Cultural eugenics

My post today is going to be about something I’ve already brushed in my two previous posts. In my Aldous Huxley’s example of a dystopia brought along in part by the artificial creation of perfectly adapted humans in an artificial womb, the most salient aspect might seem to be ectogenesis, which, when presented in such a dystopic environment, might seem like a pretty dehumanizing process. However, I think that the one thing that is the most morally revolting in this image of humans being created like cars on an assembly line is less the absence of a mother and more the fact that humans are being engineered and created on purpose to suit the needs of society. This practice comes from a selection process called eugenics. The idea of eugenics is typically attributed to Francis Galton who, inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution, suggested that the human species could be made better by artificially selecting those with more desirable traits such as intelligence or wealth while keeping other people, with “inferior” traits from breeding. To put it in very general words, eugenics can be defined as “making the gene pool of humans better”. This idea, born in 1883, was partly used by the Nazis to justify the killing of thousands of people, and I’m pretty sure that very few today would like to be associated to the Nazis by defending ideas of eugenics.

In my second post about ectogenesis, I have discussed the delicate moral issue of doctors having to take the decision about keeping a foetus alive after miscarriage, considering that such a foetus could lead to weakened human that could potentially live a life of suffering. This is an issue that is closely associated with eugenics, and one way that ectogenesis could be questioned as a technique because of its moral consequences. However, I believe that the mechanism of eugenics is already present in our present society as a form of cultural eugenics and that the technology that could make it more salient, such as the embryo selection from the “Brave new world” dystopia is mostly an extension of a process that’s been happening anyway.

The idea of eugenics was in part inspired by Galton’s half-cousin Darwin’s theory of natural and sexual selection. This theory basically states that in the natural world (of which humans are a part of), the selection of who gets to mate and who doesn’t isn’t random and that desirable traits will make it more likely that an individual will reproduce before they die. Natural selection is the process through which traits that give an individual more chances to survive will have more chances to be… well, alive when mating time comes. The second process, sexual selection, underline the fact that individual are actively choosing their own partners when it comes to reproduction and that in order to do so, they will choose those who have desirable traits. In that aspect, I believe that the basis for eugenics, to choose which individual gets to reproduce or not is but an attempt to consciously control something that already happens in nature.

While we might question the wisdom of trying to influence something nature is already doing (The good old nature is good argument), there is no doubt that it is already happening anyway through cultural norms and systemic oppressions that we are already seeing in the world. We already live in a world where popular culture, media and publicity is actively shaping people’s belief about who is “fuckable” or not. If you don’t find a sexual partner because society judges you unattractive, be it because of your skin color, disability, lack of resources or simply because you don’t fit in the typical model of beauty, then it is less likely that you are going to have children.

Furthermore, I believe that society encourages some even more salient forms of eugenics by reducing access to assisted reproduction techniques. Indeed, at least in Quebec, there has been a strong debate about who should have a free access to these techniques, and one of the predominant opinion was that only “medically infertile couples”, which is usually defined as a typical straight couple having trouble conceiving, should be allowed access. Concretely, it meant that it was considered that a single person capable of bearing a child or a lesbian couple where one of the women is fertile shouldn’t have access to this service on the ground that they could potentially “find a man to do the job”. Similarly, the practice of surrogate mothers, the only alternative for a single infertile person and for a completely infertile couple, especially a gay male couple, to have children has been even more vigorously shunned as woman’s exploitation, even in the cases where the surrogate mom was completely consenting. The general idea behind the discomfort is that “nature shouldn’t be tempered with”, which underlines that there is a natural “law” that people should follow in order to have the “right” to reproduce. Similarly, in many of these cases, it is seen as less of a problem if the people involved can pay the procedure on their own, which would in turn give a reproductive advantage to the wealthy.

Similarly, a commonly held belief is that in order to become a parent, whether through natural reproduction or through assisted reproduction technique, a couple should be able to prove that they can be decent parents. Since it is impossible to know before they actually have children if a person would in fact be a good parent (something which is already difficult to judge when they do have children), it means that such a measure would imply finding absolute factors which would decide if someone is going to be a good or a bad parent. Such factors would in all likeliness be strongly affected by wealth, education and access to care, which would obviously lead to a form of eugenics that wouldn’t be very far from Galton’s original idea.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that any form of eugenic practice should be under strong scrutiny, whether they are the result of a new technology or simply the result of the present access to present reproductive technologies and to parenthood. I’d also like to point out that while embryo selection is a budding technological application (more on this in later posts), selective abortion is a very common practice that is used in cases of multiple pregnancies (where the weakest foetus is often “reduced” to allow the others more chances of survival) and in cases of early detected genetic disabilities such as Down’s syndrome. It is also very commonly practiced on female foetus in some areas of the world where it is believed that having a girl puts too much of a burden on the family. I don’t consider eugenics to be essentially bad, but there is certainly a debate to be made about the present cultural norms that allow forms of it thrive.

To know more:

This is an awesome paper on the implication of eugenics, especially on the ethics of it technological applications (More to come later)

Wilkinson, S., & Garrard, E. (2013). Eugenics and the ethics of selective reproduction.

A paper about surrogacy and consent:

Oakley, J. (1992). Altruistic surrogacy and informed consent. Bioethics, 6(4), 269-287.

Foetal reduction

Depp, R., Macones, G. A., Rosenn, M. F., Turzo, E., Wapner, R. J., & Weinblatt, V. J. (1996). Multifetal pregnancy reduction: evaluation of fetal growth in the remaining twins. American journal of obstetrics and gynecology,174(4), 1233-1240.

Napolitano, R., & Thilaganathan, B. (2010). Late termination of pregnancy and foetal reduction for foetal anomaly. Best Practice & Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 24(4), 529-537.

Yes, another wikepedia source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics