Apologetics Mega Conference and Eugenics

I encourage you to attend the Apologetics Mega Conference that AiG will be hosting later this year in Kentucky. The focus of one of my presentations will be eugenics and Planned Parenthood. I became interested in the subject several years ago when I attended a bioethics conference on eugenics. I was then asked to write a chapter on eugenics for the New Answers Book 3. I have told people that it was one of the most difficult subjects I have ever had to research and write about. There was so much information that I could not share in the confines of a book chapter, so I am looking forward to the opportunity to share more in my presentation. I have put a few excerpts from the book chapter below:

The ultimate goal of eugenics was to create a superior race of humans. Many adherents believed in evolution by natural selection, but that natural selection was moving too slowly in favoring the best and eliminating the worst. They also believed that charity in the form of taking care of the poor and sick was prohibiting natural selection from working properly and thus the need to intervene with artificial selection.

Over 30 states enacted sterilization laws, and between 60,000 and 70,000 people were forcibly sterilized between 1900 and 1970. . . . In 1927 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck (in Buck v. Bell) with justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stating, “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime . . . society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kinds. . . . Three generation of imbeciles are enough.”

James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, stated in 2003, “If you are really stupid, I would call that a disease. The lower 10 percent who really have difficulty, even in elementary school, what’s the cause of it? A lot of people would like to say, ‘Well poverty, things like that,’ It probably isn’t. So I’d like to get rid of that, to help lower the 10 percent.”

These ideas and sentiments concerning eugenics are clearly unbiblical. I encourage you to read Galatians 3:28, Acts 17:26, Psalm 139:13–16, and Matthew 25:34–36 to get a clear biblical perspective on these issues. I will be sharing much more in my presentation at the conference. I hope to see you there.