Both were early examples of eugenicists and population controllers. We look back in horror at their genocidal plans, but things are not all that different today. There are still plenty of folk pushing radical population control and eugenics policies.
And the motivations may not be all that different either. Pharaoh wanted to cull the growing Israelite population in Egypt: they were a threat to his rule and reign. Herod did not want to see another contender to the throne arise (the promised Messiah), so he took radical steps to ensure this would not occur.
Today the motivations may not be dissimilar. Sure, any such human cull proposals are always dressed up in fancy rhetoric and humanitarian-sounding aims. 'We must do something to save the planet' we are told. But that often translates into something rather like this: 'My Western lifestyle is cramped because there are too many of you (fill in the blank) around. My turf is being invaded by the swarming hordes, and I want them culled, so I can live a more comfortable life'.
A century ago the earlier eugenicists were much more forthright in their aims. They wanted 'inferior' races put down and only the 'superior' races preserved. Consider a number of quotes from the early promoters of eugenics (they all come from 1917-1920 issues of Birth Control Review:
"Birth control is the message of a new social philosophy dedicated primarily to the proposition of voluntary motherhood and racial betterment. By its advent a new epoch is dawning in the affairs of men. A new race shall arise, released from the dead weight of poverty, disease, almshouses, asylums, reformatories and prisons. It shall be a race more dynamic in its pro-social impulses, more keen and alert to digest ideas, a race arising from a finer mother- and father-hood, from firesides where children have been wanted and welcomed and reared in an environment of human tenderness and all that that implies." (William Sanger)
"What is the average family of English intellectuals? About two and one-half. Of French physicians? One and one-half. Of married imbeciles? Six, or seven or eight, depending on the country. . . . we need [birth control] voluntary or enforced, if necessary by celibacy or segregation, for the seriously defective. . . . Godspeed the day when the unwilling mother, with her weak, puny body, her sad, anaemic unlovely face, and her dependent whine, will be no more. In that day, we shall see a race of American thoroughbreds, if not the superman." (Anna E. Blount, M.D.)
"[Woman's] instincts are fundamentally creative, not destructive. But her sex-bondage has made the dumb instrument of the monster she detests. For centuries she has populated the earth in ignorance and without restraint, in vast numbers and with staggering rapidity. She has become not the mother of a nobler race, but a mere breeding machine grinding out a humanity which fills insane asylums, almshouses and sweat shops, and provides cannon fodder that tyrants may rise to power on the sacrifice of her offspring." (Margaret Sanger)
"A portion of infant and child mortality represents, no doubt, the lingering and wasteful removal from this world of beings with inherent defects, beings who for the most part ought never to have been born and need not have been born under conditions of greater foresight. The plain and simple truth is that [these children] are born needlessly. There are still far too many births for our civilization to look after adequately; we are still unfit to be trusted with a rising birth rate. Our civilization at present has neither the courage to kill them outright quickly, cleanly and painlessly, nor the heart and courage and ability to give them what they need." (H.G. Wells)
"The propagation of the unfit must be suppressed, and the accumulation of the debris which encumbers society must be prevented. Science has relieved us of famines and epidemics; science could rid us of the multiplication of degenerate types doomed to lives of wretchedness and incapacity. By what means? Malthus no doubt could show us the way." (Henry De Variguy)
"Efficiency is the cry of the day. Let us employ eugenics in its highest form for the efficiency of the human race. We'd thus alleviate the suffering of the mothers of our race from too frequent child-bearing, a subject which men (who make the laws) could hardly seriously consider or have any conception of. We'd thus diminish the number of cripples and unfit, which are a burden to all of us, to whose upkeep every citizen, either directly or indirectly, contributes. We'd thus have children which mother, with the mother instinct, desired and wished for, and to which both parents were able to give proper attention and to bring up properly." (Samuel Bernard)
"One general principle which I believe to be indisputable is that if natural selection is inhibited, if nature is not allowed to take her own way of eliminating her failures, artificial selection must take its place. Otherwise, nothing can prevent the race from reverting to an inferior type. The need is more urgent when, as in our country, the constitution of society favors the multiplication of the unfit and the elimination of the higher types. My point is that there is nothing inconsistent with Christianity in imposing, as well as enduring, personal sacrifice where the highest welfare of the community is at stake." (Rev. W.R. Inge)
There are plenty more such quotes which could be presented here. Suffice it to say, with doctors, academics, intellectuals and even religious leaders making these claims, no wonder the eugenics movement advanced so quickly and widely back then. Of course it was only the ultimate expression of eugenics (Hitler and his Final Solution) that really put a dent in all this.
