IT has been seen that the future welfare of our nation might be greatly improved by attention now being paid to the breed of the coming generations. This could be done by making either superior stock leave more or inferior stock leave fewer descendants behind them. The methods of dealing with inferior stocks will first be considered.
A foolish argument against all attempts to lessen the number of children produced by persons marked by any serious natural inferiority may here be mentioned; because it is commonly met with. It has been said that men of genius are often unhealthy, and that, as the aim of eugenics is to get rid of all who are sickly, eugenic reform would prevent the appearance in the future of many such admirable persons. To this contention there are several answers. In the first place, the ill-health of remarkable men has been greatly exaggerated. In the second place, it would only be if some of the ancestors of the great men of the past had been very defective that eugenic reform would have prevented their appearance on earth; and it is not asserted that this was the case. Moreover, the suffering genius himself would not be interfered with, because eugenics does not propose to kill off all invalids. Lastly, if in the future the appearance of a weakly child could really be foretold, would it not also be possible to prophesy the appearance of a genius? And such an event no one would try to prevent. The argument fails all along the line.
Aktion T4 (German, pronounced [akˈtsi̯oːn teː fiːɐ]) was a postwar name for mass murder through involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The name T4 is an abbreviation of Tiergartenstraße 4, a street address of the Chancellery department set up in the spring of 1940, in the Berlin borough of Tiergarten, which recruited and paid personnel associated with T4. Certain German physicians were authorized to select patients "deemed incurably sick, after most critical medical examination" and then administer to them a "mercy death" (Gnadentod). In October 1939 Adolf Hitler signed a "euthanasia note" backdated to 1 September 1939 which authorized his physician Karl Brandt and Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler to implement the programme.
The killings took place from September 1939 until the end of the war in 1945; from 275,000 to 300,000 people were killed in psychiatric hospitals in Germany and Austria, occupied Poland and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (now the Czech Republic). The number of victims was originally recorded as 70,273 but this number has been increased by the discovery of victims listed in the archives of former East Germany.About half of those killed were taken from church-run asylums, often with the approval of the Protestant or Catholic authorities of the institutions.
-- Aktion T4, by Wikipedia
At about this time, Laughlin was also permitted to testify before the Special Committee on Immigration and Naturalization of the New York State Chamber of Commerce. In May of 1939, Laughlin's report, Immigration and Conquest, was published under the imprimatur of the New York State Chamber of Commerce and "Harry H. Laughlin, Carnegie Institution of Washington." The 267-page document, filled with raceological tenets, claimed that America would soon suffer "conquest by settlement and reproduction" through an infestation of defective immigrants. As a prime illustration, Laughlin offered "The Parallel Case of the House Rat," in which he traced rodent infestation from Europe to the rats' ability "to travel in sailing ships."
Laughlin then explained, in a section entitled "The Jew as an Immigrant Into the United States," that Jews were being afforded too large a quota altogether because they were being improperly considered by their nationality instead of as a distinct racial type. By Laughlin's calculations, no more than six thousand Jews per year ought to be able to enter the United States under the existing national quota system -- the system he helped organize a half-decade earlier -- but many more were coming in because they were classified as German or Russian or Polish instead of Jewish. He asked that Jews in the United States "assimilate" properly and prove their "loyalty to the American institutions" was "greater than their loyalty to Jews scattered through other nations." Immigration and Conquest's precepts were in many ways identical to Nazi principles. Laughlin and the ERO proudly sent a copy to Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, as well as to other leading Nazis, including Verschuer, Lenz, Ploetz and even Rudin at a special address care of a university in occupied Czechoslovakia.
-- War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, by Edwin Black
The aim of eugenics is, on the contrary, to promote the appearance of all manner of men likely to benefit their fellow creatures. How is this to be done? If we could trace our family histories far enough back into the past, we should all find that we are descended from one or more half-witted ancestors, or from some persons who certainly ought not to have become parents. If the reforms here advocated had been adopted in the past, these ancestors of ours would not have married, and, in a sense, no one of us would have come into existence. But the nation would have continued to exist all the same. Moreover, its citizens, being all without any defective ancestors, would, in consequence, have given birth to eminent men more often than at present. Here is a highly beneficial result to be expected from the prevention of parenthood amongst defective persons.
There are two ways of acting when the aim is the production of smaller families by persons of bad stock; and these are persuasion and compulsion. Persuasion is always to be preferred to compulsion, if the end desired can thus be obtained. Let us, therefore, begin by considering what can be done by persuasion.
