1
00:00:05,080 --> 00:00:07,800
'Should some of us be stopped
from having children?'

2
00:00:12,040 --> 00:00:17,000
'Eugenics is the controversial idea
that we can improve the quality

3
00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:22,920
'of the human race by selecting
who can and who can't reproduce.'

4
00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:25,960
NEWSREEL: It would have been better
by far for them

5
00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:29,200
and for the rest of the community
if they had never been born.

6
00:00:31,560 --> 00:00:36,360
For more than a century, eugenics
led innocent people, the disabled,

7
00:00:36,360 --> 00:00:41,120
the poor, the non-white,
to be segregated, even sterilised,

8
00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:43,560
in the name of science.

9
00:00:43,560 --> 00:00:46,800
It was a formative influence
on Adolf Hitler

10
00:00:46,800 --> 00:00:49,840
and a driving force
of the Nazi death camps.

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00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:57,160
We think it has nothing to do
with us but in this series

12
00:00:57,160 --> 00:01:01,520
we'll find out how eugenics was,
in fact, invented and promoted

13
00:01:01,520 --> 00:01:04,360
within the British establishment.

14
00:01:04,360 --> 00:01:06,800
My goodness.

15
00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:08,160
British.

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00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:09,760
British idea.

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00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:11,240
We invented it.

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00:01:11,240 --> 00:01:13,960
The greatest horrors
of the 20th century.

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00:01:13,960 --> 00:01:16,840
The ideological roots
are partly right here in London

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00:01:16,840 --> 00:01:18,280
near where I live.

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00:01:20,120 --> 00:01:24,280
I'm Angela Saini, an author
and a science journalist.

22
00:01:24,280 --> 00:01:28,560
I'll be investigating the British
scientists who came up with eugenics

23
00:01:28,560 --> 00:01:31,800
and asking why it became popular.

24
00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:36,480
I'll explore how this flawed
idea managed to affect

25
00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:40,400
town planning, our education system,
immigration laws,

26
00:01:40,400 --> 00:01:42,840
even attitudes to birth control.

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00:01:44,960 --> 00:01:48,280
Pop one of those over your cervix,
you are literally promoting

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00:01:48,280 --> 00:01:49,560
the strength of the race.

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00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:52,000
It's off-putting as well.

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00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:59,360
I'm Adam Pearson, a reporter
and disability rights activist.

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00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:02,000
I was born with a genetic condition.

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00:02:03,120 --> 00:02:06,720
I'll find out how eugenicists
ruin people's lives.

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00:02:08,560 --> 00:02:10,520
He was also known as a rat catcher.

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00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:14,120
He'd go looking for people
that were different.

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00:02:14,120 --> 00:02:17,040
She was treated brutally.

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00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:22,360
I want to know, are we about
to enter a new age of eugenics

37
00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:27,360
as medical breakthroughs give us
the power to manipulate our own DNA?

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00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:34,200
There's no doubt genetic science
will bring countless benefits.

39
00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:37,920
But what does it mean for
the disabled

40
00:02:37,920 --> 00:02:39,520
or anyone not considered perfect?

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00:02:42,120 --> 00:02:45,360
If you're telling me that the world
without me is a better world,

42
00:02:45,360 --> 00:02:47,360
what does that say about me?

43
00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:49,880
That's eugenics, isn't it? Exactly.

44
00:02:51,160 --> 00:02:55,600
What will the next wave of science
bring and what must we do to avoid

45
00:02:55,600 --> 00:02:58,720
repeating the terrible mistakes
of the past?

46
00:03:00,880 --> 00:03:04,720
Philosophically, it's a minefield.

47
00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:06,720
Complete minefield.

48
00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:20,680
Bloomsbury in central London.

49
00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:22,440
In the 19th century

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00:03:22,440 --> 00:03:25,560
this was the intellectual heart
of Britain,

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00:03:25,560 --> 00:03:28,680
home to famous
scientists and writers.

52
00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:31,560
But I'm here to investigate
the darker side

53
00:03:31,560 --> 00:03:33,680
of this illustrious past.

54
00:03:35,680 --> 00:03:38,960
What I really want to do is
understand the connection

55
00:03:38,960 --> 00:03:43,800
between this place, London
and Britain, and the history

56
00:03:43,800 --> 00:03:45,400
of this terrible idea.

57
00:03:47,160 --> 00:03:51,840
But this is the kind of thing
I really want to dig deeper into.

58
00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:54,720
You know, where do these ideas
come from?

