Seventy years ago, eugenics promised to cure America's social problems through better breeding. Today, mental-health crusaders promise to eliminate behavioral problems among America's children by screening every schoolchild for mental illness and then putting millions of them on psychoactive drugs. Like the eugenics crusade, the current push to dramatically increase the number of children on psychoactive drugs reduces all behavioral problems to a material basis. And like the eugenics crusade, it is accompanied by grandiose claims that go far beyond the actual science. Like the eugenics crusade, it is justified in humanitarian terms even while it raises serious issues about civil liberties and human dignity. How many children will be hurt before this latest crusade runs out of steam?
John G. West, "Darwin Day in America: How our politics and culture have been dehumanized in the name of science," p.364-365
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