Eugenics
A changing the future -Saige Trottier
The History
Eugenics by definition is the belief and practice of improving the genetic quality of the human population. After WWI, racial hygiene or eugenics began to inform the population policy, public health education and was a government founded research project. Keeping the 'unfit' alive all in it's self was a conflict due to the fact that modern technology was costly, and it interfered with natural selection. "Experts warned that if the nation did not produce more fit children, it was headed for extinction."
Selection
The professional would judge whether one was 'fit' or not, by family genealogies, physical measurements, and intelligence tests. The genetically diseased were automatically deemed unfit, some of the most common disorders were; feeblemindedness, schizophrenia, manic depressive disorder, genetic epilepsy, huntington's chorea, genetic blindness, genetic deafness, severe physical deformity, and chronic alcoholism. Sterilization was the result for those who were deemed unfit. This was not just an attack upon the jewish community, 400,000 Germans were sterilized, and due to the type of procedure preformed, it resulted in the death of hundreds of women.
Images of eugenics
Tree of Eugenics
The Idea that eugenics is symbolized by a tree, the tree of life, is horrible. And it is described so simply that "Eugenics is the self direction of human evolution" is sickening.
Flies of change
This is a simple description of what eugenics is, the most inhumane version of natural selection. Assuming that the weak will die out and that the superior will advance and become a better race.
The Children
These children were sent to one of six facilities where they were killed by drugs or by starvation. It is believed that 8,000 children were to lose their lives this way.
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZquBH0CH24
Science and the swastika was a TV show made in 2001,it was a series examining science and morality after WWI; the practice of eugenics and euthanasia in Nazi occupied Europe. This whole documentary was very touching and I think that it would be a great addition to the course. But it was very depressing learning how Hitler covered up these deaths and how the people who were killed had a life expectancy as long as your average person.