59
00:03:57,640 --> 00:04:02,480
Eugenics begins with Charles
Darwin's theory of evolution.

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00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:06,880
Although he had no idea
how it would go on to be abused,

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00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:08,960
the implications were there,

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00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:12,280
embodied in a creature familiar
to us all.

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00:04:17,680 --> 00:04:20,280
These are known as 'fancy pigeons',

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00:04:20,280 --> 00:04:24,360
bred by author and illustrator
Katrina Van Grouw.

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00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:27,160
As you can see, there are lots of
different pigeons of all different

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00:04:27,160 --> 00:04:29,640
colours and patterns in here.

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00:04:29,640 --> 00:04:32,160
There are white ones
and what we call 'checker'.

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00:04:32,160 --> 00:04:36,560
There are red ones, black ones,
all different colours of pigeons.

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00:04:36,560 --> 00:04:39,600
Charles Darwin would have felt
at home here.

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00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:43,440
Like Katrina, he was an enthusiastic
pigeon breeder.

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00:04:45,880 --> 00:04:49,880
By carefully picking out
the breeding partner for each bird,

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00:04:49,880 --> 00:04:54,840
Darwin learned how characteristics
are passed on through generations.

73
00:05:01,840 --> 00:05:04,880
Your house is absolutely
chock-full of skeletons

74
00:05:04,880 --> 00:05:08,040
like these, and these beautiful
drawings that you've done.

75
00:05:08,040 --> 00:05:09,120
Thank you.

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00:05:09,120 --> 00:05:13,280
We're joined by science
historian Greg Radick.

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00:05:13,280 --> 00:05:17,040
This shows beautifully, exactly
what Darwin was getting at.

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00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:20,440
He wanted to document, this is the
whole point of his pigeon studies,

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00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:25,320
how variable even one species,
even one breed

80
00:05:25,320 --> 00:05:28,960
within a species is, and your
picture captures that and that's

81
00:05:28,960 --> 00:05:30,680
so important for Darwin.

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00:05:34,760 --> 00:05:38,680
Darwin published his Theory Of
Evolution By Natural Selection

83
00:05:38,680 --> 00:05:40,400
in 1859.

84
00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:46,800
Soon after, one scientist wondered
what artificial breeding

85
00:05:46,800 --> 00:05:49,200
might mean for humans.

86
00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:54,120
He was Francis Galton,
Darwin's cousin.

87
00:05:55,880 --> 00:05:58,600
Galton reads the book
and gets excited

88
00:05:58,600 --> 00:06:01,480
because those qualities
are inherited.

89
00:06:01,480 --> 00:06:06,400
Galton thinks if we can do
that to dogs and pigeons and horses,

90
00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:08,720
what could we do to ourselves?

91
00:06:08,720 --> 00:06:13,040
Imagine if we gave a 20th
of the attention to improving

92
00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:17,880
ourselves as a species as we give
to our dogs and our cattle.

93
00:06:17,880 --> 00:06:21,280
What a galaxy of genius
we might create.

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00:06:21,280 --> 00:06:27,400
Galton coined the word "eugenics",
meaning "well-born".

95
00:06:27,400 --> 00:06:30,080
Right. So that is the start of
eugenics, then.

96
00:06:30,080 --> 00:06:33,040
That is the point at
which people start to think

97
00:06:33,040 --> 00:06:35,840
that artificial breeding of the kind
that you do with pigeons

98
00:06:35,840 --> 00:06:37,840
perhaps could be applied to people.

99
00:06:37,840 --> 00:06:41,120
That we could do the same to
ourselves? Yes, absolutely.

100
00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:53,800
Following Francis Galton's
trail leads me

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00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:55,880
to University College London.

102
00:06:59,680 --> 00:07:04,320
Curator Subhadra Das looks
after Galton's personal archive.

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00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:13,400
Subhadra, what is the
connection between Galton and UCL

104
00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:16,240
where we are now?
That's a very good question.

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00:07:16,240 --> 00:07:17,800
He was never a professor here.

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00:07:17,800 --> 00:07:22,080
He never taught, but there is
an important legacy that he left

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00:07:22,080 --> 00:07:26,360
behind to this university,
which was money for a professorship

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00:07:26,360 --> 00:07:28,360
for Britain's,
and possibly the world's,

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00:07:28,360 --> 00:07:30,000
first-ever chair of eugenics.

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00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:32,880
So, tell me more about Galton.
Who was he?

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00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:35,600
Galton is probably the most
important Victorian scientist

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00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:37,080
no-one has ever heard of.

