“A Rational Coalition”: Euthanasia, Eugenics, and Birth Control in America, 1940–1970
2002; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 14; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/jph.2002.0017
ISSN1528-4190
Autores Tópico(s)French Historical and Cultural Studies
ResumoIn 1940, at the second annual meeting of the Euthanasia Society of America (ESA), its first president, Charles Francis Potter (1885–1962), rose to give a speech. “Euthanasia, or merciful release from suffering,” Potter declared, “is rapidly emerging from the stage when it was considered merely the obsession of a few left-wing social reformers to the period when it is being recognized as an important social measure in the same class with birth control and eugenics .” Almost thirty years later, at another ESA gathering, clergyman Henry Pitney Van Dusen said much the same thing. “Popular attention centers on the Planned Parenthood movement at the other end of life,” Van Dusen declared, and “[e]uthanasia is concerned with the responsible termination of life. The more we can relate these two movements practically the better, because they are both concerned with the responsible care of human life, one at its beginning and the other at its end.”
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