Part 1: The Threads of 20th Century Eugenics Interwoven with Modern Pronatalism
Follow this upcoming series of blog posts to track the rise of the pronatalism movement in Silicon Valley, the threads of eugenics woven into the fabric of that movement, and the snags of humanity that may yet unravel a carefully stitched path toward a dystopian future.
At the turn of the 20th century, the US and Europe were ablaze with theories about how genetics could be used to cultivate a “better breed” of humans: smarter, stronger, more successful, and more beautiful. Genetic engineering hadn’t been conceived yet (pun intended), so these pioneers in eugenics advocated for the old-fashioned method of encouraging the “right people” to breed and sterilizing the “wrong people.”
They catalogued what they viewed as degeneracy in families and equated moral or social problems to genetic weakness, as though these human frailties like alcoholism and criminality could be linked to a single gene rather than a complex array of social forces like poverty, education, nurture, and, yes, genetics (though far more complicated than their single gene theories). They created sterilization laws to prohibit the “feeble-minded” from procreating—with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously saying in the Supreme Court decision Buck v. Bell that “three generations of imbeciles is enough.” And the Eugenics Society of North America promoted “Fitter Families” contests at state fairs to identify the families with the “best stock.” Spoiler alert: they were always white and never included people with disabilities. In fact, a fundamental premise of eugenics was that some races were inherently better than others, with the Nordic (or Aryan) race ranked at the top.
Some of the most famous and influential people of the early 20th century were ardent fans of eugenics: President Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Alexander Graham Bell, Margaret Sanger, Henry Ford, and John Harvey Kellog (co-inventor of Corn Flakes). Immigration laws in the US were even changed in the 1920s (the Johnson-Reed Act) based on eugenic theories of racial superiority to ban or limit certain kinds of people from entering the US such as Asians and Eastern and Southern Europeans (quickly curtailing Jewish immigration). According to eugenicists, the movement was progressing along quite well until the 1930s when Adolf Hitler—inspired by the eugenicists in the US and UK—took the idea to a gruesome and horrific new level. Beyond preventing the births of ‘unfit people,’ he moved forward with murdering whole classes of people the Nazis deemed unfit: Jewish, disabled, Romani, and LGBTQ people, finally culminating in the horror and tragedy of the concentration camps of World War II. It was only then that everyone realized how utterly misguided and terrible eugenics is when it is taken to its inevitable conclusion. Or did they?
Over the past two decades, the new “pronatalism” movement rising in popularity in Silicon Valley and among some of our current politicians and inventors has echoed the messages of the eugenics supporters of the early 20th century. Famous adherents include tech giants, like Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, and Pavel Durov; policymakers, like JD Vance; and reprotech entrepreneurs like Noor Siddiqui and Stephen Hsu. Pronatalists generally claim that reproduction among the best and brightest is a social imperative to “maintain population levels, support economic growth, and preserve cultural and national identities.”
However, they don’t usually espouse that everyone should have more babies; they advocate for certain kinds of people to have more babies and to use reproductive technology that screens embryos for disability and “optimizes” for intelligence. Indeed, reproductive technology companies like Orchid and Genomic Prediction claim they can and should screen embryos for genetic variations to select against embryos that have a greater likelihood of obesity, intellectual disability, and a myriad of other conditions. These companies base value on their interpretation of a child’s DNA while the nuances of multifactorial genetics and nurture take a back seat. It’s like these people never watched GATTACA or read A Brave New World in high school with its hatcheries based on genetics in a manufactured society.
Evidence of this trend in the news:
- Billionaire Russian Pavel Durov offers free IVF to thousands of women willing to have his babies
- Natal Con conference brings together tech elites and far-right thinkers to discuss and promote pronatalism
- Elon Musk promotes the pronatalism movement, saying “if each successive generation of smart people has fewer kids, that’s probably bad” and proceeds to father at least 14 children to date to personally promote the breeding of “smart people”
- Trump Administration Acting Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Darren Beattie, says “Pay smart people to have more kids, disincentivize stupid people from having kids. So simple but molds destiny on deep intergenerational level.”
- Breed or Die: Inside Pronatalism by Harry Shukman & Patrik Hermansson (Hope Over Hate)
- Billionaires like Elon Musk want to save civilization by having tons of genetically superior kids. Inside the movement to take ‘control of human evolution.‘ by Julia Black (Business Insider)
- Pronatalism is the latest Silicon Valley trend. What is it – and why is it disturbing? by Martin LaMonica (The Conversation)
- Pronatalism and Silicon Valley’s Right-Wing Turn with Julia Black (Tech Won’t Save Us podcast)
Written by Stephanie Meredith, MA, DrPH