It opens with the words "In the not so distant future". It is a recent science-fiction film starring Ethan Hawk and Uma Thurman called Gataca. Ethan Hawk’s character was born to loving parents who had had a little fun in the back seat of their car on the shore of a Detroit river. At his birth, all of the probabilities of his life were told to his parents based on a single drop of his blood. He was going to have a moderate intelligence level, he would be 5’11" with size 10 feet, and he had a life expectancy of 30 years. His short excepted life span was due to the fact that he had a 98% chance of developing a heart problem and dying from heart failure.

Hawk’s character grows up in a world where your fate is decided by the probabilities given at your birth. If you are predicted to have high intelligence, you are put in the best schools and taught and encouraged by the best schoolteachers. Your parents give you their full support. Everyone has faith in you because the likelihood is high that you will succeed. If you are predicted to have great physical endurance and dexterity, you are encouraged along the lines of sports. If you don’t come out having such great predictions, you barely get encouraged at all. The likelihood is that you won’t have the ability, mental or physical, to succeed at much. Maybe just the most medial of tasks, but certainly not something like becoming the President of the United States or making the trip to Saturn.

Hawk’s character dreams of going into space and of making it to Saturn. His parents, who love him, tell him not to set his sights so high, that he’ll never make it because of his expected physical condition. They don’t want him to get his hopes too high, only to watch them be crushed when his heart gives out.

Hawk has a brother in the film, who is born with favorable probabilities because his parents went to a birth clinic to make sure that their second child would have better chances in life. The conception of his younger brother involved no hanky-panky in the back seat of a car, since the stakes were too high and nature could not be trusted to supply a healthy baby. The parents’ sex cells are manipulated at the birth clinic to produced a healthy baby who would have high intelligence and beautiful physical characteristics. Everything they didn’t get in their first child they would have in their second, without a doubt.

Hawk puts up with constant discouragement toward him and encouragement toward his brother until he is a young adult. He runs away from home, determined to pursue his dreams, the very goals his parents and the world says he will never achieve.

Gataca is set in a world where space travel and genetic manipulation are quite possible and widely practiced. It’s opening line, "In the not so distant future", causes one to wonder about that future not so far away. After all, the space program seems to be moving right along. We’ve explored Mars, sent cameras to the ends of the solar system, and we’ve developed space stations. And, here on Earth, we’ve set out to map the entire human body genetically. We’ve tracked down the gene that causes Huntington’s disease. We’re even on the road to proving that homosexuality has a genetic cause. Possibly, that future is closer than we think. In fact, James M. Wilson, director of the Institute for Human Gene Therapy, University of Pennsylvania, predicts "that within his lifetime human germline therapy will be feasible…" (Hastings Center Report 3).

When contemplating this particular possible future, the one with daily space travel and genetic manipulation, one might wonder about the sciences that would be the shaping forces of said future. What could they be? The first, of course, would be astronomy and its cousins. The second, one not so old as astronomy, would be Eugenics.

Ah, and what is eugenics exactly? you may ask.

The term eugenics was coined by Charles Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton in 1883. He took it from the Greek for "good birth" (Scientific American 130). It is also said that Galton "defined it as the science of improving heredity" (American Journal of Public Health 1767). Another source says:

The term eugenics refers to the idea that there are flaws

or inadequacies in the human race, manifested in and

caused by genetic abnormality; and to the practice of

attempting to correct the flaws through selection and

breeding. (Breeding Discontent 16)

The Webster’s New American Dictionary reads: /yu-‘je-niks/ n: a science dealing with the improvement (as by selective breeding) of hereditary qualities, esp. of human beings (178).

Eugenics was a powerful early 20^th century movement for improving human heredity (AJofPH 1767). When eugenics caught on as a science, four questions were asked as to the implementation of it.

• What does "improvement" mean?
• What does "heredity" mean?
• By what methods should heredity be improved?
• Who has the authority to answer the other questions?

