C H Güvercin & B Arda. Human Reproduction and Genetic Ethics. Volume 14, Issue 2, 2008.
Introduction
Eugenics is the name given to all prospective studies and purposes to improve, cure and create a race that would be exempt of various diseases and disabilities. The linguistic roots of eugenics comes from the Greek “eughenos”, combining “eu” (good) and “ghenos” (birth). It was used for people who were “born wealthy” or “born to a royal family”, but in fact it meant “born good”. Eugenics is the focus-based usage for certain races and nations with the aim of evolutionary selection and assortment. In another meaning, just like in the biological selection that occurs in the animal and plant kingdoms, it is the study of the implementations that would improve and benefit the human race by combining desired characteristics, genetics and hereditary conditions of—physically and mentally—fit male and female subjects with the aim of creating better species. The eugenic ideas appear as various policies within nations seeking to modernize themselves in the context of conservatism and an ideological strategy in 20th century social and cultural movements. These wide varieties of policies include population control, social hygiene, public health concerns and sexual education. Thus, it is clear that such approaches have a very common policy, which is to create the “perfect” race of human beings.
On the short history of the eugenic concept
Even though the word ‘eugenics’ is a new term, its content is actually very old. The ancient world’s philosopher Plato is possibly the first person to have studied this subject. He claimed that the most important ideas in creating an ideal government was a human replication system based on a eugenic program that could be checked regularly. Furthermore, he stated that the failure to check this eugenic birth cycle would result in a flawed government and a degenerated race. He finalized his views as ” … those who are the best should match up with the best and the worst should match up with the worst in reproduction…”.
Following Plato, the widely perceived view that most characteristics in a child come from the parents themselves appears in the expression “similar gives birth to similar”. Some people would even suggest that the only way to keep their race pure and safe was to marry with their siblings. This elitist idea was shown to be mistaken in later experiments by scientists. It was believed that the main hereditary item was “blood” itself, but it was observed that marriages between siblings “weakens the blood”.
In later periods, marrying to a relative was not accepted and was banned as monotheist religions appeared in history. The Christian church banned this type of marriage as a tradition. Furthermore, it was banned in Islam: As indicated in the Qur’an.
“It is banned and stated as a sin to you all to marry with your mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, daughters of your brothers, daughters of your sisters, mothers who fed you with their milk, your mothers in law, your step daughters that you had the first night with their mothers—unless you did not have the sexual encounter with these mothers of your step daughters—your daughters in law, and getting married to two sisters as wives at the same time.” (Nisa, 23)
The present meaning of the eugenic concept begins with the famous English mathematician Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911) who was the cousin of Charles Darwin; and was influenced by his cousin’s theory of evolution. Galton first defined eugenics as “the study of the social control mechanisms that can better or worsen the mental and physical states of the upcoming future generations” in his published book of “Inquiries into the Human Faculty and its Development”.
Galton was very influenced by Darwin’s doctrine that “the most appropriate species would live by natural selection, and this could better and fix characteristics of those species” since he believed that the human race would naturally improve itself. He believed that this development should be controlled and encouraged, because in the case of human beings, natural selection lets the “weak” and the “inappropriate” live for reasons such as remorse and forgiveness that undermines this development. According to Galton the main purpose of eugenics—which was dubbed as a new science by him, is “to help and give much better chances to those more appropriate races to dominate and destroy the weaker ones in a more appropriate manner”. In order to accomplish this idea, Galton suggested measures for certain great racial groups and to control the mechanisms of human reproduction. Ironically, as an interesting note, Galton was often affected by sicknesses in his long life and even though his wife and himself were thought to be “highly intellectual”, they were not able to bear a child.
Galton’s ideas were widely accepted by European and American scientists, who were already affected by those of Darwin, at the end of 19th century. In the beginning of the 20th century, eugenic ideology was deployed in more than 20 countries in Europe such as Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Canada with “eugenic” proposals developing into different social movements and forms under different social and cultural circumstances. The educated middle class conservative members of such societies joined those movements in the hope of scientifically addressing social degeneration. In addition, even some of the members of the liberal and socialist intellectual movements, who saw eugenics as a tool to replenish the populist public joined the efforts (for example: Havelock Ellis, George Bernard Shaw, Sydney Webb and wife Beatrice Webb etc.). Other well-known individuals, such as Sir Winston Churchill, Alexander Graham Bell, Bertrand Russell, Harold Laski, Marie S top es also found themselves in the eugenics movements. This movement was living in its “golden age” between the beginning of the 20th century and the end of World War II. It received utmost consideration from various cultural, social and political societies in most of the European countries. Asimov points to the fact that Galton’s ideas were pushed away from scientific rigor and were propelled into the racist agenda thereby becoming its flagship in the 1930s.
