...During the eugenic movement there were internal concerns about criminals, insane, feeble mindedness, alcoholics, paupers, derelicts, delinquents, orphans, prostitutes and those unable to support themselves. These traits were considered to be hereditary defects that cannot be eliminated by environmental procedures. Many studies supported and illustrated the use of sterilisation as negative eugenics such as the Juke family published in 1875 and the Kallikak family in 1912 where one or more members of the family were considered to be unfit. In 1907 Indiana was the first state to pass involuntary- sterilisation based on the eugenic ideologies of the unfit. By 1931, 30 states had passed this law. As the concept of the “unfit” was subjective and...
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...Cullen Smith U.S. History Mrs. LaPietra 5 April 2024 The Inequality of Race in America The first slave in the English colonies was a man named John Punch, who was believed to be a runaway indentured servant; as a punishment he was sentenced to lifelong servitude in 1640. This is an example of how the origins of race in America relate back to the terrible transformation of slavery in the English colonies. The inequality of race was used to establish laws to keep non-white Americans separate from the American society. Slavery is one of the main causes of inequality in America. The start of race-based slavery was the “terrible transformation” in the English colonies; this was a law that stated the freedom of a child born in the U.S. is based on...
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...Outline + References Sociology 210 Research Paper Draft Conflict Theory and the Evolution of Eugenics in America during the 20th Century. I intend to present a purely informative paper on the sociological perspective of eugenics during the past century in the United States through Conflict Theory. A linear history of causality, implementation, and significance. 1. Conflict Theory Perspective a. Margaret Sanger b. Plato’s Republic c. Negative Eugenics d. Sterilization e. Planned Parenthood Federation of America f. Legislation g. Economic Implications Early 1900’s American political movement under Margaret Sanger 1. advocate the control over individual rights to reproduction 2. purpose of societal advantage 3. rights governed by the state and supported by a public majority 4. originally designed as a method of public oppression and controlled persecution. 5. Sanger an outspoken advocate for Eugenics a. racial dominance, class restraint, and a member of the American Eugenic Political Party, opened a family planning and birth control clinic. 6. Established first Abortion Clinics in NY b. On October 16, 1916, a member of the Eugenic party movement opened a then privately funded business, now partly funded by the public, in New York City. 7. clinic’s policy on providing pregnancy termination to the impoverished and uneducated. 8. The Birth Control Review and Birth Control...
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...Eugenics and Beneficence Eugenics and Beneficence On October 27, 2014, the North Carolina state legislature became the first in the country to officially begin compensating citizens and their families who were subjected the state’s forced sterilization program. Ninety years after the legalization of forced sterilization in the United States and forty-one years after the first lawsuit was brought by sterilized North Carolinian Nial Ramirez, it would seem as though the country is now ready to do penance in financial terms for its past actions via reparations to Mrs. Ramirez and others. (Burns, 2014) The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of eugenics, specifically to view it through lens of beneficence, to try and view the issue from the points of view of all involved, and finally to explore some future implications about the nature of beneficence from this episode in the history of American health-care. Eugenics is the study of ways to influence (usually to improve) a population by selective breeding. ("Mosby’s Dictionary," 2009) The idea of influencing the quality of animal populations has existed since the beginning of domestication by humans, but the idea of subjecting the human race to systematic selective breeding is a more recent phenomenon. Western thought about the nature of living creatures until the 19th century had been shaped by Judeo-Christian traditions in which a creator god made and sustained all the diversity of life, and further had created...
