[Intro Music. Vincent Tone - New Summits]
Hi guys, in today's video we are going to
talk about a bit of a heavy topic -
disability and eugenics. Some people may
not know about this dark history that
both the United States and Canada share.
Most of you watching know what a
disability is, but there is a number of
people out there who don't know what
eugenics is, and that is a bit concerning
especially with the resurgence of
neo-nazis across the United States and
Canada. So what is eugenics? I am going to
give you a bit of a history lesson.
Eugenics is a set of beliefs and
practices aimed at improving the genetic
quality of the human population. The
modern history of eugenics began in the
20th century with Francis Galton - a
cousin of Charles Darwin, coining the term
eugenics. The eugenics movement emerged
in the United Kingdom and began to
spread across Europe and the United
States and into Canada. Eugenic ideas trickled into politics and many
countries ended up adopting eugenic
policies with the intent to improve the
genetic quality of their population.
People who were deemed genetically worthy and
fit, or 'positive eugenics', were encouraged
to reproduce. And those who were deemed
unfit or undesirable - 'negative eugenics',
were prevented from marrying and were
forcibly sterilized. People deemed unfit
were often the physically and mentally
disabled, people who scored in the low
ranges of IQ tests, criminals and
deviants, and members of undesirable
minority groups. The eugenics movement
became associated with Nazi Germany and
the Holocaust. After World War II many
countries began to abandon their eugenic
policies, although some countries like
the United States still continued to do
forced sterilizations. With the rise in
technologies and procedures - like being
able to know if your baby is going to be
born with a genetic disease or
disability, or editing those genes to
have a 'perfect baby' - these are all cause
and concern, and have the possibility of
being abused by government and the rich.
A revival of eugenics will also bring
about a greater gap between the rich and
the poor. Negative eugenics is also
considered by many to be a violation of
human rights, such as the rights to
reproduction. I think it is very
important to talk about this and as
someone who is apart of the disabled
community I have seen many people, mostly
people on Twitter or Facebook - believe
that disabled people or people with
disabilities in general, shouldn't have
the right to live, their a burden to
society, and their burdens to their
families, and they shouldn't reproduce.
I've seen a lot of people with this
mentality that a disabled person
shouldn't reproduce because they are
disabled. And many don't realize that
when they are talking about these things
that they have beliefs that are based in
eugenics. With new technology such as
CRISPR and DNA editing, eugenics becomes
a very real threat to those of us with
disabilities. Throughout history those of
us with disabilities - mental and physical -
were deemed as less than by society,
because we are different, we are sick, we
are unable, and reliant on family members,
we cannot work. And we have been
discriminated against because of our
disabilities or illnesses. Ableism and
eugenics are very much interconnected.
Until we reach a point in society where
ableism becomes just as frowned upon as
racism, or homophobia, or sexism - then we
still have a fight on our hands against
eugenic ideologies and practices, as
well as the rampant ableism that goes on
within our society. Eugenics is a very
serious threat to those of us who are
disabled. I know this was a short video
but I did not want to go too deep into
this topic because there is just so much
to talk about with this
topic, there's so many different topics
within this one topic that really needs
to be talked about and looked at but, I
just wanted to keep this video short and
simple, and keep you aware and
informed about what is going on in the
world. Not to mention that when talking
about disability and eugenics it's often
a very heavy topic to be talking about
especially when you are disabled, and
that is a very real threat that you
could face. So I hope you guys learned
something in this video. In the comments
below I want to know what are your
thoughts on eugenics and ableism? I'm
also currently taking video suggestions
so if there's the video that you'd like
to see me make, please be sure to leave
it in the comments below and I'll be
sure to add it to my list of videos to
make. Please be sure to give this video a
thumbs up, subscribe if you're new. Please
be sure to hit the notification button
down below to get notified when I upload
new videos, all my social media links
will be in the description below, and I
hope to see you guys next time, bye!
[Outro Music. Vincent Tone - New Summits]
