Eugenism
  On the turn of the century the belief in the decay of human kind by "decadence" and "degeneration" is very much spread out. First of all the popularization of social darwinism by Ernst Haeckel in Germany leads, together with the befiefs in nature and progress, to the idea that human kind can be "grown"if only "health" and "socially precious" human beings procreate, while it will be suggested to "degenerate" ones to give up having descendants: eugenism, the doctrin of the "good" genetic predisposition. Against a compulsory counselling, such as it was required in 1920 by the Imperial Health Council, the movements of sexual reform require free marriage guidance counselling and the distribution of contraceptive devices and methods  1 .

The sexual reformers consider eugenic thought as a part of the tradition of humanism and Enlightenment: they refuse the hierarchy of "races" in "inferior or superior" ones; authoritarian measures towards not "reasonable" persons are extremely disputed. The Institute too strongly advises homosexuals not to get marriage, nor to procreate, since their children shall be "degenerate" above-average.

The sexual reformers were not aware of the danger of a social discrimination of out-norm human beings through eugenism, that after 1934 lead even to human extermination.

Document:Translation of the resolution about birth control - voted at the Congress of the World League for Sexual Reform in 1928 in Copenhagen:
(W.L.S.R. Kongreßbericht 1928, Leipzig 1929, p.227)

RESOLUTION: BIRTH CONTROL
1)  The League considers birth control as a means to reduce descendance with regard to the economic, physical and psychical forces of the parents and their children.
2)  The League considers birth control also as a means to make inappropriate married couples renounce to procreation.
3)  From any ideological point of view, new life must be affirmed in the healthy child. However, the child born healthy can only stay healthy and be kept alife under sufficient eoconomic conditions.
4)  In order to carry out birth control a network of counselling centres must be created in towns and in rural municipalities, in which everyone will be counselled and given appropriate devices, occasionally with the help of the responsibles of the social welfare institutions. At the same time these centres must acquire the knowledge about the respectively best contraceptive devices and inform the medical profession about the newest and best methods.
5)  The gynaecological training of the medicine students requires an extension in the sense of a detailed instruction about the modern techniques of birth control.
6)  With regard to the affirmation of motherhood claimed in other places, the League insists on the fact that the interruption of pregnancy may in any case only be carried out as a measure of emergency occurring under certain medical, social and eugenic conditions. In a reasonable birth control (contraception) the League sees an efficient means of prophylactic against this measure of emergency, for which it requires impunity. The League condemns the interruption of pregnancy practiced by incompetent persons.
signed by Brupbacher. Haire. Riese.



    next text >







     
www.magnus-hirschfeld.de/institute
  X 
      


 

 
  ¤