One of the first effects of the eugenic movement was the establishment of scientific research centers of heredity. The mostprolific and important ones being the Galton Natural Eugenics Laboratory (London 1905), Eugenics Registration Office (New York 1910), Kaiser Wilhelm Psychiatry Research Institute (1918) and the leading institute in preparation of racist Nazi propaganda and programs, Kaiser Wilhelm Anthropology, Human Genome and Eugenics Institute (Berlin 1927), which was directed by the anthropologist Eugene Fischer. The research studies in these centers gave rise to the wrong conclusions since they were based on biased and racist ideologies of separating classes and did not have effective methodologies. It can be observed that most eugenic scientists believed that every phenotypical property was tied to a single gene (monogenic idea). This approach had initiated a very strong genetic determination that underestimated ecological and cultural effects on biological organisms that are in their development phase. Furthermore, most of the scientists were eager to link genetic inheritance to the appearance of social phenomena like crime, prostitution, alcoholism, poverty and believed these traits had genetic roots. Accordingly, poor people were believed to be impoverished because of their genetic handicaps rather than their inability to educate themselves due to the economic restraints with which they were faced. Therefore, social problems and “absent-minded” people became scientific research subjects in the light of eugenics.
Although, according to the enlightenment idea that the perfection of the human race depended on social reforms and the education of the general public, a lot of eugenic scientists were thinking to better humanity by developing eugenics and its applications. Such applications included the selection of certain kinds of persons. In other words, the selection of “the best” would address the goal of the desired creation. This type of physical and mental overpowering of a race was clearly stated as a goal and the only way forward in the first International Eugenics Conference (London, 1912). It is believed that a biological second-class (average) race should be prevented and not be combined with the elitist type which belonged to a much higher and pure race (much of the time White, Arian, Scandinavian and Protestant). Various laws took effect and were justified in the name of “patriotism”, “scientific-modernity” and “racial purification” at the time such as preventing “lower” class people to marry and replicate, and the sterilization of the mentally ill, criminals and some drug abusers. Some also encouraged biologically “higher” class people to reproduce whilst preventing the “higher” races having certain kinds of relations with those who belonged to other racial categories.
Characteristic of this period were the laws of birth control and compulsory sterilizations, when the views and certain approaches to eugenics were widely accepted in the U.S.A. and many other European countries. In the U.S.A., a law was enacted as the “America, should be kept American” in 1924, which was placed against the immigrants. Elsewhere in Australia, and South Africa similar actions were taken against the “lower” racial categories of locals and tribes. These included compulsory sterilizations; electrocution or x-rays given to the genital areas of the subjects and various injections that can be labeled as extremely barbaric in the present time .
The Second International Eugenics Conference was held in New York in 1921 and the third was held in 1932 having as its main theme “Ten years of advancement in eugenics”, which was the last conference of this size and magnitude. It is stated that more than 70.000 people—mostly women—were subjected to compulsory sterilizations in 28 US states, which accepted such laws between 1907 and 1932. In order to prevent genetic diseases, Germany adopted this American model under its Eugenics Sterilization Law of 1933. Later on, this law was widened to cover all of Germany and more than 350.000 people were subjected to compulsory sterilization. In the beginning this law did not have any anti- Semitic characteristic, but soon became the first step towards eliminating unwanted and useless “lower” races such as Jews, Gypsies as well as the physically and mentally disabled. The most extremist actions of eugenics were taken by Nazi Germany in World War II and it resulted in the worst atrocity in the history of humankind. The wave of brutality caused by these actions prepared the end of the classical beliefs and understandings of the eugenic movements at the end of the Nuremberg Trials.
