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The Ethics of the New Eugenics Calum MacKellar and Christopher Betchel, editors. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2014. ISBN 978-1782381204, 244 PAGES. CLOTH, $90.25.
The result of a collective work undertaken by the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, this volume edited and penned by Calum Mackellar and Christopher Betchel starts by differentiating the New Eugenics from the Old. Thus, while it is noticed that the Old Eugenics was part of an enforced state policy, the New is, as shown, constituted by policies and practices allowing individual choice. But, both New and Old Eugenics endorse practices of choice and selection with the aim of promoting "good births" and avoiding "disability."
After this introduction of terms used, there is an overview of the history of eugenics showing that eugenic thinking was prevalent in many parts of Western Europe outside of Germany, as well as in the Soviet Union and the United States, well before the Nazis enforced their brutal eugenics...