11. Sperm Banks and Selective Breeding

“Be special, give sperm” is the slogan of Britain’s largest sperm bank. However, it seems not everyone is suitable for this elite group of special sperm givers. The Guardian ran an article a couple of weeks ago on the ‘eugenic’ nature of the London Sperm Bank, which described “a policy of turning away autistic donors and those diagnosed with other neurological disabilities, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD], dyslexia and obsessive compulsive disorder.” What are the practical implications of such policies? Should there be legislation to prevent it? Is this ‘political correctness gone mad’ or our old ‘ally’ eugenics rearing its ugly head?

‘Be special, give sperm’ – London Underground ad

Measures against ‘genetic’ disease will always be associated with eugenics. That’s fair enough. In mid-twentieth century Britain, artificial insemination was put forward by eugenicist Herbert Brewer as a rational and efficient means of selective breeding. If used as the sole means of reproduction, it could at once ensure that the ‘fit’ were selected as donors and that the ‘unfit’ were ‘weeded out’. As a natural progression from late-nineteenth century Social Darwinism, eugenicists believed such techniques could be used to consciously guide human evolution. Artificial insemination was seen as a ‘humane’ alternative to negative eugenics e.g. the sterilization of hereditary ‘mental defectives’. Though such policies are largely associated with Nazi Germany and many US states, they were also taken into consideration by leading experts within the British Eugenics Society. According to Brewer, artificial insemination would “transform the problem of negative eugenics.” With regard to the prevalence of mental deficiency and other ‘latent’ defects, whereas “the elimination of such degeneracy by sterilizing” would be like “clearing a river of fish by catching the few which jump from the water,” artificial insemination would ensure that the “existence of the whole inextricable tangle of latent defect” would be swept out “in a few generations, replacing it concurrently with hereditary material of the highest excellence.”

Certainly after the Holocaust, sterilization was a no-go area for eugenicists. In 1950, the Eugenics Society secretary, Carlos Blacker described artificial insemination as having been “successfully used in cases when the male partner is at fault and also when, because of hereditary infirmities in himself or his family, he does not want children of his own.” It is often forgotten that Britain has this ‘eugenic’ past. In fact, the ‘runs in the family’/‘like-produces-like’ understanding of mental disorder was widely accepted in society. The Anglican Church even formed a committee to discuss the moral implications of artificial insemination. Having served on the committee along with Archbishop Fisher, the Bishops of Derby and Oxford and Carlos Blacker, Bishop Barnes of Birmingham was “convinced that artificial insemination, even by a donor, would be an inevitable and perhaps a desirable element in positive genetic engineering” and that soon a time would come “when the greatest geneticist will be accepted as one of the leading agents of Christian progress.” Thus, when artificial insemination was first ‘taking off’ many influential people, not to mention moral pillars of the community, were considering its eugenic benefits. Should we be surprised, then, that the legacy continues with Britain’s largest sperm bank ‘protecting’ future generations from disease?

Notably, the origins of such conditions are unclear and how we diagnose and define them varies greatly. Arguably, they are complex and multifactorial, as much to do with upbringing, life events and the epigenetic impact of the environment on gene behaviour as they are with what ‘runs in the family’. The policy is about as good an idea as the government using programmes of sterilization and euthanasia to try and prevent the spread of ‘feeble-mindedness’ – a catchall term from the early twentieth century based on biological determinism, which connected low IQ with heredity – in society (e.g. Germany, America, Scandinavia, Canada etc). In some countries, this went on until the 1970s! I’m looking at you, Sweden. In any case, other than possible ‘epigenetic trauma’, neither would have a noticeable impact on the genetic health of future populations.

If it were possible, is it even desirable to remove conditions like autism from the population? On behalf of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Ari Ne’eman argues that “although some evidence suggests eliminating autism, dyslexia and other similar disabilities might remove valuable talents, along with impairments, this is not the primary reason to oppose the emerging eugenics. […] Many individuals who are today diagnosed with learning difficulties or intellectual disabilities would not have been considered such in a society before universal literacy, for example. Tomorrow’s social and technological progress may lead to still new disabilities, demonstrating that the quest to eliminate disability will always be a moving target. Such changes may leave humanity less equal, less diverse, and perhaps even less human.”

Can we call the policies of the London Sperm Bank ‘eugenic’ in intent? If so, should some form of state intervention put an end to it? Ne’eman concludes that “Regulators worldwide should curb eugenic practices. New instruments in international law may be necessary to ensure that ‘designer babies’ do not gain a national home, sparking medical tourism.” The UK government’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority are already investigating the sperm bank as we speak (or as I write/you read). Along with humanity’s shared chequered past regarding elimination and selective breeding, the subjective nature of our understanding of ‘disability’ is perhaps warning enough.

References

Herbert Brewer, ‘Eutelegenesis,’ The Eugenics Review 27, 2 (July 1935), 121.