(AJofPH 1767)

Many individuals thought they were the answer to the fourth question. In fact, eugenics was used in a few different ways in the first part of its history. To collect frequency and distribution data within families on a variety of traits, the Eugenics Record Office was founded in London by Edgar Schuster and Francis Galton in 1904 (Shipman 119). The ERO collected data on "traits" like commercial ability, insanity, hemophilia, harelip, deaf-mutism, alcoholism, and brachydactyly (stub fingers), to name a few (Shipman 119). Conclusions about the analyzed data were published in The Treasury of Human Inheritance by Karl Pearson (Shipman 120). Some of the conclusions pointed out the notion that the upper classes (the well off and generally less "diseased") were committing "racial suicide" (Shipman 120) by limiting the size of their families. The lower classes generally had more children per family. They were also more "diseased". Because the upper classes weren’t producing so many "healthy" children, it was believed that the poor and unhealthy would eventually take over the world.

In Germany, the Gesellschaft fur Rassenhygiene (Society for Racial Hygiene) was founded in 1905, with Ernst Haeckel and August Weismann, both Darwinian and Mendelian scientists, as honorary chairmen (Shipman 132). The Society and its two chairmen "became, in effect, the patron saints of eugenics in Germany…." (Shipman 132). The Society "proved" that moral and physical characters were inherited, that nature was all and nurture was nothing.

In America, some of those answering the fourth eugenics question were legal system officials. In the Supreme Court case of Buck vs. Bell (1927), forcible sterilization of the "unfit" was justified by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (AJofPH 1769). Basically, Holmes’ justification was that the sterilization of the "unfit" benefited much more of society than it hurt. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. "Unfit" persons were those with mental or physical retardations, alcoholics, prostitutes, criminals, paupers, and "ne’er-do-wells", etc. (Shipman 114).

(Breeding Discontent 17)

All of the examples I’ve given so far have more or less been forgotten by the general population of the world. The next example, however, instantly reminds people of how dangerous the use or misuse of science can be.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany (Roark 978). Everyone knows what happened in and to Europe when Hitler was around. And many have asked how the German people could have let something like the extermination of six or seven million Jews happen. The science of eugenics is part of the answer. By the time Hitler came to power, eugenics was very in fashion. Hitler merely used an established "science" to convince the German people of the "evils" of the Jewish population.

So, please pause now, and remember all the terrible things you’ve read or seen concerning the Nazi concentration camps. All the pictures of the mass graves full of naked decaying bodies. Remember the gas chambers and the death trains. Remember Anne Frank and that movie Swing Kids. Remember what you’ve heard about Hitler’s practices, his horrors, and his insanity. This will be important later. Oh, by the way, did you know that besides the concentration camps, the Nazis’ eugenic experience includes artificial-insemination programs, mass sterilization, and infant "euthanasia"? (Saturday Night 16)

After having forced you to think of unpleasant, to say the least, and negative things, I would now like to point out the possible positive side of the science of eugenics.

(Saturday Night 62)

Many mothers-to-be and baby shower planners find it quite advantageous to know the gender of an unborn child. That’s exactly what an amniocentesis finds out. An amniocentesis is "the surgical insertion of a hollow needle through the abdominal wall and uterus of a pregnant female esp. to obtain fluid used to check the fetus for chromosomal abnormality and to determine sex" (Webster’s 17). While amniocentesis is not considered a genetic technology, it certainly has genetic, and therefore eugenic, implications. It would be quite helpful to know if your baby is sick even before it is born.

As stated before in this paper, the gene causing Huntington’s disease was discovered recently, in 1993. The genes underlying crippling diseases like cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy have also been identified in the last 15 years (Scientific American 124).