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...Feb. 11, 2016 Ethnic Studies Week 6 *Paper due in 3 weeks Immigration, Eugenics, White Ethnics, Mexican Americans U.S. Immigration Legislation (Tyner, 60) -1907: U.S. Japan Gentlemen’s Agreement -Denied entry to Japanese laborers -1917: Immigration Act -Denied entry to illiterates (meant to exclude Southern and Eastern Europeans) -Designated an “Asiatic Barred Zone” denying entry to people from the lands between India, Australia, and Japan 1924: Johnson-Reed Act (National Origins Act) -Promoted by the American eugenics movement -Designated to maintain national purity and security -America should remain a white, Protestant nation -All others must either assimilate or be relegated to a permanently inferior status. *Eugenics want to keep white/Anglo-Saxon -Product of scientific racism - Applied to Charles Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” theory to modern, industrial civilization (Social Darwinism) -1890s: popular with educated Americans concerned about an imminent “race suicide” due to low Anglo-Saxon birth rates -1903: American Breeders Association founded -1906: its Committee on Eugenics formed “to emphasize the value of superior blood and the menace to society of inferior blood.” -1908: first Eugenics Society (England) -1909: first professorial Chair in Eugenics established (University College, London) -By 1910: emergent international eugenics movement proclaimed itself “the science of human improvement through programs of controlled...
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...Eugenics Intro The Theory of Eugenics was a widely embraced during the early 20th century. Canada and Germany both have their roots tied to misapplication of Darwinism that emerged from Britain. The term Eugenics first appeared in England and was coined by Francis Galton in 1869. Galton and supporters of eugenics promoted Social Darwinism, which applied the concept of biological evolution to societies. This embraces the notion that human societies can evolve into “superior” forms. These Governments targeted marginalized groups and applied the principles of racial hygiene using forced sterilization, and genocide. Even though Canada and Germany used different over arching strategies, but their main objective was to determine who is fit to be apart of the nation. Similarities During the 1930’s eugenics benign form promoted healthy living and “social purity”. However in its tyrannical form, the program-sought ways to ensure “fit” members of society that portrayed undesirable elements were bred out of the population. In most countries where eugenics beliefs were enshrined in legislation, efforts were made to limit reproduction among “unfit” groups through public education, institutionalization and forced sterilization. While Nazi Germany, eugenics beliefs woven into nationalism led to the forced sterilization thousands. They created concentration camps for Jewish and the “Lebensborn” program in which young German women with classic Nordic features forced to mate with members...
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...For the purpose of this assignment I am going to discuss the social construct of disability by focusing on eugenics and language. In addition to the medical and social model of disability, segregation and the oppression of disability. Furthermore the Medias influence on social constructs. Within the United Kingdom there are an estimated 9 million disabled adults. (Office for Disability Issues updated Department for Work and Pensions estimates based on Family Resources survey 2009/10). Despite the high number, people with impairments are treated as a separate homogenous group to the rest of society. Firstly, to understand where we are today with disability as a social construction I will provide a historical account of disability in western society. To pinpoint precisely the origins of society’s attitude towards disability and disabled people would be almost impossible (Barton 1996). One theory that has been suggested, is that the view that our perceptions of impairments and disability are influenced by psychological fear of the unknown, the anomalous and the abnormal (Barton 1996 cites Douglas 1966). Historically, disability has been a source of oppression where disabled people have been socially excluded from many areas of social life. The exclusion can be traced back to an era when biblically ideas formed of society. The religious model of disability produced notions of what was acceptable and not acceptable; this included the exclusion of imperfections of the body. Imperfect...
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...Abstract Social Darwinism is a political theory that emphasizes struggle and competition, and claims that human racial stock improves by allowing ruthless and unrestrained competition in the economic realm. Social Darwinism apples the concepts of biological evolution to social and moral development by stating that it is social evolution through the "survival of the fittest" in a struggle for an existence in which the strong prevail and the weak are defeated. Currently, we use the terms of Darwinism, natural selection, and evolution interchangeably and use them to describe a process which uses random variations, and mutations are preserved through a process of natural competition that favors beneficial changes. A History and Understanding of Social Darwinism The term Darwinism may cause confusion in some people because they confuse Darwinism, the scientific theory, with Social Darwinism, the ethical theory. In truth, except for the name and a few basic principles, the two ideas do not have much in common and has very little to do with Charles Darwin, the English naturalist who famously suggested the scientific theory which states that a branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection. Social Darwinism is a term that started near the end of the nineteenth century and describes a set of social policies and theories designed to reduce the power of government with theories that attempt to explain the biological cause of human behavior. For the...
