Running head: EUGENICS IN THE 20TH CENTURY 1

Eugenics in the 20th Century: The Science of the Oppressors

Damian Alfredo Rendon

Dawson College
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Eugenics in the 20th Century: The Science of the Oppressors

What role should science have on our civilization when it advances at a faster rate than

our ethical questioning of its potential ramifications? This is constantly a relevant issue to reflect

on, considering our current scientific developments on artificial intelligence and genetics,

because science has been used as an instrument of oppression and violence in the past and such

situations could recur today if we neglect the ethical challenges constantly posed by scientific

innovation. The historical case of oppression that this essay will treat happened during the first

half of the 20th century, wherein various political and scientific entities took part in the eugenics

movement. At its core, the eugenic theory aimed to improve humankind’s genetic composition.

However, this seemingly noble goal was not executed with scientific objectivity and conclusive

research, but rather with bias towards oppressed groups due to their social status, their ethnicity,

their sexual orientation, and their mental state. In the eugenics movement, this institutional

oppression came in the form of forced sterilization, anti-immigration laws, or even involuntary

“euthanasia” at its worst.

First of all, the eugenics movement was flawed from the beginning because it was

engendered by inconclusive pseudoscientific research. In fact, the theory lacked a comprehensive

critical understanding of our reality and tried to solve various complex challenges by

oversimplifying them; nevertheless, during the first half of the 20th century, the movement

managed to be considered as scientifically sound and logical because it was based on Darwinism.

Darwinism was a scientific theory wherein the concept of “survival of the fittest” explained that

plants and animals “[competed] in their struggle for survival” (Lewis, 2016, p. 154). Eugenicists

were inspired by such an idea and were convinced that this theory could be extended to human

societies; The Journal of Psychohistory explains the reasoning behind the creation of eugenics:
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Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton (1822-1911), published an article in the American

Journal of Sociology (1904) in which he defines the essence of eugenics as 'inferiority'

versus 'superiority' and that due to urbanisation people are less able to reproduce,

encouraging the ‘less fit' to breed faster than the 'more fit'. (Lewis, 2016, p. 156)

Although this ideology would stir controversy nowadays due to the concepts of inferiority and

superiority (these concepts are notably a clear example of the dichotomy between the oppressed

and the oppressors in the eugenics movement), the majority of scholars and politicians of the era,

notably in the United-States, agreed with the idea and actively encouraged the movement. In

retrospect, now that we have more extensive knowledge on genetics, many issues with eugenics

can be stated to discredit its scientific accuracy. For instance, we now know that eugenics can

result in a loss of genetic diversity: a study found that “eugenics reduces greatly genetic diversity

of the population, increases the percentage of homozygotes and therefore leads to a population

badly prepared to cope with the next changes of the environment” (Pękalski, 2000). Another

matter that the eugenics movement does not take into account pleiotropy: “a phenomenon in

which one (usually mutant) allele influences two or more apparently unrelated phenotypic traits”

(Malagon & Larsen, 2015). In other words, this genetic phenomenon means that a single gene

can affect two or more characters in a living being. This poses a problem to the measures taken

by Eugenicists, because a genetic characteristic that is considered “bad” could in reality also

have underlying positive effects that are crucial for the natural evolution of humankind;

therefore, applying eugenics to eliminate a pleiotropic gene could have catastrophic effects on

humankind and its germline. Although eugenics is now proven as a pseudoscience, many

oppressors took advantage of this movement to dehumanize the oppressed and justify their
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spiteful actions to the common masses since it was developed in a context where many respected

institutions supported that idea.

Furthermore, the eugenics movement mainly focused on promoting a world of oppression

by subjecting the oppressed to institutional violence. Indeed, the Eugenicists’ actions showed an

evident interest towards promoting the reproduction of majoritarian groups and eradicating any

other community who could be seen as a threat to the majoritarian group. Thus, the already-

existing sociological problems of inequality and oppression that those marginalized groups

experienced were exacerbated by eugenics because the oppressors now possessed a supposed

scientific proof that such individuals were genetically “undesirable”. Now that we know the real

motive for applying eugenic policies, it is important to be aware of the atrocities committed by

the ruling class and reflect on their concrete effect on the oppressed. The following examples

will be limited to the historical context of Canada, the United-States, and Germany; nevertheless,

eugenics was spread around the globe and most “civilized” countries took part in the movement.

