On the turn of the century the belief in the decay of human kind by "decadence" and "degeneration" is very much spread out. First of all the popularization of social darwinism by Ernst Haeckel in Germany leads, together with the befiefs in nature and progress, to the idea that human kind can be "grown"if only "health" and "socially precious" human beings procreate, while it will be suggested to "degenerate" ones to give up having descendants: eugenism, the doctrin of the "good" genetic predisposition. Against a compulsory counselling, such as it was required in 1920 by the Imperial Health Council, the movements of sexual reform require free marriage guidance counselling and the distribution of contraceptive devices and methods 1 .
The sexual reformers consider eugenic thought as a part of the tradition of humanism and Enlightenment: they refuse the hierarchy of "races" in "inferior or superior" ones; authoritarian measures towards not "reasonable" persons are extremely disputed. The Institute too strongly advises homosexuals not to get marriage, nor to procreate, since their children shall be "degenerate" above-average.
The sexual reformers were not aware of the danger of a social discrimination of out-norm human beings through eugenism, that after 1934 lead even to human extermination.
Document:Translation of the resolution about birth control - voted at the Congress of the World League for Sexual Reform in 1928 in Copenhagen:
| (W.L.S.R. Kongreßbericht 1928, Leipzig 1929, p.227) | |
| RESOLUTION: BIRTH CONTROL | |
| 1) | The League considers birth control as a means to reduce descendance with regard to the economic, physical and psychical forces of the parents and their children. |
| 2) | The League considers birth control also as a means to make inappropriate married couples renounce to procreation. |
| 3) | From any ideological point of view, new life must be affirmed in the healthy child. However, the child born healthy can only stay healthy and be kept alife under sufficient eoconomic conditions. |
| 4) | In order to carry out birth control a network of counselling centres must be created in towns and in rural municipalities, in which everyone will be counselled and given appropriate devices, occasionally with the help of the responsibles of the social welfare institutions. At the same time these centres must acquire the knowledge about the respectively best contraceptive devices and inform the medical profession about the newest and best methods. |
| 5) | The gynaecological training of the medicine students requires an extension in the sense of a detailed instruction about the modern techniques of birth control. |
| 6) | With regard to the affirmation of motherhood claimed in other places, the League insists on the fact that the interruption of pregnancy may in any case only be carried out as a measure of emergency occurring under certain medical, social and eugenic conditions. In a reasonable birth control (contraception) the League sees an efficient means of prophylactic against this measure of emergency, for which it requires impunity. The League condemns the interruption of pregnancy practiced by incompetent persons. |
signed by Brupbacher. Haire. Riese.
The "Scientific Humanitarian Committee" (Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee - WhK) - co-founded by Hirschfeld in 1897 - was the first organization of homosexual men and women. The WhK fought for the repeal of article 175 of the Imperial Penal Code, which criminalized "coitus-like" acts between men. The WhK assisted defendants in criminal trials and campaigned for social recognition of homosexual men and women. As early as 1898, a petition for the repeal of article 175 of the Imperial Penal Code was submitted to Parliament, with renewed attempts in 1922 and 1925 2 .The WhK had its headquarters at the Institute until Hirschfeld's resignation as president in 1929 1 . Together with the Institute's sexual reform department, the WhK's campaign for a reform of the penal code relied on scientific evidence that homosexuality was a natural predisposition.
Institute staff members were the driving force in the campaign to reform the penal code, first conducted by an "action committee" ("Aktions-Ausschuß") - a coalition of homosexual organizations - and later by the "Cartel for the Reform of Sex Crimes Legislation" ("Kartell für Reform des Sexualstrafrechts") - a broad alliance of left-liberal movements for sexual reform. The Cartel submitted a counter-proposal for those sections of the penal code dealing with sexual matters (homosexuality, prostitution, adultery, abortion), which stipulated that punishment should be incurred only
"if the act is performed using threats or violence, or with a sexually immature partner or one incapable of consent, or in such a way as to offend public decency." 3
In 1929, a Reichstag committee, with the votes of left and liberal parties, decided to repeal the article on homosexuality. This resolution, however, did not come to a vote in Parliament before the National Socialists came to power.