But these population controllers and eugenicists have not gone away. Today their language has been toned down but they are still in the same business. The human-hating humanitarians are still very much with us. Let me focus on just one recent example.
One of the first things the new US President did was to lift the so-called "Mexico City Policy" which banned US foreign aid monies from going into organisations which perform or refer abortions. Now billions of dollars of US foreign aid funds may go to overseas abortion providers and "family planning" organizations that promote contraception and sterilization.
Lest readers are slow on the uptake here, let me remind them that the largest abortion provider in the world, Planned Parenthood International, was started by eugenicist Margaret Sanger, whom I quoted earlier. The monthly periodical Birth Control Review was created and edited by Sanger. So all the disgusting quotes I cited earlier were made by the same sorts of people who will now get heaps of American funding.
And Australia wants to follow suit. The Howard Government sided with the US Bush Government in banning such funding. But now the new Labor government is reconsidering its position on this. The Australian Greens, as expected, quickly came out calling for the restrictions to be lifted. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said, "Australia is now the only country that continues to enforce these draconian restrictions on our aid programs."
And with typical Green hyperbole and disingenuousness, she said, "34,000 mothers die in our region alone per year because of a lack of maternal health support. Australia's aid funding could be better used to reduce these alarming numbers. We need Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith to show compassion and to act now".
It appears that the Green idea of compassion is to promote the killing of babies. They may talk a lot about life but they actively support death, be it in the form of contraceptives, abortions or other anti-life policies.
National Senator Ron Boswell was clearly nearer the truth when he said that removing the ban would drain funding from such life-saving services as clean water, medicine and food: "Which services would we have to cut in order to provide abortion services? Medicine, a village well, food, birthing kits?"
Other examples could be mentioned. I recently wrote of the UK government advisor who advocated population control in the form of abortions to cut global warming. Other commentators were quick to pick up the ludicrous and totalitarian implications of all this.
Writing in yesterday's Australian, Frank Furedi made this observation: "Throughout history, different cultures have celebrated birth as a unique moment signifying the joy of life. The reinterpretation of birth as a form of greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour speaks to today's degraded imagination, where carbon-reduction becomes the supreme moral imperative. Once every newborn baby is dehumanised in this way, represented as a professional polluter who is a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions, it becomes increasingly difficult to feel anything other than apprehension about the growth of the human race."
His whole article is well worth reading. He concludes this way: "The idea that civilisation is responsible for the perils we face today assigns an undistinguished status to the human species. The most striking manifestation of the loathing for everything human can be seen in the idea that we need a significant reduction in the number of human beings. As Theodore Roszak wrote in the New Scientist in August 2002: 'There isn't a single ecological problem that won't be ameliorated by a smaller population.' Now we have Porritt [the UK advisor] demanding smaller families in order to save the planet. So maybe the solution is the extinction of the human race? The argument for limiting family sizes in Britain is the first hesitant step in that direction. "
History is replete with examples of rulers and elites engaging in eugenics and human population culls. It seems the lessons of history have not been learnt. Our "humanitarian" human-haters continue to promote their culture of death. The packaging may have been tidied up a bit, but the same hatred of humanity remains.
http://greens.org.au/node/5002
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25004486-11949,00.html