Eugenics

The Origins

Francis Galton coined the term “eugenics”, meaning “well-born” in Greek. Galton was the cousin to Charles Darwin and is referred to as the father of modern eugenics. For Galton, he viewed eugenics to be a process of improving the human race; a process as comparable to breeding animals and improving qualities of the “stock” (Galton, 1904). Galton believed that talent and intelligence were hereditary, thus could or could not be passed down through reproduction. Applying Darwin’s evolution theory of natural selection, Galton attempted to explain the progression of the human species through examining the “intellectual capacity” inherited in family lines (Galton, 1865).

What is Eugenics?

Eugenics as a benign ideology and social movement, aimed to promote social “purity” (McClaren, 1990). Eugenics can be separated into two categories of positive eugenics and negative eugenics. These categories do not necessarily mean “good” or “bad” but rather, respectively, encourage the reproduction of those with desirable traits/genetics or restrict those with undesirable traits/genetics from reproduction (McClaren, 1990). Some examples of negative eugenics policies would be segregation in mental hospitals, identification of feeble-minded individuals, and more coercive actions such as sterilization. Some examples of positive eugenics policies include sexual health/parenting education and medical intervention (McClaren, 1990). Furthermore, negative eugenics policies were specifically targeted at individuals who did not fit the ideal genetics in terms of class or race; the ideal genetics being those who were White and middle-class.

Feeble-mindedness

Feeble-mindedness was a term popularly used to describe an individual who was deemed to have “undesirable” or “unfit” qualities and because of their feeble-mindedness, needed to be “bred-out” of the population (Grekul et al., 2004). Feeble-minded qualities of interest to eugenicists were considered criminality, alcoholism, mental illness/retardation. In the 1900s, negative eugenics had become adopted by most eugenicists. Eugenicists believed that these qualities could be simply explained biologically—since these qualities were simply genetic, feeble-mindedness could not be continued to be passed-down if social restrictions on reproduction were put in place. Although many eugenicists were on the same line of thought as Galton, there were also those who did not advocate for the same coercive action and sought eugenics in less invasive policies.

In 1912, a key book written by Henry H. Goddard, was published. Goddard’s book, The Kallikak Family, studied the Kallikaks family called the which he attempts to apply Gregor Mendel’s genetics to humans in the case of feeble-mindedness. Whether real or falsified, it was a case study of two generational lines emanating from a young man of a good family who has children with two different women; one being characterized as feeble-minded and the other being of upright and good genetics. The book launched a movement of dissatisfaction with the feeble-minded—that people like Kallikaks were like a disease and spread morality and crime around society. Goddard’s examination of the Kallikaks inspired the belief that feeble-mindedness was a cost to society and he concludes the best solution to prevent such undesirable traits from existing, was preventing them from being born (Goddard, 1919).

Eugenics as a movement viewed people from an inherently ethnocentric lens. Eugenicists and eugenics advocates had the understanding that a person or a collective group could be superior/inferior to another simply due to their traits thus their genetics, was very misunderstood and largely without scientific basis. It should also be noted that these eugenicists were predominantly White, male and of the upper class in North American and European society; all intersections that increased their amount of privilege and further disadvantaging other minority groups within the eugenics movement.

Eugenics in Practice

As observed in North America, particularly in Alberta, eugenics entered the country’s legislation, feeble-minded groups were restricted from reproduction in their public education, institutionalization and undergo forced sterilization (Grekul et al., 2004).

Eugenics in Canada

The United States and Canada were the quickest to enact sterilization laws from 1920 to 1950. In 1915, Helen MacMurchy was appointed inspector of the feeble-minded in Ontario and she encouraged the medical profession as a form of interventionism to implement negative eugenics policies within Ontario (Grekul et al., 2004).

Timeline

1908

The League for the Care and Protection of Feebleminded Persons formed in Nova Scotia

1928

The Alberta Sterilization Act is passed.

1930

Eugenics Society of Canada formed in Ontario.

1933

Eugenics Board of British Columbia formed.

Alberta

An extreme case of the negative eugenics policies was observed in Canada, more specifically in the passing of the Alberta Sterilization Act of 1928. In the 1922 “Mental Hygiene Survey of the Province of Alberta”, the authors reported that there was a causation between mental abnormality and immorality (Burke & Castaneda, 2007). In light of these findings, Albertan groups like the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) and the United Farm Women of Alberta (UFWA) lobbied the government to establish legislature that would segregate the feeble-minded and restrict them from reproducing from potential sterilization (McCavitt, 2013). Soon after in 1925, the resolution was amended to include the prevention of the ‘mentally deficient’ from reproducing.