‘Committee on Artificial Insemination: Draft Interim Report,’ (est. July 1945), The Papers of Ernest William Barnes, Special Collections Library, University of Birmingham, EWB 9/21/28.

Carlos P. Blacker, Statement of Objects (London: Eugenics Society, 1950), 8.

John Barnes, Ahead of His Age: Bishop Barnes of Birmingham (London: Collins, 1979).

Ari Ne’eman, ‘Screening sperm donors for autism? As an autistic person, I know that’s the road to eugenics’, The Guardian (30 December 2015), [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/30/screening-sperm-donors-autism-autistic-eugenics].

9. Three-Person Babies: Eugenics Reborn(?)

“Eugenics is a dirty word, most commonly associated with racist profiling, or Nazi experiments. But the time has come to rethink our attitude.” So suggests Madhumita Murgia, writing for The Telegraph. How should we define eugenics? Is eugenics necessarily a bad thing because of its chequered past? Why now should we rethink one of the most controversial theories in modern history?

Well, after months of discussion in the government Houses and elsewhere, the UK is due to become the first country to legalise 3-parent IVF (in vitro fertilisation). Yes, (some) children of the future will be the product of – and have inherited – the genetic material from more than two people. Why? To prevent the inheritance of mitochondrial diseases, which include muscle wastage, diabetes, deafness and epilepsy. How does it work? The two parents’ nucleus’s are removed from the embryo, leaving behind the ‘diseased’ mitochondrial part, and inserted into a ‘disease free’ donor embryo, which has its own nucleus’ removed. I’m no scientist. Here’s a diagram showing one example of how it works, which the BBC were given by an actual scientist:

The new healthy embryo is then used in a standard IVF procedure, and 9 months later, in theory, a healthy baby is born. As a side note, with the vast majority of genetic material contained in the nucleus, the donor mitochondria only contains a tiny – though significant – fraction of the healthy embryo’s (and future person’s!) genetic material.

In any case, it is easy to see why Murgia went on to claim “this is essentially eugenics, the science of improving the genetic quality of the human population.” With this process (and years ago with PGD for that matter) we are literally improving the genetic material of future generations, and some would say, playing God. Is this a bad thing? Some would argue that national healthcare is something that should bypass/transcend religious interest. Others vehemently argue against interference with the sacred act of procreation.

With regards to genetic improvement, Murgia believes the time has come to drop the stigma attached to ‘eugenics’: “[3-person IVF] can also be understood as manipulating the genome in order to solve human health crises, such as sickle cell anaemia, and so give happier and longer lives to children otherwise doomed before birth.[…] So for the sake of those who need it the most, we must be brave enough push the frontiers of present-day human knowledge into territories unknown.”

Before we go throwing around the word ‘eugenics’, we must settle on how we define the term. Somewhat fitting in with Murgia’s understanding, founder of the eugenics movement (in its modern form) and cousin of Charles Darwin,  Francis Galton’s (pictured below) 1883 definition succinctly described eugenics as “the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally.”

Francis Galton (1822-1911), founder of the eugenics movement

While Murgia is correct to an extent in suggesting 3-person IVF is a form of eugenics, this is not the whole story. Equally important for eugenicists was the long-term implications. Historically, eugenics is a modernist social philosophy based on scientific theory, popular in a number of countries predominantly – though by no means exclusively – during the interwar period. Eugenic ideology is underpinned by the notion that man’s hereditary qualities can be artificially improved and, crucially, that science can control the future of human evolution. While a central of characteristic of eugenic ideology in the past was the furtherance of human evolution, Murgia’s understanding could arguably be more accurately described as a type of preventative genetic therapy.

If 3-person IVF is not eugenics reborn, it could certainly be viewed in decades to come – along with now well-established techniques such as pre-natal screening and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) – as the scientific catalyst that led to the rebirth of eugenics as a social philosophy. Eugenics aside, 3-person IVF provides us with the opportunity to prevent future human suffering. For many, this is reason enough to celebrate this remarkable breakthrough in the science of human genetics.

References:

Madhumita Murgia, ‘Eugenics need not be a dirty word – instead, it could be lifesaving technology’, The Telegraph ( 26 October 2015), [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11956083/Eugenics-isnt-a-dirty-word.-Instead-could-be-lifesaving-technology.html].

James Gallagher, ‘Three-person baby details announced,’ BBC NEWS (27 February 2014), [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26367220].

