Eugenics and Donor Conception

My first exposure to the idea of eugenics in sperm donation was in the support group 25 years ago.  There is a man whose father was in the Home for the Feeble Minded.  His dad wasn't feeble minded.  He was a troubled teenager without family support, and that's where he landed.  In order to get out of the Home he had to agree to be sterilized.  Some choices, ey?...staying in the Home for the Feeble Minded or be sterilized?  He was sterilized and released from the Home.  Then he fell in love, married and needed a sperm donor to have children.  For more information about his son's life story, read:  Demons at my Doorstep; the Search for my Donor Father, as told to Katherine Marsh, iUniverse, Inc., 2004.

In the historic article "Therapeutic Donor Insemination" by Sophia J. Kleegman, M.D., published in Fertility & Sterility, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1954, p. 20, Kleegman states "we are given the opportunity for eugenics to rule.  The requirements (for donors) are for men of high level of fertility, excellent mental, physical, and eugenic attributes, and of high moral character...With careful selection, and ability to choose donors of excellent intellectual and eugenic backgrounds...the children are superior..."

In the article "Adultery by doctor: artificial insemination, 1890-1945", Kara W. Swanson, School of Law Faculty Publications, Northeastern University School of Law, 1-1-2012, it states: "Davis explicitly linked artificial insemination to eugenic policies, which enjoyed broad support among educated elites in the first decades of the twentieth century.  Davis, former superintendent of the Oklahoma State Hospital for the Feeble-Minded, believed that while the 'feeble-minded' needed to be confined and cured, superior persons needed to be encouraged to reproduce, and assisted as necessary." (p. 599).  "When the 'test tube baby' burst into public consciousness in the 1930s, it did so in the context of a robust eugenics movement...the emerging science of genetics supported the popular movement for eugenic improvement of the United States population.  Planned breeding of humans could improve the overall stock, both by discouraging the reproduction of undesirables through forced sterilization programs implemented during this period and by encouraging the scientific selection of mates..." (p. 604-5).  "By the end of World War II, eugenics had faded in elite and popular discourse after it became associated with the policies of Nazi Germany..." (p. 630).

Lots of food for thought there!

There are problems with having very intelligent children who don't fit in their families, and problems associated with high intelligence in general, e.g. difficulty with social skills...but that's a topic for another day.