Eugenics, Genetics, and Disability in Historical and Contemporary Perspective

Eugenics, Genetics, and Disability in Historical and Contemporary Perspective

Author: Gerald O'Brien

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 0197611230

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Over the course of the past few decades there have been two important developments within American society that have had profound impact on both the disability and social work communities. First, genetic research, as well as policy and practice innovations based on this research, has expanded greatly over the past few decades. This is indicated, for example, by the mapping of the human genome in 2003, an expansion of prenatal genetic testing and counseling options, efforts to tailor drug regimens based on one's genetic make-up, popular genetic ancestry and medical testing services, and potential in-roads to genetic engineering, along with a host of other bio-genetic research innovations. The second important development has been the growth of the disability rights movement, which in many ways parallels the civil rights campaigns of other "minority" groups. Importantly, the coexistence of these two developments poses intriguing challenges for social work that the profession has yet to address in a meaningful way. Moreover, coming to term with these issues is especially important for social work professionals in our crucial role as advocates for marginalized or de-valued populations"--


The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics

Author: Alison Bashford

Publisher: OUP USA

Published: 2010-09-24

Total Pages: 607

ISBN-13: 0195373146

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Philippa Levine is the Mary Helen Thompson Centennial Professor in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin. Her books include Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire, and The British Empire, Sunrise to Sunset. --


Eugenics, Genetics, and Disability in Historical and Contemporary Perspective

Eugenics, Genetics, and Disability in Historical and Contemporary Perspective

Author: Gerald V. O'Brien

Publisher:

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780197611265

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Over the course of the past few decades there have been two important developments within American society that have had profound impact on both the disability and social work communities. First, genetic research, as well as policy and practice innovations based on this research, has expanded greatly over the past few decades. This is indicated, for example, by the mapping of the human genome in 2003, an expansion of prenatal genetic testing and counseling options, efforts to tailor drug regimens based on one's genetic make-up, popular genetic ancestry and medical testing services, and potential in-roads to genetic engineering, along with a host of other bio-genetic research innovations. The second important development has been the growth of the disability rights movement, which in many ways parallels the civil rights campaigns of other "minority" groups. Importantly, the coexistence of these two developments poses intriguing challenges for social work that the profession has yet to address in a meaningful way. Moreover, coming to term with these issues is especially important for social work professionals in our crucial role as advocates for marginalized or de-valued populations"--


Eugenics

Eugenics

Author: Philippa Levine

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 0199385904

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A concise and gripping account of eugenics from its origins in the twentieth century and beyond.


Eugenics

Eugenics

Author: Richard Lynn

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2001-06-30

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 0313000638

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Lynn argues that the condemnation of eugenics in the second half of the 20th century went too far and offers a reassessment. The eugenic objectives of eliminating genetic diseases, increasing intelligence, and reducing personality disorders he argues, remain desirable and are achievable by human biotechnology. In this four-part analysis, Lynn begins with an account of the foundation of eugenics by Francis Galton and the rise and fall of eugenics in the twentieth century. He then sets out historical formulations on this issue and discusses in detail desirability of the new eugenics of human biotechnology. After examining the classic approach of attempting to implement eugenics by altering reproduction, Lynn concludes that the policies of classical eugenics are not politically feasible in democratic societies. The new eugenics of human biotechnology--prenatal diagnosis of embryos with genetic diseases, embryo selection, and cloning--may be more likely than classic eugenics to evolve spontaneously in western democracies. Lynn looks at the ethical issues of human biotechnologies and how they may be used by authoritarian states to promote state power. He predicts how eugenic policies and dysgenic processes are likely to affect geopolitics and the balance of power in the 21st century. Lynn offers a provocative analysis that will be of particular interest to psychologists, sociologists, demographers, and biologists concerned with issues of population change and intelligence.


From Chance to Choice

From Chance to Choice

Author: Allen Buchanan

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001-11-12

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 1316583937

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book, written by four internationally renowned bioethicists and first published in 2000, was the first systematic treatment of the fundamental ethical issues underlying the application of genetic technologies to human beings. Probing the implications of the remarkable advances in genetics, the authors ask how should these affect our understanding of distributive justice, equality of opportunity, the rights and obligations as parents, the meaning of disability, and the role of the concept of human nature in ethical theory and practice. The book offers a historical context to contemporary debate over the use of these technologies by examining the eugenics movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The questions raised in this book will be of interest to any reflective reader concerned about science and society and the rapid development of biotechnology, as well as to professionals in such areas as philosophy, bioethics, medical ethics, health management, law, and political science.