Firstly, Canada did participate in eugenics: the country undertook a methodical sterilization of

Indigenous women during the 1970s. In fact, “the federal government’s Indian Health Services

records [suggest] that the Canadian government engaged in coercive sterilizations amounting to a

genocide in the late 1960s and 1970s in the Northwest Territories (NWT)” (Dyck & Lux, 2016,

p. 485). Furthermore, in the United-States, “eighteen states passed laws based on Laughlin’s [an

American Eugenicist] model, resulting in a total of 64,000 forced sterilizations in thirty-one

states” (Ummel, 2016, p. 391). Besides sterilizations, the United-States took a bigger role than

Canada in enforcing eugenic ideologies and policies. In fact, Harvard University had a crucial

role in consolidating eugenic ideas: Harvard University “was more central to American eugenics

than any other university” (Cohen, 2016). Why exactly was Harvard, along with other
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universities, so crucial to the development of eugenics? Because, at the inception of eugenics,

pedagogical environments such as Harvard University were globally respected and they defined

what knowledge would be worthy of being transmitted. Thus, the xenophobic Immigration

Restriction League was essentially born out of Harvard’s pedagogical eugenic ideas. In fact, the

Immigration Restriction League persuaded politicians to establish the Immigration Act of 1924:

After hearing extensive expert testimony about the biological threat posed by immigrants,

Congress imposed harsh national quotas designed to keep Jews, Italians, and Asians out.

As the percentage of immigrants from northern Europe increased significantly, Jewish

immigration fell from 190,000 in 1920 to 7,000 in 1926. (Cohen, 2016)

When eugenics was solidified as a “legitimate” movement in the United-States, other countries

were inspired by their ideas; indeed, the American Journal of Public Health confirms that “US

eugenics programs served as models for the early eugenic initiatives promulgated in Germany”

(Grodin, Miller, & Kelly, 2018, p. 54). This now brings us to the most horrible example of

eugenics as an oppressive method of violence: Nazi eugenics, also known as Rassenhygiene

(racial hygiene). The Third Reich murdered members of the population that were considered

“unfit” to ultimately achieve a “pure race”. As a matter of fact, the same article reveals that, “to

purify the Aryan German population, 200 000 to 300 000 people were murdered under the guise

of ‘mercy killing’” (Grodin, Miller, & Kelly, 2018, p.54). The intrinsic hatred that the movement

comprised, along with the atrocities that were committed under the pretense that such measures

were necessary to better mankind, makes eugenics one of the most ghastly episodes of scientific

“progress” in history.
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According to the oppressors, the eugenic movement of the 20th century was intended to

optimize our future civilization’s genetic composition. Unfortunately, we tardily realized that

this ideology was scientifically inaccurate due to the long-terms effects on our genetic diversity

and that hundreds of thousands of oppressed people were prejudiced by oppressive policies of

discrimination, sterilization, or even murder. This reality is still important to remember in our

epoch, because we need to be wary of how our current scientific progress could be used for

nefarious means of oppression. Notably, the invention of CRISPR-Cas9, which is a technology

that makes genetic engineering easier than ever, has ushered a plethora of ethical dilemmas:

should we use this technique for therapeutic and medical needs only? Should we bring back

extinct species? Should we have the possibility to genetically modify our offspring to create

perfect humans?
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References

Cohen, A. S. (2016, April 14). Harvard's Eugenics Era. Retrieved October 7, 2018, from

https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2016/03/harvards-eugenics-era

Dyck, E., & Lux, M. (2016). Population Control in the “Global North”?: Canadas Response to

Indigenous Reproductive Rights and Neo-Eugenics. Canadian Historical Review, 97(4),

481-512. doi:10.3138/chr.dyck

Grodin, M. A., Miller, E. L., & Kelly, J. I. (2018). The Nazi Physicians as Leaders in Eugenics

and “Euthanasia”: Lessons for Today. American Journal of Public Health, 108(1), 53-57.

doi:10.2105/ajph.2017.304120

Lewis, H. (2016). CHAPTER 2: SOCIAL DARWINISM: A Brief Outline of Social Darwinism

and Its Influence on 19th Century Britain and Elsewhere. Journal of

Psychohistory, 44(2). Retrieved October 7, 2018.

Malagon, N., & Larsen, E. (2015). Heredity and Self-Organization: Partners in the Generation

and Evolution of Phenotypes. International Review of Cell and Molecular Biology, 153-

181. doi:10.1016/bs.ircmb.2014.12.003

Pękalski, A. (2000). Effect of eugenics on the evolution of populations [Abstract]. The European

Physical Journal B, 17(2), 329-332. doi:10.1007/s100510070148

Ummel, D. (2016). Dream or Nightmare? The Impact of American Eugenics, Past and

Present. CrossCurrents, 66(3), 389-398. doi:10.1111/cros.12205