Eugenics - Background Information Flashcards
What is eugenics?
The belief that controlling who gets to reproduce can improve the human race
How can people be “influenced” on who reproduces based on eugenics ideas?
No forcing anyone to do anything. Would encourage the “right kind” of people to have more babies and the “wrong kind” of people to have less babies
How can deciding who reproduces be controlled?
Government, legislation, sterilizations
Who was Sir Francis Galton? How did he contribute to the eugenics movement?
He is the father of modern eugenics who popularized the idea in the UK
How did Darwin’s theory of natural selection influence eugenics?
Eugenists applied natural selection to humans - social Darwinism
What is biological determinism?
Everything about who someone is is determined by their genes and nothing else
What are the 4 convictions of the eugenics movement?
- Social traits are determined by simple inheritance patterns and no environmental influences
- Civilization was thwarting natural selection by allowing unfit individuals to live and reproduce
- Unfit were reproducing at higher rates than the fit
- Unfit people were responsible for all of society’s problems
What are 6 ways eugenics was put into practice?
- Sexual sterilization
- Social pressure and propaganda
- Genocide of the unfit
- Institutionalization
- Immigration policies
- Marriage laws
What was the most widely used and effective method of implementing eugenics?
Institutionalization
What were the 10 groups that were targeted as being unfit by eugenists?
- Cognitive disabilities
- Physical disabilities
- Certain hereditary diseases
- The poor
- Promiscuous individuals
- Mental illness
- Addiction and alcoholism
- Criminals
- Certain ethnicities
- Certain diseases like tuberculosis and syphilis
