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Eugenics Is Alive and Well: A Survey of Genetic Professionals around the World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Dorothy C. Wertz
Dorothy C. Wertz
Affiliation:
Division of Social Science, Ethics and Law Shriver Center, Waltham, Massachusetts
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Abstract

A survey of 2901 genetics professionals in 36 nations suggests that eugenic thought underlies their perceptions of the goals of genetics and that directiveness in counseling after prenatal diagnosis leads to individual decisions based on pessimistically biaed information, especially in developing nations of Asia and Eastern Europe. The “non-directive counseling” found in English-speaking nations is an aberration from the rest of the world. Most geneticists, except in China, rejected government involvement in premarital testing or sterilization, but most also held a pessimistic view of persons with genetic disabilities. Individual, but not state-coerced, eugenics survives in much modern genetic practice.

Type
Genetic Services Eugenic Practices?
Information
Science in Context , Volume 11 , Issue 3-4 , Autumn-Winter 1998 , pp. 493 - 510
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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