To ask a man not to marry, or, if he does marry, to have no children, is to ask a great deal. But self-sacrifice is the very foundation of our ideas of what is noble in human conduct. If the world of the future would be benefited by a man refraining from parenthood, surely it must be right for him so to refrain. We should all do what we can to help to ascertain when such conduct would be right; and, when right, to encourage those called on to make such sacrifices to follow the dictates of their consciences. Those who think that little good could be done by such persuasion should, nevertheless, do all they can in this direction. It can, however, hardly be doubted that, if these ideas as to our duties were to become part of our everyday religious thought, the conduct of many persons would thus be affected.
The first question to be answered is. Who should voluntarily refrain from parenthood? In some cases there is no doubt. For example, no one should have a child who is suffering from one of those rare diseases or deformities, including some kinds of blindness and deafness, which cause great suffering when they appear, and which are apt to reappear in the same family for many generations. Many of these maladies could undoubtedly be stamped out in time if the persons so afflicted would make the noble sacrifice of refraining from parenthood. This is, however, a matter too technical here to be discussed at length. All that need be said is that all deformed or diseased persons should certainly consult a doctor before marriage. Indeed, all persons without exception had better do so.
Some forms of insanity are said to be hereditary, and others not to be so; though this is hardly a logical distinction. It is true that insanity is sometimes the direct result of a contagious disease. In such cases the descendants of the insane and diseased man will not be more likely to become insane in consequence of their ancestor's disease; and his insanity may, therefore, be said to be not hereditary. If a person becomes insane, it is more often, however, because he has a certain predisposition to this disease. This predisposition may be strong or weak. If it is very weak, insanity may be avoided, or what is called cured, by leading a careful life. Now such a predisposition, whether strong or weak, is likely to be passed on to succeeding generations. Even if a person inherits a strong predisposition to insanity, it is not certain that he will become insane. But if he does become insane, then his insanity will often be described as being hereditary. It should be for the doctor to decide in any case of insanity whether the predisposition was strong or not. And, if strong, the person so suffering certainly ought not to become a parent. Those who act thus will be happier in the end for so doing. If they have children, they will keep anxiously wondering whether their malady will reappear in those they love so much. And if it does reappear, they will have the agony of feeling that it is their own fault.
As long as a person is in an institution for the insane, no question as to parenthood can arise. As to those who have been insane, and who are described as cured, there is often a considerable chance that the malady will reappear in succeeding generations. But even if the possibility of the disease thus reappearing is left out of consideration, we may yet ask whether these unfortunate individuals ought to have any more children. If all the trouble in the household due to insanity, including the loss of the capacity to win wages and to look after the children, is held in view, surely it seems that no persons liable to a second attack should add to the size of their families. And as there are not many cases of insanity which do not make a second attack more probable, all who have once been thus afflicted would do well to make this sacrifice in regard to parenthood. In this way alone can the person who has recovered from insanity lessen the chances of the reappearance amongst his descendants of an ailment which causes the most intense suffering to all concerned.
Epilepsy is another bad disease which often runs in families. Consequently, no one who has had unmistakable epileptic fits should become a parent. The word "epilepsy," however, probably covers a wide range of diseases. All that can here be said for certain is that a doctor should be consulted before marriage when epilepsy is suspected.
The tendency to suffer from consumption seems also to run in families. In any case those afflicted with definite and pronounced consumption will be unlikely in the future to be able to do their duties as parents in an efficient manner. Consequently those at this stage of the disease should have no more children. This conduct, if widely adopted, would probably make future generations suffer less from this disease; for the hereditary predisposition to catch it might thus in a measure be weeded out.
The most difficult decisions in regard to the renunciation of parenthood arise when an individual, though apparently sound in mind and body, has many defective relatives. Here again all that can be said is, "Consult your doctor." A medical adviser ought to be able to take a more impartial and just view of the whole situation than the patient can possibly do himself. Unfortunately, at present very few doctors have given careful thought to such questions. If more people would ask advice as to whether or not they ought to have children, more doctors would study the problems of heredity so as to be able to give a sound opinion in regard to parenthood.
In giving such advice, the doctor ought to bear many things in mind. A point often forgotten is that good qualities must always be weighed in the balance against the bad. When the relatives of a diseased person are generally high-minded and healthy, this fact should tell in favour of parenthood being justifiable in his case. Even to think of making the necessary sacrifice is an indication of the possession of a high character. Definite defects should appear in several near relatives, and should, as far as can be judged, not be such as are directly due to external conditions, if a person sound in mind and body is to be asked to make this great sacrifice. If the doctor is in doubt, it may be right to recommend a marriage which should result in no more than one or two children.
When eugenics comes to be more studied, it will be possible to give advice with greater confidence than at present on some of the points considered in this chapter. Even with our present knowledge it is, however, unquestionable that great benefits might be conferred on future generations by the voluntary renunciation of parenthood by the diseased and by such as are very likely to be the carriers of the hidden seeds of disease.