[Paleopsych] Eubios J. Asian & Intl. Bioethics: A call for a new definition of eugenics

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A call for a new definition of eugenics
http://www.biol.tsukuba.ac.jp/~macer/EJ93/ej93e.html
EJAIB 9(3) May 1999

    - Yanguang Wang, Ph.D.
    The Center for Applied Ethics,
    Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
    Email: Ameliaw at ihw.com.cn
    Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 9 (1999), 73-74.
      _________________________________________________________________

    As we will see, eugenics has always been a protean concept. Almost
    from the start of debate, eugenics has meant different things to
    different people.

    Eugenics comes from the Greek word eugenes meaning "good in birth". In
    1883 Francis Galton started using the word" eugenics" defining it as
    the "science of improving stock-not only by judicious mating, but
    whatever tends to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a
    better chance of prevailing over the less suitable than they otherwise
    would have had." Galton later experimented with a variety of different
    formulations such as "the study of agencies under social control which
    may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations", and
    "the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn
    qualities of a race: also with those that develop them to the utmost
    advantage" In all of these definitions, eugenics sounds rather
    innocuous. Most medical genetics would fall within its domain (1).

    Nearly five decades ago, both the United States and Germany, a number
    of leading figures moved the right direction of the first eugenics
    definition. They combined eugenic interests with a focus on the
    "unfit". In the heyday of eugenics, sterilization, infanticide,
    murder, euthanasia, or a variety of "final solutions" were tools for
    the prevention or elimination of the "unfit". The eugenics is same as
    Nazism and a major weapon for discrimination against minorities. From
    those eugenic programs, eugenics is generally regarded as a
    pseudoscience in modern world. Also most contemporary definition of
    eugenics is labeled a country's policies that are coercive.

    The contemporary geneticists warned the above eugenics movement's
    amount to cautions over the Nazism and racism, the untenable claims in
    behavioral genetics, in particular the heritability of personality
    traits, and both genetic essentialism and determinism. Some has warned
    of eugenics as the unintended result of individual choices (2).

    However the social policy intervention, along with genetics measures
    exists in many countries. These policies do not aim to coerce or
    mandatory who will be conceived and born, they emphasise the
    elimination of hereditary disease and handicaps through the prevention
    of marriages or conception between persons likely to transmit to their
    progeny such diseases and handicaps. This eugenics thinking can be
    justified if it is not a science based on Nazism, racism,
    discrimination to minorities and genetic determinism, it is a science
    which inherent in the core eugenic doctrine of improving the stock of
    humankind by application of the science of human heredity. Such aa
    social policy intervention is based on the individual' informed
    consent. This science can be called "negative eugenics."

    There are some eugenics practices that can be justified in the modern
    world. The Chinese Encyclopedia of Medicine defines eugenics as: "a
    science for the improvement of human heredity, prevention of birth
    defects and raising the quality of the population by research and
    applying genetics theories and approaches." In fact, most of such
    eugenic practices pay attention to the prevention the defect of the
    births (3).

    The intention of the Chinese government in the "law of the people's
    Republic of China on maternal and infant health care" is merely that
    people in China should be warned of the risks of inheriting heritable
    genetic diseases, and helped to avoid them among their children. The
    Minister of Public Health, Chen Minzhang has said: "the cost of
    looking after those with hereditary handicaps was enormous, imposing a
    heavy burden both on the state and on millions of families. There was
    therefore wide popular support for the rapid enactment of a eugenics
    law containing effective measures to reduce inferior-quality births."
    The Chinese government is concerned with the avoidance of avoidable
    genetic handicap among future generations. They have no discrimination
    on the present handicap population (4).

    The law is not be very different in its effect from the services
    provided elsewhere, where public health services offer genetic
    counseling, on occasion, abortion if there is proof that the outcome
    of a pregnancy will be a seriously handicapped child. The chief
    beneficiaries of the law, which is of necessity voluntary, are parents
    and their children. To the extent that seriously handicapped children
    may be an expense on public finances, there may also be some benefit
    to nation. The eugenics thinking in the law belongs to negative
    eugenics and may be justified ethically (5).

    In this sense, the Chinese word "Yousheng" is same as the Greek word
    eugenics meaning "good in birth", also it is belong to the Galton's
    eugenics' core doctrine of improving the stock of humankind by
    application of the science of human heredity. In this sense, the
    Chinese word "Yousheng" can be translated as eugenic. But it is
    different from the US and the German "eugenics" in history.

    Some (e.g. Bajema, 1976) have said a new eugenics consists of genetic
    counseling, the examination before the birth and the selective
    abortion (6).

    There are the laws that prohibit the marriage between close relatives
    in many countries. This can also be called eugenics. Even though
    involuntary is included in such eugenics, almost no person objects to
    it, for the birth quality is quite low.

    There are so many definitions of eugenics and relative practices. We
    can also find differences in the Encyclopedia of Bioethics. In the
    Encyclopedia of Bioethics, someone defined eugenics as a major
    scientific and pseudoscientific weapon for discrimination against
    minorities, a political, economic, and social policy that espouses the
    reproduction of the "fit" over the "unfit" and discourages the birth
    of the "unfit". But others defined eugenics differently following the
    history developing steps in the same important book (7).

    All definitions show a close relationship between eugenics and medical
    genetics. Following the development of genetics and the growing amount
    of genetics technology applied in the genetics practice, we must
    justify how to use them, and what are the ethical reasons to use them.
    It is important to have a contemporary definition of eugenics for the
    genetics in debate. We need only one definition or a new one of it. It
    can make the concept of thinking clear and justify the practice
    involved in contemporary genetic medicine. What is right depends not
    just on the facts but on what is meant by eugenics.

    In my opinion, we should recover the core doctrine of eugenics - good
    in birth and prevention the defect of the birth voluntarily. We can
    focus our attention on negative eugenics. Genetic medicine which has
    found some defective genes or some certain proof of what causes
    inherited diseases can make it possible. We can do something for
    positive eugenics, but the eugenics programs could limit its focus to
    those human characters on whose desirability there is universal or
    widespread agreement (8). Anyway, few of us are entirely free of the
    eugenic thinking" good in birth" in some aspect of our daily lives. A
    parent's decision to delay having a child until he or she was
    financially and emotionally ready to be a good provider and parent.
    Most modern governments hope that their people will be energetic,
    ingenious and enterprising. But the eugenic thinking and practice
    should balance the interest of all sides.

    How to define eugenics remains to be seen. But it is true that the
    eugenics cannot and should not be understood without an analysis of
    the moral, political, and social implications of advances in science
    and technology at particular times and in particular places and for
    particular individuals or groups of individuals within a society.

    References

    1. Diane B. Paul, Controlling Human Heredity-1865 to Present,
    Humanities Press, 1995, pp.3-9.
    2. Martin S. Pernick, The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of
    "Defective" Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures Since
    1915, Oxford University Press, 1996, pp.25-29.
    3. Encyclopedia of Chinese, v. Medicine, Press of Chinese
    Encyclopedia, 1994, pp.1727-1730.
    4. Tim Beardsley, Scientific American: Analysis: China Syndrom:
    03/97,p.3.
    5. Opinion, China' misconception of eugenics, Nature, 367, 6 January
    1994, p.1-3.
    6. Renying Yen, Applied Eugenics, Ren Min Medicine Press, 1986, p.4.
    7. Simon & Schuster Macmillan, Encyclopedia of Bioethics, Revised
    Edition, Volume 2, Macmillan Library Reference Press, 1995 p.978. Pp.
    955-959. Pp.970-972.
    8. Daniel Wikler, Eugenic Values, December 1997.

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