Eugenics in this modern day and age

[shel90]

WTF?????

Is this for real? Imagine if they had something like that 100 years ago or if AG Bell got his ways with extradicating a whole population of deaf people, we wouldnt be here!!!

This is just too horrible for words and just immoral! I will spread the word with my family and the Deaf community.

 

[Buffalo]

Any one else see history repeating itself in the face of a push toward strict oralism? A.G. Bell's philosophy of soft eugenics of the well born took flight in the face of a push toward oralism. Once again, we are seeing a revival of oralism. Technology may have advanced, philosophies remain the same. This is the danger and horror of allowing such ethnocentric attitudes to exist.

I for one, will be informing others and speaking out against this technologically advanced form of ethnocide.

Page 5 of "Mother Father Deaf" (Preston) said that, in the past, there were studies on hearing children of deaf parents and that most of the "research has attempted to document objectively how having deaf parents damaged those children....". To me, it sounds like they were looking for an excuse/reason to sterilize all deaf people. Jillo, do you think the same? Better yet, is there any document of this nature exists online?

I agree that what happens in UK Parliament is dangerous and too easy to slip toward hard eugenics.

 

[shel90]

Page 5 of "Mother Father Deaf" (Preston) said that, in the past, there were studies on hearing children of deaf parents and that most of the "research has attempted to document objectively how having deaf parents damaged those children....". To me, it sounds like they were looking for an excuse/reason to sterilize all deaf people. Jillo, do you think the same? Better yet, is there any document of this nature exists online?

I agree that what happens in UK Parliament is dangerous and too easy to slip toward hard eugenics.

How is that from their point of view?

 

[Kaitin]

Page 5 of "Mother Father Deaf" (Preston) said that, in the past, there were studies on hearing children of deaf parents and that most of the "research has attempted to document objectively how having deaf parents damaged those children....". To me, it sounds like they were looking for an excuse/reason to sterilize all deaf people. Jillo, do you think the same? Better yet, is there any document of this nature exists online?

I agree that what happens in UK Parliament is dangerous and too easy to slip toward hard eugenics.

In the US -

From University of Alabama, Samford: A History of Deaf Education and Critical Reviews of "I See a Voice" and When the Mind Hears"

Bell also was strictly opposed to intermarriage among the deaf; he believed in the improvement of society through selective breeding and felt that two deaf people getting married would naturally breed defective children. Bell called the deaf “a defective variety of the human race” and began a crusade to destroy sign language and pushed for laws forbidding marriage between deaf persons and supported compulsory sterilization of deaf girls in the name of “eugenics.” Some states actually passed this legislation. Bell was a "pure oralist" who was very opposed to even using a combined system of sign and oral instruction such as had been quite successful in Germany. He also advocated breaking up the large numbers of deaf students and minimizing contact among the deaf; he felt that associating with "normal" people would make deaf students more normal.


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From the State University of New York at Binghamptom, Department of History: Buck v. Bell: A Case Study

By 1931, thirty state legislatures had passed involuntary sterilization laws that targeted "defective strains" within the general population, such as the blind, the deaf, the poor, and the feebleminded. Virginia, one of these states, held the position that involuntary sterilization would not only benefit the overall welfare of society, but would promote both the health and happiness of the sterilized individual as well.

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From The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 2005 10(3):291-310; doi:10.1093/deafed/eni030: Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World

A 1912 report from Bell's eugenics section of the Breeders' Association cites his census of blind and Deaf persons and lists "socially unfit" classes to "be eliminated from the human stock" (American Genetic Association, 1912Go, p. 3). The model eugenic law called for the sterilization of feebleminded, insane, criminalistic ("including the delinquent and the wayward"), epileptic, inebriate, diseased, blind, Deaf, deformed, and dependent people ("including orphans, ne'er-do-wells, the homeless, tramps, and paupers"). By the time of World War I, 16 states in the United States had sterilization laws in force. By 1940, 30 states had such laws (Haller, 1963Go). Physicians were actively involved in this eugenics movement (May & Hughes, 1987Go).

The eugenics movement as it concerned Deaf people worldwide has only recently been receiving the study it deserves (Biesold, 1999Go; Schuchman & Ryan, 2002Go). When National Socialism came to power in Germany, teachers of Deaf students advocated adherence to the hereditary purity laws, including the sterilization of congenitally Deaf people. Deaf schoolchildren were required to prepare family trees, and the school reported those children who were congenitally Deaf or who had a Deaf relative to the department of health for possible sterilization (Muhs, 1996Go).