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Through its president Helene Stöcker and her personal contacts (Reitzenstein, Hiller, Hodann, Hirschfeld), the League enjoyed the closest possible ties with the Institute and the WhK. The WhK and the League were corporate members of each other's organizations and adopted each other's objectives as their own. In the struggle against articles 175 and 218 of the Imperial Penal Code, which criminalized homosexual acts and abortion, respectively, and their advocacy, among other things, of more liberal laws on divorce, both organizations cited legislation in the Soviet Union.
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The more undecided the political balance of power became, the more radical and fierce the political battles were fought, not least, of course, on the level of social and sexual reforms.
Sexual reformers were subjected to attacks by conservative Christian forces. Furthermore, demagogic attacks - likewise in the name of "healthy national feelings" - by Nazi zealots were on the increase.
As a Jew, a Socialist and a wealthy Institute director, Magnus Hirschfeld, the sexual reformer, provided the ideal stereotypical enemy incarnate. He increasingly became a public target not only as "the morally corruptive Jew" but also as "the homosexual". His work was associated with "the Jewish conspiracy" and seen as constituting "a public danger".
With public opinion increasingly falling under the sway of Nazi beliefs, the Press stepped up its smear campaign: taunts, vicious libel, personal attacks and serious threats - also levelled at the "Institute for Sexual Sience".
The following documents illustrate aspects of forming public opinion - from the initial signs of stigmatization to hatred, libel, inflammatory rabble-rousing and personal attacks.
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"Reichstag", went up in flames: mass-arrest of political opponents. 3. 5. Elections: no majority for the Nazi Party. 3. 23. The Reichstag passed the "Act of Enablement", granting Hitler dictatorial powers:
Berlin had become a sea of Nazi banners, with Nazis patrolling the streets "foreigner" being a swearword. 3. 29. Institute coworkers Lausch, Hauptstein and Röser reported in a friendly and calm letter to Hirschfeld in exile of house-searches carried out "in a correct, gentle, matter-of-fact and polite form" by plainclothes and auxiliary police. In this attempt to counter the "gutter-press news from Germany", they did, however, also mention visits "by apparently illegal SA people" to the Institute who had enquired after Hirschfeld.. 4. 1. Public call by the Nazis to boycott Jewish shops: terror campaign by the SA. 5. 6. The Institute was raided, ransacked and plundered: 1 2 3 4 5
in the morning, about one hundred sport students from the German Student Union ("Deutsche Studentenschaft") arrived at the Institute on lorries amid brass music and cordoned off the premises. After a trumpet call, ransacking and plundering the library and entrucking the book stocks. The subsequent final demonstration in front of the Institute ended with a threefold "Sieg Heil" for Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler and the song "Fellows, come out!" ("Burschen, heraus")
The confiscated books and archival material were submitted to a "close examination by experts, lest works of high value to medical science be destroyed. [...] The picture-archives of the Institute, in which hundreds of slides were stocked, also underwent thorough scrutiny, and everything 'un-German' ('undeutsch') was destroyed [...]", the Catholic Party's paper told its readers. 5. 10. Spectacular burning of books on the Opera Square:
Even during the torch-procession to the bonfire, a student carried a bust of Hirschfeld skewered onto a stick. Hirschfeld's writings were then thrown into the flames, as were those by other outlawed authors. 6 7 8 9 10 6. 14. Official closing-down of the Institute by the Berlin Police, "as a continuation of the activities would have endangered public peace and order considerably."
"By operation of article 14 of the Police Administration Act and article 1 of the regulation of 28.2..33, the property is confiscated without any compensation".
The Police urged the Minister of the Interior to deprive the "Hirschfeld Foundation" of its charitable status in order to retrospectively declare tax rebates, to date, as illegal and then to collect the "arrears" An administrator was to be instructed with the auditing and liquidation. He proposed all assets, including the Foundation, be given to a university or otherwise be used for "hygienic purposes".
