The New Eugenics: Selective Breeding in an Era of Reproductive Technologies

by Judith Daar

A provocative examination of how unequal access to reproductive technology replays the sins of the eugenics movement

Eugenics, the effort to improve the human species by inhibiting reproduction of “inferior” genetic strains, ultimately came to be regarded as the great shame of the Progressive movement. Judith Daar, a prominent expert on the intersection of law and medicine, argues that current attitudes toward the potential users of modern assisted reproductive technologies threaten to replicate eugenics’ same discriminatory practices.
 
In this book, Daar asserts how barriers that block certain people’s access to reproductive technologies are often founded on biases rooted in notions of class, race, and marital status. As a result, poor, minority, unmarried, disabled, and LGBT individuals are denied technologies available to well-off nonminority heterosexual applicants. An original argument on a highly emotional and important issue, this work offers a surprising departure from more familiar arguments on the issue as it warns physicians, government agencies, and the general public against repeating the mistakes of the past.

288 pages, Hardcover

Published February 21, 2017

Reviews

[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ]

Written academically but very clear and organised. I didn’t read all the chapters because they weren’t relevant to my research so I can’t say what the whole book is like but the parts I read were very thorough and interesting

[Eli W. Hunter]

I tried so hard to get through this book but only got about 2/3rds through. The topic is interesting and their arguments are well supported with facts. But the book is just so long and the prose so dry and repetitive I couldn't get through it. I think this would be better fit for a 50 page essay.

[Mills College Library]

346.73017 D1118 2017