EUGENICS. — The term was first used in 1833 (Eugenics) by Francis Galton, a distinguished English statistician (1822–1911), to denote (according to his most recent [1904] definition) “the study of the agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally.”
Thus conceived, eugenics has a broad programmatic scope and draws its content and principles partly from genetics and partly from the social sciences, demonstrating the sense of responsibility that living generations should have toward future generations.
I. Concepts
Eugenics is based on eugenetics, or the science that advocates the improvement of humankind through appropriate selection of mating (Gianferrari and Cantoni), so as to reduce the reproduction of individuals considered dysgenic or antisocial and instead promote that of individuals deemed carriers of desirable qualities. However, the development of such qualities must be accompanied by the improvement of environmental conditions (euthemics, hygiene).For some scholars, the term eugenics can be interpreted as synonymous with racial hygiene, according to the expression proposed by Ploetz.
Galton had previously defined eugenics as “the science concerned with all influences that improve the innate qualities of a race and with bringing about developments for the improvement of environmental conditions.” This may explain why some consider eugenics a pure science and others an applied science; why some derive it etymologically from the Greek adjective εὐγενής, meaning “of good descent”; and why others substantiate the definition: “Eugenics is good birth.”
Still others maintain that, for eugenic purposes, either the action of hereditary factors or that of environmental factors prevails.
Galton himself, after studying 977 biographies (1865–69), concluded that the success of individuals depends largely on their hereditary traits; he later confirmed this opinion (1874) through a genealogical study of 180 notable figures. As proof of the predominant action of hereditary factors over environmental ones, the example of Black and White Americans is often cited: despite living in equal environmental conditions, they remain markedly different.
Conversely, studies of monozygotic twins—who, as is well known, share identical genetic endowments derived from the fertilization of a single ovum—have revealed manifest differences in their lives that cannot be easily explained without invoking the action of environmental factors. Similar conclusions can be drawn from a study by E. Jokl and E. H. Cluver (1941), South African physicians, on 32 young people known as “poor whites” (poor whites): they showed no serious illnesses but suffered from colds, rheumatism, migraines, were sluggish and slow, and unable to find employment, being regarded by employers as “poor white trash.” When admitted to an institution and provided with proper nutrition, physical exercise, and recreational activities, they experienced significant improvement in their general condition and mental agility. One may believe that individual differences are determined by hereditary factors, which can, however, be enhanced or diminished by favorable or unfavorable environmental conditions, thereby attenuating the absolute significance of Horace’s verse: “Naturally, in this case, we are these” (*Epist.* I, 10, 24).
Ploetz and Nizzoli on Eugenics. — At the Second Congress of Eugenics, held in New York in September 1921, four sections were distinguished, addressing the following groups of topics: a) human heredity; b) factors influencing the human family, its fertility, and marital selection; c) racial differences, with particular regard to unnatural associations created by political and national borders, the problem of hybrids (advantages and disadvantages), morbidity, and psychology; d) eugenic applications in relation to the State, society, education, and the results of eugenics in sociology, economics, and the destiny of nations.
According to Jennings (1930), “the woes of the world and their remedies lie fundamentally in the different hereditary constitutions of human beings. Some men are strong, healthy, wise, and virtuous. Others are weak, deficient, sickly, immoral, criminal, and it is these who cause the woes of the world. Laws, customs, education, material conditions are the creation of men and reflect their fundamental nature. To try to correct these is merely to treat superficial symptoms. To strike at the root of woes, a better human race must be produced: one that contains no inferior types. When a better race holds the reins of the world’s affairs, laws, customs, education, and material conditions will take care of themselves. Good and wise men will make a good world.”
The means employed to achieve eugenic goals can be grouped into two broad categories, which may be seen as two distinct approaches: coercive and non-coercive measures aimed at reducing the procreative contribution (negative eugenics) and measures aimed at encouraging and increasing the procreative contribution of desirable individuals (positive eugenics). To these must be added all those directed at improving the environment, which constitute the field of action of eugenics.
