Eugenics in a most unlikely place.

It is common practice, now that eugenics in moving quickly within the science of reproductive genetics, to dismiss eugenics as pseudoscience. In fact, eugenics never ceased to play its part in demographics as it went from negative eugenics to Planned Parenthood, to preimplantation diagnosis, to sperm banks and attempts at cloning. Along with this goes the unfolding testing of individual’s genetic code revealing their personal genealogy or racial makeup.

In Darwin Day in America: how our politics and culture have been dehumanized in the name of science by John G. West, 2007, a very typical approach is used to delegitimize eugenics:

“For decades, eugenics was embraced as legitimate by America’s leading scientists and scientific organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Critics of eugenics, meanwhile, were stigmatized as antiscience and religious zealots. Yet the critics turned out to be right.”

In most books that mention eugenics, this is the standard rebuttal—a factual sounding statement without substance. Eugenics is a very broad area of scientific inquiry and breeding practice—as simple as picking a healthy mate to assure healthy children to selecting a defective fetus to be aborted.

Then I came across a book that reveals just how progressive Israeli eugenics is in comparison to Germany, with most modern countries in-between. A Life (Un)Worthy of Living: Reproductive Genetics in Israel and Germany, by Yael Hashiloni-Dolev, 2007, shows that the Israeli attitudes are closer to the progressive era attitudes that prevailed 100 years ago. As a modern, progressive state that embraces science and eugenics, it is quite absurd to claim that there is anything but solid science driving the genetic revolution, and one cannot separate eugenics from this scientific advancement. In Israel, the purpose is to have only healthy children, have as many children as possible, while giving preference to the life of the mother over the fetus where the interest of each is in conflict.

Hashiloni-Dolev states, “These data simply shocked and amazed me, as it demonstrated not only that Israeli geneticists were shown to be extremely enthusiastic about the personal and social uses of reproductive genetics, but also that German geneticists were found to be extremely cautious concerning the same medical technology, its uses and desirable social outcomes. In fact, Wertz and Fletcher’s findings revealed that Israeli and German geneticists were placed on two extremes, one enthusiastic, the other halfhearted, concerning the uses and outcomes of reproductive genetics, while geneticists from all other ‘advanced liberal societies’ were placed somewhere between those two poles.”

In a survey for example, the percentages of geneticists agreeing with the following statement: “It is not fair to a child to bring it into the world with a serious genetic disorder” was 68% for Israelis, 40% for Americans, and 18% for Germans.

Hashiloni-Dolev then describes the use of the word eugenics: “Another word that I do not often use in this work is eugenics. This is because this term is contaminated by its history (which is itself diversified) and hence, it nowadays often operates as a ‘buzz word’, which serves to block a contemporary, open, moral debate about the current uses of reproductive genetics. As I believe that contemporary reproductive genetics has both its blessings and its burdens as it is both liberating and discriminating and constraining at the same time, I prefer using the term reproductive genetics and not more critical and biased terms like ‘voluntary eugenics’ or ‘free-market eugenics’. This of course does not mean those terms do not portray large parts of the picture of contemporary reproductive genetics, only that they overlook other important parts of the picture, which I do not wish to ignore. Yet, while writing about the past, the term ‘eugenics’ is obviously more appropriate…. Obviously, what initially made me research this topic was my uneasiness with the practices of Israeli society, with its intolerance towards the genetically deviant and its lack of critical thinking about the moral conflicts embodied in reproductive genetics. Yet, as the research advanced (and I became the mother of two boys) and after getting to know the German field of reproductive genetics, things ceased to be so simple. Whereas Israeli women are generally actively recruited (one may even say: seduced) to take genetic examinations and even to abort fetuses which are, (or are suspected to be) ‘genetically abnormal’, their German counterparts usually simply do not know or know very little about the options opened up by this new technology.”