7. Pre-marital Health Checks and the Eugenic Divorce

Earlier this week, in addition to highly paid people punching less highly paid people, the BBC published the following story: “Genetic tests lead to 165,000 break-ups.” I begin by omitting the country of reference (skip to end for spoiler). Certainly, eighty years ago this could have been any number of countries, with respective eugenics movements at their respective height(s) in America, Sweden, Canada, Denmark, the UK and of course Germany, to name a few. While still classed as ‘negative eugenics’ (i.e. preventing ‘unfavourable’ births), pre-marital health examinations were seen as more ‘humane’ than sterilization and, certainly, euthanasia for the so-called ‘unfit’/’racially impure’/’degenerate’. The Eugenics Record Office in America, for example, promoted the use of certificates such as this:

As late as the 1960s, the importance of premarital health tests and their entrenchment in the popular mindset can be observed in films such as The Graduate. When a young Dustin Hoffman decides that he is in fact in love with Miss Robinson (and not Mrs) one of the first things he says is “We’ll get the blood test tomorrow”. Presumably syphilis free, they lived ‘happily ever after’:

Before the Second World War, the religious influence on popular attitudes to marriage and divorce cannot be understated. ‘Religion’ was central to the way the ‘masses’ viewed family life. In some areas of the world, this remained so long after the Second World War and continues today. While divorce, though still contentious, is a widely accepted practice in much of the western world, this has not always been the case.

In inter-war Britain, some eugenicists saw pre-marital health checks as a means to avoid divorce, something seen as disastrous both socially and religiously. In many cases though, the couple had been long married – and often had children – when apparent genetically incompatibilities emerged, which could manifest in the child’s ability at school or, for example, insanity developing in the husband later in life. The 1930s saw a lobbying process led by A.P. Herbert (1890-1971), which looked to provide additional grounds that could warrant a divorce (at the time it could only be granted for adultery and still heavily favoured men), including drunkenness, insanity and desertion. This was eventually passed in 1937.

Remarkably, one of the earlier campaigners for divorce reform was the Bishop of Birmingham himself, E.W. Barnes. In the 1930s, if Barnes wasn’t lecturing middle-class newlyweds – immediately after their wedding ceremony (!) – on the importance of ‘good stocks’ having large families, he was arguing in favour of divorce, generally for the working class, on eugenic grounds. In a 1932 private letter to the Bishop of Chichester, George Bell (1883-1958), he confessed that such guidance could only be provided “from a family physician acquainted through his private practice with the physical grounds which normally lead to unhappiness in marriage; and also the technical knowledge as to the inheritance of dysgenic qualities which only an expert on human heredity can give.” Barnes was appointed to the Anglican Church’s Joint Committee on Marriage and Divorce where, as his biographer noted he “made it his special task to ensure that the Committee was provided with expert advice on the eugenic aspects, as they affected not only the merits of a marriage before it took place but also on the grounds on which it might eventually be dissolved.” Amazingly, in its attempt to accommodate the latest scientific theories in an all encompassing verdict for divorce, the Church did, in fact, appoint several ‘eugenic advisers’ from the British Eugenics Society, including its secretary C.P. Blacker. Barnes’ suggestion for the approval of eugenic divorces was not included in the final report of the Convocation (1935). However, as we shall see, it remains pertinent.

The BBC article that began this post was referring to present-day Saudi Arabia. Currently, in Saudi Arabia the divorce rate is very high and one may argue, heavily favours men (also in line with religious doctrine they can marry up to four women at once). While women must have consent from the husband or proof of bodily harm, the husband can divorce a wife at any time without cause. Do pre-marital genetic tests provide Saudi women with more freedom or increase their subjection?

Around 60% of Saudi couples break off their engagements after receiving their test results.

According to one Riyadh-based scientist, Saudi Arabia has “one of the highest rates of genetic diseases in the world.” In an attempt by the state to prevent the long-standing custom of marriages between close relatives and the prevention of transmissible diseases such as HIV and sickle-cell anaemia, pre-marital genetic tests are mandatory. This widespread use of genetic testing will certainly be called ‘eugenic’ and is comparable – in practice – to many of the less-developed techniques and theories used by eugenicists in the twentieth century. As indicated in the abovementioned 1932 letter, this is certainly what eugenicists like Barnes spent their lifetimes advocating (in Britain with little success). However, with the primary aim being to prevent the inheritance of genetic illness rather than actively improve the human race, and further evolution itself, I feel inclined to stop short of labelling the Saudi genetic tests as eugenic in their intent. Will this law be adopted in other countries? Does the influence of genetics on family life and family planning mean a resurgence of eugenics is imminent? If we are not currently concerned about the future of human evolution, as eugenicists once were, should we be?

REFERENCES

‘Saudi Arabia: Genetic tests lead to 165,000 breakups,’ BBC News (25 March 2015) [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-32050313]

John Barnes, Ahead of His Age: Bishop Barnes of Birmingham (London: Collins, 1979), 326-7.

Ernest W. Barnes, ‘Letter to Bell RE: Divorce,’ (1 January 1932), The Papers of Ernest William Barnes 9/17/16, University of Birmingham.

6. Pigs, Gene-Splicing and Moral Relativism

In a show featuring murder and mutilation, the most shocking moment of the new Sky Atlantic drama Fortitude (first episode: 29/01/2015) was the lead character discovering a pig being experimented on in an isolation chamber. With Fortitude set in the Arctic, the viewer is led to believe the intention is to test new treatments for frostbite on pigs before humans.

