Christianity and Eugenics: The Place of Religion in the British Eugenics Education Society and the American Eugenics Society, c.1907-1940

Abstract

Historians have regularly acknowledged the significance of religious faith to the eugenics movement in Britain and the USA. However, much of this scholarship suggests a polarised relationship of either conflict or consensus. Where Christian believers participated in the eugenics movement this has been represented as an abandonment of ‘orthodox’ theology, and the impression has been created that eugenics was a secularising force. In contrast, this article explores the impact of religious values on two eugenics organisations: the British Eugenics Education Society, and the American Eugenics Society. It is demonstrated that concerns over religion resulted in both these organisations modifying and tempering the public work that they undertook. This act of concealing and minimising the visibly controversial aspects of eugenics is offered as an addition to the debate over ‘mainline’ versus ‘reform’ eugenics.

From Eugenicists to Family Planners: America’s Religious Promoters of Contraception

“…By the time birth control was legalized, however, the American Eugenics Society had all but disappeared [14][15][16]. Researchers offer various reasons for the AES' demise-from rapid loss of popularity due from the taint of Hitlerism ( [17], p. 50) to internal divisions and strife over the direction of the Society ( [18], p. 301) to the general decline of the field due to a significant drain in funding ( [19], p. 324). Most likely because of a result of all of these factors, researchers agree that by the mid-1930s, eugenics went from being a sign of progressive politics and enlightened scientific understanding to a dirty word associated with Hitler [6, 14-16, 20, 21] and, correspondingly, that the AES was largely defunct.…”

“…First, although the focus was still on poor people of color, instead of being concerned about nonwhite immigrants' fertility in the USA, activists became focused on fertility in the developing world [5], ([6], p. 186, 187), [22,23] and, to a lesser extent, African Americans in the inner cities [15]. Second, instead of explicit talk about "race suicide" and open promotion of eugenics, eugenicists began to engage in a more "discreet and mild-mannered form of eugenics" ( [18], p. 299) where they attempted to accomplish "eugenic control" through "population control" ( [5], p. 186, 187).…”

Mazdaznan, Eugenics and the Future of the “White Race”

“…The interrelations between religion and spirituality, both "orthodox" and alternative, and eugenics should come as no surprise (Rosen, 2004;Baker, 2014). Nor should the differences in approaches to eugenics adopted by individual religions be puzzling.…”