The Abortion and Eugenics Policies of Nazi Germany



Miércoles, 12 de Agosto de 2009 12:02

The Abortion and Eugenics Policies of Nazi Germany


A.I.R.V.S.C.
Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change

Vol 16, no. 1, 2001
by John Hunt, Ph.D.

 

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Reproduced with Permission
This paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change, June 2001, at Charlotte, North Carolina. Professor Hunt received his Ph.D. from Georgetown University in 1966. Since 1965 he has taught history at St. Joseph College, West Hartford, Connecticut. His primary field of study has been modern European history and he is currently interested in the subjects of human rights, definitions of humanity and truth in academe and media.
Most people know by now, the twenty-first century, what abortion is, even if not all the details. Not so many, however, might be familiar with eugenics. The dictionary defines eugenics as "...a science concerned with improving...the human species, by such means as influencing or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have desirable genetic traits."(1) Another definition of eugenics is "well born."(2) The term was first coined in 1883 by an Englishman, Sir Frances Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin.(3)
This paper concerns abortion and eugenics in Nazi Germany but it is first necessary to explore abortion and eugenics in the United States, and in Weimar Germany, the democracy Germany had for fourteen years (1918-1933) prior to Hitler's coming to power. This paper will discuss birth control and sterilization also, particularly sterilization; these cannot be separated from discussions of eugenics and abortion.
First, let us briefly look at the United States. It was in this country that the eugenics movement really became established. In 1910, the first major eugenic research institution, the Eugenics Records Office, was founded and in 1923, the American Eugenics Society was formed, with branches in 29 states by the end of the decade. By 1928 there were 376 college courses on eugenics, and the subject found its way into high school texts by the mid-1930's.(4) While the movement was international, by far the most work surrounding it occurred in the United States.(5) Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, did not draw a distinction between "fit" and "unfit" along racial lines, as Nazi Germany would later do. She still believed there were "tinfit" (the poor, epileptics, alcoholics, criminals, those physically and mentally disabled) who should be prevented from reproducing, by force if necessary.(6) In her Birth Control Review (October 1921, p. 5) she said, "Possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon society if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic breeding that has resulted from our stupidly cruel sentimentalism."(7)
Sanger thus believed not only in birth control but in the use of it along with sterilization to promote eugenics. She did not advocate abortion, and Planned Parenthood held this position until her death in 1966. Her disavowal of abortion, however, while approving of birth control, sterilization (including forced sterilization) and eugenics, was a tactical move. It was the result of the advice given her by her lover, Havelock Ellis, who convinced her that industrial society was not quite ready for it. Previous to this she had spoken about "the right to destroy [the unborn]."(8) Sanger and like-minded American eugenicists had contacts with sex reformers in Germany, and it would be in the United States and Germany that eugenics would receive the most interest.(9) As an historian of genetic issues has put it, "when all is said and done, it is the LOGIC of eugenics far more than its racism that proved to be the most unfortunate legacy of the German race hygiene movement for the Third Reich."(10)