Eight employees, with salaries in arrears, were still working at the Institute. Dermatologist Bernhard Schapiro moved his practice elsewhere and demanded his equipment and furniture back. (He emigrated the very same year)
Hirschfeld's sister, Recha Tobias and the former receptionist, Helene Helling, among others, stayed on in the Institute's buildings until 1934.
The Tax Authorities claimed more than 100.000 Reichsmark back for corporation and sales tax.(The Institute and the Pharmaceutical Industry) Nov. The Berlin Tax Office had items auctioned "belonging to the famous sexual researcher Magnus Hirschfeld, among other things, a 300-volume library as well as medical equipment, instruments, furniture etc.", a paper in Vienna reported. 1933/34 Sequestration of the "Hirschfeld Foundation".
The Institute's rooms were let out to anti-Communist and antisemitic institutions.
2. After his world tour (1930-32) 1 , Hirschfeld kept a very safe distance from the ever-increasing threatening political developments in Germany.
In his Paris exile, he saw, in a cinema, shots of the book-burning on Berlin's Opera Square - among which were his own writings.
Hirschfeld actively went on writing and publishing, contributing to several international journals on political and scientific issues and cultivating his international contacts.
On May 10, 1934, a "library of the books burnt in Germany" was inaugurated, with André Gide assuming its presidency. Egon Erwin Kisch, Alfred Kerr and Magnus Hirschfeld delivered the opening addresses 2 .
Shortly afterwards, Hirschfeld and the French physician Edmond Zammert jointly set up the "Institut des sciences sexologiques" 3 , with Zammert 4 in charge of the medical treatment. Hirschfeld made every effort to have the archives and library in Berlin returned, while heading the office of the "World League for Sexual Reform".
On a slightly confident note, Hirschfeld reported as late as March 1935: "With great effort, I have managed, in a roundabout way, to secure part of the Berlin Institute and still hope to have left behind sufficient material to make the saying come true: "And new life shall arise out of the ruins".
To this day, nothing concrete is known about the whereabouts of the Institute's material, pertinent information being very sparse 5 .
EUGENICS: THE IDEOLOGY OF DEATH CULTURE
Eugenics is the ideology of death culture, the most deadly consequences of which are today abortion and euthanasia. It's the deed of men and women who hate the Creator, and therefore love death (Pv. 8:36). We must unmask it, especially in the organizations it inspires, like the Mouvement Français pour le Planning Familial (French Movement for Family Planning).
What is eugenics?
Eugenics is Darwin's eldest son: if species are transformed by "natural selection", then there are inferior and superior races. Darwin used to say: «With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; we civilized men, on the other hand, we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man».
Galton, a cousin of Darwin, conceived the theory of eugenics applied to human beings: replacing «natural» selection by a more voluntarist selection; as a matter of fact, the charitable organizations, by taking care of poor and ill people (qualified as morons, unfit and inferior), obstruct the work of «natural selection». The impact of defects transmission and atavisms was fabulously exaggerated, to justify two complementary goals:
to favor the so called superior races, positive eugenics;
to make the inferior races disappear, negative eugenics.
This scientist vision, purely and simply materialistic, in which man is only a cog of a bigger mechanism: the society or the State, seek to «improve» the human race to the point of creating the «superman». Eugenics appeared for the first time at the period in which science breakthroughs drastically changed the world of technique. At that time, the materialists were greatly tempted to use the man as a material or as an animal that can be improved by means of crossbreeding and «scientific» selection. Society should treat those considered defective, «dysgenic», inferior, unfit, and underdeveloped, as gangrened members and amputate them as a measure of social hygiene, in spite of the prohibitions of a «bourgeois» morality, typical of the Judaeo-Christian «superstition». The relationship with the doctor or the biologist becomes a three-partner relationship: the state, the doctor and the ill person.
