Eugenics is a practice designed to improve a population’s gene pool. The issue has reappeared with Danish parents aborting fetuses who will become cognitively disabled (in ordinary English, retarded).

Writing in The Atlantic, Sarah Zhang notes that in Denmark, couples use taxpayer-funded prenatal testing for Down Syndrome and other genetic defects. As a result, 95% of couples who discover their fetuses have Down Syndrome abort them. In 2019, she notes, only 18 Down Syndrome children were born in the country (population 6 million).

Responding in The Federalist and on the Tucker Carlson Tonight, Evita Duffy, writes that eugenic abortion is evil. She argues that the Danish people are attempting to exterminate those with Down Syndrome, which, she claims, is the opposite of a culture of life and is similar to the Nazi attempt to eliminate those with serious disabilities. She questions Zhang’s and the left’s consistency in not judging the practice. She notes that we would not tolerate the selective abortion of fetuses who would become gay.

In the early 20th century in the U.S., governments institutionalized, segregated, and sterilized people who were blind, cognitively disabled, deaf, etc. in part for eugenic reasons. The Nazis later murdered mentally or physically defective individuals. Eugenics has a troubling history.

Eugenics is back. In Fatal Gift: Jewish Intelligence and Western Civilization (2006), Seymour Itzkoff reports that genetic screening of Ashkenazi Jewish parents has decreased the frequency of genetically transmitted diseases found in that population. He claims that this has been done for diseases such as cystic fibrosis, Canavan’s disease, Gaucher’s disease, and Tay-Sachs.

Writing in The Harvard Crimson, Sonia Epstein and Polina Whitehouse note that in the US, the American fertility industry pays egg and sperm donors. They advertise that their donors went to prestigious universities, for example, the Ivy League. Epstein and Whitehouse note that the compensation can be high, in some cases $100,000 or more. In the rare case, it can reach $250,000. Some fertility businesses have a height requirement (5′ 10” for men and 5′ 6” for women) and a grade point average requirement (3.7). Some pay a premium for features such as blond hair and blue eyes. This is private eugenics regardless of whether it is labeled as such.

Eugenics is right and good. That eugenics is right can be seen in that the fertility industry practices do not infringe anyone’s moral rights. It neither infringes anyone’s natural rights nor involves an unconsented-to medical procedure. Nor do eugenic practices disrespect, exploit, or objectify anyone.

Eugenics is likely good because it makes the world a better place. It does so because, on average, it produces people whose lives go better and who have better effects on others. An example of better lives can be seen in that people with higher IQs are happier, healthier, and live longer. An example of better effects on others can be seen in Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s findings in The Bell Curve (1994) that those with higher IQs are less likely to be divorced or incarcerated. They do better at school and are less likely to go on welfare or have children out of wedlock. Ulster University’s Richard Lynn and University of Tampere’s Tatu Vanhanen found that for nations, average IQ strongly correlates with per capita income.

In the case of parents selectively aborting those with serious mental and physical disabilities, the main objection appears to be to abortion per se. If abortion is wrong, it is wrong because it is similar to murdering an infant. Whether this is done for a good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all is irrelevant. In any case, not all eugenic practices involve abortion. Consider the genetic screening of Ashkenazi Jewish parents. In the future, the fertility industry will probably be able to screen sperm and eggs before they are combined, thereby allowing eugenics with a couple’s own gametes while avoiding abortion.

A second objection is that eugenic practices, whether they involve abortion, make the disabled feel that they are not valued. Even if this were true, this is not a good enough reason to make parents have children who will wither away with Tay-Sachs disease or develop into a psychopathic son, spouse, and then parent leaving a wake of destruction in his path. Avoiding hurting disabled people’s feelings is no reason to trample on people’s rights. Nor is it a good reason to prevent parents from avoiding having children with autism, cognitive disability, or schizophrenia.

People do and should prefer spouses, siblings, and children who do not suffer from severe mental and physical disabilities. How many people paying a matchmaker want to meet someone who will suffer from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease)? How many people would order from the stork a child who as an adult will suffer from it? The Mayo Clinic reports that the children of people with ALS in their family have a 50% chance of getting ALS. Similarly, people do not and should not prefer spouses or children who are autistic, blind, or cognitively disabled. Pretending that widespread-and-rational preferences do not exist is no way to make policy.

The Nazi objection is the worst. It is a fallacy to argue that if the Nazis did something, then it is wrong or bad. We do not think this about their building Volkswagens. The Nazis were atrocious because they trampled on people’s rights. We do not avoid this through new ways of trampling.

One might think that the government should be limited to a few functions such as protecting people’s rights against predation and building or protecting public goods such as roads and clean air. I am sympathetic to this. However, much of eugenics is private. Because the government concerns itself with how to make our lives go better overall, it ought to take eugenic considerations into consideration when it regulates, subsidizes, and taxes different aspects of our lives. The same is true for immigration policy.

Stephen Kershnar is a State University of New York at Fredonia philosophy professor. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com