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00:07:37,080 --> 00:07:40,560
He contributed to many different
subjects, things like crime science,

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00:07:40,560 --> 00:07:42,320
things like meteorology.

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00:07:42,320 --> 00:07:44,000
He was an African explorer.

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00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:47,080
He did all of these different
things, but his particular genius

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00:07:47,080 --> 00:07:50,480
was statistics, and what he wanted
to do was to understand

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00:07:50,480 --> 00:07:52,160
the mechanism of heredity -

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00:07:52,160 --> 00:07:55,040
how were traits passed from parents
to their children?

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00:07:58,800 --> 00:08:03,920
'Deep inside the archive are objects
belonging to the eugenics department

121
00:08:03,920 --> 00:08:06,360
'that Galton helped to found here

122
00:08:06,360 --> 00:08:08,120
'more than a century ago.

123
00:08:09,760 --> 00:08:14,480
'Among them are a few unusual items
invented by Galton himself.'

124
00:08:14,480 --> 00:08:17,160
I have a little box of tricks.

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00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:19,160
OK, so this...

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00:08:20,600 --> 00:08:23,160
So one of these is, they
look like gardening gloves.

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00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:25,440
They do look like gardening gloves.
They are gloves.

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00:08:25,440 --> 00:08:28,280
Left hand glove has been modified
so there is a piece of felt,

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00:08:28,280 --> 00:08:32,960
like a little felt pocket,
across the top two fingers there.

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00:08:32,960 --> 00:08:35,360
And we can take out a little
piece of paper in there.

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00:08:35,360 --> 00:08:37,200
Yep. Oh, my goodness.

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00:08:37,200 --> 00:08:40,200
And then the other modification
is, if you look in the thumb,

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00:08:40,200 --> 00:08:42,600
can you see what's
coming out the thumb there?

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00:08:42,600 --> 00:08:46,720
There's a needle. And the
needle, a sharp end of a needle.

135
00:08:46,720 --> 00:08:49,320
So what was he doing, then,
with that needle?

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00:08:49,320 --> 00:08:53,800
They are Galton's counting gloves
and what they are is simultaneously

137
00:08:53,800 --> 00:08:56,600
a covert counting
and rating device.

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00:08:56,600 --> 00:08:58,680
A secret way of measuring something?

139
00:08:58,680 --> 00:09:01,680
Exactly. The way that it would work,
if I could demonstrate to you,

140
00:09:01,680 --> 00:09:02,960
is like this.

141
00:09:02,960 --> 00:09:05,560
So, at this moment in time I am
counting... You're measuring.

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00:09:05,560 --> 00:09:07,360
Yeah. You can't even tell.

143
00:09:07,360 --> 00:09:09,560
That's so creepy. It is, isn't it?

144
00:09:09,560 --> 00:09:12,200
But what was he measuring?
Gets creepier.

145
00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:16,480
So what he was measuring
was the relative attractiveness

146
00:09:16,480 --> 00:09:19,560
of women in different metropolitan
centres in Britain.

147
00:09:19,560 --> 00:09:21,960
So every time a woman walks
by he's making a hole in the piece

148
00:09:21,960 --> 00:09:25,840
of paper and where he makes
the hole is his judgment

149
00:09:25,840 --> 00:09:28,440
of her attractiveness.
It's just bizarre!

150
00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:31,920
You can just imagine him kind
of standing on a street corner,

151
00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:34,520
this creepy old man with his hands
in his pocket...

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00:09:34,520 --> 00:09:37,200
Watching the girls go by.
..watching the girls go by.

153
00:09:37,200 --> 00:09:40,720
Why did he think this was of any
use, scientific use, at all?

154
00:09:40,720 --> 00:09:45,040
Well, so in terms of the eugenic
state, the best babies come

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00:09:45,040 --> 00:09:49,160
from intelligent mothers
and Galton equated

156
00:09:49,160 --> 00:09:51,000
intelligence with attractiveness.

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00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:53,920
If this project is going
to be carried out nationally

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00:09:53,920 --> 00:09:56,280
you need to know where the best
incubators are. And then

159
00:09:56,280 --> 00:09:59,760
from that, you take these people
with the beneficial traits and get

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00:09:59,760 --> 00:10:01,240
them to breed. Absolutely.

161
00:10:01,240 --> 00:10:05,040
He wanted to increase
the quality of the race

162
00:10:05,040 --> 00:10:06,960
because his concern
was degeneration.

