Eugenics

My brain was having trouble processing everything I was hearing and reading in the news today - well, every day for the last nearly 100 days. I needed an outlet. I needed to research. I needed to put my thoughts into one place. So, I decided to start this blog - kind of a diary, research notes, opinions, feelings, therapy....we'll see what it turns into. 

So, the main topic on my mind today was eugenics. I heard a couple creators on TikTok discussing RFK Jr.'s recent speech and how it was eugenics. Honestly, I'd never heard about eugenics, and I feel like it's something I should have learned about in school. (Side note - I am often times ignorant about things, unfamiliar with terms and procedures, and uneducated about many, many things. This is why I like doing so much research.) Ok - back to eugenics. I had to look it up. 

Eugenics: noun - the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. Developed largely by Sir Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, eugenics was increasingly discredited as unscientific and racially biased during the 20th century, especially after the adoption of its doctrines by the Nazis in order to justify their treatment of Jews, disabled people, and other minority groups.

The videos I had seen specifically referenced the autism database that RFK Jr. said was going to be started. When I researched the relationship between the autism database and eugenics, it would depend on how the data is collected and used and whether it respects individual rights and consent. 

When does it cross into eugenics territory?

• If it is used to identify, segregate, or restrict people with autism
• If it limits their rights to reproduce or parent
• If it justifies institutionalization or forced treatments
• If it makes decisions about who is "fit" to live or participate in society

Could the database be justified? In order to be justified, it would need to have:

• full transparency
• informed consent (this will lead to another thought at another time)
• strict limits on access and use
• input from autistic community 

Historically, eugenics has lead to forced sterilization, institutionalization, and exclusion from public life. Human rights is a common theme above, right? Which reminded me that I had seen a few headlines that the State Department was redefining human rights. So, I needed to side track and research that. Essentially, the State Department (Marco Rubio) removed critiques of abuses - such as: 

• Harsh Prison Conditions (I think I'll need to research El Salvador more now)
• Government Corruption (that can't be for anything good)
• Restrictions on Political Participation (okay, there's getting to be too much to research at this point)

With the narrowing focus on human rights, the autism database could proceed without sufficient oversight or consideration of individual (human) rights, deprioritize protections for vulnerable populations, and reduce accountability. 

Other recent news that could be viewed as eugenics would be the Trump Administration actively pursuing pronatalist policies. (Confession - I didn't know what pronatalist meant, so I had to look that up as well. Pronatalist: adjective - relating to the policy or practice of encouraging people to have children. noun - an advocate of the policy or practice of encouraging people to have children.) The ideas presented included:

• $5,000 "Baby Bonus" - a one-time cash payment to mothers following childbirth. 
• Tax Incentives for Families - enhanced tax credits for married couples with children, with benefits increasing as families grow. 
• Expansion of IVF Access - Trump signed an executive order in February to expand access to IVF. The order directs policy recommendations to reduce out-of-pocket costs and health plan expenses for IVF treatments. 
• Educational Programs on Fertility (this one did not go where I thought it would) - government funded programs to educate women about their menstrual cycles, ovulation, and conception, promoting "natural fertility" methods. (But, states are voting to remove "consent" from sex education - another research topic.)
• Fulbright Scholarship Preferences (I did not know what this was either - here's what I found: "The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government's flagship international educational and cultural exchange program, offering opportunities for students and scholars to study, teach, conduct research, and engage in professional projects in other countries. It aims to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries.")  - reserve 30% of Fulbright Program scholarships for applicants who are married or have children. 
• National Medal of Motherhood (this is the most disturbing of all) - This would honor women who have six or more children. Does this sound familiar? If you said no, don't feel bad. It didn't sound familiar to me - a little dystopian maybe, but not familiar. It did sound familiar to some others more educated than myself (or is it I, or me) though. 
• It might remind you of the Soviet Union between 1944 and 1991 when they had the "Mother Heroine" medal. To be eligible to receive this you would need to bore and raised 10 or more children. The purpose was to rebuild the population after massive WWII casualties, promote the ideal of large, patriotic families, and strengthen the Soviet workforce and military potential. This was reintroduced in what is now Russia in 2022 under similar goals. (That's interesting...Russia reintroduced this recently...)
• Maybe, it reminds you of Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1945 when they had the "Mother's Cross" medal. Mothers with 4+ children were eligible for the award with a bronze medal needing 4-5 children to be eligible, 6-7 children qualified you for the silver medal, and 8+ children for the gold medal. The purpose of this was to promote Aryan birthrates as a part of racial and nationalist ideology, encourage women to focus on children, kitchen and church, and build the future of the Reich through biological means. The medals were awarded on Hitler's mother's birthday (August 12.)
• Or, maybe it was a reminder of the French Family Medal awarded in France between 1920 to present. Eligibility criteria was to be parents (traditionally mothers) of at least 4 children, raised with "dignity". (I didn't look into this too much - I'm not sure what qualifies as "with dignity".)  The eligibility has been changed many times over the years though. For example, the award now also calls to attention multiple avenues to receive the medal both for those living in France and abroad. This includes not only the raising 4 or more children, but also helping early childhood education or raising orphans. (This one seems to be more inclusive than others.)
• It also could remind you of Romania between 1966 and 1989 under dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. There were incentives such as awards, bonuses and even naming streets after large families. Woman with fewer than 5 children were taxed. The purpose was to reverse declining population growth. The results were unsafe abortions, maternal deaths and orphanages.  
• Wait, there's another one. Maybe it reminds you of modern Hungary where women with 4+ children receive a lifetime income tax exemption. This is to help combat population decline without immigration. (I need to do some research on Hungary also - I think there's some shady stuff afoot there.) 

