Question

I need a response for the statement below. Anything to add to the statement, corrections or questions about the statement?

The history of eugenics can be dated back to the 19th c (Wilson,2019). Eugenics is a practice that aids in filtering out good and bad genes in one's genetic makeup. Ideally, for some, this practice would focus primarily on ruling out disease processes rather than for aesthetics. However, sometimes in eugenics, it also includes the concept of trying to create a "superior" or "elite" class. Vitro fertilization is an example of a scientific technique used to study health and disease processes in the body. Vitro fertilization has helped researchers make advances in artificial implantation, which has helped many begin families. Vitro fertilization is ethically controversial since some embryos never get fertilized and waste away (American Pregnancy Association, 2020). I'm afraid I have to disagree with the process of this research. According to the natural law theory of ethics, it would be unnatural to try to advance medical research through the extraction or deterioration of an embryo.

Answer 1

The term eugenics was coined in 1883 by British explorer and natural scientist Francis Galton, who, influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, advocated a system that would allow “the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable.”Social Darwinism, the popular theory in the late 19th century that life for humans in society was ruled by “survival of the fittest,” helped advance eugenics into serious scientific study in the early 1900s.

Drawing again upon long-standing eugenic practices in agriculture, popular eugenic advertisements claimed it was about time that humans received the same attention in the breeding of better babies that had been given to livestock and crops for centuries.Other countries, most notably China, continue to support eugenics-directed programs openly in order to ensure the genetic makeup of their future.

Because certain diseases (e.g., hemophilia and Tay-Sachs disease) are now known to be genetically transmitted, Couples at risk of passing on genetic defects may opt to remain childless or to adopt children. Furthermore, it is now possible to diagnose certain genetic defects in the unborn. Many couples choose to terminate a pregnancy that involves a genetically disabled offspring.

Anti-eugenics sentiment began to appear after 1910 and intensified during the 1930s. Most commonly it was based on religious grounds.  For example, the 1930 papal encyclical Casti connubii condemned reproductive sterilization, though it did not specifically prohibit positive eugenic attempts to amplify the inheritance of beneficial traits.