163
00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:10,360
There's growing urbanisation,
there's growing industrialisation,

164
00:10:10,360 --> 00:10:13,920
there's a growing underclass of
urban poor which he sees

165
00:10:13,920 --> 00:10:18,400
as completely criminal, and so he's
concerned that those type of people

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00:10:18,400 --> 00:10:22,000
are going to now start outnumbering
HIS kind of people.

167
00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:24,720
So the only way to win
is to win the breeding game.

168
00:10:27,960 --> 00:10:32,200
Galton set up a laboratory
to measure the physical differences

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00:10:32,200 --> 00:10:34,240
between thousands of people.

170
00:10:38,040 --> 00:10:42,600
To do this, he analysed vast
swathes of data.

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00:10:45,600 --> 00:10:49,440
In the process he helped invent
modern statistics,

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00:10:49,440 --> 00:10:52,760
including key
concepts like standard deviation

173
00:10:52,760 --> 00:10:54,760
and regression to the mean.

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00:10:56,960 --> 00:11:00,520
Eugenics is a discredited
science but the basic ideas

175
00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:03,280
that are inherent in it,
we've kept the statistics.

176
00:11:12,240 --> 00:11:16,640
Scientists may not go around
drawing beauty maps any more,

177
00:11:16,640 --> 00:11:19,720
but the idea that the way
you look might somehow

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00:11:19,720 --> 00:11:22,920
determine your worth,
is still alive and well.

179
00:11:28,200 --> 00:11:33,000
There is a great deal of stigma
that comes with disability

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00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:34,880
and disfigurement.

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00:11:34,880 --> 00:11:38,280
For example, I've been assaulted,

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00:11:38,280 --> 00:11:40,880
I'm getting
yelled at in the street.

183
00:11:40,880 --> 00:11:43,480
Things like "Quasimodo",
"The Elephant Man"

184
00:11:43,480 --> 00:11:46,520
"Spastic", "Big Head", "Freak".

185
00:11:46,520 --> 00:11:48,800
Camera phones coming out.

186
00:11:51,520 --> 00:11:55,840
If you have a disability, you are
somehow less human, or subhuman.

187
00:11:57,080 --> 00:12:00,600
If I'd lived a hundred years ago
when eugenics was new,

188
00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:03,920
when eugenics
was kind of the iPad of its time,

189
00:12:03,920 --> 00:12:06,680
how would my life have turned out?

190
00:12:13,640 --> 00:12:17,440
To understand this, I'm
investigating the way Galton thought

191
00:12:17,440 --> 00:12:21,080
looks could be used to identify
the right sort of people,

192
00:12:21,080 --> 00:12:23,680
those who should breed,
and the wrong sort of people,

193
00:12:23,680 --> 00:12:26,080
those who should not.

194
00:12:27,160 --> 00:12:32,080
In the 1880s, he visited the famous
mental asylum Bethlem, to take

195
00:12:32,080 --> 00:12:34,080
photographs of the inmates.

196
00:12:36,120 --> 00:12:39,720
I'm with disability historian
Richard Rieser.

197
00:12:39,720 --> 00:12:43,360
So, a lot of Galton's
research is based on the fact

198
00:12:43,360 --> 00:12:46,920
that someone could literally look
like an idiot,

199
00:12:46,920 --> 00:12:49,520
like if their head was
a certain measurement,

200
00:12:49,520 --> 00:12:52,800
or if the statistics and data
pointed a certain way

201
00:12:52,800 --> 00:12:55,000
that they'd be deemed incapable.

202
00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:57,040
Is that correct?

203
00:12:57,040 --> 00:12:58,280
Yes.

204
00:12:58,280 --> 00:13:01,960
Well, that was his hypothesis,
and he then sought to prove

205
00:13:01,960 --> 00:13:05,320
that by taking pictures,
measurements, to try and prove

206
00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:08,480
that this was a distinct
group in the population.

207
00:13:08,480 --> 00:13:10,320
And so, for instance,
this first woman

208
00:13:10,320 --> 00:13:12,000
with a very sullen expression,

209
00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:14,120
she's staring
vacantly at the camera,

210
00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:18,000
she isn't really looking
after how she looks and he's trying

211
00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:21,880
to say from this, you can deduce
that this is someone

212
00:13:21,880 --> 00:13:23,880
with mental deficiency.

213
00:13:23,880 --> 00:13:26,360
This young man,
the same sort of thing.

214
00:13:26,360 --> 00:13:29,360
But if you look at prison mugshots
you would get the same thing

215
00:13:29,360 --> 00:13:32,760
and that doesn't mean that all
those people are mentally deficient.

