The spectre of eugenics by Adrian Porter
Today, the mention of the word ‘eugenics’ hardly attracts any interest. It is a word that seems to have vanished from our vocabulary, but eugenics is a reality of which most of us are largely unaware.
The word “eugenics” was coined in 1910 by an Englishman named Francis Galton, who termed it the ‘new religion’. He advocated “the betterment of mankind” as he wanted to improve the physical and mental make-up of human beings by increasing the proportion of those people with “superior genetic endowment”.
This ideology was enthusiastically greeted by the intelligentsia in Great Britain and the US. In Britain, these included figures such as H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Marie Stopes, John Maynard Keynes, J.B.S. Haldane, Bertrand Russell, Sidney Webb and Winston Churchill. Intentional killing, sterilisation and birth control were, in Wells’ view, a sound way of eliminating what he regarded as inferior peoples. He, along with his fellow eugenicists, believed that evolution, operating on its own, was not sufficiently effective.
Eugenics was not merely a utopian idea: it formed the basis of concrete policies; it led to the immigration-restriction statutes of the 1920s in the USA. But there were more direct and telling effects. Thirty-three American states passed laws that allowed the forced sterilisation of those deemed “unfit”. The Supreme Court’s upholding by eight votes to one of a Virginia law signalled their general acceptability and led to thousands of enforced sterilisations in the US.
Apart from G.K. Chesterton, no one spoke out against it. Almost singlehandedly, with his scathing wit and sense of humour, he succeeded in swaying public opinion in his country. Chesterton brushed off the derision and the insults he received. He was not fooled by labels and slogans and he fought for what he believed in, despite the odds. He challenged eugenics, strongly declaring that it ought “to be destroyed” as “a thing no more to be bargained about than poisoning”. He passionately believed in the right and duty of a free man to stand in a public place and say what he thought to be true.
Unfortunately, the ideology of eugenics was wholeheartedly embraced by Hitler and by 1939, within six years of his coming to power, a quarter of a million Germans were sterilised. This paved the way for euthanasia and the wholesale murder of the so-called ‘sub-humans’ and the ‘Final Solution’ of Jews in Europe.
The horrors of Hitler’s Germany revealed after WWII helped to discredit eugenics. As a result, the victorious Allies, from the Nuremberg Trials to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, sought to vindicate the inviolable dignity of individuals.
Yet the notorious founder of the Planned Parenthood Foundation (PPF), the American, Margaret Sanger, who also pioneered eugenics, was quick to distance herself from eugenics and re-invented herself as a promoter of women’s ‘rights’ to contraception and abortion.
Her organisation remains an upholder of modern population control and eugenics. It uses its considerable finances to promote and facilitate internationally, sterilisation, abortion, contraception and also infanticide (particularly in China). It is funded to the tune of billions of dollars by the US, the UK and other Western governments. The ‘Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’ is also a key contributor.
Sadly, eugenics is also making a powerful comeback with the advances in genetic medicine. John Harris, a bioethicist at Manchester University, told the BBC in 2003 that eugenics was a laudable aim as: “It is the attempt to create fine healthy children and that’s everyone’s ambition.” Test-tube baby pioneer and expert on pre-implantation diagnosis, Robert Edwards, says: “Soon it will be a sin for parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children.”
Once again, the inherent dignity of man is being sacrificed for the value of expediency. Expectant women are now submitting themselves to screening technologies designed to identify a “worthless life” and replace it with a “worthwhile life”.
The disgraceful emotional pressure applied to women to terminate a pregnancy is conveniently ignored as state policies in Europe’s aim to eliminate ‘defective’ babies. Coupled with the legislation of euthanasia to eliminate the terminally ill, it is all part of a pattern. It is eugenics all over again. The weak, the ill and the impaired are now at risk.
Chesterton saw that truth in eugenics long before the Nazis made it clear to the world. We should heed his warnings.
To be ‘well meaning’ is not enough. As the saying goes: ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’. A failure to remember and absorb the lessons of history carries dire consequences. When fundamental principles are forfeited, humanity is at risk.
