Medical Genetics Is Not Eugenics

The connection that critics make between medical genetics and eugenics is historically fallacious. Activists on the political right are as mistaken as activists on the political left: Genetic screening was not eugenics in the past, is not eugenics in the present, and, unless its technological system...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Chronicle of Higher Education 2008-05, Vol.54 (36), p.B.14
Main Author: Cowan, Ruth Schwartz
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
Bioethics
Comparative analysis
Diagnostic Tests
Down Syndrome
Eugenics
Females
Feminism
Genetic engineering
Genetics
Health care
Heredity
Intellectual History
Medical genetics
Medical Research
Medical technology
Nature Nurture Controversy
Parents
Patients
Physicians
Pregnancy
Quality Control
School Districts
Screening Tests
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Summary:The connection that critics make between medical genetics and eugenics is historically fallacious. Activists on the political right are as mistaken as activists on the political left: Genetic screening was not eugenics in the past, is not eugenics in the present, and, unless its technological systems become radically transformed, will not be eugenics in the future. The chief goal of the eugenicists, "improvement of the race," was never one of the goals of genetic screening--and it did not become one, even after genomic research had identified the locations of dozens of disease-causing mutations. From the very beginning, the founders of medical genetics--people like Neel, Fritz Fuchs, Michael Kaback, and Robert Guthrie--viewed their basic project as the relief of human suffering, not improvement of the race. Geneticists wanted to reduce the suffering of both parents and children by helping the parents to have additional children, and by ensuring that those additional children would be free of the disease. As such, the author contends that parents should not feel guilty when they participate in genetic screening and that historians, social scientists, and journalists to stop warning about its hidden eugenic evils.
ISSN:0009-5982
1931-1362