Eugenics

Eugenics was an international scientific, political and moral ideology and movement which was at its height in first half of the 20th century and was largely abandoned with the end of World War II. The movement often pursued pseudoscientific notions of racial supremacy and purity.

Eugenic was not confined to any one country or culture, but was practised around the world and was promoted by governments, and influential individuals and institutions. Its advocates regarded it as a social philosophy for the improvement of human hereditary traits through the promotion of higher reproduction of certain people and traits, and the reduction of reproduction of certain people and traits. Today it is widely regarded as a brutal movement which inflicted massive human rights violations on millions of people. The "interventions" advocated and practised by eugenicists involved prominently the identification and classification of individuals and their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, 'promiscuous women', homosexuals and entire "racial" groups——such as the Roma and Jews——as "degenerate" or "unfit"; the segregation or institutionalisation of such individuals and groups, their sterilization, their "euthanasia", and in the worst case of Nazi Germany, their mass extermination

Eugenics in Germany

Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler was infamous for eugenics programs which attempted to maintain a "pure" German race through a series of programs that ran under the banner of racial hygiene. Among other activities, the Nazis performed extensive experimentation on live human beings to test their genetic theories, ranging from simple measurement of physical characteristics to complex measurements of the internal organ systems. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazi regime forcibly sterilized hundreds of thousands of people whom they viewed as mentally and physically unfit, an estimated 400,000 between 1934 and 1937. The scale of the Nazi program prompted one American eugenics advocate to seek an expansion of their program, with one complaining that "the Germans are beating us at our own game". The Nazis went further, however, killing tens of thousands of the institutionalized disabled through compulsory "euthanasia" programs.

They also implemented a number of positive eugenics policies, giving awards to Aryan women who had large numbers of children and encouraged a service in which "racially pure" single women could deliver illegitimate children

Eugenics in USA

In the USA, eugenic supporters included Theodore Roosevelt, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association and the National Research Council. Research was funded by distinguished philanthropies and carried out at prestigious universities. It was taught in college and high school classrooms as well

Eugenics was supported by Woodrow Wilson, and, in 1907, helped to make Indiana the first of more than thirty states to adopt legislation aimed at compulsory sterilization of certain individuals.

However, no clear proof for an inferior gene is ever produced by the scientists. But the entire world believed that such genes existed. Media and the government helped people stay under the state of fear with all the scary unverified information. It was alleged that FDR once quoted that Jesus would have supported Eugenics if he were alive.

Today, Eugenics was dropped. After all no one can sustain an allegation for a long period of time. But, there is a similarity between Eugenics and global warming. The global warming does not have any concrete proof. The climate change, increase in temperature due to human activities are mere predictions by the scientists. None of them is proven. And the entire world believes that global warming is the scariest thing in the world. The government, philanthropists, celebrities and media engage in endless campaign. But, will they succeed? If yes, for how long? The answer is anyone's guess.