Able Americans

Part 5 in the 11-Part Series “Is Any Life Unworthy of Living?“

Mark P. Mostert, Ph.D.

When Allied forces liberated the camps between the summer of 1944 and the spring of 1945, what they found shocked the world. The first liberated camp, Majdanek, in Poland, quickly revealed the horror of end-stage eugenics. The Allies’ advance was so swift that the Nazi camp personnel fled, leaving the gas chambers intact and their macabre handiwork for the world to see: thousands of bodies, stacked like cordwood, rotting in the sun; half-burned bodies still in the crematory ovens; living skeletons, many diseased and dying.

Similar scenarios were found at the other death camps. Now there was no denying the horrors of the Holocaust—or the ghastly role of eugenics.

In short order, the ideology of eugenics developed a very, very bad name. But that didn’t mean that eugenicists disavowed their twisted ideology. By the early 1950s the reinvention of eugenics had begun, hiding behind such lofty relabeling as “research,” “public health initiatives” and other nefarious blinds. For example, across the Western World, including the U.S., sterilization programs continued for those thought to have hereditary and undesirable physical and psychological characteristics. Most state institutions continued to routinely sterilize people who were mentally ill or disabled. Some sterilizations were voluntary; most were not. Many of these programs in the U.S. persisted until the 1970s, with Oregon being the last state to formally end sterilization programs in 1983.

Throughout the 1950s the deliberate shift away from “eugenics” re-emerged as better ways to “understand” issues related to population control, hereditary diseases, genetic counseling and family planning. A major push toward the science of genetics began in 1953 when James Watson and Francis Crick uncovered the structure of DNA, the building blocks that determine thousands of human traits. Unlocking the human genetic code resulted in a significant focus of a new medical and biological science rather than other forms of social engineering.

The discovery of DNA architecture allowed research into why certain genes produced certain outcomes. Researchers quickly established that defective genes resulted in some substantially debilitating diseases and medical problems. Over time, examining genetic structure identified thousands of hereditary diseases including Down Syndrome, Cystic Fibrosis, Sickle Cell Disease, Tay-Sachs Disease and many others.

There is little doubt that these were groundbreaking discoveries that allowed medical researchers to develop new, innovative and effective treatments that, while not curing the underlying genetic problem, undoubtedly made living with these afflictions easier. However, it also meant that there was a medical imprimatur marking people with genetic anomalies as different.

By the late 1960s, the term eugenics was almost unheard of, as medical researchers pivoted to an increased focus on expanding knowledge about human genetics and genetic counseling.

But the shadow of eugenics remained: In 1972, the American Eugenics Society renamed itself the Society for the Study of Social Biology. Same idea, sanitized name.

As a practical matter, the beginnings of discriminating against people with disabilities in this new era began in earnest. For example, by the late 1960s, in-utero diagnoses of Down Syndrome often resulted in coercive medical advice to terminate the pregnancy.

More subtle changes were to come, and they were not necessarily helpful to those with disabilities. Déjà vu all over again: the coming of the “new eugenics.”

Mark P. Mostert, Ph.D., is senior researcher for Able Americans, a project of the National Center for Public Policy Research. This is part 5 of the 11-part series “Is Any Life Unworthy of Living?”  Those wanting to be notified of future installments in the series should subscribe to the Able Americans email list.