The German sterilization law that went into effect in 1934 provided that "Those hereditarily sick may be made unfruitful (sterilized) through surgical intervention. ... The hereditary sick, in the sense of this law, is a person who suffers from one of the following diseases ... hereditary deafness" (Peter, 1934Go, p. 187). The 1933 census showed 45,000 "deaf and dumb" persons in a total population of over 66 million. An estimated 17,000 of these Deaf Germans, a third of them minors, were sterilized. In 9% of the cases, sterilization was accompanied by forced abortion. An additional 1600 Deaf people were exterminated in concentration camps in the 1940s; they were considered "useless eaters," with lives unworthy of being lived (Biesold, 1999; Higgins, 1993Go). As in the United States, the medical profession was the certifying authority for forced sterilization.

Deaf Eugenics Today
Audiometric testing, labeling, special needs schooling, genetic research and counseling, surgery, and reproductive control all are means of currently or potentially exercising power over the Deaf body. In 1992, researchers at Boston University announced that they had identified the so-called genetic error responsible for a common type of inherited deafness. The director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders [sic] called the finding a "major breakthrough that will improve diagnosis and genetic counseling and ultimately lead to substitution therapy or gene transfer therapy" ("BU Team," 1992Go, p. 6; "Deafness gene," 1992Go, p. 141). The goal of such efforts as gene transfer therapy is, of course, to reduce Deaf births, ultimately altogether. Thus, a new form of medical eugenics applied to Deaf people is envisioned, in this case by an agency of the U.S. government. The primary characteristics of Deaf people with this particular genetic background to be eliminated are numerous Deaf relatives, sign language fluency, facial features such as widely spaced eyebrows, and coloring features such as white forelock and freckling (Fraser, 1976Go).

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From the Model Eugenics Law

Section 1. Short Title. This Act shall be known as the "Eugenical Sterilization Law."

(b) The socially inadequate classes, regardless of etiology or prognosis, are the following: (1) Feeble-minded; (2) Insane, (including the psychopathic); (3) Criminalistic - (8) Deaf (including those with seriously impaired hearing) -

Section 3. Office of State Eugenicist. There is hereby established for the State of ............. the office of State Eugenicist, the function of which shall be to protect the state against the procreation of persons socially inadequate


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[shel90]

Thanks for providing this information, Kaitin but it just made me feel really low reading it. Just brings a little back of all the old feelings I conjured when I suffered from being put in a strictly oral-only environment. It was like who I am wasnt good enough so reading that just did it.



AGBell and his cohorts better be rotting in hell!

 

[Kaitin]

Thanks for providing this information, Kaitin but it just made me feel really low reading it. Just brings a little back of all the old feelings I conjured when I suffered from being put in a strictly oral-only environment. It was like who I am wasnt good enough so reading that just did it.

Me too, Shel. Sorry. I stopped reading because I feel sick with all these. Probably more articles about deaf and eugencis but I can't read more. So now I logoff for a while to get away.

AGBell and his cohorts better be rotting in hell!

Agree 100%. Makes me think about oral-only in a different way probably.

 

[shel90]

Me too, Shel. Sorry. I stopped reading because I feel sick with all these. Probably more articles about deaf and eugencis but I can't read more. So now I logoff for a while to get away.



Agree 100%. Makes me think about oral-only in a different way probably.

That's one of the reasons why I can never support oral-only deaf education.

 

[Buffalo]

How is that from their point of view?

The reseachers wanted to know "how severe was their (coda) language delay. How much were their family experiences like those of children of alcoholics?" One coda has surmised this: "Wounded fledglings raised by wounded birds." The researchers "have rarely allowed these codas to tell their own stories."

I really thought the comparison with an alcoholics family is sickening. We know that ASL really improves the language of a deaf kid or a hearing kid.

 

[Berry]

Any chance of getting the World Federation of the Deaf involved?

What influence would it have?

 

[deafdyke]

Well you know.........................I think in SOME cases, this might be a good idea. I disagree with something like this if its targeted towards just deaf or just hoh folks. BUT, if it prevents a child being born with profound multihandicaps or a condition where mental issues get worse, then maybe it would be helpful.
I gotta say thou, that most nondisabled folks do not understand that being born with a disabilty, isn't that horrible. You can ADAPT to physical disablitiy.

