Eugenics: Is it still relevant?

Hi all,

Recently in my PSY-327 course we had a discussion about the genesis and popularity of the eugenics movement. We discussed Sir Francis Galton and his paradigm that intelligence is a product of natural selection, has a genetic basis, and has variability in our population. My peers seemed bothered by this notion that human potential is limited by our biology. More-so, when the concept of negative eugenics popped up, the class became especially quiet. Our instructor posed the question of whether or not a prenatal child diagnosed with down syndrome should be aborted. Or consider another case: What if your child were to be born with a destructive disease which would only serve to bring pain to their lives? Would it be responsible for the parent to bring that child into the world? Would it matter when this information is aquired (before first trimester...etc?). And what are the legal repercussions of this logic? Will there come a day where it is illegal to birth a child with a chronic condition if the parents have previous knowledge of the defect prior to the first trimester? How about crack babies?

Also what if a student fails his/her SAT? Is that societies way of saying you are not intelligent, and therefore 'no college for you!'. Isn't this a form of eugenics, in the sense that you are allowing for higher intelligent individuals to prosper and forcing less intelligent ones to be relegated to non-critical thinking oriented careers? We judge peoples intelligence almost daily and choose to associate ourselves with people of similar intelligence (I recall a study that revealed how we marry individuals with similar IQ's). So it may be that we are fine practicing eugenics on the individual level but have disdain for it on the governmental level. This is very interesting and weird to me at the same time. Please comment with your thoughts on this!

Are some people predisposed to certain conditions which could inhibit there cognitive ability? Of course! Think about ADHD, Trisomy 21, Alzheimer's, and many more! Then does this illustrate that intelligence has a genetic component? Well, a specific allele of the ASPM gene strongly dictates brain size which has a slight correlation with cognitive function. So it's not far fetched to say that genes play a significant role in someones cognitive ability. However, the question becomes: It is unethical to knowingly spread these deleterious genes in a population? If so, who should enforce this mandate? These are almost always sensitive questions because people associate these conditions with a persons sense of being. For instance, as a ADHD child I was called special and unique because I always seemed excited. This became part of who I was a youth. This may be why it is hard for us (me as well!) to answer some of the questions associated with eugenics because we have immense empathy and sympathy for children with these deleterious conditions. Please, I would love to hear your opinions on these topics!

Until my next post,

Ryan