State involvement in eugenics and forced sterilization programs

History Of State Involvement in the Delivery of Health Care

Eugenics

Eugenics is the belief and practice that involves the improvement of genetic quality of the human population.it is a science that deals with influences that are able to bring an improvement in inborn qualities of race also with those that develop them to their utmost advantage. There is a considerable difference between goodness in various qualities and in the entire character as a whole. The character largely depends on the proportion that exists between these quantities whose balance can be greatly influenced by education. This is a social philosophy that advocates for the improvement of the human genetic traits by promoting higher reproduction of people that posses' desired traits also termed as positive eugenics and reducing the reproduction of people that posse's undesired ort less desired traits which is negative eugenics. Therefore Eugenics is a social movement that is claiming to bring an improvement in genetic features of the human population through sterilization and selective breeding. This concept is based on the idea that it is possible to differentiate between superior and inferior elements within the society Eugenics as a modern concept was developed originally by Francis Galton.

Francis Galton coined this term as the logical extent of natural selection which was a theory that was initially proposed by Charles Darwin. Through observing the mating habits of animals Darwin drew a parallel line between the selective pairing of particular breeds of animals so as to improve a particular stock and the choice which existed before humanity; breed well or breed ill. This idea was very simple and Darwin took note that the most attractively colored or strongest males were automatically chosen by females to mate with. this was not different with humans whereby attractive women were sought as mates for men and in the same way fittest women went for fittest men in order to marry and have children hence perpetuating their genetic lineage. This concept has its roots in Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States taking place in the 1860s -1870s.The eugenic reviews by Darwin and Galton were received with mixed reactions in America. On one hand the concept of mandatory sterilization, population control and other form of state -- instituted eugenics were appealing to citizens. On the other hand there were some leaders who saw eugenics as a way of transmitting strong, healthy and superior future for their children.

Eugenics movement

The roots of eugenic movement are traced to social Darwinism, social purity, perfectionists and voluntary motherhood. During the first three decades of the 19th century a small but influential scientific / social movement known as eugenics movement emerged from the new science of human genetics that involved a complex set of beliefs that justified the necessity for class and racial hierarchy. This movement also advocated for limitations in political democracy. Eugenicists held the argument that in the United States there was an immediate danger of committing racial suicide due to the rapid reproduction of unfit people together with the precipitous decline in birthrates among those in better classes (Bergman,2000). They came up with a program of positive and negative eugenics as a solution .positive eugenics would encourage the reproduction of racially superior and better educated while a rigorous negative eugenics program would be in place to prevent any increase in racially unfit that included compulsory sterilization, segregation, immigration restriction and laws that would prohibit any interracial marriage .however the Eugenic movement of the 20th century can be seen as a political movement that was concerned with the social control of groups that were inferior through social, economic and racial elite.it has been the diversity of the eugenics movement the wide range of its followers it has been able to encompass that has been a difficult thing to explain. The eugenics movement is not monolithic; conservatives, sex radicals, progressives were all allied within a fundamentally messianic movement that would bring about salvation for the entire nation that was predicted upon scientific notions of ineradicable and innate inequalities that existed between cultural, racial and economic groups. The eugenics movement put forward a consistent and coherent social program in which there was eugenically sterilization, advocacy of anti-immigration and activism of anti-miscegenation all playing crucial roles in the primary goal of eugenicists of the advancement of social control of the small elite. The eugenics movement was therefore a creation of biological scientists, social scientists and other people that had the faith that science could provide a guide towards progress in humans (Bergman,2000).

Manifestations and influences of eugenics movement in modern day healthcare

Bet everyone has heard of a common statement that stupid people should never be allowed to breed.am sure at one point in time you have looked at a couple and said that they are exactly the type of people that ought to be having children since they are smart, loving and kind people.am sure there is also an instance where you have seen someone who had a child and thought that they are the last person in the would to ever have a child. Well all these are examples of eugenics statements that most of us have in mind. There are certain eugenic thoughts today which have an influence in modern day healthcare.

While many people would agree that there only certain types of people that are better placed to have children as compared to others almost no one is willing to take the steps towards ensuring that the people labeled good have kids and those labeled bad do not have kids. However bioethics and eugenics usually have a sordid past. We will look at some of the examples of how eugenics has come into play in modern day healthcare. The first example is sex discernment and PGD (Norrgard,2008).

Pre-implantation and genetic diagnosis usually provide a method through which there can be prenatal sex discernment even before implantation has taken place and might hence be termed as pre-implantation sex discernment or discrimination. Potential applications of this pre-implantation sex discernment might include; a complement to particular gene testing for monogenic disorders that can be useful for some genetic diseases whose presentation is linked to that particular sex. Secondly it can create the ability of preparation for any sex dependent aspects associated with parenting. Sex selection for social reasons is also another application. There are also other considerations such as allowing PGD of females' fetuses is a way of avoiding sex selective infantiocide, sex selective child abandonment, sex selective abortion or even sex selective adoption. Many people support eugenic arguments against making the decision of giving birth to a child that has a genetic disorder, physical disability or cognitive impairment (Norrgard,2008).

Many of those who advocate for the rights of the disabled are critical of PGD and prenatal screening. They normally point out that the definition of disease in this case can be termed as being subjective. Most of them normally advocate and support the rights of women to decide whether or not they would want to have a child at a given [particular time (agnostic abortion) but are critical on their basis of the decision on the traits of the particular fetus or embryo. Many people that have disabilities are aware that the technologies that make it possible to select good genes and normal traits can lead to the devaluation of disabled people's bodies and even their lives. This concern is fueled by past and ongoing discrimination against the people that have disabilities which often include brutal practices. A perfect example among the 20th century eugenics in the United States and even other European countries there was sponsoring of programs that saw the sterilization of tens of thousands of the disabled people. The Nazi genocide started when nurses and doctors began exterminating disabled people in German medical facilities whereas other perished in concentration camps (Corsetti, 2010).

Another application of eugenics is when we look at genetic disorders. There have been dysgenic trend for medical progress when it comes to the preservation of lives of many people that have genetic disorders that enables them to have children and transmit the adverse genes they have to their succeeding generations. There are several disorders that can be included in this category such as Marfan's syndrome, Huntington's disease, Cystic fibrosis, dwarfism, color blindness, sickle cell anemia, Hemophilia and so on. Individuals with these disorders can be sterilized until they are proved to be fit o become parents. This helps in bringing forth children who do not have any of these disorders from their parents (Corsetti, 2010).

Refrences