Refresher course: What is eugenics?
Eugenics is the study of methods to improve the human race by controlling reproduction. The word was coined in 1883 by Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin. Galton believed that the proper evolution of the human race was thwarted by philanthropic outreach to the poor: Misguided charity encouraged the “unfit” to bear more children. This upset the mechanism of natural selection. Hence, the human race needed a kind of artificial selection, which he called “eugenics,” from Greek for good birth. Galton wanted eugenics to develop from a science to a policy and finally into a religion.
A few years ago Wesley J. Smith reviewed a book by Christine Rosen entitled Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement. Her book details how Galton’s desire to redefine eugenics as religion was not at all far-fetched. Smith writes:
Many lay popularizers of eugenics also appealed to religious traditions to promote their agenda. The most notable, it seems, was Albert Edward Wiggam, who traveled the lecture circuit promoting eugenics as “the final program for the complete Christianization of mankind.” Wiggam even rewrote the Ten Commandments, in which “The Duty of Eugenics” replaced “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” The “Duty of Scientific Research” supplanted the proscription against making graven images, while the “Duty of Preferential Reproduction” replaced “Thou shalt not kill.”
Wiggam lived in the 1920s, so his proposed update of the Ten Commandments cannot really be viewed as ancient history. As a matter of fact, things are happening today to suggest that Wiggam’s dreams are coming true.
Let’s consider Australian Researcher Culum Brown, who wants to see human beings include fish in “our moral circle.” According to one report, his opinion is that fish “build complex structures, are capable of using tools, and use the same methods for keeping track of quantities as humans do.” He suggests that since fish are second only to mice for scientific research projects, something must change.
Or, to paraphrase eugenicist Wiggam, man shalt not use fish in scientific research!
The practice of in vitro fertilization can, in some ways, also be defined as the practice of eugenics. IVF expert Lord Winston recently warned, “Breakthroughs in IVF could ‘threaten our humanity’ by prompting parents to demand designer babies.” He further claimed in a recent interview that “a ‘toxic’ climate had been created by the desperation of childless couples and the pace of scientific developments in the booming IVF industry.”
In plain English, Winston is referring to the desire of some potential parents to ensure that their baby is a made-to-order version of their specific desires. This practice exemplifies a current-day version of purification of the human race. This is the practice of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). It is applied to preborn babies after IVF creation of embryos and prior to the clinician implanting them in the mother. Imperfect babies are discarded. These babies are nothing more than human waste.
As the article about Winston asserts, “The hugely controversial theory of eugenics suggests that humans can be improved by preventing people with supposedly undesirable qualities or genetic defects from reproducing.”
The same could be said about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “Melinda Gates and her partners, including the British government and the world’s largest abortion providers, have launched a $4 billion campaign to push birth control onto poor women in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.”
And when did Gates announce this? At none other than the 100th anniversary of the London’s first International Eugenics Conference in 2012.
This is no coincidence! Eugenics is alive and well!
For further reading on this issue, see http://www.truthandcharityforum.org/physician-assisted-suicide-from-dominion-over-human-procreation-to-the-right-to-die/.