Written by Kate Phillips
23/03/25
The term “eugenics” was coined by Francis Galton in 1883, defined as the effort to “improve or impair the racial quality of future generations.” Eugenics has ancient roots, extending back to Plato’s Republic, where he describes a “marriage number” or “nuptial number” – a quantifying numeric score of the man and the woman separately, and the resulting score of their child. By the late nineteenth-century, the classical root of eugenics was blended seamlessly with emerging scientific racism.
The scales and ways to which eugenics was implemented varied. In the U.S., anti-miscegenation laws beginning as early as the seventeenth century were reflected in ethnic-bound forced sterilization. One of the most prominent examples of this sterilization emerged as legislation. In 1907, The Indiana Eugenics Laws were passed, prohibiting those deemed “mentally deficient” from marrying as well as enforcing sterilization. With the emergence of genetic engineering in the 1970s, many feared a new widespread opportunity for hierarchical ethnic control. In response to these fears, the U.S. Department of Health created the 1978 Federal Sterilization Regulations, designed to prohibit forcible or coercive sterilization of women. In Canada, eugenics found its way into the feminist movement. The Famous Five, a group of Canadian women famed for their win in the legal fight to define women as “persons” under the Constitution Act, 1867, supported eugenics, saying that it was an extension of women’s rights. Women should have the right and the privilege to choose a “safe,” “sterilized” partner.
Historically, some of the biggest criticism of eugenics has come from the Catholic Church. In 1930, Pope Pius XI criticized specifically sterilization eugenics for being unnecessary. In his words, it was a form of punishment against a nonexistent crime. Emphasis on humanism, freedom, and God’s will were common Catholic arguments against the scientific hubris and immorality of sterilization. The term casti connubii refers to this, however, it is important to note that this critique did not extend to the reinforcement of “desirable” traits through more “natural” means such as choosing the proper partner. The philosophy of casti connubii can be seen in European statistics, where Catholic-influenced countries such as Poland and Czechoslovakia experienced less forced sterilization than primarily non-Catholic countries such as Germany and Sweden.
In Britain, one of the biggest (and possibly hidden) supporters of eugenics was Winston Churchill. Churchill was an honorary vice president for the British Eugenics Society. He was particularly invested in the pseudoscience behind the classification of the “Feeble-Minded.” Churchill helped draft the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913, which classified “mental defects” into four categories depending on their presumed effects on other people and their level of reasoning: idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded, and moral defectives. This signified a key shift in the treatment of these groups – in prior systems, particularly the justice systems in both Britain and the U.S., a clinically insane person was legally viewed as only a danger to themselves. The Mental Deficiency Act painted these people as a societal health concern. Churchill expresses this concern in various letters, one of which reads: “The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the Feeble-Minded and Insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate. I am convinced that the multiplication of the Feeble-Minded, which is proceeding now at an artificial rate, unchecked by any of the old restraints of nature, and actually fostered by civilized conditions, is a terrible danger to the race.” Churchill was clearly operating on a sort of moral panic, infatuated with this heroic purpose of “saving” Britain. Indeed, Churchill read the book “The Sterilization of Degenerates” by Dr. H.C. Sharp, one of the writers of the Indiana Eugenics Laws. Churchill sent his annotations in a letter to the Home Office encouraging them to adopt similar eugenics laws in Britain.
Eugenics operated in different lenses depending on the groups involved. For some genetic scientists, it was a question of scientific ethics. For the Catholic church, it was a question of scientific hubris. For some feminists, it was a question of “improving” women’s choices. For some like Churchill, it was an administrative duty concerned with the salvation of society. For others like Plato, it was an oversimplified philosophy concerned with the salvation of the soul. These interpretations expose perhaps the darkest side of eugenics – that the ignorant appeal of “improvement” can, driven by hubris and racism and ego, can be justified by factions that would otherwise operate in opposition or at least tension: religion, science, feminism, racism. The history of eugenics is significant precisely because of its resistance againeust simplified, intuitive categorizations of what it means to different groups to “save” the world around them. In doing so, it highlights the worst of human cognition: simplification, ignorance, and intolerance.
Bibliography
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Casti-Connubii
Featured Image Credit: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/blue-plaque-stories/eugenics/
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