The New Eugenics
By Michael Dorsey,
World Watch
| 06. 30. 2002
On a not too distant horizon, advances in human biotechnology
may enable us to engineer the specific genetic makeup of our
children. Only a few months ago, the headlinemaking Italian
doctor Severino Antinori claimed to have implanted cloned embryos
in several women. We are already at the stage where we can selectively
terminate our offspring if certain genetic criteria are not
met. Soon it may be possible to discern, and ultimately select
for or against, individual traits in our children.
It is at this juncture that the promise of biotechnology runs
head-on into the history and the horrors of eugenics— the
quest for biological “improvement” through reproductive
control.
At the start of the 20th century, British scientist Francis
Galton coined the term eugenics, from the Greek eugenes, for
“well-born.” He later distinguished two major kinds
of eugenics, positive and negative. “Positive eugenics”
was preferential breeding of socalled “superior individuals”
in order to improve the genetic stock of the human race. “Negative
eugenics” meant discouraging or legally prohibiting reproduction
by individuals thought to have “inferior” genes and
was to be “achieved...
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