우생학적 생명정치가 혼인법, 이혼법, 불임법(단종법) 등에 미친 영향

• 영문명: The Influence of Eugenical Biopolitics on Marriage Law, Divorce Law and Sterilization Law — Focused on the Britain and the United States in the Early 20th Century —
• 발행기관: 한국가족법학회
• 저자명: 서종희(Jong Hee Seo)
• 간행물 정보: 『가족법연구』家族法硏究 第24卷 3號, 331~362쪽, 전체 32쪽
• 주제분류: 법학 > 법학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2010.11.30

영문 초록

Napoleon once said, “Politics is our fate,” Hans Jonas said, “Technology is our fate,” and, today, we can say, “Biopolitics is our fate.” Bioethical principles and disputes always exist behind biopolitics. For example, this policy, called eugenics, was the emergency of influential biopolitics in the early 20th century. The word eugenics was coined in 1883 by Francis Galton. The term eugenics comes from the Greek roots for “good” and “generation” or “origin” and was first used to refer to the “science” of heredity and good breeding. With the rise of new genetic technologies, and the technical ability to change an individual's genetic heritage, eugenics is once again a topic both discussed and written about throughout the world. A sterilization law, marriage law, divorce law which had been entitled “Eugenics in the service of public welfare” indicated compulsory disadvantage to people referred to as “biologically inferior.” That is to say, banning marriage, getting a divorce and sterilization “for the prevention of progeny with hereditary defects” in cases of “congenital mental defects, schizophrenia, manic-depressive psychosis, hereditary epilepsy… and severe alcoholism.” was permitted by law. A mensa et thero and a private bill of divorce caused many problems(increase of cohabitation, single mothers, illegitimate child etc.) with spouses who want to get a divorce since it didn’t permit to remarry. An (a)eugenical point of view showed that it was necessary to admit getting a divorce for preventing them from passing on biologically inferior genes. Therefore the british eugenics Movement worked up to MAC 1937 (Matrimonial Causes Act 1937). Which deigned to grant a divorce because of cruelity, abandonment, congenital incurable mental disease besides adultery. While Britain focused on amendment divorce law, U.S. concentrated on sterilization law and marriage law. In U.S., between 1907 and 1937 thirty-two states required sterilization of various citizens viewed as undesirable. In the first half of the 20th century, more than 60,000 Americans-poor, uneducated, members of minorities-were forcibly sterilized to prevent them from passing on supposedly defective genes. And many states banned marriage of the mentally ill or handicapped, those convicted of sexual, drug, or alcohol crimes and others viewed as “degenerate”. With the end of World War I, German “scientific propagandists” (psychiatrists and anthropologists) were devastated by the democratic Weimar Republic and saw Hitler as someone who would recognize their ideas and give them prominence. Someone provides a detailed account of the alliance between Hitler and scientists by reporting on a number of interviews he conducted with the participants. The co-mingling of science, politics, and Weltanschauung (ideological or religious world view) caused the darkest period for eugenics when Nazi Germans embarked on their “final solution” to the Jewish question, or the Holocaust. The Nazi racial hygiene program began with involuntary sterilizations and ended with genocide. In the Early 20th, Britain, U.S. and German infringe on human rights of many disabled people under the name of ‘eugenical biopolitics’. They discriminated good genes from inferior ones put forward the claim that prevent them from passing on biologically inferior genes. For example, the Nazis sent about 70,000 disabled people, discounting them as “lives not worth living,” and millions of Jewish people to the gas chambers under the name of ‘ethnic(eugenical) cleansing.’ But it is not only a ‘crime against humanity,’ but a ‘crime against mankind.’A ‘crime against mankind’ is a crime against the human status, or human nature itself.

목차

Ⅰ. 들어가는

Ⅱ. 우생학적 생명정치

Ⅲ 영국의 우생학적 생명정치의 전개

IV. 미국의 우생학적 생명정치의 전개

Ⅴ. 맺음말(우리에게 시사하는 점)

키워드

우생학 생명정치 유전적 선택 이혼법 혼인법 단종법 인간의 존엄과 가치 Eugenics Biopolitics Hereditary Selection Matrimonial Causes Act Marriage Law Sterilization Law Human Dignity