Britain’s leading fertility doctor, Robert Winston, revealed that technology he helped develop could “splice new genes into sperm”. Moreover, with the use of this technique, pigs – being a relatively close genetic match to humans – could soon be created with enough human DNA that their organs can be used for transplant operations without fear of rejection. While the use of animal experimentation to improve human health is nothing new, it remains controversial. Or does it? Most comments and articles on the subject focussed more on the moral implications for humans rather than the treatment of animals. It seems that in mankind’s ongoing quest to live as long as possible, the treatment of animals can be somewhat overlooked. However, one may ask, is there much difference between breeding animals for meat and breeding them for organs to save human lives?

“Meddling with nature is in this context risky.” Winton, quoted in ‘The Guardian’ in June 2014

The so-called ‘gene-splicing’ technology could also – eventually – be implemented into current IVF and PGD techniques (see also: 2. “Designer Babies” and the Culture of “Perfection”: Eugenics Reborn?) to create faster, more intelligent and more ‘attractive’ designer babies. However, Winston has argued that: “I don’t think it’s very likely it will be used in the UK in a mischievous way but I’ve no doubt that given the burgeoning market, given the desperation of people who want to enhance their children in all sorts of ways, humans might be tempted to use this and that therefore it does become a form of eugenics.”

When does human enhancement become eugenics? Arguably eugenics considers the whole population – or even species – rather than isolated cases of enhancement. Eugenics was most successful – in establishing a national programme of human ‘improvement’ – in interwar dictatorships, above all, Fascist Italy (mostly pronatalism for population increase and increased post and pre-natal care for mother and child) and Nazi Germany (most famously in the form of widespread sterilizations and the Holocaust). In theory, eugenics  requires a certain amount of submission to the ‘greater good’ of the national collective (or to the human species), something that contrasts heavily with the democratic nature of modern society. Thus, Winston suggests while unlikely to be ‘abused’ on a large scale in the West, “You could easily see how this kind of thing could be used in North Korea.”

While some questioned whether eugenics was necessarily evil, this was a controversial stance: “[Q:] Why is eugenics always seen as something evil? [A:] Because the Nazis did it, and opposing anything the Nazis did or thought serves as a way of demonstrating one’s OWN moral superiority.” Others commenters disagreed with Winston, suggesting we may already live in a dystopian present: “Why would we fear North Korea & eugenics any more than we would our own scientist’s? Dr. Frankenstein hides in all nations and all races. England is no exception.” Interestingly, then, most comments did not focus on the morally ambiguous nature of animal testing but the implications of such developments on human society. With a wide range of moral viewpoints existing in modern society it seems common opinions on such subjects are far from uniform. The development of reproductive technology is startling, but if moral relativism were to become the norm, what role will (either) eugenics and/or human enhancement play in our future?

REFERENCES:

Sarah Knapton, ‘Robert Winston: my research could open door to “risky” eugenics,’ The Guardian (6 June 2014), [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10882336/Robert-Winston-my-research-could-open-door-to-risky-eugenics.html]

Amanda Williams, ‘“Pay £200 to see the doctor so you value the NHS”: Labour peer Lord Winston claims patients should be charged for treatment to stop taking health service for granted’, The Daily Mail (5 August 2014), [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2716381/Pay-200-doctor-value-NHS-Labour-peer-Lord-Robert-Winston-claims-patients-charged-treatment-stop-taking-health-service-granted.html].

5. Dawkins, Eugenics and Religion

In August 2014, The Guardian journalist, Giles Fraser, criticised Richard Dawkins for sympathising with eugenics. Dawkins’ most enthusiastic endorsement came in 2006, when he suggested that with Hitler long gone, we could now reconsider the role of eugenics in society: “If you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?” (The Guardian, 29 August 2014)

‘Richard Dawkins at the Edinburgh International Book Festival’, The Guardian (29 August 2014).

Dawkins, author of the bestselling The God Delusion (2006), is a renowned atheist. In response to Dawkins’ ‘humanistic’ eugenic ideas, Fraser compared them with a ‘religious’ outlook: “The humanist attack on religion is that religion often places human flourishing second in its cosmological order of importance, and that this leads to human beings losing out to divine command. […] [M]any humanists also place the category ‘human’ quite a long way down their order of importance, with things such as rationality or choice or the avoidance of pain being deemed of greater significance. Human life can thus be easily traded away in some utilitarian calculation. It so happens that, when it comes to eugenics, religion has a much better track record at defending the human than science or leftwing progressives.” (The Guardian, 29 August 2014)  Here one may assume the comparison with ‘religion’ (in its broadest sense) intends to undermine Dawkins’ overtly rational approach and endorsement of eugenics. However, there is also an assumed divide between the scientific/humanist – and sometimes eugenic – worldview and that of ‘religion’. Are ‘secular’ eugenics and ‘religion’ (or for the sake of argument, Christianity) two incompatible approaches? Arguably eugenics is the belief in the use of practical measures – be it extermination, selective breeding, pre- and post-natal healthcare etc. – to further human evolution. Thus, we should also ask, does one’s belief in God prevent the belief in evolution?