Hashiloni-Dolev points out that eugenics, the Holocaust, shame from the Second World War, racism; these are all used by German leftists and conservatives alike as sledgehammers to push their political programs. On the other hand, “Concerning Israel, Hazan has claimed that the creation of the Israeli imagined community depends upon an intensive occupation with the body, as the Israeli-Jewish collective is symbolized in terms of its body. Equally, several writers have observed that the Zionist social movement has been extremely occupied with distancing itself from the iconic frail image of the body of the Diaspora Jew. However, by making this move a paradox emerged: while Zionist national discourse often perceives the existence of an independent Jewish state to be a consequence of the Jewish Holocaust, the similarity between the Zionist rejection of the Diaspora Jewish body and Nazi eugenic murderous practices are often overlooked. Even more so, Falk, a prominent Israeli geneticist, reads the entire history of Zionism as itself a eugenicist project. Likewise, writing about excluded Israeli bodies, Weiss coined the term ‘the chosen body’ to describe the Israeli collective body, which is a code according to which concrete bodies are monitored, screened, molded and selected from womb to tomb. According to her, the Israeli ‘chosen body’ emanates from both the Zionist movement, which strove for the rehabilitation of the weak Jewish body, and the Jewish religious tradition, which is intolerant towards physical disability. Thus, the Israeli body of today worships healthy, fit, competent and whole bodies. Hence, Weiss argues that it is this ‘chosen body’ collective ideal and its selectivity that is responsible for the Israeli quest for the ‘perfect child’, a quest that by regulating mother’s and fetuses’ bodies also constructs the Israeli collective identity.”

German Racial hygiene and eugenics during the 1930s was not rejected by other countries, as its sterilization laws were seen as by far the most progressive. What was rejected was the violent anti-Semitism. Because of this, immediately upon the establishment of the state of Israel, human genetic studies were initiated and openly accepted. The primary impetus at this time was to do genetic studies on Jewish immigrants to determine how closely different groups were related, or how much genetic material they had absorbed from the people they lived amongst. The studies showed that there was little gene influx from non-Jewish populations. In fact, “Rafael Falk, a prominent Israeli genetics professor, reads the entire history of Zionism as a eugenicist project. He states that the understanding of Judaism as a biological essence became an integral part of Zionist thought towards the end of the 19th century. While most European Jews tried to fight against the idea of Judaism being a ‘race’, prominent Zionists such as Hess, Herzl, Bialik, Nordau and even Buber argued that the biological dimension of the Jewish ‘Volk’ should not be overlooked. Similarly to Falk, Stoler-Liss, who writes about Zionist motherhood, also claims that in the 20s, 30s and even beyond, eugenic thought was prevalent among Zionist pediatricians, gynecologists, general practitioners and other types of experts and ‘advisors’ in the Yishuv, who were trying to both quantitatively and qualitatively better future generations of ‘Zabarim.’”

There is nothing really new when it comes to the Jewish religion and the practice of eugenics. As Kevin MacDonald points out, Jews from Eastern Europe at least practiced—or continued to practice—arranged marriages between highly intelligent scholars and wealthy businessmen. On the less intelligent side of the bell curve, those with low intelligence were given nominal assistance when in need, and if they were not seen as healthy, intelligent, and resourceful Jews they were encouraged to move out of the community.

Hashiloni-Dolev states, “Concerning Judaism…. Jewish law has always been supportive of eugenic ideas (even before modern genetics was founded), as it encouraged individuals to be responsible to society and to the generations yet unborn in a manner that was unknown in any preceding system of religious thought or social medicine. In addition, different provisions in Jewish law from medieval times were clearly motivated by eugenic considerations for the moral excellence of the progeny, which they associated with physical [and mental] excellence, as they prohibited marriage into families with hereditary disorders. By contrast, in his essay about Jewish eugenics, Noam Zohar contends that the conventional views which perceive Jewish tradition to be eugenic and one may even say racist (with its idea of the ‘chosen people’), involve a one-sided reading of the Jewish tradition and particularly, the suppression of traditional critiques of lineage and of the notion of a ‘Jewish race’…. In interviews with chairpersons of Israeli disability organizations, Raz has found that they perceive prenatal genetic testing to be eugenic. However, they supported it for precisely that reason, as eugenics has no negative connotations for them, implying only an improvement in the health of their progeny.”

Israel also uses a cost benefit-analysis when looking at applications to use such as prenatal diagnosis leading to abortions of defectives. For every dollar spent on prenatal diagnosis, 55 dollars is saved on medical costs caring for genetic abnormalities. “Thus, at the prenatal stage, non-tolerance towards the genetically deviant is the norm among Israeli counselors, while more tolerant or optimistic counseling characterizes German counselors.”