 

[Buffalo]

Well you know.........................I think in SOME cases, this might be a good idea. I disagree with something like this if its targeted towards just deaf or just hoh folks. BUT, if it prevents a child being born with profound multihandicaps or a condition where mental issues get worse, then maybe it would be helpful.
I gotta say thou, that most nondisabled folks do not understand that being born with a disabilty, isn't that horrible. You can ADAPT to physical disablitiy.

They already have abortions for those with multihandicaps and the likes. How do you know that they won't progress to aborting those with deafness in the future? I agree with you that deafness is nothing as long as I am with people who signs.

 

[Buffalo]

Any chance of getting the World Federation of the Deaf involved?

What influence would it have?

I like that. Do you know anybody in the WFD? Why don't you (Berry or anybody else) check with them and see what they say?

 

[Opal]

How awful!

 

[Liebling:-)))]

*Total speechless* :jaw: This is very annoyance and discrimination... *shake my head disguistly*

Those people must be uneducation and ignorant and didn't know that deaf can do everything like hearies... and also have good and health talent.

I remembered few years back, my British friend & her husband were being confirmed thru their genes that their next child will be deaf. The reason they want to know is because all of children during her hubby's previous marriage are deaf and all of my friend's children are hearing. After their confirmation, they decide to not have another deaf child which they already produced a deaf child.

 

[Cheri]

Good God--tell me this isn't true. Why do deaf people get to suffer so much, just like how some deaf people were exported to the gas chambers by the Nazis during Hitler's time. Did this happened in Germany in 1933 too where it gave authorized to force sterilizations, abortions, and eventually murder of the deaf? But, why I don't even understand why being deaf is so terrible in the eyes of those people.

This is always gonna be like this having deaf being treated as second class. Face it we are not wanted on this earth.

 

[jillio]

Page 5 of "Mother Father Deaf" (Preston) said that, in the past, there were studies on hearing children of deaf parents and that most of the "research has attempted to document objectively how having deaf parents damaged those children....". To me, it sounds like they were looking for an excuse/reason to sterilize all deaf people. Jillo, do you think the same? Better yet, is there any document of this nature exists online?

I agree that what happens in UK Parliament is dangerous and too easy to slip toward hard eugenics.

Yes, I do believe that it was a step in that direction. How far is it, really, from not allowing deaf to intermarry to reduce the genetic transmission of deafness (A.G. Bell) to refusing to allowing a deaf/hearing couple to propogate? And the fact still remains that Bell's theories of genetic transmission were terribly, terribly flawed.

 

[Kaitin]

Good God--tell me this isn't true. Why do deaf people get to suffer so much, just like how some deaf people were exported to the gas chambers by the Nazis during Hitler's time. Did this happened in Germany in 1933 too where it gave authorized to force sterilizations, abortions, and eventually murder of the deaf?

Reading articles I learned Nazis in Germany used the US as a model for the Nazi forced sterilizations etc. and then did more than US of course. I never knew this. Several books say this and I can't quote because they are PDF but this is one: link. The US was a model for the Nazis??? Very shameful.

But, why I don't even understand why being deaf is so terrible in the eyes of those people.

I don't understand also.

This is always gonna be like this having deaf being treated as second class. Face it we are not wanted on this earth.

Probably you are right IMO.

 

[Cheri]

Reading articles I learned Nazis in Germany used the US as a model for the Nazi forced sterilizations etc. and then did more than US of course. I never knew this. Several books say this and I can't quote because they are PDF but this is one: link. The US was a model for the Nazis??? Very shameful.

Good God, I never knew this either, Thanks so much for the link. I'm so surprised the same time I don't even know what to say to this point on. Each life of baby should be respected rather the baby is deaf or not. This is so down-right ridiculous. We are God's gift and wiping us out on the face of earth is just so depressing.

 

[deafskeptic]

Any one else see history repeating itself in the face of a push toward strict oralism? A.G. Bell's philosophy of soft eugenics of the well born took flight in the face of a push toward oralism. Once again, we are seeing a revival of oralism. Technology may have advanced, philosophies remain the same. This is the danger and horror of allowing such ethnocentric attitudes to exist.

I for one, will be informing others and speaking out against this technologically advanced form of ethnocide.

I do. This has always concerned me. I remember my MSSD history teacher telling the class that when WW1 broke out, everyone who thought the wonders of technology meant we had advanced beyond war and other evils were badly disillusioned. I see history repeating itself again.

 

[jillio]

I do. This has always concerned me. I remember my MSSD history teacher telling the class that when WW1 broke out, everyone who thought the wonders of technology meant we had advanced beyond war and other evils were badly disillusioned. I see history repeating itself again.

Absolutely. It is truly frightening.