Talk:H. Bentley Glass

Eugenics

Well, H. Bentley Glass was apparently in favor of forced abortions:

from: XYY syndrome#1970s

In December 1970, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), its retiring president, geneticist H. Bentley Glass, cheered by the legalization of abortion in New York, envisioned a future where pregnant women would be required by the government to abort XYY "sex deviants"."

--80.187.97.4 (talk) 03:32, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Glass preferred a voluntary eugenics program (perhaps augmented by tax penalties or fines like those of China's one-child policy) and hoped a forced abortion regimen "under a Nazi type of dictatorship" would not be necessary:

• Glass, Bentley (January 8, 1971). "Science: endless horizons or golden age?". Science 171 (3966): 23–29.

  The once sacred rights of man must alter in many ways.
  Thus, in an overpopulated world it can no longer be affirmed that the right of the man and woman to reproduce as they see fit is inviolate.
  On the contrary, if my own additional child deprives someone else of the privilege of parenthood, I must voluntarily refrain, or be compelled to do so.
  In a world where each pair must be limited, on the average, to two offspring and no more, the right that must become paramount is not the right to procreate, but rather the right of every child to be born with a sound physical and mental constitution, based on a sound genotype.
  No parents will in that future time have a right to burden society with a malformed or a mentally incompetent child.
  Just as every child must have the right to full educational opportunity and a sound nutrition, so every child has the inalienable right to a sound heritage.
  
  Human power is advancing with extraordinary rapidity in this realm of control over the genetic characteristics of the unborn.
  Perhaps, as Carl Becker so pregnantly stated, our race, far from having any aversion from power, will welcome this power too, will seek it, fashion it, and grasp it tenaciously.
  Unlimited access to state-regulated abortion will combine with the now perfected techniques of determining chromosome abnormalities in the developing fetus to rid us of the several percentages of all births that today represent uncontrollable defects such as mongolism (Down's syndrome) and sex deviants such as the XYY type.
  Genetic clinics will be constructed in which, before long, as many as 100 different recessive hereditary defects can be detected in the carriers, who may be warned against or prohibited from having offspring.

• Glass, Bentley (April 9, 1971). "Reply to: Less than golden future". Science 172 (3979): 111–112.

  As for the comment by Steinberger, he too, and far more egregiously than the two other respondents, puts words in my mouth that I spit out.
  Because one predicts that the future may bring about certain constraints upon human rights and current individual freedoms neither means that one endorses or likes such possible eventualities.
  As soon say that George Orwell advocated the state of human society he foresaw as possible in 1984.
  If Steinberger is really interested in my views, he will find them discussed at much greater length in numerous earlier writings of mine, especially in Science and Liberal Education and Science and Ethical Values.
  I reiterate that "the right that must become paramount is not the right to procreate, but rather the right of every child to be born with a sound physical and mental constitution, based on a sound genotype."
  And again, "Just as every child must have the right to full educational opportunity and a sound nutrition, so every child has the inalienable right to a sound heritage."
  Perhaps that can be achieved on a voluntary basis, through educational understanding, genetic diagnosis, and wise counseling.
  That, of course, would be preferable.
  But if such means prove insufficient for the task, social compulsion may indeed be the only alternative, whether we like it or not.
  Human societies in the past have practiced harsher measures, directed against the unfortunate child or infant.
  Better that restriction be directed at the stages of conception or embryonic implantation, or even at the fetus, in cases of indubitable physical or mental incapacitation.
  The difficulty will always be to achieve certainty in diagnosis and to harmonize enlightened voluntary action with social compulsion.
  Much social inventiveness and ethical analysis must be directed at these matters, and I am far from claiming authority in such.

• Glass, Bentley (July 9, 1971). "Reply to: What price the perfect baby?". Science 173 (3992): 103–104.

  I think it quite clear that if such practices are introduced in the Western World it will occur first through voluntary action.
  That is why genetic counseling must be greatly improved and rendered far more accessible to those who need it.
  The idea that, in the conceit of their ignorance, board of experts will decide who may reproduce and who may not, is as repugnant to me as to Kass.
  Nevertheless, under a Nazi type of dictatorship, it might become a reality with which the world would need to reckon.
  The biological developments indeed make the "brave new world" credible.
  
  In the matter of the right of every child to be born "with a sound physical and mental constitution, based on a sound genotype . . . the inalienable right to a sound heritage," I shall not retreat.
  Incumbent on every prospective parent is the duty of ascertaining whatever is possible regarding the probabilities that his or her child will be mentally and physically sound.
  Since detection of heterozygous carriers is now possible for about 60 recessive genetic defects, and since chromosome defects, such as the extra chromosomes that produce mongolism (Down's syndrome) or a variety of serious sex deviations from the norm, such as the XYY condition, are detectable by amniocentesis, the way lies open to voluntary constraint in reproduction and to voluntary induced abortion in those states where the laws permit.
  I, for one, regard the New York abortion law as more significant in opening up the possibility of voluntary eugenic practice that in protecting the life of the mother in a few cases or in disposing of unwanted children in lieu of contraception.

• Martin, Douglas (January 20, 2005) "H. Bentley Glass, provocative science theorist, is dead at 98". The New York Times, p. B9.

  In 1970, he suggested that not only would it become possible to prevent genetic defects, it would also become mandatory to do so.
  "No parents in that future time have the right to burden society with a malformed or mentally incompetent child," Dr. Glass said in a remark that is still regularly deplored by opponents of abortion.

• Bernstein, Adam (January 21, 2005) "Outspoken geneticist H. Bentley Glass dies". The Washington Post, p. B6.

  His chief concerns included the genetic effects of nuclear radiation, a major topic during Cold War atomic testing; how genetic characteristics spread among races; and how future technology would make possible the prenatal identification of physical and mental defects in children.
  
  In the late 1960s, his jobs as Stony Brook's academic vice president and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science provided him high visibility.
  Perhaps none of his previous speeches seemed to alarm the public as much as those he made during this period.
  
  He forecast the likely proliferation of genetic clinics during the next three decades and warned that couples would be forced to take tests to ensure against hereditary defects in their future children.
  In cases where parents might produce limbless or mentally handicapped children, "avoidance of parenthood ought to be mandatory," he said.
  
  He envisioned a future where restrictive tax penalties existed for those who did not comply with rules against having a limited number of children.
  He noted forced abortions for those who were "mentally defective" as well as prenatal adoption and frozen embryos that would be implanted within the mother.
  
  "No parents will in that future time have a right to burden society with a malformed or a mentally incompetent child," he concluded.
  
  This last statement in particular became much quoted over the decades in the abortion rights debate.

• Oliver, Myrna (January 25, 2005) "H. Bentley Glass, 98; offered sweeping view of the future for nonscientists". Los Angeles Times, p. B9.

  H. Bentley Glass, a biologist and geneticist who bluntly shared his views on major societal issues, including the blending of genetic traits among races, mandatory testing of prospective parents to prevent birth defects and licenses to bear children, has died.
  
  Among Glass' attention-grabbing pronouncements were:
  • Babies could be produced in test tubes by 1985, and parents should be tested for potential genetic defects before they are allowed to have children.
  • To curb world overpopulation, children should be licensed -- the first permitted, with a tax exemption; the second approved with no tax exemption; and a tax added for any additional child. "The right to have children can't remain unlimited," he said in a 1964 Los Angeles speech. "This is because the increase in world population is the second most serious threat to mankind. The most serious is nuclear war."

Panda411 (talk) 01:10, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

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