One of the most radical eugenicists in the British movement was E.W. Barnes, the Bishop of Birmingham from 1924-1953. Interestingly, Barnes – along with others in the Christian Modernist movement – wished to reconcile Anglicanism with the doctrine of evolution.Thanks to his acceptance of evolution and particularly Mendel’s theories of heredity, Barnes, a religious leader, was able to become a leading eugenicist alongside his career in the Church. The same year as he became Bishop, Barnes joined the British Eugenics Society.

In the 1930 lecture, titled ‘God and the Gene’, Barnes gave a useful overview of his brand of ‘Christian eugenics’: “by struggling against evil and adverse circumstances, man’s moral and spiritual faculties have been sharpened; and the individual who emerges most successfully from such a struggle is best fitted to lead the race on a little nearer to the perfect ideal of social organisation which the Christian terms the Kingdom of God. […] In the stage of civilised progress which we have now reached, it is, in particular, our duty as a race to eliminate mental defect. […] We regard measures to improve the quality of the race as a service to God” (Barnes, ‘God and the Gene’, 7 November 1930). This was contrary to more ‘traditional’ Christian approaches at the time, in which the pious strove not to eliminate the ‘poor’ and ‘downtrodden’ from the population, but care for and protect them.

Bishop E.W. Barnes (1877-1953)

After the Second World War, Barnes preached the need to introduce sterilization and euthanasia of the ‘feebleminded’ (or ‘mentally deficient’) into the newly created Welfare State: “fairly often we hear of a child being born pitiably defective in mind or body and of the parent’s relief when it dies. I am convinced that in such cases early euthanasia should be permitted under proper safeguards. […] Equally, from the Christian standpoint, as I see the matter, there is no objection to medically controlled sterilisation.” (‘Euthanasia and Sterilisation,’ 21 May 1945).  Curiously, his main downfall in garnering public support was not from opposing religious figures, but the association of such ideas with the recently defeated Nazi Germany. Is Dawkins correct in suggesting that over 60 years on it is time to rethink the popular revulsion of eugenics? Should religious leaders be encouraged to engage in open dialogue on the subject?

Despite one being a religious leader and the other an outspoken atheist, Barnes and Dawkins have much in common. Above all, they agree first, in the existence of superior and inferior traits in humanity, and second, that eugenic improvement is morally commendable. In his article, Fraser disagreed: “Morally, the category of the human ought to be entirely indivisible: all being of equal worth, irrespective of wealth, colour, class, ability, Some people are better at sports or sums, but nobody is better at being human, neither are there better sorts of human beings.” (The Guardian, 29 August 2014) Is this position likely to be that adopted by society in general? As new genetic technologies emerge, will human enhancement become increasingly desirable? Will they be associated with Hitler and the Holocaust or the future of humanity?

References:

Giles Fraser, ‘Nobody is better at being human, Professor Dawkins, least of all you,’ The Guardian (29 August 2014), [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/aug/29/nobody-better-at-being-human-richard-dawkins].

Ernest W. Barnes, ‘God and the Gene’, 7 November 1930, The Papers of E.W. Barnes, 12/1/456, Special Collections Department, University of Birmingham.

-. ‘Welfare and Population’, The Eugenics Review 42, 2 (July 1950), 94.

‘Euthanasia and Sterilisation’, The Manchester Guardian (21 May 1945), 3.

4. ‘Problem Families’: the Legacy of Eugenic Opinions on the ‘Poor’

“UK riots: should there be a curfew?” The Guardian (9 August 2011)

In the wake of the ‘England Riots’ of August 2011, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, confidently asserted that “a relatively small number of families are the source of a large proportion of the problems in society,” and that within these families there exists a “culture of disruption and irresponsibility that cascades through generations.” With remarkably similar issues in mind, in 1945, The Times called the ‘problem family’ an “unsolved problem of national eugenics.” Subsequently, the British Eugenic Society formed the Problem Families Committee in 1947. What can the ‘problem families’ discourse tell us about the legacy of the eugenics movement today? Are we ‘enlightened’ now in our perceptions of the poor?

The eugenic classification of ‘problem families’ began in the 1940s. However, scholars have argued that the term was the successor of social attitudes going back to the late nineteenth century. Indeed, the Secretary of the Eugenics Society, Carlos Blacker (1895-1975), reflected in 1952 that “the dark side of urban industrialism, interest in the social importance of genealogy, concern over mental defectives, preoccupation with the prevention of hereditary infirmities, problems of war evacuation from large towns, and, most recently, the stirrings of conscience about children, have each, at different times, focussed attention on problem families.”

