Event Title

Eugenics Then and Now; The Striking Parallels of Third-Party Reproduction

Presenter Information

Sydney Hammond, Colby CollegeFollow

Location

Parker-Reed, SSWAC

Start Date

1-5-2014 2:00 PM

End Date

1-5-2014 4:00 PM

Project Type

Presentation

Description

My research will specifically focus on the parallels between the activities of the Eugenics Records Office during its time of operation and current New York state laws regarding egg and sperm donations and the companies that are required to follow them. Taking the tone of a bioethics piece, my work will remind readers of what genetic and heredity science has been verified and widely accepted and what has been vilified and refuted as science. There are serious ethical issues that arise when claiming that one individual is seen as being a more ideal candidate over another for medical, intellectual, and physical attributes. This type of selection process follows the present desires of a socially constructed ideal that raises one type of person on a pedestal of genetic superiority, one worth paying for, over another. This mode of reproduction is complicated further as it is literally in a business of producing life. A child that has been selectively produced, rings of eerie familiarity of the nations not so distant eugenic past. Investigating these parallels I aim to draw attention to the need for a stronger consideration of how the United States establishes requirements for donors and prevent the repetition of instilling authority into pseudo scientific practices that have already been condemned for their illegitimacy.

Faculty Sponsor

Martha Arterberry

Sponsoring Department

Colby College. Psychology Dept.

CLAS Field of Study

Social Sciences

Event Website

http://www.colby.edu/clas

ID

186

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May 1st, 2:00 PM May 1st, 4:00 PM

Eugenics Then and Now; The Striking Parallels of Third-Party Reproduction

Parker-Reed, SSWAC

My research will specifically focus on the parallels between the activities of the Eugenics Records Office during its time of operation and current New York state laws regarding egg and sperm donations and the companies that are required to follow them. Taking the tone of a bioethics piece, my work will remind readers of what genetic and heredity science has been verified and widely accepted and what has been vilified and refuted as science. There are serious ethical issues that arise when claiming that one individual is seen as being a more ideal candidate over another for medical, intellectual, and physical attributes. This type of selection process follows the present desires of a socially constructed ideal that raises one type of person on a pedestal of genetic superiority, one worth paying for, over another. This mode of reproduction is complicated further as it is literally in a business of producing life. A child that has been selectively produced, rings of eerie familiarity of the nations not so distant eugenic past. Investigating these parallels I aim to draw attention to the need for a stronger consideration of how the United States establishes requirements for donors and prevent the repetition of instilling authority into pseudo scientific practices that have already been condemned for their illegitimacy.

https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2014/program/372