216
00:13:32,760 --> 00:13:35,040
It means that people are
in a situation they don't want

217
00:13:35,040 --> 00:13:38,400
to be in and are being forced
to have their picture taken.

218
00:13:38,400 --> 00:13:40,440
And his mission was
to try and establish

219
00:13:40,440 --> 00:13:44,240
that there was this different
subspecies of human beings,

220
00:13:44,240 --> 00:13:45,920
the mentally defective.

221
00:13:49,960 --> 00:13:52,440
ANGELA: This was not good science.

222
00:13:52,440 --> 00:13:53,840
We know that now.

223
00:13:55,560 --> 00:14:00,040
But despite its many flaws, Galton
and his colleagues succeeded

224
00:14:00,040 --> 00:14:03,520
in establishing eugenics
as a serious subject.

225
00:14:07,200 --> 00:14:10,480
At UCL he helped fund
what would become

226
00:14:10,480 --> 00:14:15,120
the Francis Galton Laboratory
For National Eugenics.

227
00:14:20,200 --> 00:14:24,120
Researchers here weren't
just occupied with disabled people

228
00:14:24,120 --> 00:14:26,640
and the so-called
mentally deficient.

229
00:14:26,640 --> 00:14:30,840
They also turned their eyes
to people of other races.

230
00:14:32,640 --> 00:14:36,640
In the early 1900s, we begin to see
disturbing links

231
00:14:36,640 --> 00:14:42,360
between British researchers at UCL
and race scientists in Germany.

232
00:14:46,840 --> 00:14:49,880
Subhadra, that is just the
creepiest thing I've ever seen.

233
00:14:49,880 --> 00:14:52,680
So these are glass eyes?
These are glass eyes.

234
00:14:52,680 --> 00:14:54,840
But why was this important
to understand that people

235
00:14:54,840 --> 00:14:57,360
have different eye colours and why?
What does it matter?

236
00:14:57,360 --> 00:14:59,440
Well, because it's associated
with racial types.

237
00:14:59,440 --> 00:15:01,160
So this

238
00:15:01,160 --> 00:15:04,040
is very similar to the eye gauge
that we were just looking at,

239
00:15:04,040 --> 00:15:06,080
but this time it's with hair.

240
00:15:06,080 --> 00:15:08,040
So you'll see it says, "hair
colour gauge,

241
00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:10,120
Professor Doctor Eugen Fischer."

242
00:15:10,120 --> 00:15:12,520
So this is an object
of Fischer's design,

243
00:15:12,520 --> 00:15:15,200
and as you can see, there's
different hair colours represented.

244
00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:19,120
So I would be somewhere here, 20...
Well, both of us would. Yeah, 27.

245
00:15:19,120 --> 00:15:20,560
Exactly.

246
00:15:20,560 --> 00:15:24,120
And this device is specifically
designed to measure the relative

247
00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:26,560
whiteness of mixed heritage people.

248
00:15:26,560 --> 00:15:29,200
And he is measuring
the relative whiteness of people

249
00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:33,440
who are the children of European
soldiers and native African women.

250
00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:36,600
This object has a sinister history.

251
00:15:36,600 --> 00:15:41,360
It was used in the early 1900s
as German Imperial forces quashed

252
00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:45,200
an uprising in their colonies
in southwest Africa,

253
00:15:45,200 --> 00:15:49,920
murdering as many as 80,000 people
in the first genocide

254
00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:51,920
of the 20th century.

255
00:15:51,920 --> 00:15:56,640
The designer of the hair gauge,
Eugen Fischer, experimented

256
00:15:56,640 --> 00:16:01,040
on prisoners, injecting them
with tuberculosis and smallpox

257
00:16:01,040 --> 00:16:03,800
and measuring decapitated skulls.

258
00:16:07,120 --> 00:16:11,880
Fischer wrote books condemning
racial mixing and justifying

259
00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:13,920
white racial superiority.

260
00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:19,800
His work would directly influence
Hitler and Nazi policy.

261
00:16:22,200 --> 00:16:27,360
And just two years after the end
of the genocide in southwest Africa,

262
00:16:27,360 --> 00:16:31,600
the Fischer hair gauge ended
up here at UCL

263
00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:35,000
to be used by this man.

264
00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:39,920
Professor Karl Pearson was Galton's
protege and the first chair

265
00:16:39,920 --> 00:16:43,240
of National Eugenics
after Galton died.

