Eugenics

El artículo “El caso peruano de esterilización forzada. Notas para una cartografía de la resistencia,” propuesto para el dossier “Género, Violencia y Política en la Historia Reciente Latinoamericana” de la presente edición, es una breve introducción al caso (1996-2000) desde el panorama (no exhaustivo) de la resistencia conformada por mujeres indígenas, organizaciones feministas, organizaciones en pro de los derechos humanos, sociedad civil organizada, investigadores, periodistas y artistas. Sobre todo, se requiere consignar aquellas intervenciones en el espacio y esfera públicos que han dibujado la lucha por alcanzar la justicia (penal y/o social) frente a los miles de casos de esterilización forzada en el Perú, ayudando al reconocimiento legítimo de los derechos sexuales y los derechos reproductivos sobre todo de las mujeres. Es decir: una cartografía del terreno en el que se desplaza el movimiento de resistencia social.

According to the law of accelerating returns, explains futurist Kurzweil (The Age of Intelligent Machines), technological gains are made at an exponential rate. In his utopian vision of the 21st century, our lives will change not merely incrementally but fundamentally. The author is the inventor of reading and speech-recognition machines, among other technologies, but he isn't much of a writer. Using clunky prose and an awkward dialogue with a woman from the future, he sets up the history of evolution and technology and then offers a whirlwind tour through the next 100 years. Along the way, he makes some bizarre predictions. If Kurzweil has it right, in the next few decades humans will download books directly into their brains, run off with virtual secretaries and exist ""as software,"" as we become more like computers and computers become more like us. Other projections--e.g., that most diseases will be reversible or preventable--are less strange but seem similarly Panglossian. Still others are more realizable: human-embedded computers will track the location of practically anyone, at any time. More problematic is Kurzweil's self-congratulatory tone. Still, by addressing (if not quite satisfactorily) the overpowering distinction between intelligence and consciousness, and by addressing the difference between a giant database and an intuitive machine, this book serves as a very provocative, if not very persuasive, view of the future from a man who has studied and shaped it. B&w illustrations. Agent, Loretta Barrett; foreign rights sold in the U.K., Germany, Italy and Spain; simultaneous Penguin audio; author tour.

This paper sheds light on the role of evolutionary ideas in
the making of Turkish nationalism during the Kemalist era
(1923–1938). By so doing, it aims to challenge some of the
dominant historiographical viewpoints as to the nature of
Turkish nationalism. One is related to the Kemalist elites'
predisposition towards the so-called “scientism” seen as
one of the bases for nationalism. We intend to turn upside–
down the relation between the Kemalists' use of science
and Turkish nationalism. Second, we problematize the “culturalist”
origins of Turkish nationalism arguing that the
seemingly “culturalist” reflections of the time were, indeed,
materialist formulations based on the science of the times.
We discuss in this respect the Kemalist elites' use of evolutionary
ideas. By synthesizing the ways in which these elites
employed evolutionary ideas in the fields of history, language,
geography, anthropology, biology, eugenics, and
pedagogy, we aim to understand the specific nature of
Turkish nationalism before 1945. This secular nationalism
conceived culture as having materialist bases and differed
fundamentally from the culturalist varieties of Turkish
nationalism coloured by Islam in the post-1945 era. Furthermore,
the paper empirically enriches the complex and
entangled story of evolutionary ideas in the early Turkish
Republic.

The study pays attention to the theories of degeneration, which deeply influenced European intellectual discourse. Degeneration could be related to the physical, mental, moral and cultural context. The theories of degeneration can be very coarsely divided according to the fields where they originated into scientific, cultural and racial, eugenic and psychiatric ones. Other fields where they originated were arts and literature. The theories of degeneration opened many controversies, stimulated discussions in science and medicine, and were sometimes instrumentalised and used to justify discrimination.

Objetivos: contribuir a la investigación sobre la vinculación entre la política sanitaria de profilaxis venérea y el proceso de producción, importación y circulación de medicamentos para el tratamiento de los “males secretos” durante el siglo xx en Argentina. Desarrollo: desde 1936 el Estado desplegó una política de profilaxis venérea que otorgó prerrogativas a los grupos privados para la producción e importación de fármacos. Mientras el Departamento Nacional de Higiene promovió un tratamiento estandarizado de las dolencias, los laboratorios privados usaron publicidades para construir, ampliar y segmentar el mercado consumidor. En este artículo destacamos cómo el mensaje de las propagandas de medicamentos contra las dolencias de transmisión sexual en las revistas médicas tenía como fin transformar a los galenos en agentes de recomendación de dichos productos. Conclusiones: el tratamiento estandarizado impuesto por la burocracia sanitaria estimuló la producción, importación y oferta de fármacos de laboratorios nacionales y extranjeros. Los anuncios publicitarios apelaron al galeno como portador de un criterio legítimo para el consumo de medicamentos. Los laboratorios  nanciaron revistas de grupos de galenos con el fin de ampliar el consumo de sus productos entre los pacientes de estos.

