Eugenics in the USA

After Galton's death, the leadership of the eugenics movement passed to America. Henry Goddard, Henry Fairfield Osborn, Harry Laughlin and Madison Grant were just a few of Galton's American heirs.

The Rockefeller Institute and the Carnegie Foundation headed the list of the supporters of eugenics in the USA. The Rockefeller Institute financed the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, one of the leaders of the eugenics movement in Germany, and in the 1920s, had a special building constructed for the genetic research of Professor Ernst Rüdin, who was obsessed by the idea of racial hygiene. The Mental Hygiene Movement was largely supported by the Rockefeller Institute. Moreover, the Nobel prize-winning Dr. Alexis Carrel, also from the Rockefeller Institute, happily applauded the slaughter carried out in Germany, and had no reservations over the mentally ill and convicted prisoners being subjected to mass killings.114

The perversion of eugenics led to a great many American states passing compulsory sterilization laws. In the USA, a total of 100,000 people were sterilized mostly against their will. As just one example of the dimensions that eugenist barbarity assumed, in the early 20^th century, 8,000 "unsuitable" people were sterilized in Virginia. This inhuman practice was legal in many states until as late as 1974.115 

One of the foremost Americans in eugenics was Charles B. Davenport, known for his articles that sought to combine genetic laws with Darwinism. Yet the claims put forward in his articles went no further than mere assumptions. In 1906 he insisted that the American Breeders' Association carry out studies on eugenics. In 1910 he founded the Eugenics Record Office (ERO), which received from 13 to 29% of the budget set aside for the Station for Experimental Evolution. In short, the ERO was much better financed than other scientific institutions of its time. This organization trained many people to work on spreading the barbarity of eugenics. Students were taught to implement and evaluate various intelligence tests, such as Stanford-Binet, intensively employed in eugenic practices.116

People trained by the ERO were charged with collecting statistics in their working areas. With these data, the ERO aimed to prevent those it deemed unsuitable from marrying and having children. In 1924, the ERO drew up a sterilization bill which recommended that people regarded as committing the "crime" of being sick be sterilized.

To both reason and conscience, it is unacceptable for people to be sterilized against their will. Those with genetic defects, sicknesses of various kinds, and physical or mental handicaps should be treated with affection and compassion. In societies where religious moral values prevail, such people are protected, and their needs met in the best way possible. It is nothing short of barbarity to seek to forcibly sterilize or eliminate those described as having "criminal tendencies" by the proponents of the barbarity of eugenics. Such people can be educated with the requisite cultural programmes and made useful members of society. Even where the people in question are difficult to improve, the most ethical and just solutions must be found, rather than exterminating them.

In the years that followed, Americans' common sense realized that eugenics was literally nothing more than savagery and took necessary measures to halt these practices. Yet at that same time the Nazis had adopted the American laws as a role model in their first measures regarding sterilization and forcibly sterilized 2 million people.117

As the examples cited so far clearly show, deceptive propaganda so full of falsehoods of Social Darwinism tries to make people less sensitive to one another, to eliminate feelings of sympathy and compassion, until human beings treat each other literally like animals. This is the exact opposite of the virtues imparted by religious moral values. The Qur'an commands looking after the weak and needy, and protecting the sick and those with nobody to care for them. No matter what the circumstances, God commands believers to ensure others' comfort before their own, and to be patient and altruistic always. To those who do good by displaying patience, God imparts these glad tidings:

They give food, despite their love for it, to the poor and orphans and captives: "We feed you only out of desire for the Face of God. We do not want any repayment from you or any thanks. Truly We fear from our Lord a glowering, calamitous Day." So God has safeguarded them from the evil of that Day and has made them meet with radiance and pure joy and will reward them for their steadfastness with a Garden and with silk. (Surat al-Insan, 8-12)

114. Bernhard Schreiber, The Men Behind Hitler - A German Warning to the World, p. 18. 
115. Bob Brown, "Va. House Voices Regret for Eugenics," Washington Post, February 3, 2001. 
116. Graves, Jr., The Emperor's New Clothes, pp. 116-117. 
117. Ibid., p. 119.