266
00:16:47,640 --> 00:16:50,480
Professor Gavin Schaffer,
a historian,

267
00:16:50,480 --> 00:16:53,560
has looked at the
research that Pearson carried out

268
00:16:53,560 --> 00:16:54,920
in London's East End

269
00:16:54,920 --> 00:16:57,960
to build his theories
of racial difference.

270
00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:02,200
Gavin has a personal connection
to this.

271
00:17:04,680 --> 00:17:07,320
My great grandparents would
have lived in this neighbourhood.

272
00:17:07,320 --> 00:17:11,120
They, in fact, did just live up
the road and I am part of the...

273
00:17:11,120 --> 00:17:13,080
well, like so many of us are,

274
00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:16,160
I am part of the story
that you're telling.

275
00:17:18,200 --> 00:17:21,120
The Jews' Free School
in the East End

276
00:17:21,120 --> 00:17:23,560
was among the places Pearson
visited.

277
00:17:23,560 --> 00:17:27,240
He wanted to carry out
physical and mental tests

278
00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:29,440
on the children of immigrants.

279
00:17:30,960 --> 00:17:35,920
His work ended up in a report
that was full of racial stereotypes.

280
00:17:37,560 --> 00:17:42,240
"Taken on the average, this alien
Jewish population is somewhat

281
00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:46,680
"inferior, physically and mentally
to the native population.

282
00:17:46,680 --> 00:17:50,080
"They will develop
into a parasitic race."

283
00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:56,280
Pearson's claim was that
the British race was degenerating.

284
00:17:56,280 --> 00:18:00,960
The eugenics solution was
to stop Jewish immigration.

285
00:18:00,960 --> 00:18:04,880
The argument that he's trying
to make is if it can be showed

286
00:18:04,880 --> 00:18:09,560
that this immigrant population
is weaker, worse than the general

287
00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:12,720
population, then there is a case
for not allowing more of them

288
00:18:12,720 --> 00:18:14,880
to come to Britain.

289
00:18:14,880 --> 00:18:19,400
Pressure from eugenicists
like Pearson hit their mark.

290
00:18:19,400 --> 00:18:23,880
Laws passed before and after
the time of the First World War

291
00:18:23,880 --> 00:18:27,680
placed tougher restrictions
on immigration.

292
00:18:27,680 --> 00:18:32,320
The work of eugenicists feeds
into social thinking as politicians

293
00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:37,800
are deciding to restrict immigration
to stop poor immigrants coming

294
00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:40,320
from Eastern Europe,
if they possibly can.

295
00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:44,640
Their ideas are shaped by social
Darwinist, eugenical thinking

296
00:18:44,640 --> 00:18:47,440
on racial superiority
and inferiority.

297
00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:51,960
So today, do you think we still live
with a legacy of those ideas?

298
00:18:51,960 --> 00:18:55,080
I mean, do we still think
in these terms now?

299
00:18:55,080 --> 00:19:00,600
Immigrant communities, refugee
communities, continue to face

300
00:19:00,600 --> 00:19:02,720
hostility, to be targeted
by legislation

301
00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:04,280
that tries to keep them out.

302
00:19:04,280 --> 00:19:07,560
We still want to keep a fence
around our nation.

303
00:19:07,560 --> 00:19:09,800
And whilst I don't think
it would be fair to say

304
00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:13,520
that the principles keeping
up that fence are now eugenical,

305
00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:15,480
it probably doesn't feel
that different

306
00:19:15,480 --> 00:19:17,440
when you're on the wrong end of it.

307
00:19:17,440 --> 00:19:21,920
Nowadays, we live in a climate
where we generally understand

308
00:19:21,920 --> 00:19:26,240
that racism is wrong, but I think
we still are attached to ideas

309
00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:29,480
that between our different
ethnicities, there are solid,

310
00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:33,560
firm, maybe even natural differences
and it would be silly not to see

311
00:19:33,560 --> 00:19:37,000
that there is a line from those
ideas that we still hold, all the

312
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:39,160
way back to the eugenics movement.

313
00:19:47,760 --> 00:19:51,960
ADAM: In the years leading up to the
First World War these eugenic fears

314
00:19:51,960 --> 00:19:55,960
that the British race was getting
weaker alarmed senior politicians,

315
00:19:55,960 --> 00:19:58,560
both Liberal and Conservative.

316
00:20:02,400 --> 00:20:06,840
Winston Churchill, who became
Home Secretary in 1910,

317
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:09,720
was an influential advocate
of eugenics.