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could find and eliminate illness before it had a chance to strike us? Maybe, if we could find out which gene causes methylmalonic acidemia, my little cousin Alicia wouldn’t have to suffer from it or monitor how much protein she takes into her body. (Methylmalonic acidemia is a very rare genetic disease that causes the body to make too mach acid from the protein it takes in. Too much acid can lead to brain damage and death. Only six children in the Western United States have the disease.) Maybe, if we could find out what in the body encourages cancer growth, my sisters and I wouldn’t have to be haunted by cancer’s threat. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Researchers say that, given the discoveries concerning diseases like Huntington’s, it is only a matter of time before the genetic foundation of much more complex traits and behaviors will be uncovered (Scientific American 124).

Those kinds of discoveries and linkages could be very beneficial to some folks. For instance, those suffering from manic depression and schizophrenia, it is believed, would be more accepted if it was proven there was a genetic basis for their disorders (Eugenics Revisited 124). Let’s not forget to mention those suffering from alcoholism or drug addiction. And what about the homosexuals? Many gay people believe that proof of an innate biological condition, as opposed to a matter of choice, would make society much more tolerant of homosexuality (Eugenics Revisited 124).

So, there are some of the possible positive ramifications of the science of eugenics. I, and many others, however, see more negative than positive in those possibilities.

The critics of the use of eugenics and I, we’re still worried about that fourth eugenic question, asked so long ago, back when eugenics got its start. Recall:

• Who has the authority to answer the other questions?

A major German critic of eugenics is Udo Sierck, a historian of Nazi eugenics and a man with cerebral palsy. He asks the fourth question in a new up-dated way. "The Nazi experience taught us to ask an essential question. Who will draw the line between worthy and unworthy, and on what criteria?" (Saturday Night 16). Sierck points out that if he had been born just a few years earlier, he would have been put to death with many other children. He asks, "Is my life worthy?" I don’t know about you all, but I don’t want anyone to decide my worth but ME.

What of homosexuality was proven to be an innate biological condition? Given the extreme prejudice and intolerance directed toward gays, do you really think homosexuality will be accepted just because it’s proven to be a natural occurrence, something humanly uncontrollable? Blacks cannot control the color of their skin and (I hope I’m not too optimistic in saying so) I think that most people would agree with that. But, unfortunately, I’ve yet to see worldwide societal acceptance of blacks. Instead of homosexuality being accepted as innate, once discovered so, I think it more likely, unfortunately, that many people would try to get rid of whatever the genetic basis was. And who knows how – all we need is another Hitler.

Likewise, why would we be more accepting of alcoholism if it had a genetic base? Or drug abuse, manic depression, schizophrenia, or low intelligence? All of those things hinder society, correct? We wouldn’t really accept them. We’d try to rid our population of them. The question is how.

These days China has a population problem – it’s way too big. In February of 1995, the population of China reached 1.2 billion (The Lancet 139). That’s not the whole problem, through. The disabled people of China number about 51 million. What is the Chinese government to do? (The Chinese government has passed some public health measures heavily rooted in eugenics and sterilization.) Naturally, because of financial burden, the Chinese government would like the disabled population to decrease. How? Do they just start killing them off? Do they sterilize every one of them?

If we found a genetic basis for all our "problems", one that accounts for all the "unfit", how would we care for it? Do we have the right to do anything, either way?

I wonder if, in a way, it’s not such a bad thing that the science of eugenics hasn’t been able to uncover some mysteries. As of 1993, there were no discovered concrete genetic links for homosexuality, intelligence, alcoholism, schizophrenia, manic depression, or crime (Scientific American 125). If there were, I believe, given the history of the world and human nature, the links would be too easily exploited and manipulated, and the whole business would prove too dangerous for we humans to handle. (Isn’t that always where we run into trouble – when we try to control something?) There are far too many questions yet to be answered. Here’s one that I’ll let you answer:

Do we need another Hitler to come along to prove to us how

It’s unfortunate that there are madmen in the world, and even more unfortunate that we don’t notice them until its too late.

Eugenics is too risky a business for we humans to mess with. I really don’t believe in God, but I think that eugenics should be left in his hands, not ours.