Chesterton and Eugenics
Recently in the TV programme Insiders, screened on Euronews, Malta was portrayed in a negative light as abortion is not legalised. Sadly, Malta is the only EU country that stands tall over this most fundamental of issues, the right to life.
Unfortunately, Europe has undergone a profound revolution in its value systems that has resulted in the legislation of abortion, euthanasia and the adoption of reproductive technologies that disregard the sanctity of life from its early stages, resulting in treating the human embryo as a commodity.
Despite the advances in medical science that aim at eliminating suffering and disabilities, there have also been negative developments. Medical techniques and procedures, instead of being used to treat illness, disease and genetic defects, are increasingly being used to eliminate the unwanted, unfit and imperfect individuals.
These developments are not as progressive as we think. The term “eugenics” was coined about one hundred years ago, in the 19th century, by an Englishman named Francis Galton, influenced by his cousin Charles Darwin.
This new concept of eugenics, the breeding of the perfect being and the weeding out of the unfit was greeted with remarkable enthusiasm by the majority of the wealthy and intelligentsia in UK. This infectious ideology spread to US and set root in Germany with frightful consequences.
One of the leading proponents of eugenics was the American woman, Margaret Sanger, who founded the Planned Parenthood. She aggressively promoted birth control and the widespread use of contraceptives. She said she wanted to use birth control to remove the unfit from the gene pool. Under the term “unfit”, she meant not only the physically handicapped and the mentally retarded, but also, specifically, “Hebrews, Slavs, Catholics, and Negroes”.
Sanger was also a member of the American Eugenics Society, which successfully lobbied for sterilization laws that targeted society’s undesirables and unwanted. The US was to carry out campaigns that ended up sterilising thousands of individuals right up to the 1970s.
When man loses his moral bearing, wrong-headed ideas have evil consequences. Sadly, we seem to have learnt very little
Eugenic ideology also led to the Immigration Act of 1924, which created quotas for immigrants from southern and eastern Europe that remained in effect until 1965, justifying such racist policies on the grounds of preventing the ‘contamination of American stock’.
Almost alone, G. K Chesterton stood up against this despicable philosophy and with his proverbial scathing wit and rock-solid logic mocked and poured scorn on such ideas.
Meanwhile the likes of Sanger and other supporters of eugenics had nothing but praise for the progressive methods being adopted by Hitler in purifying German stock. With the fall of Nazi Germany, the world was shocked with horrors of the concentration camps and the Holocaust.
When man loses his moral bearing, wrong-headed ideas have evil consequences. Sadly, we seem to have learnt very little.
Unfortunately, eugenics is back with a vengeance. The original arguments in favour of eugenics have become the same arguments in favour of birth control, abortion, and euthanasia.
The Western world is adopting new technologies including genetic engineering, selective abortion, reproductive technologies that involve the donation of sperm from men with high IQs, ‘eugenically superior’ eggs, and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, to achieve the aims of quality-controlled children.
Women are being subjected to screening and pressure is being applied to force them to abort foetuses which are considered inferior. The recent development of ‘safe’ methods to diagnose children with Down’s syndrome is already having a powerful impact in UK. Countries now congratulate themselves that they do not have children with birth defects, even defects that are eminently treatable such as hare lip.
Instead of being used for its noble purpose, treating people and alleviating suffering, modern medicine is being used more and more to eliminate and sacrifice the patient.
One could say that Chesterton was prophetic. He could foresee where decisions based on narrow self interest in the absence of a moral framework would lead us and he used his formidable intellect to expose this in his book Eugenics and Other Evils that was published in 1922.
Almost a hundred years later, the issue has not gone away, nor have any of Chesterton’s arguments gone out of date.
We are fortunate that once again, two outstanding Chestertonians, Ian Boyd and Dermot Quinn will be holding a conference on Friday in Malta where they will address this vital issue of eugenics and the impact such ideas would have on our society.
They will also refresh our memory by presenting the exceptional ability of GKC to demolish the myth that good ideals can be achieved by shoddy means.
Malta still prides itself in regarding the life of persons as sacred and inviolable. Science can be an important tool for effective public policy, but if it is not tempered by an unfailing respect for individual rights, then it will lead to deplorable policies.
