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Old Roots, New Shoots: Eugenics of the Everyday

By Betsy Hartmann

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Very few people today in the U.S. would openly identify as eugenicists, yet eugenic assumptions are widespread, interacting with other biological determinisms that influence the fields of science, health, economics, politics and popular culture. Like many other powerful ideas, the power of eugenic ideology lies partly in its capacity to not draw attention to itself, to appear commonplace.

Betsy Hartmann is the director of the Population and Development Program at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. This paper is an abridged version of “Eugenics of the Everyday: Some Preliminary Reflections,” background paper for the consultation on ‘New’ Reproductive and Genetic Technologies and Women’s Lives, SAMA-Resource Group for Women and Health, New Delhi, India, June 16-17, 2006, and a version has also appeared on Znet, September 22, 2006.