A hazy picture of eugenism originated when Thomas Robert Malthus came out with an essay, Principle of Population, in which he pleaded that if parents did not control productivity, one day food would become too short to feed the hungry
IN the 1960s, when the Pope said “it is a sin to bring a hungry mouth into this world” he did not mean that only rich parents had the right to have children. But what he meant was that parents should bear children to an extent that they can ensure their upbringing, in contrast to the theory of eugenics which claims that only rich children can become intelligent and therefore the poor and non-whites should not give birth.
During a sinister movement from 1900 to 1964, the eugenics launched a campaign of forcibly sterilizing non-whites and the poor, propagating that their children would be unfit for society. Thousands were sterilized, and today the authorities in the states of Oregon, North Carolina and South Carolina have begun offering apologies to the families of those thousands of victims who visited hospitals for some medical treatment and were sterilized without their consent from the beginning of the 20th century till 1964. Their only fault was that they were either poor or non-white.
The practice was carried out under the pretext of the deceitful phenomenon of eugenism that whirled round a perception that only those human species with high degree of genetic inheritance have the right to rule, while the remaining races were inferior and destined to be ruled over.
This philosophy was promoted under one assumption: intelligence emerged out of affluence and race. The supporting argument to this was that inherent traits in the rich made individuals intelligent, graceful and knowledge-generating species. And above all, the theory of egalitarianism was wrong.
A hazy picture of eugenism originated in 1789, when Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) came out with an essay, Principle of Population. He pleaded that if parents did not control productivity, one day food would become too short to feed the hungry. He predicted that the United Kingdom could hardly afford a population of 20 million souls, while today 150 years after his death, Britain supports triple the figure! Despite his unrealistic theory, Darwin (1809-82) got influenced. Karl Marx (1818-83) opposed to the hypothesis and considered it a miscalculation. However, Galton, a cousin of Darwin, came out openly in 1883 with the theory and claimed that the birth of feeble-minded people must be stopped and instead, European people, who were more intelligent, should be encouraged and the production of non-whites be confined, even through artificial means.
His racist proposition was praised in certain classes and soon departments were established in various universities to propagate the unnatural theory. In 1904, the London University was the first to establish the chair of eugenics, followed by Germany in 1905, and Eugenic Record Office in America in 1910.
A kind of dispute arose but the new theory became so strong that its effects spawned throughout Europe and America and many of its proponents actually embarked upon a sophisticated form of racism and ethnic cleansing in the beginning of the 20th century.
Eugenism (Eugenic in Greek means good stock) bore grave effects on the human race. The consequences of the barbaric act of slavery, which had been going on since the 15th century, had changed the shape of the world. The modus operandi of eugenism was a unique one. Unlike Hitler, Americans began to sterilize poor people without their consent in the beginning of the last century. Thousands were sterilized and more were in queue when it was replaced by a saner method to control the bulge of population in all segments of society.
To legalize the stoppage to birth rate of the ‘unfit’, an international conference was convened in 1912 which discussed various aspects of the issue which were more political and economical than social. After approval, Dr Margaret Sanger was the first to open a birth-control clinic in the United States in 1916, saying that “birth control is thus entering the wedge for the eugenic educator. The unbalance between the birth rate of the ‘unfit’ and ‘fit’ is admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization. The most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.”
The unfortunate part of the story is that the eugenics came out with a biological and genetic interpretation to uphold their aims. Armed with selective statistics, they provided scientific basis that certain “disfavoured group was less capable of achievements, more prone to anti-social behaviour, or otherwise disproportionately responsible for a social problem.” One of their stray argument was that “inferiority was hereditary and if allowed, a high rate of birthrate among them would lead to a general decline in the quality of society.” Hence, on the one hand, they chose to curb infertility in certain disfavoured classes and at the same time they encouraged high fertility rate among the ‘chosen ones’.
The objectives of this movement were quite harrowing. Though it claimed that it was based on the theory of Darwinism, it contradicted in content and application. The supporters of the campaign argued that Anglo-Saxons were a superior race and were the leader of civilizations, therefore, they had the right to rule over the rest. Francis Galton, one of the founders of the sinister campaign, advocated that the better blood should be given better chances of “prevailing speedily over the less suitable.” He pleaded a theory of apartheid “in order to protect the ‘well born’ from contamination by the poor, the mentally ill and other races’.” According to him “the Negro lacks in his germ plasma excellence of some qualities which whites possess.” In 1930, a centre, California Home, was established where “feeble-minded” children were not paroled to their families till they were sterilized.
