Post-War Eugenics, Reproductive Choices and Population Policies in Greece, 1950s–1980s

211 Pages·2019·1.64 MB·English

by  Alexandra Barmpouti

Post-War Eugenics, Reproductive Choices
and Population Policies in Greece, 1950s–1980s
Alexandra Barmpouti
Post-War Eugenics,
Reproductive Choices
and Population
Policies in Greece,
1950s–1980s
Alexandra Barmpouti
Athens, Greece
ISBN 978-3-030-03567-9 ISBN 978-3-030-03568-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03568-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018968349
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P a
reface and cknowledgements
The purpose of this book is to identify and fill the gaps in the histori-
ography of post-war Greek eugenics. As will be explained in the intro-
ductory Chapter 1, historians were many times reluctant to undertake
such an attempt because on the one hand the name of eugenics became a
taboo after the revelation of Nazi crimes and on the other hand because
the bibliographical sources for the history of eugenics during the first
half of the twentieth century are much richer.
After completing my master thesis on the ethical considerations of
eugenics concerning modern reproductive technologies, I identified a
gap between the history of eugenics during the first half of the twen-
tieth century and the modern bioethics debates. It was very difficult to
find bibliographical sources concerning the history of eugenics between
the 1950s, when preoccupation with Nazi eugenics came to an end,
and the 1980s when arguments against the eugenic use of biotechnol-
ogy came to light in the context of bioethics. I was then motivated to do
research in this time frame.
I selected the geographical region of Greece because bibliography on
Greek eugenics at any period was scarce and because of the rare example
of the establishment of the Hellenic Eugenics Society in 1953.
I was fortunate to be the first to explore the Nikolaos Louros Papers
and Archive with the valuable help of Constantinos Trompoukis,
Associate Professor of History of Medicine at the Department of History
of Medicine at the University of Crete and President of N. Louros
Foundation and Mrs. Anna Manidaki, Scientific Assistant at the same
v
vi PREFACE AND ACkNOWLEDGEMENTS
department. When I started digging the treasure of this archive, I real-
ised that its information could not be found in published bibliography.
The most important element of knowledge was the untold history of the
collaboration among the Greek, British and American eugenicists which
is analysed in this book. Louros archive guided me to more archives; the
most crucial of all was that of Clarence Gamble. The outstanding result
of the comparative study of these archives was the fact that I could see
the whole picture of their correspondence because both sides kept the
letters they send to each other. To a great extent, the study of the corre-
spondence enlivens history and permits the reader to make a journey in
history and most importantly to evaluate the facts from both sides. An
additional advantage of researching Gamble’s archive was the fact that
he and his delegates in Greece wrote detailed reports on the situation in
the country regarding eugenics, contraception, sex education, the func-
tion of the Hellenic Eugenics Society, the activities of women’s clubs and
other important, unpublished information.
In this book, the archival material was combined with publications
of the period under consideration but also with more recent bibliogra-
phy on the history of eugenics, birth control, demography and modern
history.
In terms of bibliographical sources, the book is divided into three
main parts. The introductory Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 were mainly pro-
duced by the study of published books and articles but were also based
on legal texts. Chapters 3 and 4 almost exclusively relied on archival
material. Finally, Chapter 5 was constructed upon published books and
articles which refer to the Hellenic Eugenics Society’s activities and pub-
lications in combination with legal texts. Thus, the book offers a wide
spectrum of sources in order to provide the reader with a holistic view of
post-war eugenics.
As the title suggests, the book contains information and analysis of
post-war eugenics, issues of reproduction and population policies. I
tried to understand the mentality and attitudes of the Greek and foreign
eugenicists and the Greek women. The goal of this book is to demon-
strate the continuity of eugenics throughout the twentieth century.
Either in the USA, in Greece or in Japan, eugenicists tried to manip-
ulate the reproductive choices and manage the quality and quantity of
population.
PREFACE AND ACkNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
I am grateful to my former supervisor of my Ph.D. thesis at Oxford
Brookes University and beloved friend Marius Turda, whose comments
and moral support were invaluable. Moreover, I owe special thanks
to my family and friends for their encouragement during the writing
process of this book.
Athens, Greece Alexandra Barmpouti
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
2 Health and Hygiene, 1900–1950 21
3 The Hellenic Eugenics Society 45
4 The International Network 85
5 Eugenic Concerns 133
6 Conclusions 191
Index 203
ix
a
bbreviations
AES A merican Eugenics Society
AFGS A ssociation of Female Greek Scientists (Συνδεσμος
Ελληνίδων Επιστημόνων)
AMA A thens Medical Association (Ιατρικός Σύλλογος Αθηνών)
BES B ritish Eugenics Society
HES H ellenic Eugenics Society (Ελληνική Εταιρεία Ευγονικής)
ICPP I nternational Committee on Planned Parenthood
IPPF I nternational Planned Parenthood Federation
NCGW N ational Council of Greek Women (Εθνικό Συμβούλιο Ελληνίδων)
NUSE N ational Union of Sanitary Education (Εθνικός Σύνδεσμος
Υγιεινολογικής Διαπαιδαγωγήσεως)
PIkPA P atriotic Institution of Social Welfare and Awareness (Πατριωτικό
Ίδρυμα Κοινωνικής Πρόνοιας και Αντίληψης -ΠΙΚΠΑ)
UN United Nations
WHO W orld Health Organisation
xi
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Eugenics is often associated with Adolf Hitler’s dream of building a pure,
master race. Racial hygiene ideology (Rassenhygiene), which had been
developed in Germany since the early twentieth century and culminated
during the Nazi era, was grounded in racial classification. The Aryan
race to which the Germans belonged stood on the top of the scale.
Thus, their goal was to purify and strengthen their race by multiply-
ing its members while eliminating the presence of foreign races in the
German nation. Indeed, during the Nazi period, the forced reproduction
of ‘superior’ Aryans and the extermination of ‘inferiors’ became compul-
sory state policies resulting in hundreds of deaths of Jews, Gipsies, disa-
bled, or any other group of people alien or harmful to their racial growth
and purification (Weindling 1989; kühl 1994; Proctor 1998; Pichot
2000; kallis 2007).
Racism was also supported under other classification scales in Europe
and the USA during the same period, mostly expressed as biological rac-
ism. The fundamental element of biological racism was the belief that
race was initially constructed and should further be developed upon the
common biological past of a certain group of people. Therefore, race was
not always identified with a specific nation but its notion extended to
larger groups, such as the Nordic race, and at times to the entire human
race.1
Without denying the obvious relation between racism and eugenics,
it would not be accurate to identify them. Eugenics indeed embraces
© The Author(s) 2019 1
A. Barmpouti, Post-War Eugenics, Reproductive
Choices and Population Policies in Greece, 1950s–1980s,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03568-6_1