318
00:20:14,200 --> 00:20:18,520
"The unnatural and increasingly
rapid growth of the feeble-minded

319
00:20:18,520 --> 00:20:23,600
"and insane classes, coupled as
it is with a steady restriction

320
00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:27,600
"among all the thrifty, energetic
and superior stocks, constitutes

321
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:33,120
"a national and race danger which it
is impossible to exaggerate."

322
00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:41,560
The growing intellectual enthusiasm
for eugenics was captured

323
00:20:41,560 --> 00:20:46,200
in this film, presented by leading
British biologist Julian Huxley.

324
00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:50,600
NARRATION: Here is a man who,
although normal, comes from

325
00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:52,440
a mentally defective family.

326
00:20:52,440 --> 00:20:55,720
Here is
his wife who is also normal,

327
00:20:55,720 --> 00:21:00,440
who had 17 children. Seven children
are all mental defectives.

328
00:21:02,120 --> 00:21:05,680
How has this disastrous
state of affairs come about?

329
00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:08,320
If we examine the pedigree
of this family

330
00:21:08,320 --> 00:21:12,880
we find that although the father and
mother of the youngest generation

331
00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:15,720
are both normal,
the father's brother was insane.

332
00:21:15,720 --> 00:21:18,160
We thus see how mental
deficiency has passed

333
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:20,200
from one generation to another.

334
00:21:20,200 --> 00:21:22,960
But it would have been better
by far, for them

335
00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:26,080
and for the rest of the community,
if they had never been born.

336
00:21:26,080 --> 00:21:27,080
OMINOUS MUSIC

337
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:31,440
British eugenicists campaigned
hard to ensure

338
00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:34,800
that so-called "feeble-minded"
families were removed

339
00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:36,800
from the national gene pool.

340
00:21:38,720 --> 00:21:42,200
The result was the Mental
Deficiency Act of 1913.

341
00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:47,280
Thanks to opposition from
the Catholic Church and some MPs,

342
00:21:47,280 --> 00:21:52,440
it stopped short of an official
sterilisation programme.

343
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:55,520
Instead, dozens of colonies
of what they called

344
00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:58,280
the "mentally deficient",
were set up.

345
00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:03,400
NARRATION: In institutions such as
this all over the country,

346
00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:06,040
mental defectives are cared for.

347
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:09,440
These are children who
are helpless in every way

348
00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:11,480
and need constant attention.

349
00:22:13,640 --> 00:22:17,560
At the height of the operation
of the Act, up to 65,000 people

350
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:19,560
were kept in these colonies.

351
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:24,120
So, the whole thing was geared

352
00:22:24,120 --> 00:22:26,600
so there wouldn't be
any sexual liaisons.

353
00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:29,040
Of course they found a way
of getting together,

354
00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:32,360
but then the doctors in charge
of the place would make sure

355
00:22:32,360 --> 00:22:35,160
that they didn't have the baby
through abortion

356
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:36,920
and then they would sterilise them.

357
00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:39,000
And this was all unlawful,
but it happened.

358
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:45,520
I wanted to know more about how
people were chosen to be locked up

359
00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:48,200
and what it meant for them.

360
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:51,120
And what's this? Who's Mabel Cooper?

361
00:22:51,120 --> 00:22:55,000
Well, Mabel Cooper was at one
of these hospitals, St Lawrence's,

362
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:58,800
and she was picked up in Islington
because it was deemed her mother

363
00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:02,600
couldn't look after her and she was
then assessed a number of times.

364
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:07,040
Here we have a case paper
of her mental deficiency.

365
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:09,120
We have a Doctor Casey saying,

366
00:23:09,120 --> 00:23:13,240
"This is an imbecile girl of 13
whose intelligence is not superior

367
00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:15,640
"to that of an average
seven-year-old,

368
00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:18,040
"incapable of telling the time."

369
00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:20,040
And then the second doctor says,

370
00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:22,280
"She can read only a few two and
three-letter words,

371
00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:25,400
"hesitant guessing manner.

372
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,000
"She says sixpence and twopence
is threepence."

373
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:29,640
So that was the test.

374
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:34,200
I find this whole concept
quite malicious and terrifying

375
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:39,160
in that Mabel
herself was never considered.

376
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:41,520
And her removal from society

377
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:46,040
was more to benefit society
than to safeguard her. Absolutely.

378
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:49,800
It was a shocking life
for these people, really.

