Unfortunately tainted with the views of Nazi's and other racists, eugenics is a somewhat taboo subject to aprove of. However I think it is a valuable concept that we as humanity should be following. We are the only known species who holds the keys to their evolution.
For a lot of this world survival of the fittest is only a concept when studying non-human animals. We have created a society where those who would die in the wild may survive, and even thrive. But where does that leave our evolution? Surely you don't think we have gone as far as we need to.
Since survival of the fittest has become alien to us, we must look for other methods of pushing our species down the evolutionary path. That is where eugenics come into play, and I hope I can sway those of you against it.
Eugenics is the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the Nazis.
Now many of you may get to the phrase "controlled breeding" and stop there, but allow me to explain. Controlled breeding, doesn't nessisarily mean forced breeding. I envision a volunteer eugenics program as opposed to a mandatory one. Volunteers may even be compensated for their participation in the program.
We are currently in the process of unlocking the secrets of our genetics, and while I feel it is still to early to know which direction we need to go, there is atleast one thing I think can and should be remedied in todays age. That is the prevention of future children being born with genetic diseases passed down to them.
It is an unfortunate fact that children today are born with these diseases. It is my hope that in the future people with the genetics that cause these will be encouraged to get steralized. As compensation we could look towards things like tax reductions or other methods that will get people to volunteer.
This would be a great cause for our society. As the science of genetics becomes better understood we could expand the program to include the people who may not have diseases they would pass on, but genetics that leave them prone to catching certain diseases later on in life.
There is much debate about how far we can and should take this, but I feel a volunteer program to weed out diseases is the minimum that should be morally acceptable. You may have the ability to bring a new life into this world, but that doesn't mean you should. Remember adoption is always an option.