Whew - that was a lot. Why does this feel so....scary? I think because it is. Why is the head of the Department of Health and Human Services telling American citizens that people with autism are a burden on their families and society? Is he planting the seed for justifying whatever comes next? 

By the way, in Germany between 1939 and 1945 (although the groundwork was laid earlier) there was a goal to eliminate those deemed "life unworthy of life". They targeted people with intellectual disabilities, mental illness, physical deformities, epilepsy, schizophrenia, etc. (I wonder if RFK Jr. feels this way about, I don't know, people with autism?) In 1933, shortly after Hitler took power, he allowed forced sterilization of people with conditions like schizophrenia, epilepsy, congenital blindness or deafness, and alcoholism (well, shit...). Approximately 400,000 people were sterilized by 1939. In October of 1939, Hitler signed a secret authorization, backdated to September 1st (the start of WWII) that was aimed at killing children and adults with disabilities in institutions and hospitals. Methods used to complete this? Children were starved, given lethal injections, or overdosed on drugs. The adults were transported to 6 main killing centers where they were gassed using carbon monoxide, their bodies burned in crematoria, and death certificates were falsified. In 1941, protests began and the official program ended August 1941, but killings continued covertly in hospitals. Between 1941 and 1945 doctors continued killings without centralized coordination. Disabled people in camps were experimented on or sent directly to gas chambers. 

The groundwork mentioned above included ideological foundations based in Darwin's theory of natural selection to human societies and promoting the belief that the strong should survive and reproduce, and the "unfit" should not. Also, the eugenics movement became popular across Europe and the U.S. in the early 1900s. Selective breeding and sterilization was advocated for. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf 1925-26) about the danger of passing on "defective" genes, he saw compassion for the weak as a weakness and promoted purity of the Aryan race. It was then that he also called for the eradication of those "unfit to live".

The propaganda campaigns went on from the early 1930's to 1939. Examples of the propaganda were when Nazi media portrayed disabled people as "Ballast lives" (a burden on the nation) and "Useless eaters". A 1937 film called, "Victims of the Past," promoted sterilization and euthanasia. Textbooks and posters taught schoolchildren that caring for disabled people was wasteful (ummm...I'll go look up the quote, but I think RFK Jr. just said this similarly. Okay - it's going to take longer to find the quote. I'm getting tired) and that Germany couldn't thrive with "genetic defects" dragging it down. In 1933 the law for the prevention of hereditarily diseased offspring was one of the first Nazi laws after Hitler took power. The "Genetic Health Courts" were created to decide who should be sterilized. 

A Registration of Disabled Children was established in 1939. This required all midwives and doctors to report disabled or deformed newborns. This created national registries, which later became target lists for euthanasia. List of registrations from Nazi Germany:

• Genetic registry - information was collected into a centralized database of those eligible for forced sterilization and later euthanasia. Doctors, midwives, and officials were legally required to report people with disabilities or hereditary conditions. Data included: family history, diagnoses, IQ scores and test results, and institutional records.
• T4 Program Registration Program - secret order sent to doctors to report all children under 3 with congenital malformations. The reported children were reviewed by panels of doctors anonymously - without seeing the child. Approved cases were marked with a red plus sign or "Yes" - which lead to transfer and death.  Once the program proved "efficient", registries expanded to school-aged children, adults in psychiatric hospitals, and elderly or disabled institutionalized people. 
• Jewish population registries - Nazi Germany used census data, local police records, religious affiliation records, and ancestry documentation to identify Jews, Roma, and other minorities, track family lineage, deny civil rights or employment, confiscate property. Jews were required to register with local authorities, carry identification cards marked with a "J", and submit ancestry charts. (This seems a little like targeting immigrants and sending them to a prison in another country, doesn't it? I realize there is more substance to this issue, I'm just ready for bed and will need to research that another day.)

Okay, it is after midnight, I need to get up for work in the morning because apparently even though the world is on fire I still have to pay bills. I feel a little better after researching this...well, not "better" - I'm more scared now than I was two hours ago, but I have a better understanding of how I feel about these topics now that I've put some research into it. 

I'm not a writer, a journalist, a scholar or any other type of professional. I'm just a girl with the internet and the desire to learn. I should not be taken too seriously, although I do pride myself in my research abilities...just sayin.

Interesting fact - U.S. practices were cited in Nazi legal arguments. I kind of want to dig in to that sometime.