Historical and social background

Abstract

One of the reasons that genetic screening is continuously sensitizing the public and moral debate is the complicated history of human genetics. The scientific analysis of human heredity and the science of genetics in general are relative recent phenomena. From the start, practical applications have been imagined to improve humanity and to stop degeneration, prompting Galton to introduce the term ‘eugenics’. In this section, Hans-Peter Kroner carefully dissects the history of human genetics, distinguishing three periods. The first period, starting with Galton’s eugenics, focused on race, social class and selection. Ethics was subsumed under the normative rules of the biological sciences. Kroner describes how eugenics movements developed in many countries, with for example sterilisation laws in the US as well as the Scandinavian countries. The social darwinist orientation of this period degenerated into the National Socialist racial hygiene in Germany. The second period is characterised by the scientific explorations of molecular biochemistry. It started in the fifties, with the discovery of the molecular basis of human life, the development of new methods and techniques, and the elucidation of the chromosomal basis of diseases and disabilities. It is a period of transition and establishment of a new paradigm. The third period begins with the clinical applications of the molecular paradigm. In connection with new reproductive technologies, clinical genetics is able to influence human reproductive decisions and to apply screening techniques. Although the focus has shifted from population concerns to individual autonomy, human genetics, according to Kroner, is increasingly medicalising human life.