Klaus Vella Bardon is vice-chairman of the Life Network Foundation Malta.
Eugenics and Chesterton – Radio Podcast
3rd Chesterton Conference in Malta – 10th June 2016
Chesterton & Eugenics – The challenge of our time is the theme of the third Chesterton conference in Malta to be held on June 10 at 7 pm at the CAK Conference Hall, B’kara.
Two distinguised speakers from Seton Hall University (New Jersey, USA): Fr. Ian Boyd and Dr. Dermot Quinn will be giving two short talks entitled “Chesterton and the Culture of Life” and “Chesterton and the Challenge of Eugenics“. This will be followed by a Q&A session.
The conference is being organised in collaboration with the Life Network Foundation Malta and GK Chesterton Malta. It is open to the public and entrance is free.
For further information please call 7959 1875
Eugenics and Other Evils
Eugenics and Other Evils
by G.K. Chesterton
This amazingly prophetic book demonstrates how a poisonous philosophy of life would lead not only to Nazi Germany, but our own “Culture of Death.” Editor Michael Perry has added a great deal of contemporary articles and material by Chesterton’s opponents who were arguing in favour of eugenics and birth control. They are nicely indicted by their very own words.
In the second decade of the twentieth century, an idea became all too fashionable among those who feel that it is their right to set social trends. Wealthy families took it on as a pet cause, generously bankrolling its research. The New York Times praised it as a wonderful “new science.” Scientists, such as the brilliant plant biologist, Luther Burbank, praised it unashamedly. Educators as prominent as Charles Elliot, President of Harvard University, promoted it as a solution to social ills. America’s public schools did their part. In the 1920s, almost three-fourths of high school social science textbooks taught its principles. Not to be outdone, judges and physicians called for those principles to be enshrined into law. Congress agree, passing the 1924 immigration law to exclude from American shores the people of Eastern and Southern Europe that the idea branded as inferior. In 1927, the U. S. Supreme Court joined the chorus, ruling by a lopsided vote of 8 to 1 that the forced sterilization of men and women was constitutional.
That idea was eugenics and in the English-speaking world it had virtually no critics among the “chattering classes.” When he wrote this book, Chesterton stood virtually alone against the intellectual world of his day. Yet to his great credit, he showed no sign of being intimidated by the prestige of his foes. On the contrary, he thunders against eugenics, ranking it one of the great evils of modern society. And, in perhaps one of the most chillingly accurate prophecies of the century, he warns that the ideas that eugenics had unleashed were likely to bear bitter fruit in another nation. That nation was Germany, the “very land of scientific culture from which the ideal of a Superman had come.” In fact, the very group that Nazism tried to exterminate, Eastern European Jews, and the group it targeted for later extermination, the Slavs, were two of those whose biological unfitness eugenists sought so eagerly to confirm.
As the title suggests, eugenics is not the only evil that Chesterton blasts. Socialism gets some brilliantly worded broadsides and Chesterton, in complete fairness, does not spare capitalism. He also attacks the scientifically justified regimentation that others call the “health police.” The same rationalizations that justified eugenics, he notes, can also be used to deprive a working man of his beer or any man of his pipe. Although it was first published in 1922, there’s a startling relevance to what Chesterton had to say about mettlesome bureaucrats who deprive life of its little pleasures and freedoms. His tale about an unfortunate man fired because “his old cherry-briar” “might set the water-works on fire” is priceless.
That tale illustrates Chesterton’s brilliant use of humour, a knack his foes were quick to realize. In their review of his book, Birth Control News griped, “His tendency is reactionary, and as he succeeds in making most people laugh, his influence in the wrong direction is considerable. Eugenics Review was even blunter. “The only interest in this book,” they said, “is pathological. It is a revelation of the ineptitude to which ignorance and blind prejudice may reduce an intelligent man.”
History has been far kinder to Chesterton than to his critics. It’s now generally agreed that eugenics was born of a paranoia fed by evolution and by the “ignorance and blind prejudice” of social elites. But never forget that Chesterton was the first to say so, condemning what many of his peers praised.