Today's applications of eugenics
The so called «therapeutic» abortion: there is nothing therapeutic in it, since it is not meant to treat anyone, and with the advances in obstetrics, it is not at all necessary in order to «save the mother», but the doctors exert psychological pressure on pregnant mothers, especially those above 35. Prenatal diagnosis (which on the other hand could damage the baby) is almost only intended to propose abortion if the baby has a probability of suffering defects. Hypocritically it has been called «therapeutic abortion» rather than «eugenic» abortion.
Legalized abortion under the name of «Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy»: we will see in a second part that the «Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy» (I.V.G.) is the result of the manipulation of our minds, usually accompanied by economic and psychological pressure, the goal of which is to prevent poor people from having children. To impose this abortion, they have resorted to myths among which, the main one is that of the «desired» baby (see exhibit «Desired baby and eugenics»).
The involuntary provoked abortion: it is generally carried out in the occidental countries as a «contraception method», but by means of procedures that are in fact abortifacient, whether mechanical or chemical, since they work after conception, mainly the intrauterine device (I.U.D.), abortifacient intrauterine device, that has began to expand in the first half of the century. Its development was financed by the "Birth Control" groups (specially with Margaret Sanger). In France, the IUD is wrongly considered a contraceptive device. «Contraceptive» pills, whether mini or micro dose, have a «preventive» effect thus blocking the conception, due to their low hormone concentration, and if necessary they are «curative», by destroying the fertilized egg, i.e. they are abortifacient, which manufacturers and promoters are careful not to explain to their clients. The abortion pill RU486 and other abortion drugs, such as NORPLANT, are intended to be distributed in the Southern poor area of the hemisphere as if they were contraceptives. Their advantage is to be less expensive and less restrictive; therefore they are easier to access by the population than everyday pills. The pretext is women's life and health, both put in jeopardy by illegal abortions, allegedly numerous (for the WHO 200,000 women die every year due to illegal abortions), these lies have already been used to bring about the legalization of abortion.
In vitro fertilization with embryo transfer (IVF): It accomplishes the dream of eugenicists: to make a total division between reproduction and sexuality. If the receiving father is sterile, a «quality» donor is selected and among the embryos, only one is chosen to be implanted according to «quality» criteria. Testard has condemned this «democratic eugenics». Even if there is no selection, IVF is deadly: many ovum are fertilized, thus procreating lots of embryonic human beings; among which only a minority has a very small probability to be born.
Involuntary or compulsory sterilization: it appeared in the United States, in Great Britain, in Sweden, countries where eugenics emerged. It was also carried out in Germany under the Third Reich, where a lot of research was done about the mass sterilization methods, which were then continued after the war, in the anglosaxon countries by the eugenicist movements. The compulsory sterilization is today applied in China by the communist government, within the frame of an openly eugenicist policy. Involuntary sterilization is applied in many countries in the Southern hemisphere: either they sterilize women without their consent at the time of other operations, or they subject them to «vaccination» campaigns which goal is to sterilize them by mixing a sterilizer with the vaccine.
Euthanasia: (see chapter «Euthanasia and eugenics»). It is today practiced extensively in France and in all other occidental countries, either legally or illegally. Its main purpose is to reduce the cost of maintaining aged people and those who have become socially «useless» and are below the positive rules of «life quality», thus considered «unfit for life»; it allows to perpetuate the retirement systems for active people in good health. Here again, hypocrisy is enormous: they speak about lowering the suffering of the ill people, of their life quality, about dying with dignity.
The human genome project: it's an old project of eugenicists. It was launched by the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) founded by Dr. Franz J. Kallman (a member of the American Eugenics Society) who had worked with the nazis. The knowledge of the human genome map will allow the refinement of children selection before their birth, and even their industrial production, within the vision of Francis H. Crick (1962 Nobel Prize together with James D. Watson because of their discovery of DNA's structure: «No newborn infant should be declared human until it has passed certain tests regarding its genetic endowment and that if it fails these tests, it forfeits the right to live.» (Pacific News Service, 01/1978). They show these researches as if their goal was «gene therapy»; in practice «gene therapy» is the death of the ill person; in this case, embryonic human beings.
