Rehabilitate eugenics?

Eugenics is the forbidden science of the future
V. Kravets, "An interesting newspaper. Oracle" No. 12-2010.

As you know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Francis Galton did not dream of breeding a "new race" when he presented a new science – eugenics to the public. Thanks to the efforts of the Nazis, the reputation of eugenics has been so tarnished that the word itself continues to be abusive. Meanwhile, this science could save people from disease, suffering, and even death itself...

Fundamentals of breeding

And how well it all started! At first, eugenics was received with a bang. The most outstanding people at the end of the XIX – beginning of the XX century willingly joined the banner of the new science, which proclaimed its task to improve the human race and prevent human suffering. "Due to birth defects, our civilized human breed is much weaker than that of animals of any other species – both wild and domesticated... If we spent a twentieth part of the forces and resources that are spent on improving the breed of horses and cattle on the improvement of the human race, what a universe of genius we could create!".

Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Winston Churchill, and Theodore Roosevelt readily agreed with these arguments of Francis Galton. And how not to agree? Everything should be fine in a person! Chekhov's thought lives, but does not win, encountering human imperfection. For each of us is imperfect. Look around, and you will surely notice how "unequally, unevenly" nature has gifted everyone: she gave excellent brains to someone, but saved on health, and made someone happy with an unusually attractive appearance, but in addition she gave a nasty character. That's why people are so admired, in which beauty, kindness, intelligence, and strength are combined at once. There are few of them. And I would like more...

Actually, the ancients began to think about improving the human breed. The same Plato (428-347 BC) in his famous "Politics" spoke about the need for state intervention in the regulation of marriages, explained exactly how to select spouses in order to produce physically strong children with outstanding moral principles. The famous "breeding center" in ancient times was Sparta. There, babies deprived of the physical qualities necessary for future warriors were simply thrown off a cliff without much thought. It is absolutely pointless to criticize or condemn the Spartans today: such were the mores of the society where boys were born with only one purpose – to replenish the army. By the way, this goal was achieved: and today everyone remembers that "in a healthy body – a healthy mind, one Spartan is worth two."..

The best of the best

Years flew by, centuries passed, and ordinary mortals were still tormented by their own imperfection and figured out how nice it would be to live surrounded by completely pleasant people, both externally and internally... And while they were suffering from manilovism, scientists thought about how to achieve this in practice.

So, the first person who took up this issue closely was the English geologist, anthropologist and psychologist Sir Francis Galton. Piquant detail of the biography: Sir Francis was a cousin of Charles Darwin and warmly supported his theory of evolution. Being an aristocrat, Galton did not go far for research materials, but began to study the pedigrees of the famous noble families of England. He tried to establish patterns of inheritance of talent, intelligence and strength. Then, at the end of the XIX – beginning of the XX century, it was generally fashionable to engage in all kinds of selection and selection. The fact that Gregor Mendel's laws on the inheritance of traits were rediscovered played a role. Galton did not stay away from the new-old trends either. He reasoned that since the selection of the best breeding animals is necessary to obtain a new breed, then the purposeful selection of married couples should bear fruit. Moreover, it seemed so simple: in order for healthy, beautiful and talented children to be born, it is necessary that the best of the best become their parents!

Actually, that's why the new science was called eugenics, which means "the birth of the best" in Greek. Here is what Galton himself said about this: "We define this word to denote a science that is by no means limited to the question of proper mating and marriage laws, but, mainly in relation to man, studies all the influences that improve the race, and seeks to strengthen these influences, as well as all the influences, worsen the race, and seeks to weaken them."

Notice! There is not a word about the need to breed "eugenically valuable populations". And, nevertheless, very soon there was a split in the eugenic society. And here's why. Any breeder knows that in order to breed a new, improved breed, about 95% of the "source material" should be culled – animals, birds, seeds, etc., etc. The main postulate of any selection is that the worst (weak) should not participate in reproduction. It was this pitfall that eugenics stumbled upon. It was then that the new science had a head-on collision with human ethics and morality.

Split

It seemed to the most zealous adherents of the new science that it was not enough to improve the hereditary qualities of a person using only genetic principles. It is this kind of eugenics that is called positive. But eugenics, which was later called negative, received support in society. Her followers decided that for the sake of preserving humanity as a whole, it is necessary to prevent the appearance of offspring in people with mental and physical disabilities, alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals.

Here, as an excuse, it is worth noting that in the second half of the XIX – first decades of the XX century, society, quite civilized and enlightened, was seized by the fear of degeneration. Newspapers regularly reported on the growing number of mentally ill people and other "corruption" of human nature – mental, physical and moral. The data was also confirmed by science. In this light, the ready-made solution for the improvement of humanity as a species, proposed by negative eugenics, seemed more than acceptable.

