Buy an essay on Morality of Eugenics (hereditary improvement through genetic control)

No matter how humane will be stimulating motives of eugenics – to make humankind healthier, beautiful, talented and, ultimately, happier, because in its essence eugenics is something wrong. It does not fit into the complex structure of human society including a mass of contradictions, not only biological, but also legal, social, psychological, religious.
For every improvement, in one or another way, it begins with the division into good and bad, viable and poor, talented and inept. Stepan (1991) stated that at first all should be separated and only then goes selecting, that means culling of qualities did not meet those necessary requirements or other options. At the level of human society such selection will inevitably amounts to discrimination. Therefore, eugenics – it is in fact a utopia.
From the standpoint of pure science, eugenics in its assumption also contains flaws. For example, its main goal – is to change the ratio of the harmful and useful features in the direction of useful. In fact, in some cases, we can say that there are “bad” variety of genes and “useful” variety of genes. However, the most optimistic estimates of geneticists, for 200-300 years could increase the number of “useful” genes in the human population of only hundredths of a percent. The Nazis showed futility rejection of «harmful» genes and experiments in their times in Nazi Germany, where were almost destroyed the mentally ill people, and at the first period there truly born fewer children with disabilities.
It is necessary to mention that eugenics has real and serious base in its background. In the last century the focus of discussion in the eugenic societies, whose members were not only scientists but also representatives of other professions, have become practical measures of state eugenic policies. Among them, according to Bland (2007), we found eugenic education (introduction of special courses in schools, pre-marital counseling); material encouragement of securities companies (i.e., salary fee proportional to the number of children in the family), segregation of low-grade producers (isolation from the separation of sexes); sterilization unwanted producers (in terms of eugenicist measure more humane than segregation); euthanasia of disabled people and so on.
During these discussions, it soon became clear that the technical difficulties of improvement of human kind – is nothing compared to ethical considerations. Berson and Cruz (2001) asked: who would be the “primary breeders”, the competent and invested with authority by a person who is to divide the human “herd” on the worthy and unworthy? What to do with the culled individuals: treat them as unpromising offspring of breeding stock, or a person’s worth does not allow recovery even totally useless to society citizens.
Because of obvious ethical “revolutionary character” scientific eugenics almost from the outset faced with a monstrous pressure of criticism from religious and community organizations. There were criticized not only its inhumane practices, but also most of its theoretical guidelines according to which not only the people were divided into securities and low-grade, but the whole race fell into the category of “inferior”. This approach caused irritation in people who have not seen the necessity and reasonableness of the transformation of humanity into “a giant stud”.
Thinking about the morality of eugenics, I would like to quote Ordover’s (2003) words, who said that “the morality of genetic engineering is categorically no different than the morality of allowing individuals to choose their mates and choose when and how often to reproduce. Democratic societies that respect individual rights have managed by and large to enforce the necessary rules that govern “traditional” (non-engineered) selective breeding, such as the prohibition on incest and rape, and the obligation of parents not to euthanize children who are not what they hoped for. Lately, according to the UN, we’ve even managed to control our population growth! By the same token, I have little doubt that science and common sense will allow us to formulate appropriate rules to moderate the excesses of genetically engineered selective breeding. But the basic rule need only be that until proven otherwise, the parent(s) know what’s best for their offspring.”
For the conclusion it is necessary to say that one of the most urgent issues of bioethics, which represents a wide field of philosophical reflection is re-emerging as the idea of eugenic improvement of humankind. This is connected with the increased interest in the scientific community and the general public to work in the field of human genetics, with which eugenic issues related to a long and controversial relationship. Summarizing all information about eugenics, its morality and necessity of application in our life it is necessary to emphasize that appeal to the topic of eugenics today enables a new level approach to the analysis of the fundamental philosophical problems (problems of human nature). The idea of bodily adjustment rights to his physical and moral development (creating a new “breed”) obviously takes us on an ideological level and can be studied in various aspects: ontological, methodological and socio-cultural. Eugenic development acquires a special urgency in light of the latest advances in cloning and begins discussions on the legal and moral status of manipulating the human genome. It is really hard to say that eugenics is moral or immoral in its essence and I would like to say that its alternative is necessary. In my opinion an alternative would be to create widespread awareness of hereditary diseases and develop a network of medical genetic consultation in which already, in many cases you can avoid having children with severe genetic diseases.

References:
Berson, M. and Cruz, C. (2001). “Eugenics Past and Present”. Social Education, Vol. 65.
Bland, L. (2007). “British Eugenics and “Race Crossing”: A Study of an Interwar Investigation”. New Formations Journal.
Broberg, N. (1996). Eugenics and the Welfare State: Sterilization Policy in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Michigan State University Press.
Ordover, N. (2003). American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism. University of Minnesota Press.
Stepan, N. (1991). The Hour of Eugenics: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America. Cornell University Press.