Government interference in the families: it takes place in different ways. In China, the government, with the help of the I.P.P.F. obliges the families to have only one child, sometimes two, through coercion (compulsory abortion or sterilization) and through propaganda (with a strong repression for recalcitrants). Other states implement policies harming big families, or they encourage them to sterilization.
In this connection, it happens that the State claims a right to meddle in children's education although it is within the dominion of parents who just delegate their authority.
«The menace of the under- men. Male criminals have an average of 4.9 children; a couple of criminals: 4.4 children, parents of children who are mediocre students at school (3.5); the German family: 2.2. children; a couple living in a good area, 1.9 children» , from Otto Helmut in Volk, in Gefahr (People in danger), Munich, 1937.
This figure shows the roots of eugenics and the sources of today's prejudice against big families. The nazis applied violent methods. Today crypto-eugenicists have the same ideas as the nazis, but they prefer to manipulate their victims by making them believe that abortion and contraception are a use of the freedom of choice in favor of welfare.
Who are the eugenicists?
Among the eugenicists, there are two big families (see the exhibit «Some famous eugenicists»):
* opportunistic capitalists or free thinkers (Rockefeller, Kellog, Mellon, Ford, Carnegie, Agnelli, Mac Cormick, etc.), who find in eugenics a justification to their selfishness and an excuse to destroy the potential competitors (on the pretext of progress and of their happiness);
* the materialist socialist, internationalists or nationalists (later called national-socialist, nazis) who rubbed shoulders within the intellectual milieus in the big cities.
Very quickly, the first ones financed the second ones.
It would have been logical to think that the disclosure of the nazi horrors had definitely criminalized eugenics´. Now, "the years after the war have not been the years of a horrified condemnation of eugenics; if the eugenic discourse becomes less frequent, it does not necessarily disappear and, when it appears, it does so without embarrassment"(1).
Eugenics activism in France is rather the result of neomalthusian extremists' work (libertarians and socialist) than that of medical doctors. These extremist minorities have ensured and still ensure the propaganda and the fresh relay of anglo-saxon eugenics that, on its turn, easily connects money, doctors and activists. This does not at all mean that French doctors are not eugenicists. They are not openly eugenicists, but many of them have the reactions and reflexes of eugenicists due to their training, as a consequence of the manipulations of the pro-abortion lobby from the 50's onwards.
In France, the propaganda of eugenicists, who are mixed up with the neomalthusians, was suppressed as from 1920, within the frame of the governmental populationist concern. It begins again in the 50's, mainly at freemasonry's initiative. Militants of «Birth Control» have of course, found long-standing support and a favorable environment within the currents the M.F.P.F. considers «rationalist»: the freemasonry, the Human Rights League (Ligue des Droits de l'Homme), the Free-thought and the Rationalist Association. These currents as a whole are in practice an alliance of esoteric sects and violent anticlerical people, sharing the hatred of Christianism.
Great Britain, on its turn, made the neomalthusian practices official as from the 20's. So did Sweden. The United States and Japan did not experience a real suppression of eugenics either. This may be the explanation why these countries are the main promoters of eugenics in the world.
With the support of well-known eugenicists (Margaret Sanger and C.P. Blacker), the English Eugenics Society founded the International Planned Parenthood Federation (I.P.P.F), the offices of which were located at the Eugenics Society in London. From 1969 to 1975, the president of the I.P.P.F.'s committee was George Cadbury, a member of the English Eugenics Society.
The I.P.P.F. is still a member of the English Eugenics Society in 1977. The I.P.P.F. is an international federation gathering all the family planning movements, specially the French Movement for Family Planning.
