Nazism promoted eugenics and carried out genetic experiments.
The etymology of the term eugenics refers to "good birth" . It is the discipline that seeks to apply the biological laws of heredity to perfect the human species . Eugenics involves intervention in hereditary traits to help the birth of healthier and more intelligent people.
Defenders of eugenics claim that this practice alleviates suffering (by preventing people from being born with malformations or serious illnesses , for example) and allows society to save resources. Its detractors, on the other hand, consider that eugenics is unethical and believe that the manipulation of these biological laws is immoral.
Artificial selection , prenatal diagnosis, genetic engineering and birth control are mechanisms specific to eugenics. Throughout history , this practice has been used as a justification to practice discrimination, force the sterilization of social groups and even exterminate races or ethnicities considered inferior.
Eugenics and xenophobia
Eugenics enjoyed social prestige and was supported by personalities such as Winston Churchill and Alexander Graham Bell . However, due to its connection with the racial policies promoted by the Nazi regime in Germany , this discipline began to be condemned.
The Nazis included in their rhetoric the concept of "life unworthy of being lived" to promote eugenics in social groups that they considered "deviant" (physically and mentally disabled, homosexuals) and "conflictive" (Jews, gypsies, communists). The argument led German scientists to conduct genetic experiments on humans.
However, the Germans were not the only ones to support eugenics; in countries like Sweden and the United States, eugenics programs were also carried out with the objective of proposing a uniform people, with defined features and "pure blood." For this purpose, sterilization programs were carried out to ensure the reproduction of those individuals who had the expected physical and intellectual endowment. Many victims suffered these measures, most of them were alcoholics , epileptics, blind or deaf, or women considered promiscuous or criminals . They labeled them as mentally weak and assured that it was the best way to ensure the future of societies. They also proposed that sterilization was the best solution to poverty.
Winston Churchill was a leader who supported eugenics.
The Buck case
In the United States there was a case that moved the entire people. In 1924 Carrie Buck, an orphan living in a foster home, was raped by her adoptive parents' nephew; Shortly after she found out that she was pregnant. She was 17 years old and was a girl like any other; Her adoptive parents admitted her to a hospital for epileptics and mentally ill people to prevent her situation from affecting the family name.
Carrie was sentenced to sterilization ; but he did not give in easily. He appealed to the Supreme Court of Justice in which he confronted the then director of that hospital. It lost and in 1927 it was sterilized. One of the jury's arguments was "Three generations of idiots are enough" (they were trying to express that the Buck gene was deficient).
Eugenics, sexism, xenophobia and racism
This is just one of the thousands of stories that exist around eugenics. It is known that the main reason that led governments to opt for this type of programs was racism, sexism and xenophobia ; that is, the consideration of the superiority of one race over another. It is enough to turn to statistics to verify it.
In Scandinavia about 63,000 people were sterilized between 1934 and 1975; of which 90% were women who were considered "unfit" to reproduce. Similarly, in the United States, the people forcibly sterilized between 1907 and 1960 were mostly African-Americans , so it can be clearly read that the execution of these programs was linked to racist issues .