Eugenics Essay: Research of a Topic in the Past, Present and Future
Eugenics focused on the idea that the heredity was everything. How relevant is such a perspective in relation to criminality today?
This paper focuses on aspects of eugenics as an element that has for a long time in history been considered as paramount in controlling human reproduction. The paper addressed the various eugenic practice in the late 19th century and early 20th century, as well as in the contemporary world, particularly in the western hemisphere. The main reasons why certain human racial groups embrace the use of this practice are also addressed. The relevance of eugenics to the various societies used, in relation to criminality today, are widely discussed in this paper.
Eugenics is a scheme that is widely used to enhance an improved human race through a controlled reproduction. This is a practice that became common, reaching much popularity between the late 19th century and the Second World War (Glass 1999, p. 89). A good example of the wide use of eugenic principles was when the German Nazis carried massive sterilization and genocide. Other eugenics forms have been practiced across the universe and are effective in contemporary China, where the population is strictly limited. Major advancements research in medicine such as the human genome project, the society, is still striving to resolve various issues of ethics emerging from eugenic theories (Glass 1999, p. 89).
Eugenics is the practice and theory that has been used to improve the generic quality of the human population; it is a social philosophy which advocates genetic traits of humanity, by promoting higher reproduction of individuals with certain desired traits and reducing people of less desired traits (Weikart 2006, p. 57). Positive eugenics encourage higher reproduction of individuals while negative eugenics is viewed as an undermining factor to humanity, because individuals perceived to belong to such category face the risk of being killed as a way of elimination. In the 20th century, ideologies resulting from negative Eugenics led to mass genocide of the Jews during the Hitler’s regime. Elimination of individuals in regard to traits of race and ethnicity has commonly been used in mass murder of certain populations in Europe and North America (Weikart 2006, p. 57). For instance, the genocide of the native Indians in the North American regions is a good example of racial profiling emerging from eugenic ideologies.