After the Second World War, the meaning of the term ‘eugenics’ was loaded with a lot of negativist concepts because of the actions that took place in Nazi Germany. This was the time when most people would not even use the term of eugenics, and most of the interest in scientific research was channeled into genetics. In 1969, biologist Robert Sinsheimer coined the term “new eugenics” which was meant to point to the new opportunities that were created by genetic engineering.
Since World War II, developments in the field of genetic engineering have been considerable. The most important one being the discovery of the chemical structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953. This discovery created a revolution in medical sciences by providing true knowledge of genetic inheritance occurrences . This period, which started with the discovery of DNA, stretched further out to cloning, genetic treatments and to the “Human Genome Project” (HUGO) with a fascinating speed. HUGO was initiated in the early 90’s by an international consortium for about ten years, with a goal of mapping out the approximately 3.3 billion nucleic bases of the human genome. Most of the DNA bases were observed and registered within this project and the results announced with the slogan “the secrets of life have been discovered”. The main purpose of HUGO was to find the predisposition in humans of those incurable diseases, to diagnose and study such illnesses and to prevent people being affected by them through the consideration of genetic interventions. One interesting finding was the similarity of human genes to each other (%99.8 same), even though physical appearances were different. This result undermined the old understandings of eugenics.
On the types of eugenics
Eugenics is generally classified into positive and negative eugenics. In short, supporting the desired genetic properties is labeled as positive and eliminating unwanted genetic properties is characterized as negative eugenics.
The purpose of negative eugenics is to gain good results by eliminating or drastically depleting undesired properties in a certain population. For example, it targets parents by sterilization in order to prevent alcoholism, absent-mindedness, criminal intents and stupidity . For instance, the applications towards pregnant women to discern and/or to prevent an unhealthy genetic inheritance in a child, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis or selective abortions are examples of negative eugenics. In this regard, it could be stated that HUGO may be the last example of this kind of study by aiming to map out human DNA, selecting and separating the unwanted genes from the desired ones.
On the other hand, positive eugenics supports the desired properties that are needed by a certain population, such as encouraging the creation of wider families from the individuals who are considered to be geniuses or have abilities of intellectual success and artistry. From this perspective it is possible to accept or disown particular groups of people.
Moreover, there is also the possibility of macro and micro eugenics relating to the size and purpose of such applications. As is made clear by their names, macro eugenics targets much wider populations and time frames; while micro eugenics addresses much smaller groups such as families and persons.
The eugenics concept and Turkey
The early beliefs relating to eugenics in Turkey can be found especially in the policies encouraging population increases in the 1930s. However, the roots of these beliefs stretch as far back as 1908, the period when the second monarchy was declared and the Ittihat and Terakki Party (Union and Progress Party) was in government. The fear of disintegration and disappearance of the Ottoman Empire caused by the wars and defeats at the beginning of the 20 century may have propelled the acceptance of this concept by the above-mentioned party. Ideas of “weak ones are prone to vanish” and “only the powerful ones can stand still” had been the mainstream beliefs stemming the bad results of politic mishaps and providing the nation with mental and physical health in this period. Nevertheless, there are accepted opinions that eugenic beliefs were much more dominant within the first years after the establishment of the Republic as will be determined in a lot of other countries at the same period. According to some authors, the main reasons for accepting eugenic movements were related to the need for self-confidence of the nation as well as to populate a more healthy society and to change the negative feelings arising from wars and sufferings.
The politicians, intellectuals and writers who considered eugenics accepted a two-way separation in Turkey at the time. According to this division, society consisted of those who were mentally and physically healthy—who needed to be encouraged to populate and those who were neither healthy nor fit, and who were not to be encouraged to have any children. All the eugenic projects were built upon this approach. Within these given criteria, all of the accepted government policies in this matter were related to encouraging population increases of those who were healthy, intelligent and strong. Hence, it could be labeled as some kind of positive eugenics in the 1930s. It should be emphasized that this was not seen as any extremist type of negative eugenics such as the isolation and extermination of the “weak and unhealthy”. On the contrary, those who were handicapped and mentally ill were protected by the public traditions, rather than being isolated and disowned. With the laws of “Village” (1924) and “Municipality” (1930) such protection measures and duties were given to the local governing bodies. (07/04/1924 date and 442 numbered “Village Law” article 13, 34th clause, article 14, 21st-22nd clauses) and (1930 dated 1580 numbered “Municipality Law” article 15, clause 34th) . Such policies which advocated population growth which had some eugenic elements in them lost their importance and existence with the emergence of anti-natalist approaches in the 1960s. In short, eugenic developments in 1930s’ Turkey consisted in macro eugenics with no applications of negative eugenics, unlike in other countries around the world, where such negative applications peaked.