Eugenic goals are also pursued through prophylactic norms and protective provisions concerning maternal and infant health, labor, individual health, and so on. In negative eugenics, coercive measures enforced through legislation include:
a) marital restrictions: prohibition of marriages between consanguineous relatives up to a certain degree (v. CONSANGUINITY), prohibition of marriages to the mentally ill (defective, insane), epileptics, habitual criminals. Some such restrictions are in force in nearly all civilized nations. In China, marriages between individuals with the same surname are prohibited, and similar prohibitions exist among certain tribes in North America and among Australian Aborigines;
b) segregation through confinement in suitable institutions: a preferable but very costly method;
c) mandatory premarital certificates of eugenic fitness for marriage. Such provisions were in force in Argentina, Chile, Denmark, Ecuador, Germany, Yugoslavia, some states of the United States, Sweden, and Turkey. In Norway and some North American states, the certificate is replaced by a sworn declaration by the engaged couple and their relatives;
d) sterilization achieved through surgical means, such as the removal of ducts (the vas deferens in men and fallopian tubes in women) through which germ cells must pass to reach the act of procreation. The procedure (which in men can be performed under local anesthesia and is less serious than in women) does not affect the sex glands and therefore entails no changes in secondary sexual characteristics or sexual instinct.
This method, first used in 1907 in the state of Indiana (U.S.), for the feebleminded, was later adopted for psychopaths and criminals in other North American states, a few of which even permit castration (removal of the sex glands).
In Europe, sterilization has been adopted in Switzerland (Canton of Vaud, 1928), Denmark (1929), Sweden (1934), and Germany (1934). In Germany, the most extensive sterilization experiment was carried out, with between 180,000 and 200,000 individuals sterilized in 1934—according to Wolf’s statistics (cited by De Toni)—for the following conditions: congenital mental weakness, schizophrenia, circular insanity, hereditary epilepsy, Huntington’s chorea, hereditary blindness, severe hereditary physical deformities, and in some cases, chronic alcoholism.
All coercive means that violate the physical integrity of the individual—scientifically much debated because pathological heredity does not always have a fatal character—are contrary to juridical, moral, and religious principles (*Encicl. Casti Connubii* of Pope Pius XI, 1936).
Non-coercive means include: birth control (birth-control), a form of neo-Malthusianism based on anti-conceptional practices, widely practiced in Anglo-Saxon countries; the so-called trial marriage, legal but time-limited; legal companionate marriage with birth limitation, and in cases of infertility, the possibility of dissolution (all these methods are likewise immoral and condemned by the Church); and finally, eugenic education, which, by disseminating knowledge about hereditarily transmissible diseases, confronts man with his responsibilities without even respecting his personal dignity.
For positive eugenics, means have been suggested that do not all conform to juridical and moral principles. Among these, for example, are polygamy and permission for a fertile spouse to procreate with a third party.
Instead, advisable are means aimed at fostering an eugenic conscience among the masses by spreading religious, moral, sexual, and hygienic education, possibly combined with social and economic measures such as incentives for youthful parenthood, benefits for large families, loans for parenthood, and provisions for celibacy.
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### III. BRIEF HISTORICAL NOTES ON EUGENIC MEASURES
Eugenic measures, whether in the form of religious precepts or legislative provisions, existed even in antiquity.
Premarital chastity and the obligation to marry—though forbidden between close relatives—were prescribed among the Indians, Jews, and Greeks; the Romans considered marriage a moral duty, and celibates were denied inheritance rights and subjected to taxes. Particularly harsh were the Spartan laws of Lycurgus: celibacy was considered a disgraceful offense to the point that women publicly mocked celibates; women, especially young wives of old husbands, could procreate with strong and handsome men; infants deemed healthy and beautiful were taken in by the state at age six for a dignified military education, while those with deformities or deemed weak were thrown from Mount Taygetus, victims of misguided aesthetic and social principles.