The completely new edition of Chesterton’s classic includes almost fifty pages from the writings of Chesterton’s opponents to illustrate just how accurate his attacks on eugenists were. For researchers, it also includes a detailed 13-page index.
“The thing that really is trying to tyrannise through government is Science. The thing that really does use the secular arm is Science. And the creed that really is levying tithes and capturing schools, the creed that really is enforced by fine and imprisonment, the creed that really is proclaimed not in sermons but in statues, and spread not by pilgrims but by policeman–that creed is the great but disputed system of thought which began with Evolution and has ended in Eugenics.” – G.K. Chesterton
PL whip warns organ law could pave way for gamete donation
Labour whip Godfrey Farrugia warned that a proposed law to regulate organ donation could pave the way for sperm and ova donation.Continue reading
Euthanasia debate at University
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On Wednesday 24th February 2016, Life Network was invited to a debate by The Malta Health Students’ Association (MHSA) on the subject of euthanasia. Speakers from other political, religious and psychosocial fields where also invited to participate alongside you.
View photos of the event, courtesy of the MHSA.
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Malta…Stand Up for Life!
<Update-29-09-2015>
His Grace Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna visited our Freshers’ Week stand and showed his support by signing the petition to uphold the Embryo Protection Act.
Thank you Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna.
You can sign it here: http://citizengo.org/en/29847-maltastand-life
Please ask our MPs to Protect LIFE in the Maltese Constitution
Malta…Stand Up for Life!
As you must be aware, this summer – and now, especially, in the last weeks – we have seen a radical push to legalize anti-life measures that could lead to introduction of abortion in Malta. [1 & 4]
LIFE IS NOW UNDER THREAT IN MALTA!
We, the people of Malta – who cherish our children, born and unborn, must act! We must tell our politicians, our government, in no uncertain terms: Malta is proud to be pro-life! It is a mark of honour and decency to protect the most vulnerable in civil society.
With this in mind, Life Network Malta is now gearing up to rally the Maltese people in protection of Life – to show our politicians that the majority of voters reject the Government’s recent, wrong-headed approach to this most important issue.
In addition to future street demonstrations and pickets, Life Network Malta is right now collecting signatures for an urgent pro-life petition.
This petition adamantly DEMANDS that Parliament does TWO URGENT things:
FIRST, reject any attempt to decrease protection of the human embryo in the Embryo Protection Act, which would inevitably lead to of human life, and
SECOND, introduce pro-life protections into the Maltese Constitution. Please see our petition (the right half of this page) for a suggested pro-life amendment for our Constitution.
If you read and approve of our petition, which is addressed to our Government leaders as well as to the members of the opposition, and to all Maltese MPs, please sign now, providing your name, email address, and ID Card Number (to validate your signature) in the space provided. Don’t worry about the Zip/Postal Code! And, after signing, if you can share this petition with your like-minded friends and family, that would help to increase the total number of signatures. Thank you!
Below, please continue reading for a more lengthy discussion of the issues, including recent, documented evidence on the same.
Here is a summary of and comment on three recent events in the push to legalize abortion in Malta. For more information, please see the links at the bottom of the page.
1) At the end of July, a group called “Pro-choice Malta” came out for abortion to be legalized in Malta. [1]
2) Just a couple of weeks ago, on 6th September, the Government announced plans to introduce embryo freezing – a technique currently prohibited under the Embryo Protection Act. [2]
This is completely contrary to both parties’ electoral manifestos on life issues! [3] It is a political travesty, and it must not be allowed. This is not what we voted for!!!
Indeed, in its election manifesto, the incumbent party in government had only this to say about IVF and the Embryo Protection Act: “We will ensure that the competent authority regulating IVF receives all the necessary resources so that the recently passed law can be applied fully and be available free of charge to all couples who need this treatment.” (n.43) [3]
NB: Nothing was said and no clue was given about amending the law to allow practices such as donation of gametes, surrogacy or embryo freezing!!!
3) On 7th September, Alfred Sant, a Maltese MEP, said that abortion should be legalized to “save the life of the mother”. [4]
This last event needs a special comment because this argument is frequently used by pro-abortion forces who try to introduce abortion into different jurisdictions by muddying the waters on this issue.
