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Eugenics is still practiced in developed countries today. It just became opt-in, e.g. screening pregnant women for downs syndrome, which is standard procedure:
by avar 8y ago
Eugenics is still practiced in developed countries today. It just became opt-in, e.g. screening pregnant women for downs syndrome, which is standard procedure: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/down-syndrome/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20355983 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/down-syndrome...
Edit: I'm not saying that's comparable to practices called "eugenics" in the 1st half of the 20th century. Just narrowly responding to "people just stopped [the practice of eugenics]". The Wikipedia article on the subject agrees with this usage of the word, "practices that [aim to] improv[e] the genetic quality of a human population"[1].
There's also the whole topic of "designer babies" which has also been called "new eugenics"[2].
This is admittedly way off-topic from the original discussion. I just thought it was an interesting side-note.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_reproductive_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_reproductive_technolo...
- bad_user 8y ago> screening pregnant women for downs syndrome That’s not related to eugenics.
- thaumasiotes 8y agoDetecting and aborting low-quality babies isn't related to eugenics?
- Retric 8y agoFirst detecting often does not result in abortion, let alone mandatory abortion or sterilization by the state. Eugenics also generally focused on sterilization vs termination, with a focus on long term changes in the human population. And sterilization is only relevant for people likely to reproduce so the elderly and people with Down syndrome are irrelevant from a eugenics standpoint. Finally, small scale things like prescreening sperm donors is not going to make a meaningful difference to the overall population. For eugenics to have a meaningful impact the idea was to manage the overall population at scale. It’s a more insidious idea than often portrayed in a modern context because the original idea has become anathema.
- sifoobar 8y agoLow-quality babies? Wow. Because they don't meet your standards? They're human babies, and there is no such thing as a low quality human; though people like you sure come close enough.
- larkost 8y agoNo, that is exactly eugenics. It is removing an unwanted part of the (potential) population. I happen to think it is a really good idea, but it does solidly fall under the term eugenics.
- gammateam 8y agoDoctor's unilaterally sterilizing adults is an unpopular practice, which is what is referred to in my original post.