The History of Eugenics in Quebec and at McGill
By Hailey MacKinnon,
The McGill Tribune
| 02. 16. 2016
Untitled Document
McGill University is known for its cutting-edge scientific research. Many may not know, however, that during the early 20th century, McGill was a communication hub between eugenicists in Britain and Canada.
Eugenics has its roots in England—the term was first coined by British scholar Francis Galton in 1883. Galton took eugenics to be “the science of improving stock—not only by judicious mating, but whatever tends to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing over the less suitable than they otherwise would have.”
Eugenics aimed for an enhanced human population by encouraging the reproduction and marriage of those with high moral character and physical attributes, who were considered ‘fit’ (positive eugenics), and halting reproduction of the ‘unfit’ (negative eugenics). This evolved in a time of rapid increase in birth rates among the lower class, which incited fear in middle to upper classes that the human race was facing national degeneration.
Eugenics grew out of two realities: The desire to avoid the degradation of the human race in the wake of racialized fears...
Related Articles
By Jeffrey Gettleman and Maya Tekeli, The New York Times | 09.24.2025
For some Greenlanders, sorry isn’t enough.
The prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, made a special visit Wednesday to Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, to apologize in person for a traumatic chapter in Greenlandic history, when Danish doctors forced birth control on...
GeneWatch UK has prepared a briefing on the genetic modification of nature for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Congress in October 2025
The upcoming Congress claims to be “where the world comes together to set priorities and drive conservation and sustainable development action.” A major concern for those on the outside is that the Congress may advance plans to develop and encourage the use of synthetic biology in nature conservation. This could at first glance sound like...
By Marianne Lamers, NEMO Kennislink [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 09.23.2025
Een rijtje gespreide vulva’s gaapt de bezoeker aan. Zó ziet een bevalling eruit, en zó een baarmoeder met foetus. Een zwangerschap, maar dan zonder zwangere vrouw, gestript van zorgen, gêne en pijn. De zwangerschapsmodellen en oefenbekkens, te zien in de...
By Charmayne Allison, ABC News | 09.21.2025
It has been seven years since Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui made an announcement that shocked the world's scientists.
He had made the world's first gene-edited babies.
Through rewriting DNA in twin girls' embryos, the man who would later be dubbed...