Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulic Qel-Droma  holy shit this is a form of legal eugenics! |
this is not something I wrote. My friend wrote a song about a kid, based eugenics. This is one of his blog entries about the songs inspiration:
So, I guess to start out I’m a bit of an information addict. I spend a lot of time going through science journals and magazines. Curiosity gets me every time.
One evening I came across an article on Charles Darwin and in the latter portion it mentioned eugenics. Something that I knew a little bit about but only as far as the Nazi genealogy and breeding experiments performed during WWII. I decided to dig a bit further online to see what I could learn. I was astounded by what I found. I had no idea to what extent eugenics spread through the rest of the world.
Francis Galton, second cousin to Charles Darwin, coined the term "Eugenics", meaning "the science which deals with all influences that improve inborn qualities", or more directly in Latin “well born.”
Eugene.... is a reference to the eugenics programs running from the mid 1800's through to the early 1970's in many civilized countries around the world including Canada and the United States. Essentially some felt that they could breed out the “less desirable” traits of humanity by picking and choosing who should be allowed to have children and then sterilizing the “unwanted” like the mentally ill, the chronically sick and the criminally inclined, imposing massive and terrible human rights violations upon millions. The U.S. had poster “families” of the undesirables called the Jukes representing inherited criminality, The Kalikaks for the mentally ill or those suffering from “retardation” (homosexuality also fell under mental illness), The Zeros, The Nams, The Happy Hickories, The family of Sam Sixty(his I.Q.), The Dolittles and so on. Most of which are pseudonyms. Only a few are based on real families.
Richard Dugdale published a family tree of the Jukes identifying 709 people descended over five generations from one woman, Ada Juke. Most could have at one point or another been found in asylums, brothels, prisons and poor houses at what was considered to be an enormous expense to the state, all said to be due to the fertility of one individual. This information was used as a basis for the argument that “degenerates” bred “degenerates.” Dugdales work amongst many others (many of whom are not doctors or accredited scientists) spurred statutes in 29 states permitting sterilization of the insane and feeble-minded, of which 12 also covered sterilization of criminals.
Over a 61 year period in the U.S. more than 64 000 sterilizations were performed approximately half on the basis of insanity, a sixth for feeblemindedness then criminality and even some for epilepsy. Eugenics reached its peak popularity by the mid 1930’s going into sharp decline after WWII. By the 1960’s sterilizations became far less common though vasectomy was still sometimes used as a condition of parole. The last publicly funded eugenics program was finally shutdown in 1972 in Sweden.
I created the fictional character Eugenix Juke as a reminder of the incredibly sad and horrible things man has done for the sake of “the betterment of the species.”
Genetic engineering and manipulation programs hold many similar qualities to the idealistic beginnings of eugenics. Mankind now has the ability to steer evolution at a level that before the mapping of the human genome was completely unheard of. It is now possible to detect many diseases and vaccinate against others even to change eye color and skin tone all within the first months of conception. I bring this up because of the knifes edge that this type of research sits.
Now to be clear I am in no way saying that the research and developments in the field of genetics should not be pursued. I just want pose the question at what point do we find ourselves outside the ethical application of such tools? The purpose behind “Eugene” is to promote conversation and awareness and hopefully perk up some of your own curiosity on these subjects.
Thanks for taking time to check this out.
-Tom
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