Although this is a long review, I do not cover but perhaps two thirds of the contents of The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature, and very briefly indeed. As we can read in the press release, this book draws on two decades of research: it contains data, analyses, research protocols and theoretical background from this huge work. Folkbiology is the interdisciplinary perspective on how do people ordinarily understand the biological world. In The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature we appreciate how far the implications of this field can go. In this overview I choose a geographical approach: we fly from Guatemala, to Wisconsin, then to Middle East. We then land in university classes and end up in school classrooms. This tour gives me the really minimum base for a tentative critical summary of the book. In the tour I include not only findings, but also research methods that I suppose can be stimulating for EE&O readers.

KEY WORDS: folkbiology; folktaxonomy; folkecology; biology education; environment; anthropology; cognitive psychology.

REVIEW OF: The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature, by Scott Atran and Douglas Medin. Cambridge, Massachussets: The MIT Press, 2008. Pp. viii + 333. H/b $ 40.00.

Advocates of projects to map the human genome claim that the information produced will illuminate the causes of human disease, improve treatment and, in general, increase our health and well-being. While concerns about the costs of mapping and the possible discriminatory and eugenic applications of the information it will provide have received some attention, assumptions implicit in the biomedical discourse in which its 'benefits' are proposed and which are shaping definitions of illness and health, normality and abnormality, have not yet been adequately analyzed. This paper examines how the genetic stories about mapping and its potential products being told in the biomedical (and popular) literature continue a tradition of reductionism and determinism. This new 'cartography', by adopting the blueprint as a metaphor for genes, leads to restricted conceptions of health and illness, reinforces inequities in the distribution of health and, by privatizing and individualizing responsibility for health, creates and legitimizes a new arena for social control.

Examining the concept of death can provide a new perspective on the question of why prominent sections of the Australian political and media establishment have resisted recognising the Stolen Generations as a genocide. This paper examines the role of death understood as definitional in genocide, and finality as the defining aspect of ‘death’ employed in this way. Genocide, in the popular imagination, is based on the Holocaust as paradigmatic case and invokes death as central symbol. Since mass death as a consequence of the state's actions toward its civilian subjects is posited as illegitimate, the legitimacy of a state which has committed genocide is in question. In the context of Australia's 'history wars,' the arguments of denialists are premised upon the position that if death did not occur then genocide did not occur, and if genocide did not occur, then the state is legitimate and national identity is secure. This argument relies on an implicit use of the metaphor of a collectivity as a human individual (subject to death). The argument that death (due to its finality) is necessary for genocide is itself used to ‘assassinate memory’ (Vidal-Naquet), to finalise the genocide that indigenous Australians have suffered. An emphatic response has and continues to be made by Aboriginal Australians’ assertion of survival.

Abstrakt Die, Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts entstandene Wissenschaftsdisziplin Eugenik, zählt zu den Grundlagen des Nazi-Euthanasieprogramms. Wie die Wissenschaft zu Geopolitik wird zeigt sich anhand des folgenden Artikels. Abstract The scientific discipline of eugenics, which emerged at the end of the 19th century, is one of the foundations of the Nazi euthanasia program. The following article shows how science becomes geopolitics.

Sociohistorical analysis of four words commonly used in the language of Western mental health, Indigenous, intelligence, disorder, and depression reveal a “Domination Code” masking past and present professional complicity of the U.S. and global mental health system in the oppression of Indigenous peoples. A historicity is offered of concepts of inferior Indigenous intelligence and current pseudoscientific ideologies within Western biological psychiatry dominating WHO’s mhGAP (Mental Health Gap Action Programme) exported to these communities. mhGAP’s cultural hegemony is achieved through Western mental health ideologies that decontextualize, depoliticize, minimize, and marginalize the lived experience of cultural oppression on health and wellbeing. This program appears to violate the spirit of Article 23 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people.
Keywords: Indigenous, Native American, American Indian, First Nations, Aboriginal, Mental Health, Behavioral Health, Eugenics, Liberation Psychology, World Health Organization, WHO, mhGAP, Mental Health Gap Programme

