Liberal Eugenics (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Liberal eugenics is an ideology which advocates the use of reproductive and genetic technologies where the choice of enhancing human characteristics and capacities is left to the individual preferences of parents acting as consumers, rather than the public health policies of the state.The term "liberal eugenics" does not necessarily indicate that its proponents are social liberals in the modern sense. The term refers to any ideology of eugenics which is inspired by an underlying liberal theory but also to differentiate it from the authoritarian state eugenic programs of the first half of the 20th century, which were associated with coercive methods to decrease the frequency of certain human hereditary traits passed on to the next generation. The most controversial aspect of those programs was the use of "negative" eugenics laws which allowed government agencies to sterilize individuals alleged to have undesirable genes.