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...disagreement as to when the construction of race took its current form. First, it has been suggested that the descriptions of race in ancient literature demonstrate that it originates in xenophobic beliefs (Hirschfield, 1998, p.34). The system of natural classification that developed in the Eighteenth Century is also seen as an important contribution (Hannaford, 1996, p.188). However, almost all studies agree that a distinctive development of racial thinking began to take place in the Nineteenth Century (Hirschfield, 1998, p.35). The Nineteenth Century saw the search for the historical and biological origins of race (Hannaford, 1996, p.235). It went beyond the simply classification of race and towards a more significant delineation of race into one that embodies characteristics, personalities and even mental abilities. Several key developments were relevant to this progression. These will be examined as follows: first the importance of the development of biological categories and the influence of power will be examined. Secondly, the development of scientific dialogue of Darwinism and Eugenics will be discussed. Thirdly, an examination will be made of the influence of nationalism and imperialism. Finally, the notion to which the discourse became self-serving will be considered in that as the connection...
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...right to choose the sex of their child. I’m Melinda and along with Angelique and Melissa we will be presenting the affirmative argument and the negative argument will be presented by Kristen, Judy and Deb. Sex selection, also known as gender selection, has attracted great interest and controversy over the years. Gender selection has been associated with a number of ethical, moral, social and legal issues. Sex selection may be performed for medical reasons to avoid sex-linked diseases or for parental preference. The topics I will be covering include eugenics, beneficence, utilitarianism and pre-genetic screening in regards to sex linked diseases. Eugenics can be defined as the study or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species. In the context of IVF treatment positive eugenics encourages reproduction by implantation of healthy embryos with inheritable desirable traits and negative eugenics seeks to identify and dispose of embryos found to carry undesirable inheritable traits. Utilitarianism in the context of IVF sex selection and genetic screening is defined by the principle of utility which seeks to judge moral rules, actions and behaviours on the basis of their consequences. Where an action produces the best possible outcome; that being the greatest good for the greatest number it is seen as ethical and moral. Therefore the testing, screening and disposal of genetically impaired embryos and implantation of only healthy and preferred embryos...
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...CH 1 STUDY QUESTIONS 1. How does classical conditioning described by Pavlov differ from operant conditioning described by Skinner? (pages 2/3) -Classical conditioning is a form of associative learning in which a subject learns the relationship between two stimuli, or between a stimuli and a behavior. Pavlov studied and analyzed dog’s salivary secretions in response to food. He found he could elicit this salivation response reliable by administering a distinct auditory or visual stimulus that would signal anticipation of a subsequent food reward. Pavlov called with conditional reflexes, but if now known as classical conditioning or associative learning. -Operant conditioning is a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if it is reinforced, and weakened if it is punished. Operant conditioning results in behavior modification through positive reinforcement. Skinner’s favorite animal was a pigeon and skinner reasoned that when a hungry pigeon would receive a food reward, it might associate the food with the execution of a particular behavior and would repeat that behavior. 2. What contributions did Lorenz and von Frisch make to understanding social behavior? (Pages 4/5) -Lorenz formulated the idea of fixed action patterns of instinctive behaviors. Such stereotyped behaviors are set in motion by an innate releasing mechanism, which elicits a fixed sequence of behavioral events. (i.e. courtship and mating rituals, nest building for birds, ect) Lorenz...
