McFreedom

InstaPundit has been talking some in the past few days about the difference between genetic engineering and eugenics. A correspondant wondered why, if they're both dedicated to improving the human race, why everyone agrees that eugenics is bad, but some people think genetic engineering is good.

I actually did some research on this stuff back in school. Eugenics actually has a much wider history that many people realize, which is why it is so universally reviled (even by people who don't know what it is).

First, however, let's define eugenics, from my New Riverside University Dictionary, Copyright 1984 Houghton Mifflin:

eugenics The study of hereditary improvement by genetic control

This is something anyone who has children has engaged in. All of us have excercised genetic control by choosing the mate we thought would have the best genes to contribute to our offspring. And, of course, when you look at it that way, it doesn't sound so bad. Genetic engineering can, in fact, just be seen as an extension of this - we've always excercised as much control over the genes of our offspring as we possibly can, this is just a new set of tools to let us give our children the best shot we can.

So, where's the problem with eugenics? The problem comes from its history. It's not well known today, but the idea of eugenics was very popular in the US one hundred years ago. There were a lot of misinterpretations of Darwin's theories then (as now), and a common one was the idea that the human (or more likely, "white, Aryan") race should be "improved" in some fashion. This grew out of groups trying to improve livestock by similar means. The US eugenics movement had two major tools at its disposal. The first was "positive" eugenics - finding people who were "fit" (by some arbitrary definition, not the biological one) and encouraging them to have children, via tax incentives and education. This, of course, shows its difference with Darwin's theories - in evolution, the "fit" are by definition the reproducing, so you can't "encourage" fit people to reproduce - you could only encourage people with attributes you like to become fit. "Negative" eugencs was focused on finding "undesirables" and preventing them from having children - usually by forced sterilization. "Undesriables" were the insane, or criminal, and usually black.

In the US, the eugenics movement was almost completely racist. Their definition of "fit" started with white. So, for example, the eugenics movement was very supportive of laws that outlawed interacial marriage (because it would "weaken" the white stock, and would eliminate white racial "purity"). While I think most knowledgable people now realize that these sorts of ideas existed, I don't believe most people know that thousands of people (mostly poor blacks) were forceably sterilized in prisons and institutions during this time in the United States - an interesting counter-example to the folks who believe that the 2nd amendment is outdated and that something that awful could "never happen here."

In 1927 (a mere 75 years ago), the Supreme Court finally outlawed forced sterilization. But that wasn't the end of eugenics. In fact, by some definitions, the Nazis' program of centralized murder of Jews and other "undesirables" was a form of eugenics (since dead people have no children). As well, the Nazis sterilized hundreds of thousands . After the war, Nazi attrocities made it difficult for any thinking person to countenance racism of any type, and "eugenics" was similarly discredited.

So, back to the original question: Eugenics is like genetic engineering only in that people tend to throw a lot of unrelated baggage on the term. In its simplest defition, I don't know anyone who is opposed to voluntary eugenics - the idea that, as I said earlier, people should be able to choose their mates based upon some decisions about who would make a good parent. The problem is that, early in this century, eugenics became associated with forced eugenics, which any rational person has to agree is imorral and repugnant. I think similar concerns could be raised about genetic engineering. Would forced genetic engineering be repugnant? Absolutely, and I don't know anyone in mainstream society (or outside of it, frankly) who is advocating such a ridiculous idea. But to oppose genetic engineering research because it could lead to forced genetic engineering is like opposing vasectomy research because vasectomies could be used for forced eugenics.