Eugenics: Moral and Ethical Principles of Controlled Reproduction

"Humanitarian eugenics strives to leave a genuine legacy of love to future generations: good health, high intelligence and noble character" (Future Generations, 2006). How could something so altruistic - the desire to leave behind health, intelligence and character - have ties to something equally demonic? Eugenics seems to have good intentions: the desire to improve our species to its highest form. The trouble with this idea is that those who do not meet the standards must be eliminated - or at the very least, prevented from spreading their "tainted" genetic code on to the next generation. This attempt to manipulate human genetics straddles a fine line between ethical and unethical, moral and immoral.

Applying principles of morality and ethical codes to the practice of eugenics first requires definitions of those terms. Morality is something that is innate and intrinsic, we are born with morals and they develop naturally. Morals are our personal definitions of 'right' and 'wrong'. Ethics are often based off of morals, but ethics involve a greater sense of reasoning and explanation. While our morals come from within, ethical codes often come from external sources: society, parents, laws, religion, etc. Ethically, the 'science' of eugenics may have had good intentions (to strengthen future generations) but their goals failed to take into account the rights that their laws would violate.

One definition of eugenics is "the study of methods to improve the human race by controlling reproduction" (American Bioethics Advisory Commission, 1999). Another definition of eugenics is identifying "so-called 'defective' family trees and subjecting them to legislated segregation and sterilization programs" (Black, 2003). We can see the moral and ethical basis in the overall goal of improving the human race in the first definition, but the second definition focuses on the unethical actions necessary to carry out that goal.

The History of Eugenics and the Eugenic Movement