Lessons of the past

When advances in genetics and fertility signal a brave new world, eugenics arguments are never far behind. But, says Peter White, we should never forget lessons of the past

When I read the recent article in this magazine about the Nazi programme to eliminate disabled people, I was reminded of that poltically incorrect but necessary gag: “just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you”.

Fairly frequently I invoke remembrance of Nazi atrocities, particularly when talking about disability. It almost always provokes an “oh, not again!” response, and the clear implication that I am over-reacting. The facts are that disabled people were included in a programme of eliminating those deemed to “weaken” the Nazi state, and that while Hitler took this idea further than any other leader, the philosophy on which it was based was certainly not confined to Germany.

As the article pointed out, eugenics was alive and well and being practised in Sweden and Switzerland up to the 1960s, and there’s no call for British smugness on this count. Eugenics was also alive and well in Britain in the first half of the 20th century, and a staple solution to the perceived ills of the world, and postulated as much by the left, as by the right, incidentally. Read some of the policy documents that deal with the running of insitutions and you will see a regular and breathtaking disregard for the concept of everyone having value. And judging by radio phone-ins every time issues about developments in genetic screening comes up, it wouldn’t take much for eugenics to be back on the agenda.

Now this is no easy topic, and I am as prone to ambivalence about it as the next person. Anyone who says their view is not partially formed by their own experience is deceiving themselves. Regular readers of this column will know that I’m more concerned about the pre-selection of life before it begins, than I am about its being prematurely ended for compassionate reasons. I know that this is partly because I could easily have been “pre-selected out”, and that I want to preserve my right to make a conscious, rational decision about when I want to end it. It is as easy to argue that there are deeply distressing forms of disability that it would be kinder to try to eliminate, and some people feel desperately vulnerable if the rules about the sanctity of life are relaxed!

The real point, though, is that those contradictory arguments are both made on compassionate grounds! Nazi arguments were founded on power and control! Such ideas are never far from the political firmament, which is why the mantra “we must never forget” is not hyperbole, and why I will happily go on fielding accusations of paranoia.