In the case of an expectant mother, doctors and nurses in Malta work to save the life of two patients when there is a critical situation.
The truth is: no life-saving procedures are ever denied to expectant mothers in Malta. Unfortunately, sometimes, an unborn child may die as an indirect result of the treatment to the mother, if the mother so chooses, but this is diametrically-opposed to intentionally taking the life of the unborn child.
In fact, it is worth noting that Malta’s maternal mortality is one of the lowest in the world, far below even the US and Britain. [5] Women are simply not dying in maternity hospitals in Malta for lack of abortion, so there is absolutely no need to introduce any such measures.
Why is it important to reject embryo freezing and gamete donation?
Embryo freezing is a grave attack on the humanity of the unborn child because it facilitates the easy disposal of and destruction of innocent human life. [6] This is one reason why it is prohibited in our current legislation.
The Embryo Protection Act serves to protect the human embryo from destruction, manipulation and freezing, and, to ensure that every child will, as far as possible, know their biological mother and father. Gamete donation and surrogacy is not permitted under the Act. [7]
Why should Parliament introduce pro-life measures into the Maltese Constitution?
Our laws are a reflection of who we are as a society. As polls consistently show, 80%+ of the Maltese people to be pro-life. [8] Therefore, we now need to ensure that our laws reflect our culture and reverence for the most vulnerable human life – the unborn child, from conception.
Our politicians have a duty to safeguard and reflect this pro-life culture by seeking to enshrine Constitutional protections for the unborn child.
The fact is, that the political parties electoral manifestos never said that they would, in any way, loosen the restrictions found in the Embryo Protection Act, nor give way to the legalization of abortion. This means that the Government does not have the people’s mandate to enact such “reforms”. We are living in a democracy…not in an elected tyranny.
In 2013, Labour Minister for Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs, and Civil Liberties, Helena Dalli, wrote in an official report, on the Government’s position in relation to Life: “…human life begins at conception, [therefore] the termination of pregnancy through procedures of induced abortion at any stage of gestation was an infringement of this right.” [9]
Affirmation of this statement by the honorable minister must be upheld at all times. Any amendments to the Embryo Protection Act that endanger human life, and the rights of that human being, make a mockery of the same law, aptly named to show that protection of the human embryo is paramount.
Life issues are human rights issues, not party politics! An absolute majority of Maltese people agree on this point!
For those of us who care about Human Life in Malta, now is the time to be courageous and act! We cannot sit idly by and allow events to overtake us. We cannot, must not, succumb to international anti-life pressures.
We must prevail in our defense of life from conception to natural death.
This is Malta’s hour – we are a people who treasure our children. We must now act to preserve one of our finest traditions – that of being pro-life.
Who knows, Malta may be the start that could lead to overturning the anti-life mentality in the rest of Europe!!
Please sign this important petition and take a stand FOR Life!
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
[3] Partit Nazzjonalista (n. 35): “Min ma jistax ikollu tfal: Wara li ghaddejna l-ligi li tirregola l-fertilizzazzjoni assistita (IVF) (IVF) se nitroducu din il-procedura bhala parti mis-servizz tas-sahha pubblika biex inti tkun tista’ taghmel din il-procedura b’xejn u minghajr ma jkollok ghalfejn tmur barra minn Malta.”
Nationalist Party (N35)Infertile couples: Now that the law regulating assisted reproduction (IVF) has passed, we will introduce this service on the national health service .This service will be free and available locally such that no one will need to go abroad for this treatment.
Partit Laburista (n. 43): “IVF: Naccertaw li jinghataw ir-rizorsi kollha necessarji lill-awtorita’ kompetenti sabiex l-IVF, li bhala ligi dwar kif ghandha tkun regolata ghadha kif iddahhlet ricentament, tithaddem bla xkiel u tinghata b’xejn lill-koppji kollha li jkollhom bzonn dan il-process.”
Labour party:(n43): IVF: We will ensure that the competent authority regulating IVF receives all the necessary resources so that the recently passed law can be applied fully and be available free of charge to all couples who need this treatment.
