The state of eugenics in the 21st century

On a recent post I criticized Dr. Alexis Carrell, Nobel laureate, for having supported eugenic theories. Bayman quickly pointed out that his views were shared by many at the time. In fact he's not even the only Nobel laureate to come out in support of eugenics, Dr. William Shockley (picture), inventor of the transistor was a staunch supporter. The difference is that Shockley was gravely criticized for his views that became more and more extreme with age. I'd be willing to speculate, that the support for eugenics changed dramatically between the lifetime of those two figures because of the Second World War. The gut reaction I have when I think of eugenics, is a strong sense of disgust, perhaps because of all the abuses that the nazi were responsible for. But is eugenics dead in our society? First let us define it: according to wikipedia

" Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention.^[1] The goals of various groups advocating eugenics have been to create healthier, more intelligent people, to save society's resources, and lessen human suffering."

Surely one cannot find opposition to the goals, but rather to the methods. The methods have much to do with controlling reproduction. Controlling reproduction, is not a new thing, the egyptians supposedly already had an herbal equivalent to the pill, but new technologies have recently brought an unprecedented degree of control, with pills, condoms, IUD, prenatal diagnosis. In fact human sexual reproduction is inherently eugenic. We have the ability to see beyond the mate to base our reproductive decisions. We now know that diseases have large genetic components, and we can choose to not reproduce based on the familial history, or even change mates accordingly. Where it gets uneasy is when the state comes in and imposes rules on your reproduction. The "one baby" policy of China for example is modern eugenics. And don't be fooled, other countries have reproductive policies, they are just not as visible as China's. Every country has a vested interest in maintaining an active working population while balancing it with ressources. Some eugenic policies may promote child birth, and catholics for example were very active in my home province of Quebec, promoting reproduction and denouncing birth control. They went so far as to tell my grandfather his duty as a good catholic was to make sure not to waste a drop of semen, giving rise to families that could easily constitute an entire hockey team. And why not? It was a very successful meme for catholicism, since all those children were raised catholic, thus helping in perpetuating the meme. The rest of Canada is not without its own dirty history either, in Alberta until 1945, the Alberta Eugenics board was sterilizing people under a certain IQ cutoff because they were mentally deficient, and most of them were immigrants that had a poor understanding of the English language.

Liberal reprogeneticist (modern day eugenics) argue that non-mandatory eugenics has a place in the management of the human race. That prenatal screening for hereditary diseases and the so called "designer babies" are good for humans as a whole as long as it is elective. Being myself atheist and pro-choice, I find it hard to detect any scientific opposition to such practises. Obviously "dysgenics", or the progressive dumbing down of humans is a ridiculous assertion. But the screening for crippling diseases doesn't seem to have many drawbacks, other than reducing genetic diversity. You never know when a "disease" might be the next cure to save humanity, like sickle cell anemia and malaria. But like James Watson put it "if we don't play god, who will?".