Eugenics Argumentative Essay

It is not difficult to understand the thinking behind eugenics. Everyone is different, in many different ways. It is believed that the human race could help direct its future by selectively breeding individuals. According to Webster’s Dictionary, the “science” that deals with the improvement of races and breeds, especially the human race, through the control of hereditary factors, is known as eugenics. It is a movement that is aimed at improving the genetic composition of the human race by wiping away all human beings deemed “unfit”, preserving only those that are the fittest members of society. The theory was that we needed more people with socially acceptable traits and fewer people with undesirable traits. In general, it is taught that …show more content…
One way was to passively encourage people with undesirable traits not to reproduce, however, this took a long time to reduce the undesirable population. The second option was to actively take steps to eliminate those with undesirable traits by whatever means they could. Historically, that has meant sterilization, abortion, laws banning people with undesirable traits from marrying or reproducing, and the killing of so-called defectives. Forced sterilization was the case with Elaine Riddick, whom at the age of 14 was unwillingly and unaware that her freedom of choice was being taken away. She was one of the many that did not give consent to being sterilized, however, because forced sterilization of millions of people was not practical, and would not remove the influence of such people from society, extermination was said to immediately stop reproduction of these people. Charles Darwin, and his evolutionary theory, gained a great acceptance in the public’s faith in science as a source for social remedies. His theory increased in popularity and scientists strived to look for ways to “improve” humanity. An English philosopher and prominent political theorist, Herbert Spencer, was a major influence on the eugenics movement. He is best known as the father of social Darwinism, a school of thought that applied to the evolutionist theory of “survival of the

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