Propaganda of Eugenics

"This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow Germans, that is your money, too."

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Eugenics and Human Rights

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0999/is_7207_319/ai_55670117/

Overview:

            This source was written by Daniel J Kelves and is called “Eugenics and Human Rights”. This site contains history information about who came up with eugenics, but most importantly it discussed how it interfered with human’s rights. Mr. Kelves doesn’t only focus in Europe but discusses the issues of eugenics all over the world, such as Canada, United States, and Europe. He clearly says that even though eugenics was greatly seen in with Germany and the Nazis, it wasn’t just occurring there but everywhere. The countries were all focused on hereditary traits in order to create better humans, in result creating a perfect country. The author of this article defends his argument by using the example of the “Buck vs. Bell” case. In that case the fight was against sterilization law and eugenics, at the end, the court declared that it is done to protect the health of the state. Kelves also defends his argument of human rights by quoting Justice Oliver W. Holmes “the argument of freedom or right of the individual can no longer hold good where the welfare of the state and society is concerned”. With this quote the author clearly wins his argument due to the fact that the court believed that if they don’t allow science to take over in order to have a healthy state they must continue with sterilization and eugenics instead of human’s rights.

Argument:

            The argument of this site is how eugenics was stepping on human’s rights. Kelves states that many people believed that a human’s rights should be valued much more than those of approved by science and social needs. This article doesn’t focus on choosing a side to defend but does encourage viewing the ways in which the law of science, eugenics in this case, was being valued much higher than a human’s right. This article also contains a bibliography of the sources he used to provide his information.

Source:

            The author of this site is a professor, Daniel J. Kelves. This site is a reliable source because it is an article that was approved and has been copyrighted. This article does not seem to be bias but instead more of an informative article, with information and details of how eugenics was being put before human rights and about the history of eugenics. Not only does it give history but it gives information of when laws were being passed and when the laws were passed. Overall, this is a very reliable and good source.

The Eugenic Movement

http://www.vasectomy-information.com/moreinfo/eugenics.htm

Overview:

This source is an article that explains the eugenic movements in America and Europe. This source explains the different laws, court cases and dates as well as statistics to show what the eugenic movements did to encourage the legalizing of eugenic and sterilization laws. The main focus of this article is the laws, dates, and courts that occurred throughout these movements in Europe and America.

Argument:

            This journal begins by giving a brief background of what eugenics is and where eugenics came from. The main argument of this journal is viewing the events that took place in order to encourage eugenics and sterilization to be legal in America and Europe.  In America, people who were criminals were being sterilized so that they wouldn’t reproduce any more criminals. These movements were defend by using the excuse of a healthy society, a better world, in order to have a healthy state. Eventually in America twenty- nine of the fifty states were allowed to sterilize insane people and of the twenty-nine states twelve of them sterilized criminals. Between 1909 and 1924 more than 6,000 people in America were sterilized. In Europe, the eugenic movement of 1907 was called Eugenics Education Society which was later cut short to Eugenics Society. This movement was set up to get people aware of the problems of eugenics. Then there was also the use of eugenics that was used in Germany but used incorrectly and was used as discrimination instead of a cure for the sick. Overall, this journal shows how there were voluntary movements that were set up in different countries to encourage eugenics and sterilization as an answer.

Source:

            This document is a journal by M.J. Drake, I.W. Mills and D. Cranston that come from “The Chequered History of Vasectomy". This is a very reliable source that is a published journal and can also be considered as a primary source. This is not a biased journal but an informative journal that discussed the movements that were occurring in America and Europe to try and encourage eugenics and use sterilization as the answer to eugenics.

Introduction to Eugenics

http://www.emmerich1.com/EUGENICS.htm

Overview:

In this source the writer, John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe, writes about major subtopics that dealt with eugenics. He begins by giving the history of eugenics and what Francis Galton the creator of eugenics had really created eugenics for. Galton’s idea of eugenics was to improve the human race by selection of breeding. It also covers how Galton’s idea was for eugenics to be part of religion. Other major points that O’Keefe covers is how Hitler used eugenics to get rid of many people and how as soon as Hitler died many believed that eugenics had died with him, yet it continued even after World War II. He also goes into detail of Hitler and how he used eugenics causing the death of about one third of the Jews in the world. John covers many important parts where eugenics took place in.