The Indian Method

The United States was the first to fight the degradation of humanity. In 1904, a sterilization law was passed and put into effect in the state of Indiana. "Defective" individuals in the person of alcoholics, mentally ill and recidivist criminals were forcibly sterilized. Actually, according to the name of the state, the method was named Indiana. I must say, it turned out to be very popular: one way or another, but for 26 years it has been tested in forty more states.

What was the Indian method? Nothing to do with medieval horrors.

By and large, it can even be called humane: a person simply had his seminal ducts cut. That is, he could have a sexual life, but lost the ability to reproduce. All socially unreliable elements had to undergo such a procedure without fail. The "evaders" were mercilessly punished: they were imprisoned for three years or fined $ 1,000. And negative eugenics itself was popularized by all available means: films were made, books and articles were written, special institutions were created...

With this approach, "unusable human material" was practically excluded from the reproduction process. One problem: as a rule, people who failed to take place socially were recognized as "unhealthy". There was a substitution of concepts: eugenics tried to heal the "ulcers of society" – poverty, alcoholism, vagrancy, crime and prostitution.

Crazy? Castrate!

The "eugenicist" question was approached differently in the Nordic countries. Since the late 1920s and 1930s, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Norway and Finland have had a targeted policy of sterilizing the mentally handicapped at the government level. As in the USA, they were sterilized, thereby depriving them of the possibility of transmitting harmful genes.

It is noteworthy that everywhere the law on sterilization was adopted "with a bang". No one – neither the public, nor scientists, nor doctors – saw anything reprehensible in it, and therefore did not oppose it.

So, in an environment of complete consensus, a mentally retarded child could easily be taken to a closed institution after appropriate testing. Do you want the child back? Please sterilize it. The same scheme was used with adults. They were simply informed – they say, you are sick and therefore it is decided that you are... And such patients, as a rule, had nowhere to go.

Of course, the issue of an individual's ill health was determined by a special commission. But who was on this commission? And when how! The fate of some "patients" was decided in the ministries of health, and the fate of others was decided by ordinary doctors, and sometimes even a pastor, together with representatives of guardianship and/or public education. So the "reliability" of the conclusions in most cases, presumably, was doubtful... But then, for some reason, no one thought about it. In Scandinavia, everyone was so carried away with the idea of improving society by castration that at the end of the 1930s they were ready to follow the path of the United States and begin sterilizing prostitutes, vagrants and all other "predisposed to antisocial behavior."..

A new breed of people

Everything changed dramatically in 1933, when the National Socialists came to power in Germany. In fact, it was the Nazis who hammered the last nail into the coffin of eugenics, beginning to justify with its help the racial policy of the Third Reich. All "non-Aryans" were recognized as "subhumans" and in order to improve the "breed" of people were subject to destruction...

As for the sterilization so beloved by everyone, in Germany it took on a truly unprecedented scale: only in 1942 more than a thousand people were sterilized – and this among the civilian population. The number of victims of eugenics in prisons and concentration camps numbered in the tens of thousands. Nazi doctors practiced new methods of sterilization on prisoners – radiation, chemical, mechanical, etc., etc. In fact, it was sophisticated torture. Then, at the Nuremberg trials, the Nazi "researchers" were recognized as executioners. And innocent eugenics was tabooed...

A geneticist is a friend of a person

Actually, no one has officially lifted this taboo. And, nevertheless, positive eugenics is now beginning to revive. For all studies related to human DNA are nothing but manifestations of eugenics. What, for example, does the decoding of the human genome give? You can find out what hereditary diseases a person is predisposed to, and warn them.

An example? Yes, please! In the USA, Ashkenazi Jews often had children with the amaurotic idiocy of Tay-Sachs. This is a hereditary metabolic disease in which the nervous system of the child is affected. As a result, the baby is doomed to an early death.

But the situation changed after Ashkenazi representatives began to be tested for this pathology. In the case when both spouses were carriers of the "sick" gene, fetal studies were conducted during pregnancy. And if it turned out that the embryo was suffering from Tay-Sachs disease, the pregnancy was simply terminated.

Rather, they gave parents a choice: to leave a sick child or not. The answer was most often: "No!" They refuse further gestation, as a rule, even in cases when a child is diagnosed with Down syndrome in the womb. In the same America, for example, more than 90% of fetuses are aborted, which received such a terrible verdict.

Meanwhile, a child suffering from Down syndrome can be born even to absolutely healthy parents. No one is immune from this. So, in theory, today, before conceiving a child, you should visit a geneticist. Especially if serious illnesses were observed in families on the paternal or maternal side. Medical and genetic counseling will make it clear: are you at risk, deciding to have a baby, or are your fears zero? Thus, you can insure yourself against many problems in the future.

In the USA, England, Sweden and Finland, expectant parents are already being offered to examine the karyotype – a set of chromosomes – in advance in order to identify the presence of possible chromosomal rearrangements and reduce the risk to zero... What is it but eugenics? What is it but human improvement? What is it but getting rid of suffering? What is it but humanism?

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20.12.2010