Eugenics, the scientific study of improving genetic qualities in humans, is typically regarded negatively because associated with the forced sterilization of persons regarded as sub-human. What is often forgotten is that even before the Nazis practiced eugenics in the concentration camps, the United States and Canada engaged in it as well. The following short documentary discusses how eugenics became an accepted way of controlling population growth in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s.
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QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
- What are the assumptions about criminal behavior, “feeble-mindedness,” and disease that drove eugenics programs in the US? Has thinking about these ideas changed in the past 80 years?
- What emotion(s), fear, anxiety, and/or hatred, drove eugenics programs? What is one way of overcoming that emotion?
- Are there contemporary issues across the globe that mirror eugenics programs?
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