[Eugenic morality].

One hundred years ago the first "genetic revolution" promised a boon to society through the rational application of scientific knowledge about heredity. Leading American physicians, psychologists,social workers, scientists, educators, and philanthropists advocated a eugenics agenda that called for the elimination of the "unfit." This legacy has affected profoundly the current nondirective model of genetic counseling. As primary care now prepares for the age of genomic medicine, the history of eugenics provides a perspective for the application of patient-centered care and shared decision-making models to the process of genetic testing.

Eugenics↗

PubMed2004

[Scandinavian eugenics: Nordic historians provide new approaches].

Late disclosure of the large scale of sterilization practices in the Nordic countries created an outburst of scandal: did these policies rely on coercion? To what extent? Who in the end was responsible? Sterilization practices targeted underpriviledged people first. The mentally retarded and women were their first victims. Operations were very frequently determined by other people's manipulative or coercive influences. Should the blame be put on the Social-Democrats in power throughout the period (except in Finland and Estonia)? Apart from Denmark, perhaps, local physicians and local services, more than governments, seemed to have strongly supported sterilization practices. Teetotalers and feminists shared responsibilities. How can one explain that eugenics finally declined? Based on a sound application of the Hardy-Weinberg law, the science of the eugenicists was correct. Was it politics? But uncovering of the Nazi crimes had only a very small impact on eugenics. Some authors underline the fact that the Nordic scientific institutions were particularly suited to liberal values. Others point to the devastating effect on eugenics once hereditarist psychiatry fell from favour in the middle of the sixties.

Eugenics↗