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between voluntarism and coercion can often be vague.
One voluntary method involves the use of ultrasound to de-
termine the sex of the fetus. In many developing countries the
desire for a male offspring is even strong enough to induce par-
ents to abort females. Ultimately the number of males in a popu-
lation is reproductively insignificant, since only females can bear
children, and a tiny male population is capable of impregnating
a huge female population. Thus, population management has to
be female-oriented.
The Chinese infant sex ratio was normal in the 1960s and
1970s (roughly 106 boys for every 100 girls), but when the one-
child policy was introduced in the 1980s, the figure became far
78 The History and Politics of Eugenics
more skewed in favor of boys; by 2002 China s fifth national cen-
sus revealed a sex ratio at birth of approximately 116.86 males
per 100 females, having increased to 108.5 in 1982 and 110.9 in
1987. As early as 2000 the number of men in China was already
estimated to exceed that of women by sixty million.
The situation is much the same in India, where the 1991
census indicated approximately 35-45 million missing women,
when ultrasound was far less available than it is now. In a ten-
year study of babies born in Delhi hospitals in the period 1993-
2003, the number of female births was 542 per 1,000 boys if the
first child was a girl. If the first two children were girls, the ratio
was only 219/1,000.
Unfortunately, although the desire for sons is greatest
among rural populations, high-IQ families possess greater access
to modern medicine, including ultrasound, so that this practice
appears to have been dysgenic thus far. But made easily avail-
able to low-IQ families, or if such families were even financially
rewarded, it could become strongly eugenic in nature, simulta-
neously attacking both quantitative and qualitative demo-
graphic problems. (The historic link between eugenics and Mal-
thusian thought should be emphasized.) A sea change is already
underway; by 2005 many clinics offered ultrasound for as little
as 500 rupees ($11.50). It goes without saying that this is a
tragic turn of events for those men who do not find a mate for
themselves, but it is a far lesser evil than dysgenic overpopula-
tion. Moreover, heightened competition for females would dis-
proportionately reward high-IQ males. (For this same reason
polygamy should be universally decriminalized. The legal en-
forcement of monogamy is a dysgenic intrusion into personal
freedom. No scientific breeder would even consider it.)
Another voluntary method is a vigorous promotion of con-
traceptive methods among low-IQ families. While education is
not about to cancel out the sex drive of young people, it can go a
long way toward reducing the birth rate. Reversible sterilization
should be actively promoted.
The current debate between pro-choice and pro-life fails
utterly to take into account the consequences of abortion for ge-
netic selection. Abortion should be actively promoted, since it
often serves as the last and even only resort for many low-IQ
mothers who fail to practice contraception.
The History and Politics of Eugenics 79
Welfare policies need to be radically reexamined. Rather
than simply pay low-IQ women more for each child, financial
support should be made dependent on consent to undergo some
form of lasting contraception or even sterilization. Society should
put more emphasis on greater tax credits for families with chil-
dren, nurseries, day-care centers, etc. This would promote fertil-
ity among high-IQ women, who otherwise are tempted either not
to have children at all, or to have too few, sacrificing their un-
born children before the altar of career advancement. The goals
of the feminist movement are in and of themselves legitimate
and fair, but wed to the anti-scientific worldview of radical egali-
tarianism, they will devastate our species.
Eugenic family planning services are the greatest gift that
the advanced countries can offer the Third World. In a global
society, parochial fixation on any one country is a pathology that
human society can ill afford. What is needed is tough love. Such
a policy would promote the interests of any ethnic group, all of
which suffer when their least intelligent members serve as the
breeding pool while the most intelligent encounter strong disin-
centives to fertility.
In different countries a different mix of governmental and
non-governmental activism is appropriate. Useful measures
would include paying low-IQ women to accept embryo transfer.
Sperm banks need to be encouraged to attach the greatest im-
portance to intelligence, and the promotion of these institutions
should be covered out of tax monies. And the technology should
be developed to create an artificial womb or, alternatively, make
inter-species embryo transplants a reality, rapidly increasing the
number of individuals with the most preferred genotypes.
Religious belief will always be with us, and eugenics must
not be presented as scientific in an anti-religious sense. At the
same time there is a huge potential for excess if eugenics were to
become a core belief of the masses.
Genetic research needs to be promoted without regard to
cost. Who can say what enormous potential awaits us in the fu-
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