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Eugenics

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Eugenics focuses on the unique inborn mental and physical qualities of groups and the factors that influenced the full development of those qualities within a society. Eugenics can be considered the science of promoting good births within a society rather than in humanity, because the concept of good birth varies from society to society. The qualities of individuals in a group are acquired, it was believed, from a common ancestor who possessed unique inborn mental and physical qualities that were passed from generation to generation. Genetics and heredity are the basic building blocks of eugenics but rapid industrialization, urbanization, intense growth of American industry, agricultural mechanization, and widespread immigration all played roles too. The cities and population growing without enough adequate housing were some factors that led to the practice of eugenics. Carrie Buck was committed to the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feeble Minded in Lynchburg, Virginia. Carrie and her mother were judged to be "feebleminded" and promiscuous, primarily because they had both had borne children out of wedlock. Carrie's child was also judged to be "feebleminded" at seven months of age! Three generations of "imbeciles" became the "perfect" family for Virginia officials to use as a test case in favor of the eugenic sterilization law enacted. In 1924 the Supreme Court concurred "that Carrie Buck is the probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring, likewise afflicted, that she may be sexually sterilized without detriment to her general health and that her welfare and that of society will be promoted by her sterilization" (unbelievable!) The philosophical roots of the holocaust can be traced to American scientists because an author stated that eugenic policies should be used as a model for Germany to follow. The sterilization program of the Nazi state modeled after it was processed as a solution for the feebleminded. Hitler he charged the medical profession with the task of implementing a national program in race hygiene. The first key element was the enactment of a law permitting involuntary sterilization of feebleminded, mentally ill, epileptics, and alcoholics. Harry Laughlin's model sterilization law was closely modeled.

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