On November 24, 1859, Charles Darwin’s book, “On the Origin of Species,” was published. The full title was “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.” Mr. Darwin believed that white Europeans were the favored races.
Mr. Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton, took Darwin’s teachings on natural selection and survival of the fittest and began to apply them to human reproduction. He coined the term “eugenics,” which comes from the Greek and means “good beginning” or “good birth.” The idea was that, by selectively breeding people, you could improve mankind as a whole. So in England, where Mr. Galton lived, the eugenics movement began to focus on improving the human race by encouraging positive characteristics in human breeding.
Meanwhile, the eugenics movement in America got its start by focusing on preventing negative aspects of human reproduction. The American Breeder’s Association was the first eugenic organization in this country — and, yes, we are talking about the breeding of humans. Some prominent members included Alexander Graham Bell, Stanford president David Starr Jordan, and the well-known scientist Luther Burbank.
As a result of fairly widespread eugenic beliefs in academia and among leading politicians and scientists, various states began to pass laws that prohibited certain elements of the population from reproducing. They did this by forced sterilizations of targeted groups and individuals and by not allowing designated people to marry or reproduce. In some cases, couples were separated and “unmarried” in order to prevent their reproducing.
The list of people who were considered unfit to reproduce included those who had diseases such as cancer and syphilis, or who were considered “feebleminded.” Other reasons for not being able to marry or reproduce included such things as pauperism, immorality, being disabled and epilepsy.
In North Carolina an IQ of 70 or lower was enough to justify a forced sterilization. At its peak, the eugenics movement was active in every state in the union. Thirty-two states had forced sterilization laws on their books. California led the way with more than 20,000 sterilizations. All told, more than 60,000 forced sterilizations were performed in America between 1909 and the 1960s.
In 1927 the Supreme Court case of Buck vs. Bell legitimized the forced sterilization of patients at a Virginia home for the mentally retarded. The ruling was written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote, “It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind … Three generations of imbeciles is enough.”
Planned Parenthood led the way in efforts to sterilize undesirable citizens. In the light of recent revelations of aborted baby parts being sold by Planned Parenthood, a look at Planned Parenthood’s founder is in place. Margaret Sanger is credited with being the founder of Planned Parenthood. It is interesting to note that Ms. Sanger was essentially a white supremacist racist who worked tirelessly to sterilize as many African-American men and women as she could. Sanger made her case for racial purity in numerous appearances at Ku Klux Klan meetings around the country. Early Planned Parenthood facilities were purposely located near African-American populations in order to ease the work of sterilization of these poor women.
Sanger was an early proponent of birth control and was motivated by the rising population of the earth. She was also confident that she knew best who ought to be breeding and who shouldn’t. She promoted the use of sterilization procedures to curb population growth, especially among ethnic groups she considered inferior, such as African-Americans and Native Americans. To her credit, Sanger did not support abortion as a means of preventing the birth of a child.
There is a bust honoring Margaret Sanger in the National Portrait Gallery in a display called, oddly enough, “the Struggle for Justice.” She is there right next to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks. A group of conservative black ministers have been protesting her inclusion in the display. As of this writing, the gallery has no plans to remove her bust. The gallery director, Kim Sajaet, said there is no “moral test” for people to be accepted into the gallery. I guess, based on that, a bust of Hitler could be included there as well.
As the world witnessed the rise of Adolph Hitler in Germany, it also saw the rise of the eugenics movement in America. In fact, a case could be made that Hitler actually got some of his ideas about race and racial superiority from America. Leading liberals in America were actively trying to stamp out birth defects and working to pass laws to force criminals and those who were diagnosed as “feebleminded” to have abortions or to be sterilized. This was no fly-by-night movement; it was actually supported by many leading citizens of the nation.
The term “eugenics” was meant to convey the idea of “good breeding.” So the term “good breeding” moved from the cultural to the sexual. The goal was to breed up a superior race by deciding who could reproduce and, perhaps more importantly, who could not. Make no mistake about it, this was a war of the rich and privileged against the poor and disadvantaged. It was also mostly a war of privileged whites against the poor, criminals, the mentally-ill, blacks and Native Americans. And, in many cases, the power of the state was used to enforce the will of the powerful against their weaker opponents.
Before Hitler, the state of California sterilized thousands of women without their consent. Entire families were subjected to sterilization simply based on some supposed “expert’s” diagnosis of “feeblemindedness.” Hitler was influenced by California’s state laws when formulating the laws that governed the treatment of disadvantaged people in Nazi Germany.
In those days, Charles Lindbergh traveled around the U.S. promoting Hitler’s Germany. Henry Ford was an admirer. Many well-known Americans were supportive of what Hitler was doing in Germany and were vocal in their support — up until Pearl Harbor. After that disastrous attack, public opinion was such that it was no longer safe to be pro-German.
After the war with Hitler’s Germany, many eugenicists changed the names of their organizations to include the term, “genetic” instead of “eugenic” since Hitler had given that term a bad name.
With the death of Margaret Sanger in the 1960s, Planned Parenthood began to support abortion as a means of controlling population growth. As of today, African-American women are far more likely to have an abortion than are other ethnic groups. About 260,000 abortions are performed each year on African-American women. As late as the 1970s, some sterilizations were still being performed without the woman’s consent. So it goes for an organization that “supposedly” champions the reproductive rights of women.
Sam Byrnes is a Gentry area resident. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.