The eugenics temptation

Good breedinbtj Amy Laura Hall

IN THE EARLY 1920S progressive high schools andYMCAs took pait in the Keeping Fit Campaign. Thecaption on one Keeping Fit poster jiskccl: "What Kindol Cliildren?" and went on to explain: "Children get

their basic qualities by inheritance. If tliey are to be strong,keen, efficient and great, tliere must be gcxxl blood back ofthem." Youth were to c-on.sider not only the "good blood" of afntiire mate but also that of his or her extended family. Thispi'opaganda was meant to cf)rrect what Mai'garet Sanger in1922 termed "unthinking and intliscrimintite fecnndit\."

How many children people should have, and how par-ents {and society) can ensure that only genetically fit chil-dren are Ijorn, have I)een endnring questions in Ameri-can culture. Both quantityand quality count when at-tempting to form the kindof children who will eon-tribnte to a more perfectuinon. The quest for"strong, keen, efficient andgreat" offspring came tothe fore during the pastcentury, when the domi-nant classes became con-cerned with making fecundit)' discriminating.

Christine Rosen examines the role of religion in the piu-suit of efficient reproduction. Her books cover features aphotograph of the winner ol the Fitter Family C

hat Kind of Children?

Children get their basic qualities by inheritance. Ifthey arc to be strong, keen, efficient, and great theremust be good blood back of them

If you want your children to be well-born, chooseyour husband because of fine qualities in his familyas well as in himself. Then add the best training

These make a square deal for the children

WELL BORN: This poster from the 1920s articulated a"progresHive" social vauae: optimum reproduction as op-posed to "indiscriminate" breeding.

and then leave the ancestry of our children to chance, or to•blind' sentiment?" This propaganda collapsed physicul,nientnl and sociiil signs of "deviance." Illiteracy, extrane-ous toes, childbirth out of wedlock and a record of theft allwent into the mix to determine whether an individual,couple or family gronp were genetically Pit.

WHY DID MAINLINE Protestants find this niove-iiicnt so compelling? A charitable inteqoretationis that they simply wanted to reduce hnman suf-fering. Fercei\ing a stark and growing contrast be-

tween respectable middle-class families and the "teemingbnH)ds" of new immigrants in the urlnui centers, progressiveleadei's turned to eugenic science to control what seemed tlieothen\isc uncontrollable plight ot the poor

But another reading seems equally plausible—thatmany sought to shore up their status as part of the "re-sponsible middle-class" by underscoring the discrepancybetween their o\\ii '"fit" families and those of the under-class. Whatever the motives, niainhne Protestants lenttlieir influence to an arsenal of coercion described inpainstaking detail in Edwin Black's War Against ihe Weak.

After he finished his controversial IBM and the Holo-caust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and

America's Most Powerftd Corporation (now the sub-ject of international litigation). Black put his researchteam to work tracing the web of eugenics in the U.S.and abroad. War Af^ainsf the Weak relates how manygroups with prominent board members from thefields of religion, business and government pushed forstate laws to sterilize botli people on public assistanceand those thought likely to breed children who wouldbecome wards ol the state.

Their efforts were effective. North Carolina steril-ized thousands of people before the program ended in1974; historian Paul Lombardo estimates that Virginiasterilized at least 8,000. By 1940 more than 3o;000people from across the country had been sterilized orcastrated, the majority in the preceding two decades.(Black's first chapter features a brief but powerful in-terview with one Virginia victim.)

According to Black, two women played crucial rolesin the "war against the weak." The grand dame of eu-genics was millionaire-widow Mrs. E. H. Harriman.Her aim was clear: to stem the tide of the "defectiveand delinquent classes." Her motive was fairly trans-parent: to secure the superiority' of wealth.

A different motive fueled the efforts of MargaretSanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. Slie wasdrawn to eugenics through her nursing work in theslums of lower Manhattan and BrookKTi, where "theoppressive reality of overpopulation and povert\' cried(jut for relief." She viewed the suffering of the urbanpoor in apocalvptic terms and vowed to usher in a dif-ferent realm.

As Black relates, Sanger subsequently "embracedthe Malthusian notion that a world nnining out of foodsupplies should halt charitable works and allow theweak to die oft." In her book Fivot of Civilization

(1922), Sanger addresses "the cruelty of charity," arguingagainst the "sinisterly fertile soil" that perpetuates "defec-tives, deliu(jnents and dependents." C'harit\' "encouragesthe healthier and more normal sections of the world toshoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate te-cundit>'of others; which brings with i t . . . a dead weight ofhuman waste."

Even after World War II, Sanger continued to argue forthe sterilization of those on pulilic assistance. "Let us notforget that these billions, millions, thousands of people areincreasing, expanding, exploding at a terrific rate everyyear. Africa, Asia, South America are made up of morethan a billion human beings," she admonishes.

Black's book displays the vast scope of the eugenic proj-ect in America. From "child wellare. prison reform, bettereducation, hnman hygiene, clinical psychology, medicaltreatment, world peace and inunigrant rights, as well ascharities and progressive undertakings of all kinds," eu-genics became as American as apple pie. Much as the dou-ble helLx now shapes our imagiuations, the idea that thereare good genes that should be promoted and bad genes tobe jettisoned made its way into everything from NancyDrew mysteries to the Ladies' Home Journal to the Inter-collegian, the YMCAs magazine.

25 CHhlSTIAN CENTURY November 2. 2004

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SHAMING: A current campaign to prevent teenpregnancy invokea social stigmas in an effort toinfluence young women.

In an issue of the intercoUegian as late as 1948, PaulPopenoe, author of the widely used textbook Applied Eu-genics, warns readers tliat "too large a proportion" of cliil-dren are "bom in homes which can give them the worst startin every way." He explmns that "the family which sends achild to the University of Cidifoniia averages two living chil-dren," whereas "the family which sends a child to the Sono-ma State home for the feebleminded averages five li\ingchildren." The foilow-up article by psychologist Helen F.

Brother MarsHubble pockets light years, eons, sees eye

to eye with dust, a small drop of water.NASA's robot stalks tiptoe, a cat's paw

on the prowl to report if there is Ufe,beeps back a monument of stone and ice,

an unresponsive moimtain in orbit.Delicate antennae translate the laws

of physics into a mourner's sigh.

But the frozen droplet, like the seato a drowning man, whirls its rueful hoard

of thanks deferred, of love unvoiced, the pleasof miracles before the eyes, the mystery

of the heart, the mind's Post-it notes: Praise the Lord,Carpe Diem and Memento Mori.

Gerson Silverstein

Southard, "Plaiming Parenthood on Campus," concludesthat Uie Chiistian iisks: how many; how healthy?"

The overt racism of these campaigns is no longer accept-able in today's civic square or in mtiinlinc Protestant pnl-pits, bnt the impetus toward eugenics remains. Controllingthe reproduction of the social body and individual bodies,controlling the quahtv- and quantit\' of the next generationin order to form a more perfect union—these impulses re-main part of American culture.

Consider the "Genomic Revolution" exhibit sponsoredby pharmaceutical companies and the American Museumof Natural History, an exiiibit based on an infinitely moreexact science than the half-lies, untniths and sheer conjec-tures of old-fangled eugenicists. Addressing the fear thatgenetic science will lead to racial and ethnic discrimina-tion, the exhibit tells us that "we share 99.9 percent of ourgenes with each other" and that "we are all the same in away, for we all have DNA."

But who, one wonders, are the we to whom the "all thesame" refers? Are we still ";ill the same" if one in onr midsthas a genetic disease? Midway through the exiiibit is a sec-tion on "Getting the Right Tests," featuring a mother hold-ing her smiling, blond boy on her lap. She warns viewers todemand every prenatal test available. The message isclear: she would have terminated her pregnancy had testsshown her son to have a debilitating genetic condition.

A similarly mixed message about human unity and dif-ference recently appeared on the Web site of the eugenicsarchive at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory- (home of theleading geneticist James Watson). Marking the 75th an-niversary of the infamous Buck v. Bell case endorsingforced sterilization, in which Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.declared "three generations of imbeciles is enough," thelaboratory assures us that the new, more precise science ofgenetics means that "no human lineage is without hope."The featurt! allows one to \iew the grade "A" report card ofthe little girl Holmes had declared an imbecile, and opti-mistically eondndes that 'one can never predict where ge-nius will arise."

THIS RENDITION of the new genetics begs thebasic question of eugenics: What if baby Buckhad flunked out of kindergarten and every subse-quent grade? What if she had eventually given

birth out of wedlock? Would that have proven Holmescorrect? Was it wrong to sterilize Carrie Buck only be-cause, as it turned out, her child was not an "imbecile"?Was the old eugenics wrong simply because it was scientif-ically iTiatcurate? Was it wrong because it was state-coerced rather than freely chosen? Or was it wrong for amore fniidamental reason, one that also implicates thenew eugenics: because eugenics seeks fundamentally tolocate a human being on a grid of calculable worth?

Similar assumptions lie behind the now ubiquitousquestion "How many?" Sanger's powerfully charged dis-tinction between prudent and imprudent fecundity hasgrown to inflnence policies on ever)1:hing from immigra-tion to public schools. Technologictil birth control neednot have emerged in the way it did in the U.S. History

C H R I S T I A N C E N T U R Y Navenil)t'r2,2(H)4 26

might hiivc told a different ston; wherein families and cul-tures were able to choose life in multiple, even seeminglyprofligate, ways and find support for their choices in tliecivic and international sphere. But the science of repro-ductive control grew in the soil of eitgenics, and niain-streatn assumptions ahout birth control still reflect strongjtulgetnctits abotit the number of children rcspon.sibleparents should have.