The term ‘problem families’ was first used in 1943 by the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) when referring to the often squalid living conditions of evacuated children. It became an issue of national importance and a significant obstacle for the welfare and public health professions. As we have seen, ‘problem families’ were also understood by some to be a eugenic problem. Biological determinism had coloured British eugenic attitudes to the poor since the early twentieth century; not least in their abortive push for the sterilization of ‘mental defectives’ in the 1930s. In 1945, even the Bishop of Birmingham, E.W. Barnes, had lamented the presence of problem families in Britain’s “towns and villages,” whom he believed to be inherently “sub-human, immoral, dirty, thievish, and untruthful,” with many also carriers of ‘mental deficiency.’  However, by the time Blacker published Problem Families: Five Inquiries in 1952 (a national study conducted by the Problem Families Committee), this explanation no longer seemed adequate. The study had demonstrated that “[t]he interaction of nature and nurture is here so close as to make it exceedingly difficult to distinguish the separate effects of each.”

Carlos Blacker (1895-1975), Secretary of the Eugenics Society

Despite their seemingly elusive nature, ‘problem families’ remain a national issue. In 2012, after extensive fieldwork – including time spent with 16 ‘problem families’ – Louise Casey, the head of David Cameron’s ‘Troubled Families Unit,’ concluded that: “There are plenty of people who have large families and function incredibly well. The issue for me, out of the families that I have met, [is that] they are not functioning, lovely families. One of the families I interviewed had six social care teams attached to them: nine children, [and a] tenth on the way. Something has to give.”

Louise Casey pictured with David Cameron in 2013

In her article for The Guardian website, Zoe Williams criticised the project as a “demonisation of the poor.” However, some ‘commenters’ praised Casey’s work for identifying “those who perpetuate anti-social behaviour generation after generation and get away with it.” Moreover, several readers (perhaps from opposite ends of the political spectrum) on the Daily Mail and The Guardian websites suggested measures once considered eugenic. For some, while “[n]o one can force them to stop procreating,” in the case of ‘problem families,’ the “number of children should be limited.” However, remarkably, a significant minority agreed either that “Child Benefits [should be capped at] one child per parent” or that the introduction of “Voluntary sterilisation with a modest cash incentive” was the only way to solve the problem family.

Eugenic ideology no longer colours discussions on the ‘problem family’ as it once did. Indeed, present concerns over the relationship between family size and social background, are not influenced by eugenic concepts such as ‘racial degeneration’ or ‘biological improvement,’ as they were in the inter- and immediate post-war periods. However, it seems that even today debates on poverty and reproductive freedom are still influenced by a desire to control existing populations and future generations.

REFERENCES

‘Social Casualties’, The Times (15 October 1946), 5.

‘Euthanasia and Sterilization,’ The Manchester Guardian (21 May 1945), 3.

C.P. Blacker, Problem Families: Five Inquiries (London: Eugenics Society, 1952).

D. Cameron, ‘Troubled Families Speech,’ Number 10, (15 December 2011), [www.number10.gov.uk/news/troubled-families-speech/].

“UK riots: should there be a curfew?” The Guardian (9 August 2011) [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/poll/2011/aug/09/london-riots-curfew].

Winnet and J. Kirkup, “Problem families ‘have too many children.’ Telegraph, (July 20, 2012), [www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9416535/Problem-families-have-too-many-children.html].

Williams, “The real ‘problem’ with these families is that they’re poor,” The Guardian, (July 18, 2012), [www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/18/problem-families-poverty].

3. Project Prevention: Sterilization, Drug Addiction and the Stigma of Eugenics

“Call me cynical, but wasn’t Adolf Hitler up for sterilizing minorities?” This comment in reaction to a 2010 Daily Mail article on the sterilization of drug addicts was ‘disliked’ by 43 people. Is it right to dismiss sterilization because it was used in Nazi Germany in an attempt to create Hitler’s eugenic utopia?

Project Prevention (1997- ) is a US charity dedicated to preventing drug addicts from having children. In 2010, it gained substantial media coverage for its work in Britain, including interviews on BBC Radio 4 and a nationally televised documentary, ‘Sterilising the Addicts’ (2010). 801 comments were posted below the BBC article ‘Charity offers UK drug addicts £200 to be sterilized’. Many of which were negative with the link to Nazi Germany unavoidable: “I seem to remember a similar programme of sterilizing the undeserving and undesirables back in the 1930s. It did not end well.” However, this guilty by association mentality brushes over many of the issues. Eugenics was primarily concerned with furthering human evolution. Though accused by some of coercion and exploitation of the ‘weak’, is Project Prevention actually eugenic in intent? Arguably the main intention of the charity is to prevent child abuse or neglect rather than improve the ‘race’. Almost seventy years after the Holocaust ended, we again ask the question, should everyone be allowed to reproduce?

“Bribe: Barbara Harris is filmed handing over the cash to drug addict ‘John’ after he had the vasectomy operation”, Daily Mail (22 October 2010)

In 2010, one BBC reader commented in support of Project Prevention, “[t]he addiction is due to their problems or lifestyle choices and subjecting any child to this is nothing less than abuse.” Another agreed that it “could be a way of curtailing this growing problem for our next generation” (BBC News, October 17, 2010). The Daily Mail even took a poll asking “Should drug addicts be paid to get sterilised”, with the results indicating an even divide of opinion: 53% Yes and 47% No. More recently, however, the founder/director Barbara Harris has lamented the fact that it can no longer pay British addicts to be sterilized, due to overwhelming opposition from the British Medical Association, which questioned the permanent nature of the procedures used. While practical considerations such as this should perhaps be the main considerations, many also drew comparisons with the eugenics movement.

