2011-03-11

Specter of coercive eugenicism (Eugenics Wars argument)

Eugenics is the "applied science or the biosocial movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population," usually referring to human populations. Eugenics was widely popular in the early decades of the 20th century, but in late 20th century it has fallen into disfavor after having become associated with Nazi Germany. Both the public and some elements of the scientific community have associated eugenics with Nazi practices, such as enforced racial hygiene, human experimentation, and the extermination of "undesired" population groups. However, developments in genetic, genomic, and reproductive technologies at the end of the 20th century have raised many new questions and concerns about the meaning of eugenics and its ethical and moral status in the modern era, effectively creating a resurgence of interest in eugenics.

Some critics of Eugenics allege an ableist bias in the use of such concepts as "limitations", "enhancement" and "improvement". Some even see the old eugenics, social Darwinist and master race ideologies and programs of the past as warnings of what the promotion of eugenic enhancement technologies might unintentionally encourage. Some fear future "eugenics wars" as the worst-case scenario: the return of coercive state-sponsored genetic discrimination and human rights violations such as compulsory sterilization of persons with genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized and, specifically, segregation from, and genocide of, "races" perceived as inferior. Health law professor George Annas and technology law professor Lori Andrews are prominent advocates of the position that the use of these technologies could lead to such human-posthuman caste warfare.

For most of its history, eugenics has manifested itself as a movement to sterilize the "genetically unfit" and encourage the selective breeding of the genetically fit. Politically correct scientific organizations strongly condemn the coercion involved in such policies and reject the racist and classist assumptions on which they were based, along with the notions that eugenic improvements could be accomplished in a practically meaningful time frame through selective human breeding. Most modern scientists instead advocate a "new eugenics", a form of egalitarian liberal eugenics. In their 2000 book From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice, bioethicists Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels and Daniel Wikler have 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. Most scientists holding similar views nonetheless distance themselves from the term "eugenics" (preferring "germinal choice" or "reprogenetics") to avoid having their position confused with the discredited theories and practices of early-20th-century eugenic movements.

Can present humanity be improved? Not as long as the minds of the scientific community are controlled by EsGa'u. For man is limited by his thoughts. And if his mind is closed by "brain-washing" he is not free to explore all of the possibilities. Why would anyone want to improve on what is obsolete? Let present humanity and all of its politicaly correct institutions go down into the Abyss. Let the New Man take his rightful place as the Master of the Earth. What could possibly be achieved by genetic engineering in modern society? Rich people and their minions could live longer at the expense of the planet and its people. No! A thousand times no! Let Nature take its course. Quit subsidizing the weak and the defective and they will disappear of their own accord.

No comments:

Post a Comment