In Athens, weak infants were abandoned. The Phoenicians, Philistines, Moabites, and Carthaginians practiced infanticide for propitiatory purposes (*De Toni*). Among the Romans, until the Augustan era, the father was free to acknowledge his children; if weak or deformed, they could be killed, abandoned, or sold. In contrast, protective laws for children (punishment for infanticide and the obligation to raise children, regardless of their origin, at the parents’ or state’s expense) existed among the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Jews.
Caesar and Augustus enacted laws granting monetary rewards and benefits to fathers of large families. These provisions gained greater impetus and force under Constantine, after the advent of Christianity, which, together with Roman law, influenced the enactment of child-protective laws among the peoples who invaded Rome’s territories.
Islamic religion also encourages marriage and procreation but permits marriage between cousins, polygamy, and concubinage.
In the Middle Ages, various countries, particularly through the efforts of religious figures, saw the rise of foundling hospitals (the first in Europe being founded in 787 by the Milanese archpriest Dato [*De Toni*]), benevolent institutions that affirmed the principle of protecting the lives of infants but were flawed in practical organization due to a lack of basic hygiene, resulting in high mortality among the children they housed.
Slowly and sporadically, hygienic principles gained ground from a doctrinal standpoint, followed by concepts of heredity. Among those who contributed to this were the physician Aldobrandino da Siena (13th century), Vittorino da Feltre (15th century), Thomas More (16th century), Tommaso Campanella (17th century), and in the 18th and 19th centuries, Paré, Morel, Charles Darwin, Lamarck, Mendel, and finally Francis Galton, with whom the dissemination of new ideas began.
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### IV. THE EUGENICS MOVEMENT IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES
As has been seen, Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, must be considered the father of eugenics in the modern sense. He founded (1905) the first eugenics laboratory at the University of London, later named the Galton Eugenics Laboratory, whose direction was entrusted to Pearson. In 1908, also in England, the first society, the Eugenics Education Society, was founded, and in 1912, the first international congress was held there.
From England, the movement spread to Sweden (notably through the work of Lundborg), where two institutes were founded at the Universities of Uppsala and Lund; to America—where the greatest number of institutes and associations exist, including the Eugenics Record Office and the Eugenics Section of the American Breeders’ Association, which received its greatest impetus during the secretaryship of D. B. Davenport, who may today be considered one of the most authoritative advocates of the importance of eugenics—and to Norway, Germany, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Russia, Hungary, Portugal, and Switzerland.
In Italy, in 1912, at the initiative of Giuseppe Sergi, a committee for the study of eugenics was established within the Roman Society of Anthropology, with members including G. Sergi, S. De Sanctis, C. Artom, C. Gini, L. Mangiagalli, A. Niceforo, and M. Saffiotti.
In 1919, at the initiative of E. Pestalozza, C. Gini, and C. Artom, the Italian Society for the Study of Genetics and Eugenics was founded, and in Milan, where a special course of study was established at the university, the first two Italian Eugenics Congresses were held in 1924 and 1929.
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PASTORAL MEDICINE
It must be acknowledged that eugenics has a good intention and a morally good end when it seeks to discover the laws governing the reproduction of the individual and the development of the species; to reduce, eliminate, or at least counterbalance the causes of physical and mental decline and premature death; to halt diseases with social diffusion—the spread of habits that undermine the human species; and to work toward the restoration and elevation of both the physical and social aspects of marriage. However, those aspects and manifestations of negative eugenics that, disregarding the composite nature of man or the preponderant value and absolute rights of the spirit within it, propose measures that violate freedom and human dignity must be denounced and condemned.
Coercive regulation of marriage, sterilization, birth control, artificial insemination of a livestock-like type, eugenic abortion, and the killing of the chronically disabled and those deemed incurable (v. EUTHANASIA) — despite the good intention of freeing the individual and society from the burden of need, disease, and suffering — are means that not only conflict with Catholic morality but often even with natural law itself. For this reason, the Catholic Church — which has repeatedly clashed with civil laws enacted by the secular nationalism of certain states or with particularistic moral systems upheld by some dissident religious confessions — has always and continues to condemn certain forms of negative eugenics that infringe upon the natural rights of man (the right to life and procreation), and that are contrary to the respect and integrity of the human person (sterilization, castration), as well as to the primary purposes and the natural, juridical, and canonical characteristics of marriage (birth control, artificial insemination in its broadest form). The illicit nature of all these means is explained in their respective entries.