Defectives in the Land

Defectives in the Land

Author: Douglas C. Baynton

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-08-12

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 022636433X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“Baynton argues that screening out disability emerged as the primary objective of U.S. immigration policy during the late 19th and early 20th century.” —Journal of Social History Immigration history has largely focused on the restriction of immigrants by race and ethnicity, overlooking disability as a crucial factor in the crafting of the image of the “undesirable immigrant.” Defectives in the Land, Douglas C. Baynton’s groundbreaking new look at immigration and disability, aims to change this. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Baynton explains, immigration restriction in the United States was primarily intended to keep people with disabilities—known as “defectives”—out of the country. The list of those included is long: the deaf, blind, epileptic, and mobility impaired; people with curved spines, hernias, flat or club feet, missing limbs, and short limbs; those unusually short or tall; people with intellectual or psychiatric disabilities; intersexuals; men of “poor physique” and men diagnosed with “feminism.” Not only were disabled individuals excluded, but particular races and nationalities were also identified as undesirable based on their supposed susceptibility to mental, moral, and physical defects. In this transformative book, Baynton argues that early immigration laws were a cohesive whole—a decades-long effort to find an effective method of excluding people considered to be defective. This effort was one aspect of a national culture that was increasingly fixated on competition and efficiency, anxious about physical appearance and difference, and haunted by a fear of hereditary defect and the degeneration of the American race.


Cultural Locations of Disability

Cultural Locations of Disability

Author: Sharon L. Snyder

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-01-26

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 0226767302

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Cultural Locations of Disability, Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell trace how disabled people came to be viewed as biologically deviant. The eugenics era pioneered techniques that managed "defectives" through the application of therapies, invasive case histories, and acute surveillance techniques, turning disabled persons into subjects for a readily available research pool. In its pursuit of normalization, eugenics implemented disability regulations that included charity systems, marriage laws, sterilization, institutionalization, and even extermination. Enacted in enclosed disability locations, these practices ultimately resulted in expectations of segregation from the mainstream, leaving today's disability politics to focus on reintegration, visibility, inclusion, and the right of meaningful public participation. Snyder and Mitchell reveal cracks in the social production of human variation as aberrancy. From our modern obsessions with tidiness and cleanliness to our desire to attain perfect bodies, notions of disabilities as examples of human insufficiency proliferate. These disability practices infuse more general modes of social obedience at work today. Consequently, this important study explains how disabled people are instrumental to charting the passage from a disciplinary society to one based upon regulation of the self.


Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights

Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights

Author: Erik Parens

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2000-09-28

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9781589013940

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

As prenatal tests proliferate, the medical and broader communities perceive that such testing is a logical extension of good prenatal care—it helps parents have healthy babies. But prenatal tests have been criticized by the disability rights community, which contends that advances in science should be directed at improving their lives, not preventing them. Used primarily to decide to abort a fetus that would have been born with mental or physical impairments, prenatal tests arguably reinforce discrimination against and misconceptions about people with disabilities. In these essays, people on both sides of the issue engage in an honest and occasionally painful debate about prenatal testing and selective abortion. The contributors include both people who live with and people who theorize about disabilities, scholars from the social sciences and humanities, medical geneticists, genetic counselors, physicians, and lawyers. Although the essayists don't arrive at a consensus over the disability community's objections to prenatal testing and its consequences, they do offer recommendations for ameliorating some of the problems associated with the practice.


Unlearning Eugenics

Unlearning Eugenics

Author: Dagmar Herzog

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

Published: 2018-11-20

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 0299319202

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since the defeat of the Nazi Third Reich and the end of its horrific eugenics policies, battles over the politics of life, sex, and death have continued and evolved. Dagmar Herzog documents how reproductive rights and disability rights, both latecomers to the postwar human rights canon, came to be seen as competing—with unexpected consequences. Bringing together the latest findings in Holocaust studies, the history of religion, and the history of sexuality in postwar—and now also postcommunist—Europe, Unlearning Eugenics shows how central the controversies over sexuality, reproduction, and disability have been to broader processes of secularization and religious renewal. Herzog also restores to the historical record a revelatory array of activists: from Catholic and Protestant theologians who defended abortion rights in the 1960s–70s to historians in the 1980s–90s who uncovered the long-suppressed connections between the mass murder of the disabled and the Holocaust of European Jewry; from feminists involved in the militant "cripple movement" of the 1980s to lawyers working for right-wing NGOs in the 2000s; and from a handful of pioneers in the 1940s–60s committed to living in intentional community with individuals with cognitive disability to present-day disability self-advocates.