En este trabajo se analizan las puntualizaciones de Carolina Tobar García sobre la deficiencia mental tras su retorno, en 1932, de un viaje a los Estados Unidos en el marco de la política del “buen vecino” impulsada por el país del norte. El objetivo era fomentar las buenas relaciones políticas, económicas, culturales y científicas entre Estados Unidos y América Latina. Se destaca que algunas nociones que sostenía Tobar García tras su regreso al país respondían a valores norteamericanos y contrastaban con las ideas y propuestas de los especialistas argentinos. La metodología utilizada se basa en el análisis cualitativo e interpretativo de fuentes bibliográficas relevantes desde la historia crítica de la psicología, la historia intelectual, la circulación de saberes, y la historia social y política que se abocó a las relaciones entre
Argentina y Estados Unidos en el período estudiado. Se concluye que las iniciativas de cooperación entre los países tuvieron un impacto visible en las obras de Tobar García. Esto se percibe en las consideraciones de valores democráticos, y en la posición de la autora respecto de la esterilización. También se observan los procesos de apropiación e integración de las experiencias extranjeras y locales en la culminación de su tesis doctoral.
Palabras clave: historia de la psicología, Tobar García, Estados Unidos, Argentina.

In this paper we analyze Carolina Tobar García's remarks about mental deficiency after her return, in 1932, from a trip to the United States in the framework of the “good neighbor” policy, promoted by the northern  country. The objective was to promote good political, economic, cultural and scientific relations between the USA and Latin America. It is emphasized that some key notions held by Tobar García after her return to the country responded to American values and contrasted with the ideas and proposals of the Argentine specialists. The methodology used is based on the qualitative and interpretative analysis of bibliographic sources from the perspective of critical history of psychology, intellectual history, circulation of knowledge and the political social history that addressed the relationship between Argentina and the USA within the period. In conclusion, cooperation initiatives between these two countries made a visible impact on the works of Tobar García. This is especially clear in the considerations of democratic values, and in the author's position regarding sterilization. We also observe the processes of appropriation and integration of foreign and local experiences in the culmination of her doctoral thesis.
Keywords: history of psychology, Tobar García, United States, Argentina.

"Sametinget welcomes the visit of Ms. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz to Sápmi  this August 2015 in her examination of the current status of the Indigenous Rights of the Sami People residing in Sápmi and Sweden.

Sápmi is the traditional territory of the Sami People currently politically and territorially divided by the borders of the Nation-States of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. In preparation for Ms. Tauli-Corpuz’s visit, this Report provides some follow-up and additional information concerning both new developments and issues addressed and not addressed in conjunction with the previous visit (2010) to Sápmi and Sweden of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Mr. James Anaya, and his concluding Report to the Human Rights Council of the status of the Sami People in Sweden, Finland and Norway produced in 2011 . In addition to any other materials and submissions she receives from other institutions, groups and persons, Ms. Tauli-Corpuz will receive in-person input regarding the status of the Sami People during her visit to Sápmi in late August 2015 during pre-arranged, interactive dialogues with State and Sami representatives and speakers as well as local visits to specific Sami areas with a highlighting of specific issues the Sami People are facing in the context of Indigenous Rights, among other activities..."

https://www.sametinget.se/92639

The principal legacy of the 1923 exchange is arguably its contribution to the institutionalization of the management of difference via forced migration—a form of spatial redistribution of different groups according to their backgrounds and “origins.” Informed by the principle of segregation, the 1923 exchange is organically related to other cases that operate with the same logic: the construction of walls, apartheids, partitions, and forced migrations. In the book, I conceptualize these dynamics as segregative biopolitics. The 1923 exchange signaled a modern fusion of the eugenicist logic with demography, mobilized through racialized thinking and statistics, and implemented as spatial segregation—all of which gained a legal framework in the international arena with the ratification and execution of the 1923 exchange.

