eugenics
...y be a way for them to have a normal kid. Some doctors may see eugenics as a sign of relief as well. If eugenics can be used to stop some mutations the doctors will not have to treat patients that carry the defects anymore and can spend more time on people with non-genetic diseases (Allen & Bird, 2003). Of course, eugenics is not new. The first person to look at the concept was Plato, who discussed the idea in his book Republic. But it has not become prominent since the mid 1900s. From the early part of the century to the 1940s the US, Britain and Germany were the forerunners in eugenics study. This comes from the Anglo-Saxon history and their idea that all other races were inferior, and infact some Americans said, “they were polluting the pure American bloodstream”. The founder of modern eugenics is Sir Francis Galton, cousin to Charles Darwin. He claimed his family carried the genius gene and that is why he and Darwin were such predominant thinkers. But probably the county with the biggest hunger for knowledge in eugenics was the United States. A multicultural country used eugenics as a form of racism. From 1911 to 1934 many states passed laws prohibiting marriages between races, as they did not want to get dirty genes mixed in with their pure, white genes. Eugenics was also used for racism in Nazi Germany, preventing the reproduction of Jews and physically and mentally challenged people. They also prevented the marriage of these group into their own race. Today eugenics is not looked at very highly and eugenicists are seen as racists and people destroying other people’s human rights (Allen & Bird 2003). However, there are two kinds of eugenics. Positive, which is promoting intelligent, beautiful, wealthy people to reproduce. There is also negative eugenics which is looking down on poor, diseased, bad people reproducing. While we do understand how some genes are inherited, we do not fully understand the accurate prediction of traits (Hartl, 1997). There are many risks involved in eugenics. Can choosing our children’s traits upset the natural balance of life? What happens if this knowledge is abused by world leaders? However, some people will discuss the benefits of eugenics will benefit mankind much more than destroy it. Studying eugenics will allow some couples to have kids with good traits instead of mutated genes which they would have if the couple reproduced naturally. Moreover, some people see being able to choose traits that neither parent carry for the child, in the not so distant future. This will enable to make all offspring “perfect”. That theory alone has risks and benefits. Perfect humans may become overconfident and use there knowledge for bad and ultimately lead...