Discussion and conclusion
The idea of eugenics foresees the protection and enhancement of “desired” properties in human beings and avoiding the properties that are “not desired”. All of these properties are in the genes and there is an expectation that populations consisting of dominant properties would eventually eliminate unwanted genes. However, the main problem is the identification of such properties. How could these properties be defined? Even if they could be defined can they be universal? Do they show a difference according to time, place and culture? Moreover, who will decide what is a “desired” and “undesired” property? Is it the population, the scientists or the government officials? Can there be an absolute line between these properties? If not how would the results be determined? All of these questions can be asked with different variations. For instance, what is normal/ abnormal? Where are the borders between the terms health/disease? Individual rights or a benefit for society? One of the old targets of negative eugenics in homosexuality was to treat this characteristic as a psychiatric illness until the 1960s. However, it was taken out of the classification of international psychiatric diseases when it was accepted that homosexuality was a personal characteristic of human beings. Traditional eugenic beliefs do not give answers to such evaluations. It should also be stated that developments in genetics and its related sciences have already proven scientifically that the traditional eugenic thought patterns were misguided.
It is not expected that any new applications of negative eugenics would be forthcoming at the present time because of the abuse and atrocities that were undertaken in recent history. However, the current eugenic philosophy has entered into the imagination of persons with interventions to the human genome. The applications that have already been undertaken can barely light a path to the historical discussions, because of its extremities.
Developments in genetics not only enabled researchers to identify, and possibly cure, hereditary illnesses, but also emerged as a danger with regards to modifying the human genome. Thus, the new eugenic philosophy believes in changing human genetics by proposing various interventions. However, the main problem is whether or not one has the right to undertake such interventions. Moreover, this type of improvement is at a disparity with medical ethics with its aim to address biological disorders and proves to be very difficult to justify.
In our present time, negative eugenics and the “elimination of the undesired” can be coincided with preventive medical applications, which have genetic survey tests and genetic counseling as their main actions. The thin line between protecting ourselves from diseases and “reformation/rehabilitation of our race” can become more ambiguous. In this case, how could the borderline of preventive medicine be drawn? If an abortion was undertaken after a genetic test and because the fetus was diagnosed with a genetic disorder, some suspicious questions could be raised as to the status of the mother and the fetus. Therefore, this type of intervention could also create stigmatization. If a person was born with a genetic disorder, the person would be at risk of being isolated. Thus, respect for privacy and concern with stigmatization seems to be extremely important in medicine.
In 1997 the Council of Europe opened for signature the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine which aims at protecting human rights in the field of medicine and biology. According to this text, human life was accepted as being more important than the benefits arising from science. It also indicated that genetic tests could only be undertaken for health reasons, and not to separate individuals according to their properties .
In today’s world, medical applications that try to heal, fix and raise the quality of life are replacing old approaches to negative eugenics, which had targeted such groups with genetic disorders. In the 1960s, Joshua Lederberg named such applications as “Euphenics”, which means “good appearance”. Euphenics consists of medical and genetic interventions designed to reduce the effects of defective genes in individual persons. The dietetic control of people who have type-1 diabetes—which has a genetic cause and similar controlling mechanisms on newborn babies with maternal phenylketonuria—can be given as such instances. Today, replacing faulty genes through genetic surgery can be seen as a new approach and gives rise to new horizons. In addition, it is believed that today’s social policies and their applications now have a very sound and reliable genetic basis. In particular, developments in genetics and its related sciences bear the footprints of eugenic movements and their applications, which emerged in search for a perfect human being, but caused tremendous amounts of pain to individuals. After all, eugenics can be given as a very didactic example of the manner in which it could be used against humanity through the twisting and distorting of science and medicine.