Against this backdrop, Humanism in Ruins offers a multi-sited analysis of how difference is regulated in refugee integration and in cultural politics in the post-1945 era. Considering the scale of atrocities of the Second World War, one might have expected that the underlying racialized logics, repertoires and archives of knowledge that contributed to the atrocities in the first place, such as eugenics and segregative biopolitics, would have been effectively put into question by the institutions established to find solutions to the postwar crises, such as refugee associations (particularly one that the book engages for the first time), or platforms founded to promote peace, such as the United Nations or UNESCO. Following the Second World War, however, population transfers again took place en masse across Europe and beyond in the name of securing peace and stability, generating a massive refugee crisis. The Greek-Turkish exchange constituted an important reference point for these population transfers as a story of "successful repatriation." Within this framework, the book addresses how despite major transnational efforts—spearheaded by UNESCO—to overcome scientific racialism and accompanying archives of knowledge that inform repertoires of cultural identification, the effort remained largely a limited one in the post-Second-World-War era. The book traces the implications of these limitations for the cultural policies developed over the last few decades through the case of Turkey—based on the legacies of the population exchange, as well as in the European Union and UNESCO. The book ultimately raises questions for the resurfacing of fascistic and racist discourses in different parts of the world today.

Palavras-chave: Estatística; Eugenia; História intelectual. Estatística, biologia evolutiva e eugenia: As publicações do jovem Ronald Fisher em The Eugenics Review (1914-1919) Resumo: Este artigo analisa em perspectiva histórica a discussão eugênica do estatístico inglês Ronald Aylmer Fisher no início da sua trajetória profissional. Entre 1914 a 1919, Fisher publicou artigos e revisões de livros na revista especializada The Eugenics Review, na qual expunha a viabilidade do pensamento eugenista. Por meio de tais fontes investigo de que modo estatística e biologia evolutiva estavam ligadas às suas propostas eugênicas e qual era o contexto científico da eugenia nas primeiras décadas do século XX. Statistics, evolutionary biology and eugenics: works of the young Ronald Fisher in Eugenics Review (1914-1919) Abstract: This article analyzes in historical perspective the eugenic discussion of the English statistician Ronald Aylmer Fisher at the beginning of his professional trajectory. Between 1914 and 1919, Fisher published articles and book reviews in the journal The Eugenics Review, in which he exposed the viability of eugenics thinking. Through such sources I investigate how statistical and evolutionary biology were linked to their eugenic proposals and what was the scientific context of eugenics in the first decades of the twentieth century. Palabras clave: Statistic; Eugenia; Intellectual history. Estadística, biologia evolutiva y eugenesia: Las publicaciones del joven Ronald Fisher em The Eugenics Review (1914-1919) Resumen: Este artículo analiza en perspectiva histórica la discusión eugenésica del estadístico inglés Ronald Aylmer Fisher al inicio de su trayectoria profesional. Entre 1914 a 1919, Fisher publicó artículos y revisiones de libros en la revista especializada The Eugenics Review, en la que exponía la viabilidad del pensamiento eugenista. Por medio de tales fuentes investiga de qué modo estadística y biología evolutiva estaban ligadas a sus propuestas eugenésicas y cuál era el contexto científico de la eugenesia en las primeras décadas del siglo XX.

This famous scene from the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel has recently been interpreted in a startling new way. After it was cleaned and restored, the original details were revealed. The vehicle in which God is traveling, along with God himself, all the angels, the sashes, etc, conform remarkably well to the structures of a human brain (turned sideways, facing Adam). It's long been known that Michelangelo performed dissections so that he could fully understand the human body. Instead of the old interpretation of God giving life to Adam, it seems clear that Michelangelo's intention was to portray God giving the highest form of intellect to Adam, a uniquely human gift which is the product of the human brain (Meshberger, 1990). This painting provides a wonderful artistic illustration for the subject of this paper. If one understands the large genetic component to our very souls-not only our intelligence, but our honesty, our kindness, our courage, our creativity, and our unique personalities-then one can immediately grasp the potential of eugenics for evolving ourselves into better people, more fully in the image of God. Francis Galton envisioned eugenics as a large-scale humanitarian endeavor, firmly grounded in science, which also contained the seed of a new religion: The chief result of these Inquiries has been to elicit the religious significance of the doctrine of evolution. It suggests an alteration in our mental attitude, and imposes a new moral duty. The new mental attitude is one of a greater sense of moral freedom, responsibility, and opportunity; the new duty which is supposed to be exercised concurrently with, and not in opposition to the old ones upon which the social fabric depends, is an endeavor to further evolution, especially that of the human race.