[9] Par. 25 of the report on the 19th meeting of the working group on the Universal Periodic Review on Malta of the UN General Assembly, held on November 1, 2013 in Geneva. http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150804/letters/Malta-s-no-to-abortion.579241
Opening the Door to Abortion
Waste not, want not. So the story goes. Any leftover food is either frozen for when hunger strikes again or thrown away in the bin if one has had enough. This is how one of the proposed amendments to the embryo protection law wants to treat human life.
Create a surplus of human embryos; use as many as you will. The human embryos within the parental project, that is the ‘wanted ones’, will be gestated lovingly, nurtured and spoilt once born; the ‘extra’ human beings will be frozen indefinitely until someone decides on their bleak future. Most will remain suspended on ice, completely forgotten, thrown away or eventually destroyed. So many lost lives, lost loves, missed siblings, daughters or sons, never given a chance.
Why would we choose this kind of IVF? Why an IVF that devalues and destroys human lives by embryo freezing when we have another option that works just as well? I have met parents who had IVF overseas, their frozen embryos always at the back of their minds, parents who did not have the option of freezing unfertilised eggs (ova). Parents who know that they are not going to claim those human embryos, brothers and sisters to the children they already have, and this causes them a lot of psychological distress.
Any changes to the embryo protection law that endangers the life of the human embryo risks opening the door to abortion
What are the real reasons behind these sinister proposed amendments? We are a country that cares about life. We treasure our children, born and unborn. The Embryo Protection Act took a long time to come into force but now we are seeing results that compare well with the rates of other countries. We are helping infertile couples who choose IVF without undue risk to nascent human embryonic lives.
How can we risk removing protection from the human embryo?
Considering that great human rights causes of our time and all times have always had the cause of life as the point of reference as well as the dignity of the human person, of every human person, any changes to the embryo protection law that endangers the life of the human embryo risks opening the door to abortion.
Protection of life from the moment of conception to natural death cannot be compromised. There is too much at stake.
The human embryo is a vulnerable human being, voiceless and defenceless. This does not mean that he or she does not have the intrinsic right to life and human dignity as a member of our species. How can we consider freezing human lives as a capricious option just because an ill-advised local women’s group makes it their crusade?
Article 8 of the Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights speaks of respect for human vulnerability and personal integrity and states that, in applying and advancing scientific knowledge, medical practice and associated technologies, human vulnerability should be taken into account. Individuals and groups of special vulnerability should be protected and the personal integrity of such individuals respected.
In the same declaration, article 16 also speaks about protecting future generations and states that due importance has to be given to the impact of life sciences on future generations, including on their genetic constitution.
Has anyone bothered to ask children born from these technologies to speak? Does anyone care? Has anyone bothered to read about the pain and insecurity inflicted on children born from anonymous sperm donation, another amendment being suggested? Look up ‘Anonymous us’ on the internet and read their stories.
How are we to speak of protecting future generations when we are creating ‘surplus’ children and freezing them?
How are we to speak of protecting future generations when we, by surrogacy, create children to be intentionally separated from their birth mother, children who will intentionally never know their biological father, children brought up without ever experiencing the complementarity of motherhood and fatherhood?
What about the rights of the child conceived to know and be raised by the biological parents whenever possible? Malta is now the only country in the EU which still holds on to a completely pro-life culture. Other countries do not even value life in utero but justify abortion.
How can such countries care about what happens to human embryos? The human embryo is not respected, therefore it is graded, discarded, frozen or used in research.
We should know better. Backed by science, we affirm life from conception to natural death. Affirming human life we should not compromise the law which protects this life in the earliest stages.
Politicians are called to bravely resist the enormous onslaught to change our prolife laws and culture. The proposed changes to the Embryo Protection Act were not listed in the electoral programme of any political party. The absolute majority of the population do not want these changes.
I call on people of good faith to unite and resist these changes. Anonymous egg and sperm donation, embryo freezing and surrogacy are highly objectionable on moral, ethical and scientific grounds. They do not serve a child’s best interest.
Let us keep all human life in Malta safe. Hands off the Embryo Protection Act.
Miriam Sciberras is chairman of Life Network Malta