In 1934, the British Eugenics Society recommended to parliament that the ‘mentally defective’, those with a transmissible physical disability, and those likely to transmit a mental defect or disorder should be sterilized. However, Nazi compulsory sterilization (1933-1945) was largely recognized in Britain as an overtly racist violation of human rights and parliament concluded that the legalization of sterilization had dangerous political overtones and the plan was dismissed. Although the Third Reich received condemnation in Britain and elsewhere there were many who continued to support the ideals of eugenics, and called the German experience a “disastrous development with its unrealistic ideas of superman and worthless racial elements, a development which ended in catastrophe”.

Immediately after the war, letters to The Times editor,  described Germany’s “sadistic cruelties” and “bestial atrocities” suggesting there was no rational basis for the Holocaust. Was the main difference between the British and German campaigns for eugenic sterilization legislative success or ideology? Arguably, both the British and German examples essentially shared the same ideological blueprint and intended to remove inferior strains of the population as if a gangrenous limb in order to further human evolution.

Either way, today the word ‘eugenics’ still conjures images such as this:

Is this the case for sterilization? Should we discount the sterilization of drug addicts today because of how the procedure was abused in the past? Whether or not sterilization will or should be used as a ‘permanent contraceptive’ for drug addicts, the intrinsic link with past atrocities is unavoidable.

With over 2000 babies born each year to addicts, many support Project Prevention, with the charity receiving half a million dollars per year in donations. Barbara Harris told the Daily Mail in 2010 that while her critics were “calling me Hitler”, for her the only concern was “preventing child abuse.” While some have accused Harris of bribery, the addicts themselves often agree with her philosophy. Before being sterilized, the first British client of Project Prevention, a man named John, who had been addicted to opiates for 15 years, commented that “I won’t be able to support a kid. I can just about manage to support myself”.

REFERENCES

T. Kemp, ‘Genetic Hygiene Experience in Denmark in Recent Years’, The Eugenics Review, VOL. XLIX, No. 1, (April, 1957): 11.

The ‘Letters to the Editor’ sections of The Times from April 21-23, 1945 give good indication of initial public reaction to the Holocaust e.g. J. Duncan, ‘Germany And The Camps: Making The Truth Known’, The Times, 50124 (April 23, 1945); and 5; S. King-Hall, “German Crimes: The Parliamentary Delegation”, The Times, 50123 (April 21, 1945): 5.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1321451/Heroin-user-bribed-200-charity-Project-Prevention-vasectomy.html

‘Have Your Say: Should addicts be encouraged to be sterilised?’, BBC News, [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/haveyoursay/2010/10/should_addicts_be_encouraged_t.html?page=1#comments] .

http://www.projectprevention.org/united-kingdom/

2. ‘Designer Babies’ and the Culture of ‘Perfection’

‘THE TRUE COST OF DESIGNER BABIES’ 20.09.2012,
(http://www.catholicsistas.com/2012/09/20/the-true-cost-of-designer-babies/)

“My god no, just think if Victoria Beckham ever understood a word of what you said, the horror of the designer baby that she would demand”. With 24 ‘likes’ this was the most popular comment on a 2013 Guardian article titled, ‘“Designer babies”: the ultimate privileged elite?’.

As well as a snipe at the former Spice Girl and now fashion designer’s apparent obsession with appearance, this reveals a dissatisfaction with societal values and the culture of ‘perfection’. What happens when a society that among other things idolises fashion models and film stars – and promotes among other things cosmetic surgeries and diet pills that enable one to look like fashion models and film stars – begins to direct such feelings towards the next generation? 

Though there exists considerable disquiet regarding current societal norms, many perhaps correctly defend modern reproductive technologies, including in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). After all, they enable people with fertility issues to start families and can even prevent the inheritance of a range of hereditary diseases, from cystic fibrosis to muscular dystrophy. As David King commented in the early days of PGD, the main group “of clients for this service have been couples known to be at risk of having children affected by a genetic disorder, often because they already have an affected child” (King, 1999). However, though not widely legalised it is also becoming possible to control the sex, intelligence (to a degree) and physical characteristics of future children. Indeed, what begins with the elimination of ‘degenerative’ conditions could end with the ‘designer baby’. Should we be allowed such control over the genetic constitution of our children? Is this simply a dangerous and lamentable experiment as humankind’s innate obsession with ‘perfection’ persists?