The I.P.P.F. and its satellite organizations in the different countries have achieved:
the legalization of artificial contraception and later, that of abortion, in the occidental countries, as «free choice» tools in the sexual revolution (the word «choice» is a synonym of «selection»...) ;
the involuntary sterilization and the distribution of abortifacient elements under cover of health services in the Southern hemisphere;
the compulsory sterilization and abortion in communist China.
I.P.P.F.'s general policy may be summarized in a few points:
Lawbreaking and use of law: ""Family Planning Associations and other non governmental organizations should not use the absence of law or the existence of an unfavorable law as an excuse for inaction; action outside the law, and even in violation of it, is part of the process of stimulating change"(2).
Coercion: I.P.P.F. supports the coercive abortion policy in China, "the most remarkable of all family planning policies"(3).
The government support: I.P.P.F. has been supported by British taxpayers' money since 1967, the same year abortion was introduced in England. In 1980 the British government gave IPPF 2,000,000 British pounds; by 1987, 6,000,000 British pounds.
Attacking other national cultures: "Special priority is being given within the... (European)... region to IPPF help for countries with religious and cultural barriers to family planning, to those countries with pro natalist policies."(4).
Encouragement to sexual promiscuity: through literature and through the uncontrolled distribution of the so called «contraceptive» methods»: Also encouraged are homosexuality and pedophilia, because they are sterile. The I.P.P.F. and its affiliates claim that they fight AIDS, diminish the amount of teenage pregnancies and improve women's life conditions. But the results observed are just the opposite, with undisclosed additional effects corresponding to the eugenicists goals: for example, the increase of the abortion rate in the USA among black people(5).
Lobbying at the international level: the I.P.P.F. has a strong influence on the UN and on its agencies like the UNICEF (the UNICEF subsidizes the family planning activities), the WHO and the UNESCO (the first general secretary of the UNESCO, Sir Julian Huxley, was the president of the English Eugenics Society). The international conferences about population, organized by the UN, are due to the eugenicist initiatives.
The great strategic redeployment of eugenics: crypto-eugenics
The most distinguished of eugenicists was Margaret Sanger, who at the same time was an extremist socialist and could make use of the money of her capitalist husband (Slee, the owner of the «Three-in-One oil» see photo in the cover page), founder of Planned Parenthood, which had different names during this century:
from 1922 to 1939, American Birth Control League;
from 1939 to 1942, Birth Control Federation of America;
from 1942 to the present, Planned Parenthood, or in French, the Planning Familial; with all national associations reassembled as from 1952 in the I.P.P.F. (International Planned Parenthood Federation).
We will see later in chapter «The eugenicist and racist heritage of the Family Planning», that following the advices of a public relations consultant, although reluctantly, the movement accepted to abandon its public revolutionary and eugenicist discourse to appear as a promoter of national and family values. This manipulation gained for the Planned Parenthood discourse the admiration and respect of almost all countries and certainly of all people involved in the social services.
After the Second World War, the American Eugenics Society changes its strategy once again: it passes to crypto-eugenics without modifying a single word of its goals. Frederick Osborn, who had chaired the American Eugenics Society from 1946 to 1952 declared in April 1956:
" It is eighty-six years since Galton published his Hereditary Genius; eighty-six years ... he envisaged the eugenic movement as something that would sweep the world and make man at last the master of his own destiny on earth. It has not happened. The eugenic movement is nothing but a few small handfuls of men in various countries; here in England, in the United States, in India, in France. They are not influencing public opinion. The very word eugenics is in disrepute in some quarters. Yet I still believe in Galton's dream. Probably most of you do. We must ask ourselves, what have we done wrong?
I think we have failed to take into account a trait that is almost universal and is very deep in human nature. People simply are not willing to accept the idea that the genetic base on which their character is formed is inferior and should not be repeated in the next generation. We have asked whole groups of people to accept this idea and we have asked individuals to accept it. They have constantly refused, and we have all but killed the eugenic movement.