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...History of Eugenics States of ‘defectiveness’ are socially constructed, not biological, states of being. For the purpose of this assignment I will be using specifically the idea of mental ‘defectiveness’ using research done on schizophrenia and depression, seeing as there is a lot of debate as to weather these mental disorders are biological or psychosocial. I will be using APA format. There are two main tests done on patients with depression, the dexamethasone-suppression test or DST and lower MHPG levels in urine. DST measures the cortisol levels in the body, if you have elevated levels you are supposed to be depressed, the problem is that this is very inconstant, some patients with normal DST results are depressed and some patients with elevated DST results are not depressed. The Archives of Internal Medicine stated “Data from studies currently available do not support the use of dexamethasone ST in internal medicine practice.” (Shapiro, Lehman, & Greenfield, 1983) The Catecholamine Hypothesis suggests that patients have low levels of norepinephrine in the brain which is translated to finding lover levels of MHPG in urine and causes depression, however they have not proved this, they have only proven that depressed patients have this deficit but not why, which could be from a number of things, again proving that it could be an effect of sadness not a cause. There are quite a few other theories as to what causes people to be depressed, including serotonin...
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...infants, usually is no longer evident by 3 months of age. When neck is turned in one direction, the arm shoots out on the same side and flexes on the opposite side; similar changes occur in the legs. 5. Athetoid diplegia: A form of cerebral palsy primarily seen where there is no muscle control in which the legs are more affected than the arms. 6. Athetoid hemiplegia: A form of cerebral palsy which is a form of dyskinetic cerebral palsy associated with athetosis (constant random, writhing involuntary movements of the limbs. One side of the body is more affected than the other; usually, the arm is more affected than the leg. Because the motor neurons that control one side of the body are located in the opposite cerebral cortex, a right-side hemiplegia implies damage to or dysfunction of the left side of the brain, and vice versa. 7. Autonomy: Self-determination. 8. Beneficence: obligation to act to help the individual. 9. Binet and Simon: Mental testing movement. 10. Bootleg reinforcement: The reinforcement that an individual receives (usually attention from peers) during a period in which no reinforcement is to be received (e.g., timeout or extinction)....
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...a looped clamp and pulled out part by part. The head is then reached for with a clamp and crushed so that it can come out of the virginal’s passage. Background The United States did not prohibit abortion in the past up until the 19th century. Antiabortion laws started being implemented with Britain being the first to do so. Abortion was only allowed if it was going to save the mother’s life. Though this, there were cases of abortion going on unpunished and being supported by the general public. A group of humanitarian reformists later arose and confronted abortion on the basis of being a “dangerous procedure”. The government also with the declining birth rate in the 1800’s, collaborated with eugenics movement and urged women to reproduce. As of now abortion is illegal in the United States with only American women being given the right to abort. Statistics show that between 80% and 90% of Americans approve of abortion in the case of poor health, a seriously defective fetus, or rape, and between 40% and 50% indicate approval for all other reasons as well. A study of the different cultures shows that abortion is hardly allowed in places like Africa. In fact, most of the African languages don’t even have a word for abortion. Proponents have tried to come up with a concept “safe motherhood” but still it hasn’t convinced the society. Abortion is considered murder. In a religious view, two religions have come...
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...-“Strauss versus Brains and Genes or the postmodern vengeful return of positivism.” This essay first started as an answer to what I deemed very problematic, i.e. the disputation which I found in bad faith (un-authentic to use a philosophical term or an existentialist term), of the mediatic, dashing Harvard cognitivist/linguist, Steven Pinker, in his article “Neglected novelists, embattled English professors, tenure-less historians, and other struggling denizens of the Humanities, Science is not your Enemy—a plea for an intellectual truce,” (The New Republic--August 19). Then the counter-arguments against Steven Pinker’s conception of the “human animal” developed into an essay arguing that the New Positivism, not science, or technology per say, was the enemy of humanism and its avatars as such. The point is not to become a postmodern anti-scientific Luddite. Genomics are changing the world in ways we barely imagine yet and will re-define what it means to be human (a becoming already imagined by science fiction writers, social critics and critical thinkers such as the feminist Donna Haraway with her “Cyborg”). The point is also not to turn “anti-brainiac.” Without a brain we would become vegetative, a vegetal…, i.e. a purely “natural body,” a “zombie.” If we make use of this “computer” allegory which is an analog but not a homologue, and which is used ad nauseam used by psycho-biologists, without a hard-drive there is no software. But is this a reason to say that the software...
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