So-called “ugly laws” were mostly municipal statutes in the United States that outlawed the appearance in public of people who were, in the words of one of these laws, “diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object” (Chicago City Code 1881). Although the moniker “ugly laws” was coined to refer collectively to such ordinances only in 1975 (Burgdorf and Burgdorf 1975), it has become the primary way to refer to such laws, which targeted the overlapping categories of the poor, the homeless, vagrants, and those with visible disabilities. Enacted and actively enforced between the American Civil War (1867) and World War I (1918), such laws and their enforcement can tell us much about the very sorts of people who were also, a generation later, subject to explicitly eugenic laws, such as sterilization legislation. And like eugenic laws and policies, such laws continue to affect the lives of people with disabilities to this day (Schweik 2011).

This article explores the racial and gendered dynamics of sterilization in California state institutions form the 1920s to the 1950s, with a focus on the experiences of Mexican-origin patients. a set of recently accessed sterilization authorizations reveals that Mexican-origin patients were sterilized at elevated rates, disproportionate to their share of the state population, under California's eugenic laws. Mexican-origin patients were pathologized as mentally defective and overly fecund in order to justify sterilization. however, these patients and their families challenged California's eugenic laws and forced sterilization, and their struggles for reproductive rights are an important facet of the pursuit of racial and reproductive justice by Chicana/o communities. This article sheds light on the overlooked role of race in the implementation of California's sterilization law and in the policing of men and women who transgressed class and gender norms, deepening our understanding of the historical relationship between medicine, public health, race, and reproduction in the United States.

Puerto Rico is the oldest existing colony in the world. e Island was colonised rst by Spain in 1493 and then by the United States (US) in 1898. is article explores systematic and institutional violences committed throughout the early to mid-twentieth century by the US against Puerto Rican women on the Island. US colonialists blamed Puerto Rican women for the Island's poverty and targeted them in colonial initiatives. In this article the term 'colonialists' refers to diverse actors in in uential positions such as in private industries, government agencies, and research positions who advocated for colonialism in Puerto Rico. e pages below examine how such colonialists utilised eugenics ideologies to (1) describe the Island's poverty as due to overpopulation; (2) insist that Puerto Rican women refrain from sex; and (3) 'justify' dangerous birth control trials on Puerto Rican women and coerced sterilisation of Puerto Rican women. e article concludes by examining how during the second-wave feminist movement that emerged Stateside in the 1960s, Puerto Rican women drew attention to women's victimisation on the Island to argue for an inclusive and intersectional de nition of reproductive rights.

Eugenics frequently bridged religious and scientific aspirations for social betterment, while eugenic ideas and practices were promoted by a number of American ethnic and racial groups who belonged to different and even competing religious traditions. This essay explores the small and still nascent body of scholarship on eugenics and American religions. This scholarship reveals the important role that American religious expression played in the social dissemination of eugenic ideas and practice in the United States by demonstrating how a number of religious traditions –including Protestantism, Catholicism, African American Islam, and Reformed Judaism –shaped public acceptance of eugenics as a modern reproductive morality. Charting the appeal of eugenics across a spectrum of American religio-racial communities, this essay surveys emerging scholarship to argue that American religions had a direct impact upon the socially uneven and ideologically variable deployment of eugenic thought and practice in the United States.

La mejora genética en humanos dejó de ser un aventurado pronóstico de la ciencia ficción para transformarse en una posibilidad cierta y actual que nos interpela como especie pero también ética y políticamente. Sabemos que la Humanidad ha mejorado mucho en algunos sentidos pero ha empeorado notoriamente en otros; sospechamos que la tecnología permitirá logros ni soñados aún y también que muchas de las hiperbólicas promesas actuales quedarán como literatura fantástica; dudamos si los sueños y utopías individualistas que nos encandilan con la promesa de satisfacer nuestros deseos individuales más elementales de vivir más y mejor no nos impedirán saldar las enormes deudas colectivas que la Humanidad tiene consigo misma.

Por eso, más allá de fantasías sobre cyborgs y máquinas que se independizan de los humanos que las crearon y luego los esclavizan; más allá de paranoias sobre ejércitos de clones que siguen sin voluntad a líderes enloquecidos; más allá de futuros épicos, idílica e ingenuamente perfectos con gente saludable y feliz, y también más allá de los pronósticos de futuros distópicos; más allá de todo eso, el futuro está aquí con nosotros y de eso hay que discutir ahora.

En Mejoramiento genético en humanos, Héctor Palma analiza, en un recorrido histórico y filosófico, desde el movimiento eugenésico de principios del siglo XX hasta las promesas del transhumanismo actual a partir de las más novedosas tecnologías de edición genética.

