EUGENICS TODAY

EUGENICS TODAY
Following World War II, Western scientists and lead-
ers were faced with the atrocities of the Holocaust.
Coupled with anti-Semitism and various social preju-
dices, eugenics’ progressive goals had become ideo-
logical mechanisms of mass genocide. Many earlier
eugenics sympathizers abandoned the field; the word
eugenics was replaced with the word  genetics. The
1960s saw the rise in psychology of cognitive behavior-
ism, which emphasized social/environmental explana-
tions of behavior. However, basic premises of eugenics
lingered on in medicine, aided by new birth control
technologies, legalization of abortion, and develop-
ment of tests to determine the probability that a fetus
might develop a hereditary disorder.
The 1990s saw a resurgence of scientific interest
in the genetic approach to disease control with the
establishment of the National Human Genome
Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health
near Washington, D.C. The institute sought to map the
full sequence of genes on chromosomes to enable
researchers to establish which genes were implicated
in diseases that ran in families. These included known
autosomal-dominant (single gene) disorders such as
Huntington’s disease, as well as disorders for which
no single gene has been found, including alcoholism,
asthma, cancers, Parkinson’s disease, and schizophre-
nia. Gene therapy, an approach in which a functional
copy of a disease-producing gene is introduced into
an organism, is one as-yet-experimental outcome.
Currently, however, there is no way to repair disease-
producing genes. Instead, the field of genetic counsel-
ing has seen rapid growth in the early 21st century.
Genetic counselors assist prospective parents in deter-
mining their genetic risk by compiling family pedi-
grees and/or administering prenatal genetic testing.
Parents can then choose whether to procreate or adopt
or, in the case of an existing pregnancy, terminate
the fetus.
This approach poses an ethical challenge to con-
temporary medicine and is widely debated by bioethi-
cists, who often cite the historical and potential
misuses of eugenics in their arguments. Another his-
torical legacy of the earlier eugenics movement is the
educational testing industry, whose roots can be
traced to 20th-century intelligence tests. Some con-
temporary psychologists argue that although the tests
have undergone revisions, they continue to serve the
social function of promoting the “deserving” through
allocation of greater social resources. Eugenics also
contributed to present-day cultural mistrust of the
field of medicine, particularly among minorities.
—Carlota Ocampo
See also Anti-Semitism;  Bell Curve, The;  Blaming the
Victim; Intelligence Tests; Racism and Discrimination;
Xenophobia
208———EugenicsFURTHER READING
Gould, S. J. (1981).  The mismeasure of man. New York:
Norton.
Guthrie, R. V. (2003). Even the rat was white: A historical view
of psychology. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
University of Virginia Health System Center for Biomedical
Ethics. (2004). Eugenics bibliography. Retrieved February
1, 2006, from http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/
bio-ethics/bibliographylombardo.cfm