Eugenics Reflection on Past and Current Activities
The negative feelings and perceptions many have about eugenics have been founded on previous evidence where the practice was found to have been used to limit the growth of some races. The racial prejudices are shocking in their ferocity. The initial step towards evil is the ridicule or vilification of the victim. Many individuals have been objectified and described as waste or animals, making it thinkable or possible for the public to accept the discrimination or denial of rights to certain races, first through segregation and institutionalization and then through involuntary sterilization or even downright genocide as the case was in Nazi Germany. Even though the racism, bigotry, discrimination and pseudoscience, which was associated with eugenics is rightly deserved, these ills do not in themselves show reason why eugenics ought to be avoided in the future. Much negativity has been attributed to the eugenics movement because at the time when it was founded, it was put to negative use (Chapter Two: eugenics and its shadow, n.d).
At the time, different forms of bias such as class snobbery and racism were openly practiced even by intellectuals, in contrast to the modern polite society where the open display of such biases is shunned. However, this is not to say that such biases are limited to genetics. One of the main concerns of public health authorities back then is that whites could catch the diseases afflicting black people. A reflexive rejection of eugenic practices, owing to the fact that they had such evil proponents is neither ethical nor intellectually serious. The main issue is the moral aspect of eugenic ideas, which ought to be found out, described and evaluated (Chapter Two: eugenics and its shadow, n.d).
It has been argued...
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