The eugenic temptation is ever with us. This seems to be the lesson conveyed by Editorial Page Editor of The Detroit News, Nolan Finley.

Chrysler’s Superbowl ad was an inspiring hit about reviving the economically depressed car manufacturing city of Detroit with fresh ideas and determination. But the Editorial Page Editor of The Detroit News, Nolan Finley, takes a different approach.  He is worried about the 45,000 children born each year in Michigan who move straight onto the welfare rolls. They are destined to “to grow up to be a strain on Corrections spending or welfare recipients themselves”, taking money away from schools and universities. Now that Americans are debating the rights and wrongs of contraception, Mr Finley has a proposal:

“… here’s my idea: If we want to fight poverty, reduce violent crime and bring down our embarrassing drop-out rate, we should swap contraceptives for fluoride in Michigan’s drinking water. We’ve got a baby problem in Michigan. Too many babies are born to immature parents who don’t have the skills to raise them, too many are delivered by poor women who can’t afford them, and too many are fathered by sorry layabouts who spread their seed like dandelions and then wander away from the consequences. Michigan’s social problems and the huge costs attached to them won’t recede until we embrace reproductive responsibility.”

The eugenic temptation is ever with us, it seems.  The Detroit News, Feb 12

Michael Cook
eugenics
population control

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Michael Cook

Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.

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