Eugenics (n) - The science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics.

In other words, people who have genetic defects or diseases would be forbidden from having children, if those defects can be passed down. The idea is to limit the number of genetic defects in the overall human population by ensuring future generations are born from humans in good physical and mental health. With modern medicine we've essentially destroyed natural selection, and eugenics would prevent the human species from evolving backwards because of it.


The obvious ethical argument is whether or not humans have the right to prevent other humans from having children against their will. Also, what would the criteria be? Who gets to decide who's allowed to breed and who isn't?

But, is it ethical to continue allowing people to be born with genetic defects that severely decrease their quality of life? We recycle, we try to reduce pollution, widespread efforts are already being made to ensure future generations aren't worse off because of us - but the human gene pool is severely flawed as well, and we make no attempt to fix it. Instead we spend time, money and resources treating these genetic diseases without trying to prevent them from spreading.


I think it's a good idea in theory, but in practice, I don't know how it could be done in a way that's ethical to both current generations and future ones. Either situation kind of fucks over one or the other, and I guess it comes down to who we should be more concerned about - the people alive today, or the people that will populate the earth once we're gone.

I dunno. What do you guys think?

We could jump on the genetic engineering boat and get a society like Gatacca?

I guess, but that movie has absolutely nothing to do with eugenics

Yes, but it would produce the same effect as eugenics with very few of the ethical dilemmas

If there's no force involved then it's perfectly ethical. It would be great if science would find a way to cure genetic defects to help humans evolve instead. But as soon as they start forcing people to stop having sex the world will plunge into chaos :P

Ah, I see your point.

The Seventh/eighth line: The obvious ethical argument is whether or not humans have the right to prevent other humans from having children against their will. Also, what would the criteria be? Who gets to decide who's allowed to breed and who isn't?

Quote from Exilement

No force involved? That's what we currently have, what are you even suggesting? And it has nothing to do with forcing people to stop fucking, it's keeping people from reproducing. If you think that'll "plunge the world into chaos", explain why.

Well by reproducing, I assume you mean fucking...you should be more specific then. I was just poking fun at how folk don't like their sex taken away...twas a joke.

Anyways I was suggesting that government shouldnt be too much involved in this science project. cuz then you got guns and judges and swat teams and stuff...not a good look. This "Control" should only be done on people who agree to it.

It's wrong to ENFORCE people not have children. We should advise them or recommend it. besides this is not being applied anyway. people go to a doctors who work in the field of genetics and they would use IVF (in vitro fertilization) and eliminate the sperm with the defected genes which allows only the sperm with the normal genes to breed with the egg. the cells then divide and are monitored for a certain amount of time to make sure the operation was successful then it is put back inside the mother and growth continues naturally.

Eugenics is bad (my opinion), because don't allowing "inferior" people to having the same rights as normal/"better" people will lead to discrimination.

Sorry if my post is short and/or bad, i don't have much to write and i'm busy.

I've thought about this a lot. To me it seems immoral to force someone to not have a child, but then I run into a bit of cognitive dissonance, personally. I would not want my child to be born with and live for the rest of their life with a severe physical/mental ailment that is not curable and causes a large amount of pain or suffering of any kind, and because of these personal feelings I don't think it's right for anyone else to do so either.

However, it can't be determined that these illnesses will never be cured, and many things that seem like very bad ordeals to live through turn out to not be so bad from the sufferer's perspective. You might see this in people who are very mentally retarded- they aren't capable of functioning at the level of the average person, but it doesn't usually make them upset, so it doesn't seem like much of a big deal if they are around.

I can't say I'm sure of a definite yes or no answer for this question. If I was in power and able to make a decision like this, I would probably encourage people who had a strong likelihood of passing on some horrible disease to not have children, or have their tubes tied or something, but ultimately I don't believe I could force somebody to not have a child if they really wanted to.