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TWO. Our Eugenics Past

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The New Eugenics
This chapter is in the book The New Eugenics
28t•w•oOur Eugenics PastShould a despised and discredited movement that gained mo-mentum a century ago and faltered after World War II play any role in the discussion of technologies invented long after historians declared the movement “a permanent stain on the national record”?1 While advocacy abounds urging burial and nonres-urrection of the shameful period in U.S. history known as the American eugenics movement (circa 1890s to 1940s), equally compelling argu-ments suggest that only through contemporary refl ection on the factors that enabled the movement’s fl ourishing will we be prepared to guard against history repeating itself.2 The notion of a 1900s-style eugenics re-vival is not presented as a concern in any literal sense; few worry that modern-day Americans would respond favorably to scientifi c assertions about improving the human condition by organizing a web of state-sponsored programs that assess, suppress, deprive, and encourage re-production according to one’s expressed and inherited characteristics. The goal of revisiting our eugenics past is to plumb this half-century period for the motivations, patterns, strategies, and language that drew in so many, so that we might recognize our current selves in the ghosts of our past.Searching the parameters of a movement that targeted, in the main, natural reproduction for lessons about modern methods of as-
© Yale University Press, New Haven

28t•w•oOur Eugenics PastShould a despised and discredited movement that gained mo-mentum a century ago and faltered after World War II play any role in the discussion of technologies invented long after historians declared the movement “a permanent stain on the national record”?1 While advocacy abounds urging burial and nonres-urrection of the shameful period in U.S. history known as the American eugenics movement (circa 1890s to 1940s), equally compelling argu-ments suggest that only through contemporary refl ection on the factors that enabled the movement’s fl ourishing will we be prepared to guard against history repeating itself.2 The notion of a 1900s-style eugenics re-vival is not presented as a concern in any literal sense; few worry that modern-day Americans would respond favorably to scientifi c assertions about improving the human condition by organizing a web of state-sponsored programs that assess, suppress, deprive, and encourage re-production according to one’s expressed and inherited characteristics. The goal of revisiting our eugenics past is to plumb this half-century period for the motivations, patterns, strategies, and language that drew in so many, so that we might recognize our current selves in the ghosts of our past.Searching the parameters of a movement that targeted, in the main, natural reproduction for lessons about modern methods of as-
© Yale University Press, New Haven

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Preface ix
  4. Acknowledgments xv
  5. ONE. The Reproductive Revolution 1
  6. TWO. Our Eugenics Past 28
  7. THREE. The High Cost of Assisted Reproduction 54
  8. FOUR. Race and Ethnicity as Barriers to ART Access 78
  9. FIVE. Social Infertility and the Quest for Parenthood 104
  10. SIX. Disability and Procreative Diminishment 132
  11. SEVEN. The Harms of Procreative Deprivation 152
  12. EIGHT. The New Eugenics 184
  13. Notes 207
  14. Index 259
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https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300229035-004

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Preface ix
  4. Acknowledgments xv
  5. ONE. The Reproductive Revolution 1
  6. TWO. Our Eugenics Past 28
  7. THREE. The High Cost of Assisted Reproduction 54
  8. FOUR. Race and Ethnicity as Barriers to ART Access 78
  9. FIVE. Social Infertility and the Quest for Parenthood 104
  10. SIX. Disability and Procreative Diminishment 132
  11. SEVEN. The Harms of Procreative Deprivation 152
  12. EIGHT. The New Eugenics 184
  13. Notes 207
  14. Index 259
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