Argument:

            I don’t believe that John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe presents an argument in his source but more of an information source. The writer does sort of take a side, since he only talks about the bad eugenics and how it was only used to destroy people but overall does seem to be more detail history of eugenics. The author of this source does give very strong evidence when he uses statistics to give a better idea or to set a stronger type of evidence. The author does cover very different parts that make up most of the history of eugenics around the world in the early twentieth century.

Source:

            The author of this source John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe is a Harvard graduate. In this document John doesn’t seem to be biased but seems to give just the history of eugenics not trying to argue or take a side on the topic. This source does seem very reliable to the amount of sources that are written in the bibliography that were used in writing O’Keefe’s document. The fact that he has so many sources makes it more reliable due to the fact that it’s not something he is just making up but he went about with other sources to create his own. This author does give a lot of great information on eugenics that can be considered reliable.

Nazi Eugenics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEasqSx-Pxw

Overview:

            The main idea of this source is the relationship of eugenics with Hitler and the Holocaust. This video provides statistics of “Over 400,000 of the people that Hitler deemed as unfit were sterilized against their own will, and 70,000 of them were killed.” This video covers how eugenics was used throughout the Holocaust. The producer of this video explains how Hitler uses eugenics to get rid of his so called unfit. Hitler used eugenics as an excuse to get rid of the poor people, the ill ones and the Jews.

Argument:

            The argument of this video is to prove how Hitler abused of the science of eugenics to get rid of population of people he believed should not live. The producer of this video argues that eugenics is a false science that is destructive and is used for racism and discrimination. The producer defends this by saying how Hitler would encourage the reproduction of his race so that I would be able to grow faster. He also defends it when he says that Hitler would sterilized interracial couples because that would only create a defective or impure person. The producer also defends that eugenics is a science of race because people were being determined their intelligence by the measurements of their body parts

Source:

            The producer of this video is a ninth grade student who created this video as a project investigating eugenics used by the Nazis. This ninth grader tries to prevent discrimination and an event like the Holocaust to occur again. He uses his ideas; as well he uses sources and has a list of link of where his information comes from. This source is not one of the most reliable sources but does build a good idea, background and thoughts.

Eugenics

http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/mar2007/eugenics.html#top

Overview:

The main idea of this source is everything about eugenics. This website explains and defines eugenics and how it was created to help improve human hereditary traits. It also clearly explains how eugenics was used to accomplish goals such as, to be healthier, more intelligent, save resources, and to have less humans suffering.

Argument:

            In this source we see different ideas such as the image of the tree. In this web page we see that the tree is represented as the logo of eugenics. The tree’s roots shows and names of the different fields in science and shows how they all united to form this big tree, the grown tree being eugenics. The eugenics logo was created in the Second International Congress of Eugenics in 1921. In this web page the author discusses that some of the main reasons eugenics was done was to avoid birth control, certain marriage restrictions, to control immigration, and for segregation of race and of mental ill people.  In order to avoid those reasons from occurring they would sterilize people or force them to abort. The author does also explain the different types of eugenic methods which were mandatory, promotional and private eugenics. The mandatory was the eugenics that was done forced by the government, promotional was the eugenics done voluntarily and promoted to the people and private eugenics was also done voluntarily the only difference from promotional eugenics was that private eugenics wasn’t promoted to the people.  The source also goes to explain the three different goals that were set for eugenics. The first goal he mentions is intrinsic eugenics which was a good type of eugenic that was used to improve the genetics of people or to benefit the physical and mental health, as well as the reproductive ability and intelligence of people.  The second goal mentioned is racial eugenics which was use to specifically breed those of a particular race or races. The final goal mention is extrinsic social eugenics which was very selective on breeding only those of high class with wealth, good school, popularity, personality and college degree. This source specifically focuses on giving a more of an          in-depth background information on eugenics, going into the history and actions that were be taken by eugenics such as racial actions or putting behind the ill ones.

Source:

            There is no specific author on this website but there is in-text citations and bibliography page that does give credit to the webpage. This source isn’t an arguing document but much more of a historical document that gives great in depth history of different ways that eugenics was being used. Also giving us who came up with eugenics and how eugenics was created for good and resulted in mostly being used for the bad.