Eugenics is alive and well

Eugenics is the practice and belief that you should control population growth by screening out undesirable characteristics.

The word itself was coined in 1883 by Francis Galton, a polymath who invented fingerprinting. His cousin was Charles Darwin and, fascinated by evolution, he thought the advancement of medical care, meaning longer lifespans, was muddying the gene pool. Following his investigations, he developed the theory of eugenics. It was hailed as a brilliant discovery. Since then, the practice of eugenics has grown in this country under the radar.

Horrendous distinction

Go back to 1990 and a piece of legislation called the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Act was passed by MPs and Peers. In 2008 it was updated, and Westminster again passed all the proposed changes. Buried in the legislative forest created by the Bill is a horrendous distinction. Simply put, the legislation drew a distinction between able-bodied people and disabled people. It said, in effect, that you could have an abortion up to birth in the case of serious disability, but not in any other case. In other words, abortion law is more relaxed for ‘serious handicap’ than for other criteria.