And in Israel what is considered an unfit fetus is much more lax: “Nonetheless, the total responsibility for abortion practices cannot be placed entirely on the shoulders of the professionals: the wording of the law obviously also has implications. Analyzing the language of the Israeli law, Shapira writes: ‘The phraseology adopted by the Israeli legislature appears to reveal an unmistakably lenient policy on abortion for eugenic reasons. The physical or mental defect justifying interruption of pregnancy need not necessarily be extensive or grievous. An ordinary, perhaps even a relatively minor, defect may suffice. Furthermore, the defect need only be “likely” as distinct from certain or probable. The term “likely” seems to denote a more reasonable possibility, which may fall short of a near certainty or a high probability.’”

Abortion in Israel seems to elicit apathy, only becoming a problem if it is seen as reducing the number of sound children (aborting fit children). Neither feminists or pro-life activists have any impact on eugenic policy. In addition, the medical establishment and counselors are primarily pro-science and actively secular, rejecting religious viewpoints. This includes seeing the fetus as part of its mother and without any autonomous rights. In fact, the fetus’s right is limited to not being born—the medical practitioner could be sued for “wrongful life.”

Israel today has a high fertility rate due primarily to their culture and desire to outbreed the Arabs that also have a high fertility rate and could become the dominant ethnic group in the future. This high fertility is no doubt aided by their eugenic practices. When parents are free of caring for a disabled child they can put more resources in having fit children. In addition, fit children can grow up and have children of their own. “[T]he Jewish Rabbinic and Halakhic literature often devalue and stigmatize the disabled, who have no function concerning the morality of the community.”

The Israeli approach to reproduction is far more empirical, practical, and encouraging for others to adopt. “Whereas all German counselors paid respect to the idea of human genetic diversity, either for the sake of a humanistic ethos, or for the sake of biological diversity, Israelis completely mocked those ideas. Likewise, whereas German counselors felt their society had to be reminded of the fact that life is not all about money and fun, Israeli counselors did not share this feeling. For example, an Israeli women genetic counselor said: ‘Do people with severe disabilities make society more rich and varied? Maybe on the philosophical level. But in reality, I want to see you spend one day with a child with cerebral palsy or mental retardation, and then you will see what it really means. Then I will ask you again what you think of the high minded who say it’s nice. There are enough things that make our lives diversified without suffering. One should not have disabled children in order to enrich the world or to make his neighbor more sensitive.’”

Note that cerebral palsy can occur from a brain injury just before birth and even into childhood. For this reason, Israelis allow partial birth abortions, and in the future may even allow euthanasia for a period after birth. This is in keeping with their understanding of what is important in life. “In contrast, according to Marx (2002), attitudes to disability found in Jewish thinking are often disturbing to contemporary sensibilities, as Jewish culture is to a large extent a competence-oriented culture of ‘learners’, which excludes and stigmatizes the disabled. Concerning contemporary Israeli society, Weiss, in her thesis about the Israeli collective body ideal, which she terms the ‘chosen body’, contends that it worships healthy, fit, competent and whole bodies. Accordingly, the disabled are negatively stereotyped in the Israeli culture. Likewise, suffering is not glorified or endowed with personal or collective meanings and the life of the severely handicapped is believed to be wrongful.”

This healthy attitude towards life by Israelis seems to be held together by a serious appreciation for science and logic over ideology and dogma. However, it is ironic that many of the books and articles decrying eugenics, calling it pseudoscience, are produced by American Jewish scholars making numerous outrageous claims about it being a “White supremacist” plot, a right-wing movement, genocide against Blacks, etc. In reality the early eugenics movement was part of the progressive era and promoted by the same type of activists that today drive the environmental movement, and all of them can be considered more left wing and socialist than conservative. (Goldberg in Liberal Fascism, 2007) Eugenics, to work effectively, and not turn into a utopian adventure, must be firmly grounded in scientific materialism with a desire for beauty, health, intellect, prosperity, aesthetics, and reduced societal hostilities over differences that can never be resolved rationally.

Posted by Matt Nuenke on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 04:36 PM in Genetics & Human Bio-Diversity
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