Eugenic image and ideology: the past rewritten--a future imagined

Based on the mid-20th century activities of three Western eugenists, this paper will demonstrate that there was a concerted, and ultimately successful, transnational effort to keep the eugenics movement alive during its most socially unacceptable period. I will argue that this success rested on the ability of eugenists to fuse the mid-century image and ideology of eugenics with respectable medical and public health agendas, and align this new adaptation of eugenics with the then increasingly fashionable social issues of democracy, environmentalism and family. Further to this, I will tentatively question the future bio-ethical implications of this historical reinterpretation.
What became of the eugenics movement? For the great majority of us, the comfortable answer is that the ideology died a death some time during the mid-20th century. Supporting evidence [...]