Although the inluence of Classical sculpture on Nazi monuments is well established , the use of classicizing imagery to promote the American eugenics movement is relatively unexplored. This paper analyses the use of Classical and classicizing sculpture to illustrate the aims of the Race Betterment Foundation at the Panama-Paciic International Exposition held in San Francisco in 1915. The fair itself utilized classicizing monuments to create a utopian vision of a modern Arcadia for the relatively young state of California, at a time when San Francisco was rebuilding from the devastating 1906 earthquake and ire. Within this context, the popular Race Betterment booth displayed casts of the Venus de Milo, Apollo Belvedere and the Farnese Atlas as models of racial perfection. In speeches at the Exposition, the founder of the Race Betterment Foundation, John H. Kellogg, proclaimed that the movement promised a new "golden age" in which an "aristocracy of Apollos and Venuses" would be achieved by means of science. Kellogg's ideas were further illustrated by a morality play in which two hundred students from the University of California at Berkeley dressed in ancient costumes. In stark contrast to the white ideal promoted by the fair, the accompanying Joy Zone featured various racist "entertainments" that served as examples of "race degeneracy." As scholars, we must be mindful of such modern abuses of the classical past, in order that they not be perpetuated.

The eugenics movement provided the motive for dozens of laws that remained in force for more than a century in the United States, a significant number of which specifically targeted people with disabilities for legally sanctioned discrimination. Similar laws were adopted around the world, perhaps most notably as part of Hitler’s prelude to the Holocaust. Consequently, we tend to associate the word “eugenics” with all things evil. Yet the underlying message of eugenicists was popular for so long not solely because it denoted coercive legislation but more often because it signaled a hopeful future devoid of social problems. This paper describes how the word “eugenics” is now coming back into common use, and how it has been revived in the service of political objectives, divorced from the period in which it developed and the meaning it had within its earlier historical context. The resulting distortions - directly traceable to the ongoing “culture war” over reproductive rights - sugges...

An extensive literature describes the legal impact of America's eu-genics movement, and the laws mandating sterilization, restriction of marriage by race, and ethnic bans on immigration. But little scholarship focuses on the laws adopted in more than 40 states that were commonly referred to as " eugenic marriage laws. " Those laws conditioned marriage licenses on medical examinations and were designed to save innocent women from lives of misery, prevent stillbirth or premature death in children, and save future generations from the myriad afflictions that accompanied " venereal infection. " Medical journals, legal journals, and every kind of public press outlet explained the " eugenic marriage laws " and the controversies they spawned. They were inextricably bound up in reform movements that attempted to eradicate prostitution, stamp out STIs, and reform America's sexual mores in the first third of the 20th century. This article will explain the pedigree of the eugenic marriage laws, highlight the trajectory of Wisconsin's 1913 eugenic enactment, and explore how the Wisconsin Supreme Court case upholding the law paved the way for the majority of states to regulate marriage on eugenic grounds.

The purpose of this academic essay, ​ A Eugenic Approach to Overpopulation​, is to analyze the potential use of eugenics in addressing overpopulation. Solving the world's largest problems always comes with a cost. With this in mind, eugenics is a viable option in curbing overpopulation in the world of today. With regards to arguments of proponents as well as the opposition, eugenics is useful in controlling population through birth control, planning, and by providing a way for scientists to predict and estimate trends in world population.

La idea de mejorarnos nos ha acompañado a lo largo de nuestra historia (Mac-Lean, 1951). Sin embargo, esta idea de perfeccionamiento fue concebida como una ciencia en 1883, año en el que Francis Galton acuñó el término eugenesia, que literalmente significa “bien nacer”, para referirse a todas las prácticas que podrían ser utilizadas de forma sistemática con el objetivo de obtener seres humanos mejores. La primera mitad del siglo XX vio el auge de la eugenesia; sin embargo, el fin de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y el descubrimiento de las atrocidades cometidas por los nazis causaron su estrepitosa caída y por algunos años el término eugenesia se convirtió en un tabú. Pero la idea de perfeccionar a los seres humanos física e intelectualmente no desapareció; por el contrario, los avances en las técnicas médico-biológicas de los últimos años han hecho resurgir la posibilidad de una eugenesia biotecnológica. Pero ¿mejorarnos para qué?, ¿a quiénes?, ¿cómo? Y ¿cuáles serían las consecuencias de hacerlo?
Estas son las tres preguntas que abordaré en este trabajo con el objetivo de analizar la eugenesia desde una perspectiva bioética.