Description: The plans of Adolf Hitler and the German Nazis to create a Nordic "master race" are often looked upon as a horrific but fairly isolated effort. Less notice has historically been given to the American eugenics movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Although their methods were less violent, the methodology and rationale which the American eugenicists employed, as catalogued in Edwin Black's Against the Weak, were chilling nonetheless and, in fact, influential in the mindset of Hitler himself. Funded and supported by several well-known wealthy donors, including the Rockefeller and Carnegie families and Alexander Graham Bell, the eugenicists believed that the physically impaired and "feeble-minded" should be subject to forced sterilization in order to create a stronger species and incur less social spending. These "defective" humans generally ended up being poorer folks who were sometimes categorized as such after shockingly arbitrary or capricious means ! such as failing a quiz related to pop culture by not knowing where the Pierce Arrow was manufactured. The list of groups and agencies conducting eugenics research was long, from the U.S. Army and the Departments of Labor and Agriculture to organizations with names like the "American Breeders Association." Black's detailed research into the history of the American eugenics movement is admirably extensive, but it is in the association between the beliefs of some members of the American aristocracy and Hitler that the book becomes most chilling. Black goes on to trace the evolution of eugenic thinking as it evolves into what is now called genetics. And while modern thinkers have thankfully discarded the pseudo-science of eugenics, such controversial modern issues as human cloning make one wonder how our own era will be remembered a hundred years hence. --John Moe
Description: Mason looks at the legal response to those aspects of the troubled pregnancy which require or involve medico-legal intervention. The unwanted pregnancy is considered particularly in the light of the Abortion Act 1967, s.1(1)(d) and the related action for so-called wrongful birth due to faulty ante-natal care. The unexpected or uncovenanted birth of a healthy child resulting from failed sterilisation is approached through an analysis of the seminal case of McFarlane and associated cases involving disability in either the neonate or the mother. The disabled neonate's right to sue for its diminished life is discussed and the legal approach to the management of severe congenital disease is analysed - thus following Baroness Hale in believing that care of the newborn is an integral part of pregnancy. Aspects are considered from historical and comparative perspectives, including coverage of experience in the USA, the Commonwealth and Europe.