Another proponent, Paul Papenoe of Pasadena who built a centre (Human Betterment Foundation) told his companion, John Randolph Haynes, that sterilization was the only way by which the white race could establish and maintain supremacy. He strictly opposed “cross-breeding” and called it an evil act. He strongly advocated that by cross-breeding, the Aryans were degenerating their race.
The other instrument which the eugenics began to use was to oppose the migration of people from non-European countries. Even the Mexicans were not accepted and at least one banker, Charles Goethe, established an organization (Eugenics Society of Northern California) in 1929, aimed at promoting eugenism. The Mexicans were treated like Negroes. However, it became a political issue as it was not readily accepted by entrepreneurs, who were looking for cheap labour to boost the capitalist society.
In fact, the theory was largely based on achieving economic supremacy of the white race. But the irony faced by them was that from the 15th century, the colonial powers embarked upon systematic slavery to boost their economy elsewhere in the world. The practice continued for four centuries and it became such a flourishing business that even wars were fought over the markets for slaves. The opponents and traders of slavery reaped the fruits of their inhuman acts, but later they became conscious when they felt that the population of slaves was increasing and feared that at one stage they might share the economic benefits they had earned.
As awareness and movements for equality gained momentum, the social fabric of colonies also changed. Inter-race marriages took place and some of the white heads became conscious that the non-whites would share their intelligence. They were right in visualizing so. But the non-whites had become such integral part of society that it was difficult to reverse the process, hence, new ideas were floated to restrict their increase and advance.
The theory of eugenics was readily acceptable to many whites, including the so-called intelligentsia. Eugenic organizations were formed and some famous figures such as Nobel laureate William Munro, Robert Millikan, George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells were put on their membership list. Terms like ‘race hygiene’ and ‘human betterment’ were coined to match their intentions. Some even called it Social Darwinism.
Social scientists were commissioned to negate egalitarianism, suggesting that it was based on presumptions that could not be substantiated. Author Linda S. Gottredson wrote in Egalitarianism as a Fiction and Collective Fraud, “people are not born equal.” In other words, she argued that the wealthy are rich because of inherent traits that make them successful, or in other words the poor cannot advance because they are of inferior stock.
The eugenics became very active when, in 1931, sterilization became a major tool in various European countries. In 1935, sterilization laws were enacted in no less than 27 states of the US, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden and Germany. These laws gave a long hand to Hitler who used them as a pretext. Besides other places, hospitals and jails became easily accessible centres where this practice was used ruthlessly. The process continued from 1900 to 1964. Official records put the figure of these three states at 20,000, while it is generally believed that the affected people were beyond 100,000. The figures of Europe are not available except the names of eugenic associations and some prominent people associated with them.
The laws prompted various governments to undertake sterilization of the handicapped, legalizing euthanasia, applying birth-control methods, restricting immigration of the non-whites and sought ways to increase the number of “genetically well-endowed” individuals.
The end of World War II brought many changes, including a change in the attitude of social scientists. Population grew at a fast pace and it became essential to control the bulge. In 1948, United Nations took up the issue of population planning under the supervision of Richard Titmus, who was a staunch eugenist, and wanted to use the opportunity in a well-organized manner. Two years later, he came out with the warning of population increase that was going to pose a problem. Under the garb of controlling population growth, abortion was encouraged as a main source. Most of the tasks were performed by the Eugenic Society of London and its similar organizations in other countries. The population growth was a separate issue, but the pretext of controlling it gave eugenists such a chance that in the following 25 years more than 1.5 billion abortions were conducted mostly at the inciting of eugenics.
During these years there was only one man, Maj-Gen Frederick Osborne, who pleaded that let the people do it voluntarily and allow them to keep the children born in houses where they will get affectionate and responsible care. The project was participated by others including the United Nations Population Fund, World Bank and International Development Association.
The freedom movements in various parts of the world during the last part of the 20th century brought radical changes, including awareness about eugenism, which infuriated eugenics and many publications came out to condemn what was said to be defeating their basic objective.
The post-industrial revolution, speedy advancement of sciences and a social and political awareness across the globe during the 20th century brought a fundamental change in almost all walks of life. Technology advanced at such a tremendous speed that all taboos were falsified by reasoning, improvement to quality of life, a sense of belongingness and creation of a collective benefit. The scientific breakthroughs in the last few decades have brought an unprecedented change in human behaviour and new human bondage has come up, aimed at making the world a better place to live in. Eugenism had an agenda of racism, political profiteering and economic exploitation that no more holds, and as intellect grows such kind of illusions would vanish.
Today, thousands of eugenic societies exist all over the world, but the loss they inflicted to the human race will remain unpardonable.
