The DNA Mystique: The Gene as a Cultural Icon

9. Genetic Futurism

Genetic futurism 1991 letter to the New York Times reiterated an old theme: human society, the writer warned, had taken a uDarwinian U-turn,,-uhumankind has done little to improve its own breed.... Worse, our social programs encourage many less genetically endowed to breed."l A conservative writer in 1992 claimed that America's economic problems could be attributed to the ulack of selection pressure" in the United States.2 And an editorial writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer proposed in 1990 that a new passive birth control technique should be used to eliminate poverty: Prevent the poor from having babies and you will eventually have no more poor.3 169 TH[ DNA MYSTIQU[ The social policy imperatives encoded in these contemporary pronouncements were, of course, known as eugenics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today, in response to widely publicized research in molecular genetics, many observers have explored the likelihood of a unew eugenics." They postulate a eugenics fueled by the latest techniques for manipulating DNA, by public concern about rising health care costs, and by social tensions over poverty, crime, and race. Critic of science Jeremy Rifkin anticipates a future in which multinational corporations will Umanage production by controlling vast areas of the earth's commons -the land, sea ... and the gene pool."4 But historian Daniel Kevles expects that a new eugenics will not recur, blocked by the democratic nature of our social institutions, public awareness of the historical abuses of state-sponsored eugenics, and scientists' more sophisticated understanding of the limits of genetic intervention.5 Between these views are a wide range of other speculations . Sociologist Marqui Luisa Miringoff, for example, sees in this policy debate a shift from a rhetoric of social welfare to one of Ugenetic welfare." The former looks to social structure as the source of social problems; the latter looks to individuals, assuming that problems can be solved by eliminating those who caused them-by implication, those who are genetically flawed. Miringoff predicts ua drift toward a variety of modes of genetic determinism, the increasing delineation of our genetic rights and duties, and the widening effort to reduce the genetic burden."6 Other observers see the threat of a new eugenics as less direct. Sociologist Troy Duster argues that while the ufront door to eugenics is closed," the uback door" has already been opened by contemporary medical care practices such as genetic counseling, the selective identification of genetic disease, and the conception of genetic health.7 Historian Carl Degler suggests that new eugenics policies will not rely on compulsory state intervention, as they did at the height of the American eugenics movement, but on voluntary compliance based on perceived economic and social interests and a sense of eugenic responsibility.8 Similarly, writer Richard Neuhaus believes that eugenics is returning with the umanufacture of 170 G[N[TIC fUTURISM synthetic children, the fabrication of families, artificial sex, and new ways of using and terminating undesired human life." He sees the language of eugenics today as "the winsome one of progress, of reason, and, above all, compassion."9 From our perspective, the rise of a new eugenics-mediated not by state policy but by social and institutional pressure -is made more likely by certain ideas conveyed in popular culture. Stories of genetic essentialism and biological determinism facilitate public acceptance of the control of reproduction for the common good. The idea that human beings need to seize control of human evolution is expressed in popular sources by means of four related ideas. The first is that different rates of reproduction among groups (differing in class, race, ethnicity) threaten the quality of the human gene pool or the future health of the species. The second claims that there are "lives not worth living"10: people who simply should not be born. The third asserts that environmental and economic problems are a consequence of reproductive practices. And finally, some conceive the threat as severe enough to justify limitations on reproductive rightssuch limits to be enforced, if necessary, by the powers of the state. We will show that, in many popular sources, the control of human reproduction appears as a solution to pressing economic and social problems, a way to avoid disaster, and a means of controlling the future. 11 ifferenti~1 Reproduction: line Poor Breed More" In 1991 CBS commentator Andy Rooney made the comment that "most people are born with equal intelligence but...