Eugenic Sterilisation in Scandinavia

Abstract

The view that eugenics was based on unscientific views has been put forward by a number of historians. It has been claimed that the early phase of eugenics, so-called mainline eugenics, was unscientific, biased against the lower classes, and racist. An ensuing reform eugenic phase, however, has been considered scientifically sound and politically progressive. This paper, based on recent studies of eugenic sterilisation in Scandinavia, challenges this view. The political and scientific arguments in favour of eugenic sterilisation laws in Scandinavia were complex and ambiguous, and it is empirically impossible to identify a problematic mainline eugenic phase and separate it from a more acceptable reform phase. Social and scientific arguments for sterilisation appeared side by side. To improve the gene pool was only one of a host of aims of eugenics, which “was” not a fixed, well-defined ontological entity with one definite purpose, but a concept with multiple meanings.

Notes

Notes

1. See S. Kühl, The Nazi Connection (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); and D. J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986).

2. N. Roll-Hansen, “‘Eugenikk,’ ‘racehygiejne’ og ‘tvangssterilisation,’” Bibliotek for Læger (2001): 226–36.

3. N. Roll-Hansen has been the leading representative of this viewpoint. See also N. Roll-Hansen, “The Progress of Eugenics,” History of Science 26 (1988): 295–331.

4. For a reflection on this debate, see the Scandinavian Journal of History 24 (1999), Special Issue, in particular the Introduction by G. Broberg and M. Tydén (141–43).

5. P. Haave, Sterilisering av tatere [Sterilisation of Gypsies] (Oslo: Norges Forskningsråd, 2000); L. Koch, Racehygiejne i Danmark 1920–56 [Racial Hygiene in Denmark] (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1996); L. Koch, Tvangssterilisation i Danmark 1929–67 [Compulsory Sterilisation in Denmark] (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2000); M. Tydén, Från politik til praktik. De svenska steriliseringslagarna [From Politics to Practice: The Swedish Sterilisation Acts] (Stockholm: Almquist och Wiksell, 2000); and Maija Runcis, Steriliseringar i folkhemmet [Sterilization in the Swedish Welfare State] (Stockholm: Ordfront, 1998).

6. See R. Koselleck, Futures Past (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985); and N. Aa. Andersen, Analytical Research Strategies (Oxford: Polity Press, 2002).

7. P. Haave, Sterilisering av tatere, 16. All quotations from Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, are my translation.

8. L. Koch, Tvangssterilisation i Danmark, 311–18.

9. M. Tydén, Från politik til praktik, 23.

10. K. K. Steincke, Fremtidens Fors⊘rgelsesvæsen [The Social System of the Future] (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1920), 264.

11. Ibid.

12. A. Wimmer, Degenererede b⊘rn [Degenerate Children] (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1909). See also Koch, Racehygiejne i Danmark.

13. Koch, Racehygiejne i Danmark, 66–67.

14. For a detailed discussion of these works, see L. Koch, Tvangssterilisation i Danmark, 111–21.

15. Cited in L. Koch, Tvangssterilisation i Danmark, 120.

16. P. Haave, Sterilisering av tatere, 212.

17. Ibid., 213.

18. Ibid., 212–13.

19. Cited in Haave, Sterilisering av tatere, 214.

20. L. Koch, “The Meaning of Eugenics: Reflections on the Government of Genetic Knowledge in the Past and the Present,” Science in Context 17.3 (2004): 1–17.