, its production company, [[Sony Pictures]], consulted with a [[gene therapy]] researcher and prominent critic of eugenics known to have stated that "[w]e should not step over the line that delineates treatment from enhancement",<ref>[[William French Anderson|Anderson, W. French]] (1990). "Genetics and Human Malleability." ''The Hastings Center Report,'' 20(1), 21–24. {{doi|10.2307/3562969}} p.24</ref> [[William French Anderson|W. French Anderson]], to ensure that the portrayal of science was realistic. Disputing their success in this mission, Philim Yam of ''[[Scientific American]]'' called the film "science bashing" and ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'s'' Kevin Davies called it a "surprisingly pedestrian affair", while [[Molecular biology|molecular biologist]] [[Lee M. Silver|Lee Silver]] described its extreme [[genetic determinism|determinism]] as "a [[straw man]]".<ref>{{cite news |last=Zimmer |first=Carl |date=November 10, 2008 |title=Now: The Rest of the Genome |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/science/11gene.html?pagewanted=all |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref><ref name="Kirby20002">{{cite journal |last=Kirby |first=David A. |date=July 2000 |title=The New Eugenics in Cinema: Genetic Determinism and Gene Therapy in "GATTACA" |journal=Science Fiction Studies |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=193–215 |doi=10.1525/sfs.27.2.0193 |jstor=4240876}}</ref>

In his 2018 book ''[[Blueprint (Plomin book)|Blueprint]]'', the [[behavioral geneticist]] [[Robert Plomin]] writes that while ''Gattaca'' warned of the dangers of genetic information being used by a totalitarian state, genetic testing could also favor better [[meritocracy]] in democratic societies which already administer a variety of [[standardized test]]s to select people for education and employment. He suggests that [[polygenic scores]] might supplement testing in a manner that is essentially free of biases.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Plomin |first=Robert |author-link = Robert Plomin|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Vrt2DwAAQBAJ&q=blueprint%20robert%20plomin%20%22gattaca%22&pg=PA180 |title=Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are |date=13 November 2018 |publisher=[[MIT Press]] |isbn=9780262039161 |pages=180–181 |access-date=31 October 2020 |archive-date=15 May 2022 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220515022228/https://books.google.com/books?id=Vrt2DwAAQBAJ&q=blueprint+robert+plomin+%22gattaca%22&pg=PA180 |url-status=live}}</ref>

==See also==
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* [[Ableism]]
* [[Bioconservatism]]
* [[Culling]]
* [[Dor Yeshorim]]
* [[Dysgenics]] 
* [[Eugenic feminism]]
* [[Genetic engineering]]
* [[Genetic enhancement]]
* [[Hereditarianism]]
* [[Heritability of IQ]]
* [[Mendelian traits in humans]]
** [[Simple Mendelian genetics in humans]]
* [[Moral enhancement]]
* ''[[Project Prevention]]''
* [[Social Darwinism]]
* [[Transhumanism]]
* [[Wrongful life]]
* [[Eugenics in France]]
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}

==External links==
{{Commons}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Wikisource portal}}
* [https://networks.h-net.org/h-eugenics H-Eugenics, H-Net's network on the history of eugenics] from [[Michigan State University]]
* [https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/educational-resources/timelines/eugenics Eugenics: Its Origin and Development (1883–Present)] by the [[National Human Genome Research Institute]] (30 November 2021)
* [https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Eugenics-and-Scientific-Racism Eugenics and Scientific Racism Fact Sheet] by the [[National Human Genome Research Institute]] (3 November 2021)

{{Breed}}
{{Charles Darwin}}
{{Genetic engineering}}
{{Historical definitions of race}}
{{History of biology}}
{{Philosophy of biology}}
{{Population}}
{{Pseudoscience}}
{{Public health}}
{{Racism}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Eugenics| ]]
[[Category:Ableism]]
[[Category:Applied genetics]]
[[Category:Bioethics]]
[[Category:Nazism]]
[[Category:Pseudo-scholarship]]
[[Category:Pseudoscience]]
[[Category:Racism]]
[[Category:Technological utopianism]]
[[Category:White supremacy]]