The New Yorker Book of Kids' Cartoons (2001) featuresoulv three cartoons with families of more than two chil-dren—one a fatnily of fish, another of cats, atid a third iiiiobviously poor, white, worldng-class family. (The motheraimoimces to the hmch box-toting fatlier, "Boy, did I ha\'ean atternoon. The census man was here.") The same atti-tude is apparent in Monty Python s classic "every sperm issacred" segment in The Meaning of Life. As John Cleesesings to a house full ot children about Catholicism s uncon-tlitional acceptance, modern viewers are encouraged toguffaw. "And the one thing they say abotit Catholics is:Tliey'll take you as soon as you're warm. You don t have tobe a six-footer. You don't have to have a great brain."

The specter of the unplanned child, bom to be a bur-den on the social body, is still a powerful tool in the propa-ganda of cultural assimilation. A current effort to preventteen pregnancy makes the "Keeping Fit" eampiugn seemsubtle. Pictures posted iti high schools and featured inteen tnagazities show a Latina girl with "CHEAP" em-

blazoned across her hody. The African-American girl is la-beled "REJECT," the A'sian girl "DIRTY" and the work-ing-class white girl "NOBODY." The posters use bruteshame to bring females from four subcultures into confor-mity on the question of teen pregnancy. The small printadvocates condom use, but the advertisements all too ef-fectively present the judgment that some mothers arecheap, dirty nobodies, social rejects with no future, andthat there is little hope for their illegitimate children.\Miat has made our culture set the stakes of teen pregnan-cy so high as to warrant this kind of ideologiciil firepower?

TO RAISE QUESTIONS abotit the control of repro-duction is to threaten the longstanding concernsof feminists and environmentalists who worry, inthe first case, ahout who shotild control procre-

ation and, in the second, about how nnich procreation cre-ation can sustain. But even feminists and environmental-ists (and I consider myself to be in both camps) must facethe ways that reprodtictiv e technologies have assutned andcontribute to a contingent life ethic. Control over whatkind of children should be bom when has fostered the ideathat citizens can and should judge between auspicious andburdensome life and auspicious and burdensome families.With new biotechnological tools emerging daily, manypeople deem parents personally and socially responsiblefor the results of their choosing to bear children. Parents

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may soon lie left to their own de\icf s if they have childrenwho require extra time und social spending.

The Roman Catholie case against the technological tim-ing and nieehaiiization of reproduction draws on a certainunderstanding ot the nature of marital intimacy. Protes-tants may make this case against eugenics by emphasizingunmerited grace. A wonderful example is Karen Lebacqz'spithy article "Alien Dignit): The Legacy of HelunitThielieke for Bioetliics." Drawing on the Gemian Luther-an thcologiati, L('bac(jz, a United Church of Christ ethieist,suggests that "our worth is imparted by the love bestowedon us by God. Human worth is thus an 'alien dignity,' givenin the relationship l)etween humans

and God. [It is] not some (|nalit) suchas rationality that 'imitates' the ehar-aeter ol the divine, but rather a state-ment of our relationship to God." Be-fore Thielicke's time, S0reiiKierkegaard sought to draw nut thepotentially radie;d, life-affirming im-plications of Lutheran soteriology. Ifgrace is truly gratuitous, broughtthrough Christ while we are yet sin-uers, any buman life is incalculablygratuitous, a gift beyond reekoniugthat we never fully eontrol.

The conviction that eaeb life is in-triiisieally, incalculably valuable issubtly but siguifieantly differentIVom the conviction that we cannotjudge a child's worth by the color ofher skin or b\- her gender. The latteruotiou implies that we sbould sus-pend judgment about her worth untilwe liave uiore information, a morereliable calculation of her potentialcontribution to societ)'. To aifirm in-stead that no buman life may ever })erightK' measured lor estimable worthis to elialleuge both the old and thenew eugenics. Such an afliruiationleads some parents to refuse to askwhat kind of children?" Such an al-

iirniation prompts some to be opento the frequent interruption of pro-creation, others to adopt snpposedly"at risk" children, ft leads some towork with students who are consid-ered extraneous and others to fightfor economic policie.s that will really"leave no child behind."

Jonathan Kozol gives a glimpse oftliis approach in an article for the Na-fioit called "The Details of Life,"which describes the chaotic buthopeful work of St. Ann's EpiscopalC'hnrcb in the Bronx. "Cbildhoodonght to have at least a few entitle-ments that aren't entangled with util-

itarian considerations," he notes. "One of them slionid bethe right to a degree of unencumbered satisfaction in thesheer delight and goodness of existence in itself. Anotherought to be the confidence of knowing that one's presenceon tbis earth is taken as an unconditional blessing tliat isnot contaminated by the economic uses that a nation doesor does not have for you."

I suspect that Christians innst disentangle the funda-mentally "utilitarian considerations" that have eome to de-fine procreation in the United States. To view each child'spresence on this earth as an nnconditional, it also compli-cated, blessing seems an apt way to begin. •

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