The Alberta Sterilization Act established the Eugenics board, made-up of two medical practitioners nominated by the University of Alberta and the College of Physicians and two lay-people appointed by the Lt. Governor in Council (McCavitt, 2013). The board was responsible for ruling whether inmates, who were proposed to be discharged from a mental hospital, were to be sterilized or not based on their mental deficiency as specified in Sections 4 and 5 of the Act (McCavitt, 2013).

Over the 44 years which the Act was enforced, approximately 2500 individuals, mostly poor, young women of ethnic minorities, were involuntarily sterilized (McCavitt, 2013). Of the recorded sterilizations, 64.7% were women, 49.8% from rural communities, 40.6% unemployed, 20.55% characterized as housewives, 25.7% Métis or Indian, and 70.6% were under the age of 20 (McCavitt, 2013).

Eugenics in Nazi Germany

Timeline

1905

Germany Society for Race Hygiene formed.

1925

Adolf Hitler’s Eugenical ideas published in Mein Kampf.

1933

The Nazi Party seizes power. The Law for the Prevention of the Genetically Diseased Offspring passed.

1935

Law amended for abortion for women who were hereditarily ill.

The Nazis seized power and passed the Law for the Prevention of the Genetically Diseased Offspring in 1933, which allowed for compulsory sterilization of the feeble-minded, those with schizophrenia, manic depression, severe physical deformity, hereditary epilepsy, Huntingdon’s chorea, hereditary blindness, and severe alcoholism (Proctor, 1988). Under this law, anyone who suffered from the aforementioned of alleged genetic disorders was subject to an eugenics board similar to that of Alberta and also genetic health courts.

Furthermore, an example of positive eugenics implemented in Nazi Germany was the Lebensborn (Fount of Life) Program. This program encouraged young German women to procreate with the SS elite of Nazi Germany (Grekul et al., 2004).

Similar to Canada, medical physicians had an influential role, partly due to the fact that Jewish physicians were driven out from their medical professions (Proctor, 1988). The socialist welfare state that the Nazis created, facilitated an environment under which medicine and social hygiene (i.e. cleansing of the German population) could take place. In addition, education reform and propaganda played major roles in teaching racial hygiene/training to the youth of Germany.

These policies were mostly applied to Aryan Germans while a more coercive and barbaric course of action referred to as the “Final Solution” was taken against Jews and other undesirable people groups in Germany (Grekul et al., 2004).

It is interesting to note that it was only after observing the eugenics efforts in North America and seizing power in 1933, when the Nazis were inspired to implement sterilization to rid their regime of undesirable groups (Proctor, 1988). Despite the shock of hearing eugenics efforts in Nazi Germany after the Nuremberg Trials which took place from 1945 to 1946, it is commonly unknown that Canada first implemented sterilization before the Nazis did.

Modern-day Eugenics?

Timeline

1940

Genetic counseling (first coined by Sheldon Reed)

1945-46

The Nuremberg Trials

1956

Watson & Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.

1960s-1970s

Reproductive responsibility and rights movement.

1968

Watson becomes Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He was determined to show the good core of eugenics.

1990-2003

The Human Genome Project

References

McLaren, A. (1990). Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada, 1885-1945. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Galton, Francis. (1865). Hereditary Talent and Character. Macmillan's Magazine, 1859-1907, 12(68), 157-166.

Galton, F. (1904). Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims. American Journal of Sociology, 10(1), 1-25.

Goddard, H. H. (1919). The Kallikak Family: A study in the heredity of feeble-mindedness. New York: Macmillan.

Grekul, J., Krahn, A. and Odynak, D. (2004), Sterilizing the “Feeble-minded”: Eugenics in Alberta, Canada, 1929–1972. Journal of Historical Sociology, 17: 358–384. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6443.2004.00237.x

McCavitt, C. M. (2013). Eugenics and human rights in Canada: The Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act of 1928. Peace and Conflict: Journal Of Peace Psychology, 19(4), 362-366. doi:10.1037/a0034604

Proctor, R. (1988). Racial hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.