People will accept the idea of a specific hereditary defect. They will go to a heredity clinic and ask what is the risk of our having a defective child. They balance that risk against the chance of their having a sound child, and they usually come up with a pretty sound decision. But they won't accept the idea that they are in general second rate. We must rely on other motivation.
Given the right circumstances, people will have children in proportion to their ability to care for them. If they feel financially secure, if they enjoy accepting responsibility, if they have warm affectional responses, if they are physically strong and competent, they are likely to have large families, provided they have reasonable psychological conditioning to this end. If they are unable to feed the children they have, if they are afraid of responsibility, if their affectional responses are weak, people don't want many children. If they have effective means of family planning, they won't have many. Our studies have shown this to be true all over the world. On such a base it is surely possible to build a system of voluntary unconscious selection. But the reasons advanced must be generally acceptable reasons. Let's stop telling anyone that they have a generally inferior genetic quality, for they will never agree. Let's base our proposals on the desirability of having children born in homes where they will get affectionate and responsible care, and perhaps our proposals will be accepted.
It seems to me that if it is to progress as it should, eugenics must follow new policies and state its case anew, and that from this rebirth we may, even in our own lifetime, see it moving at last toward the high goals which Galton set for it". (Eugenics Review, April 1956, v.48 n°1).
The credit for the reform of the eugenicist movement after the Second World War is generally given to Osborn, who had apparently eliminated its racism. However, while he was leading this «reform», in secret, he held the chairmanship of the Pioneer Fund from 1947 to 1956. The Pioneer Fund is an organization that is well known by its advocating the white supremacy. Of course, a hidden racist cannot eliminate the racism; he can eliminate the open racisms, by keeping a policy that can be called «crypto-racist».
In 1973, the American Eugenics Society changes its name: its name is today Society for the Study of Social Biology.
By the end of the 50's, doctor Carlos Paton Backer, who had been an executive of the Eugenics Society since 1931 (Secretary, then Secretary-General, then Director and President) made this proposal:
"That the [Eugenics] Society should pursue eugenic ends by less obvious means, that is by a policy of crypto-eugenics, which was apparently proving successful in the US Eugenics Society".
In 1960, the English Eugenics Society adopted Blacker's proposal. This decision stated among other things:
" The Society's activities in crypto-eugenics should be pursued vigorously, and specifically that the Society should increase its monetary support of the FPA [Family Planning Association, the English branch of Planned Parenthood] and the IPPF [International Planned Parenthood Federation] and should make contact with the Society for the Study of Human Biology, which already has a strong and active membership, to find out if any relevant projects are contemplated with which the Eugenics Society could assist".
The Eugenics Society is the mother of the I.P.P.F. By the time when the English Eugenics Society took this decision, Blacker was the Administrative Chairman of I.P.P.F.
The words to say it
The September 1994 issue of the UNESCO Courier (the first secretary-general of which was also the president of the English Eugenics Society) deals with bioethics, or more exactly with «ethics of genetic engineering». Georges B. Kutukdjian, philosopher and anthropologist, chief of the bioethics unit of the UNESCO, states UNESCO's position:
«The first question that has to be raised relates to the pre-implantation diagnosis performed on artificially fertilized embryos which, in view of its greater simplicity and lower cost, is likely to replace gene therapy in cases of rare genetic disease. This involves a choice [understand «selection»: Editor's note] that is already framed in ethical terms.
The second question is whether the work currently being done is not liable to become narrowly focused on looking for the genes that account for people's behavior --their sexuality, for example-- their talents and abilities,or even their «deviances». This could lead to a kind of genetic reductionism whereby people would be defined exclusively in terms of their genome, or to a situation in which some individuals or groups of individuals might be stigmatized by society, ostracized or even eliminated. This would be tantamount to adopting eugenic policies».
This discourse is a remarkable attempt of language subversion: eugenics would not be the sorting and the selection of human beings according to the methods reserved to animals any more, it would be the eventual excess of high technology practically unachievable today. This semantic sliding is shared by an important amount of the media and the population who do not see the «democratic eugenics» denounced by Testard.
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