‘How Designer Children Work’, (http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/genetic/designer-children2.htm)

The much maligned eugenics movement was also concerned with human ‘perfection’. From the 1900s until well into the post-war period, one of the main concerns of British eugenicists was the removal of ‘degenerative’ hereditary conditions, mostly through the use of negative eugenics (e.g. birth control, sterilization etc). This was viewed as essential to human progress and the furtherance of evolution. However, from the mid-1930s techniques such as sterilization – and the state enforcement of – became associated with Nazi Germany and increasingly reprehensible, both from scientific and moral standpoints. The eugenics movement in Britain was ultimately unsuccessful in gaining the legislative backing it required to make a significant impact on society. In order to keep their dream of a biological utopia alive, some eugenicists gave increased consideration to the benefits of ‘positive eugenics’ in a quest for ‘better babies’ which, arguably, continues today. One of the methods considered was known as eutelegenesis, defined as “Artificial insemination by semen from a donor selected because of certain desirable characteristics for the development of superior offspring” (‘Eutelegenesis’, The Free Dictionary).

From the 1930s, figures such as Julian Huxley, Herbert Brewer and Carlos Blacker argued for the benefits of this technique over negative eugenics. With regard to the prevalence of mental deficiency and other ‘latent’ defects, whereas “the elimination of such degeneracy by sterilizing” would be like “clearing a river of fish by catching the few which jump from the water,” artificial insemination would ensure that the “existence the whole inextricable tangle of latent defect” would be swept out “in a few generations, replacing it concurrently with hereditary material of the highest excellence.” That said, one of Brewer’s central arguments was that eugenic artificial insemination should be voluntary in nature; not enforced but brought about by a national eugenic consciousness, created through education and cultural propaganda. As long as the general public could be made aware of the biological ‘facts’ of inheritance, it would surely be accepted that it was “the right of every individual that is born to the inheritance of the finest hereditary endowment that anywhere exists” (Brewer, 1937). Arguably, Brewer’s wish is finally coming true.

Since the first IVF (or ‘test tube’) baby, Louise Joy Brown, was born in 1978, artificial insemination has become more socially acceptable. In a 1996 episode of the TV show Friends, for example, the character of Monica, a single twenty-something woman, considered using a sperm bank to start a family, impressed that one donor in the catalogue was “6’2 and 170 pounds”. Arguably, IVF has shifted somewhat from an exclusivley ‘private’ matter to an accepted – if expensive – aspect of modern life. The geneticist and fertility expert, Dagan Wells commented in 2013 that “IVF is still expensive and uncomfortable with no guarantee of a baby at the end. I can’t imagine many people wanting to go through the strains of IVF for something trivial” (Wells, 2013). Are cost and efficiency the only barriers preventing IVF becoming a common practice?

Certainly the issue becomes more complex and expensive when genetic screening is introduced, as we move from ‘test tube’ to ‘designer’ babies. Films such as Gattaca (1997) make us shudder at the notion that in the ‘not-too-distant future’ society may praise stronger, faster and smarter ‘test tube babies’ and shun those ‘inferior’ individuals belonging to the ‘invalid’ minority conceived ‘naturally’.

Gattaca (1997), (http://zenov.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/gattaca/)

As well as fears of a dystopian future, the idea of ‘designer babies’ also faces notable religious opposition. One contributor to an online Catholic blog writes “I can’t help but shudder at the pressure the little girls created via PGD will live under, with mommies willing to kill–literally–to have them. All of us have dreams of what we’d like our family to be. The danger is in letting those dreams rule you, to the point you’re willing to usurp God’s sovereignty over human life to get what you want. The use of sex-selection technology to obtain a child is tragic for everyone involved, from the embryonic children created (just to be destroyed), to the “lucky” girls allowed to be born (to suffocate under mommy’s expectations), to the parents losing their souls in their quest for a designer baby. Gattaca has arrived. May God have mercy on us.” (2012) When does life begin? Is IVF/PGD playing God or simply providing your child with the best possible start in life?

Whether or not they are universally accepted, we must ask the question what if techniques such as IVF and PGD become affordable options for the average consumer? If ‘test tube babies’ were ‘free on the NHS’, for instance, it seems reasonable to assume that a significant proportion of the population would use this service. Parents naturally desire to give their children the best possible chance to ‘succeed’ in life. Why not start with their genetic constitution? It seems clear from the ‘rise’ of cosmetic surgery, for instance, that mankind’s desire for ‘perfection’ did not end with the eugenics movement. With traits from intelligence to eye colour theoretically alterable before conception, why stop with our children?

 REFERENCES

‘“Designer babies”: the ultimate privileged elite?’, The Guardian, (9 July 2013), [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/09/ivf-baby-born-genetic-selection-ultimate-elite]

David S. King, ‘Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis and the “New” Eugenics,’ Journal of Medical Ethics 25 (1999), 176.

‘THE TRUE COST OF DESIGNER BABIES’ (20 September 2012),
[http://www.catholicsistas.com/2012/09/20/the-true-cost-of-designer-babies/].

‘Eutelegenesis’, The Free Dictionary, [http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/eutelegenesis].

Herbert Brewer, Eugenics and Politics (London: Eugenics Society, 1937), 3.