Turning to a more detailed critique, first and foremost reservations must be raised regarding the absurd notion that improving the physical health of humanity necessarily corresponds to moral improvement, whereas experience often shows that physical well-being does not align with moral excellence.
Indeed, while it is true that a minimum foundation of integrity, potential, and physiological tranquility in the body’s structures — particularly those with regulatory functions (the nervous system, endocrine system) — is necessary for the normal development of our ethical life, this is not the sole factor. Essential to moral progress, ascent, and perfection is the free determination of the will toward the good. Moreover, intelligence itself is often independent of the physical value of the individual, and we frequently see vast and virile intellects flourishing despite the limitations of a severely deficient organism. Society would have been deprived of their light if, by rigorously applying the principles of eugenics, their worth had been measured solely by the development, good proportions, and physiological balance of their bodily frame.
Secondly, in matters of medical-moral contribution, the legitimacy of the scientific applications of eugenics must be examined to determine whether some postulates and methods of its negative developments are not only immoral but also unscientific. The question arises: does objective study of facts and theories not lead to the conclusion that the so-called laws of heredity, fetishized by many advocates of unchecked eugenics, are less absolute scientific laws in the strict sense and more hypothetical, provisional, and modifiable frameworks for phenomena whose essence remains unknown? These frameworks are subject to many exceptions and thus lack the absolute normative value often ascribed to them in practice.
In reality, an objective critique not only reveals the limitations and relativity of current knowledge regarding hereditary phenomena but also dismantles the prevailing belief that such phenomena are fated and inevitable—something entirely unmodifiable by the environment. Thus, not only in the name of morality but also in the light of science, the aberrations of materialistic and mechanistic eugenics can be condemned, and broader hopes can be nurtured for improving the human species through the self-correcting and self-improving tendencies inherent in individual reproduction rather than through the eugenic suppression of "tainted" lineages.
In this context, however, one must not overlook the serious harm that can infiltrate the descendants through diseases that have nothing to do (e.g., alcoholism, syphilis) or only partially to do (tuberculosis, due to organic predisposition) with heredity, yet are capable of inflicting severe damage to the germ ("blastophthoria" of Forel), the embryo, or the fetus during intrauterine life, giving rise to defective individuals despite any improvements in eugenic marriages.
With regard to eugenics, the study of how certain mental illnesses are transmitted to descendants is of great practical importance. Indeed, in the norms governing the application of coercive forms of negative eugenics in some legislations (notably, the list of diseases subject to sterilization under the German law of July 1933), particular attention is given to oligophrenia or mental deficiency (v.), schizophrenia (v.), affective psychoses (v.), and hereditary epilepsy (v.). Even for these conditions, the general criticisms leveled in this entry against the exaggerated acceptance of heredity laws largely apply. The fact that most of these forms are recessive, the possibility of non-similar recurrence in descendants, the tendency toward attenuation in later generations, the significant role often played by environmental causes and blastophthoric factors, and the results achievable through judicious neuropsychiatric hygiene all diminish their supposed "progressive hereditary perniciousness" (Morel) and introduce further elements unfavorable to the unreasonable and unscientific dictates of negative eugenics.
The Catholic perspective on eugenics is clearly and precisely reaffirmed in the encyclical *Casti connubii* of Pius XI (31 Dec. 1930, AAS, 22 [1930], pp. 539–592), and in the two decrees of the Holy Office dated 21 March 1931 (ibid., 23 [1931], pp. 118–119) and 24 Feb. 1940 (ibid., 32 [1940], p. 73). Cf. also: *Associazioni mariane chretien*, *L'Église et l'eugénisme*, Paris 1930.