released 2/12/2025

In her book Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement (Oxford University Press, 2004), writer and editor Christine Rosen studies the connection between eugenics laws in the early 1900s and current “participatory evolution” practices. While the former were state sponsored and the latter are consumer driven, the same disposition animates both: intoxication with science as the means that will make life better than it is. Rosen explains that during the earlier age of eugenics, science was used to improve the population mainly through forced sterilization. Now, however, it is being used to screen embryos for genetic defects before implantation, thus enabling the disposal of those which test positive for genetic defects. Current eugenics procedures, she states, have the potential to be even more harrowing than those utilized here and in Germany in the early twentieth century because — being market driven — they are regulated and restricted only by the whims of individual consumers. Rosen also explains how and why certain religious leaders and groups were early advocates of eugenics while others argued against it on theological grounds. This Conversation was originally recorded in 2004; a shorter segment of it appears on Volume 70 of the Journal.

50 minutes

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