379
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:56,000
I find it upsetting to hear
that a cursory examination

380
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:59,440
by two doctors could have a child
like Mabel Cooper

381
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:01,920
locked up, sometimes for decades.

382
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:07,920
The fact it was very much
a state-mandated thing

383
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:11,080
is completely terrifying.

384
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:14,760
Erm, you know, there is still
an undertone of that

385
00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:16,720
but it's not written in law,

386
00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:20,360
it's more put out
on Twitter by idiots now.

387
00:24:20,360 --> 00:24:24,720
It was very much a well-respected,
well-thought-through science,

388
00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:27,280
but really high profile
people

389
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:30,440
like, even Churchill
was a eugenicist.

390
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:34,440
They don't mention
that in the films and the books,

391
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:36,920
but very much a eugenicist.

392
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:46,080
ANGELA: Lost in the haze of the
eugenic dream are ordinary people,

393
00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:50,480
women, men, and children like Mabel.

394
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:56,120
The question for me is how could
individual lives be so easily

395
00:24:56,120 --> 00:24:59,200
sacrificed for a scientific idea?

396
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:03,560
An idea that continues to shape
how we live today.

397
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:09,520
At the Wellcome Trust in London,
Dr Bonnie Evans takes me

398
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:12,840
through the writings of
a child psychologist

399
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:16,200
whose job was to measure
children's intelligence

400
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:19,160
to help implement
the Mental Deficiency Act.

401
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:23,600
Cyril Burt is a psychologist.

402
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:26,720
He's the first official
psychologist appointed

403
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:29,240
to the London County Council in 1913

404
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:32,480
and he was an incredibly
powerful person.

405
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:40,000
Burt came up with his own tests
to assess a child's mental capacity.

406
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:43,120
Today, we would call this
an IQ test.

407
00:25:43,120 --> 00:25:45,320
This one is comparing lines,

408
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:50,120
looking at which line is the longest
or the shortest.

409
00:25:50,120 --> 00:25:53,360
These ones are
to do with comparing faces,

410
00:25:53,360 --> 00:25:55,400
so children will be asked

411
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:59,280
to look at the differences
in the facial features.

412
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:03,080
A child who failed could be sent
to an institution.

413
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:05,200
As a eugenicist,

414
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:09,720
Cyril Burt was convinced that
intelligence was mostly inherited.

415
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:14,040
To him, a child he considered
to be mentally feeble

416
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:16,200
probably couldn't be helped.

417
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:21,200
In 1933 he becomes professor of UCL,

418
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:26,000
at UCL, and he works very closely
with government

419
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:29,760
on many consultative
committees on education.

420
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:35,880
When, after the war, new moves
are made to extend education

421
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:40,000
and to make secondary education
available to all,

422
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:45,400
Burt's ideas of classifying
and dividing at age 11 are used.

423
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:56,000
Under the 11 Plus system, every
pupil took an exam, and based

424
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,040
on their results, they'd be sent
to a grammar school,

425
00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:03,120
a secondary modern
or a technical college.

426
00:27:03,120 --> 00:27:07,520
The system was largely
phased out by 1977.

427
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:12,760
But even so, many selective schools
across the country

428
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:16,280
still use a form of 11 Plus today.

429
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:20,760
Right, so Burt's ideas are what led
to the system

430
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,600
that many parts of
the country still live with now.

431
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:27,320
Yeah, yeah, and you know, the
obsession with testing individuals

432
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:28,680
as well, you know,

433
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:32,320
that was something that, Burt was
the originator of...

434
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:35,080
The legacy of these people
is still alive,

435
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:37,560
that we live
with it and it's affecting us.

436
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:40,440
It's affected me in the tests
that I've took when I was growing up

437
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:43,160
and it will affect my children.
Yeah. That's right.

438
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:46,080
So yeah, children are still
being tested in this way.

439
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:51,400
I found it incredibly
disturbing and sad

440
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:54,280
listening to what Bonnie had to say.

441
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:57,280
What hurts the most is knowing
that we still live with these ideas

442
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:01,120
now, through the selective
education system.

443
00:28:01,120 --> 00:28:03,800
We're still trying
to grapple with

444
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:06,200
this incredibly

445
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:10,360
ethically fraught idea of how do
we give kids

446
00:28:10,360 --> 00:28:12,960
the best possible start in life

447
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:15,600
and so many mistakes have
been made

448
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,440
in the process
of figuring this out.

449
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:30,840
During the inter-war period,
a time of technological optimism,

450
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:35,320
many believed eugenics offered
a rational, scientific answer

451
00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:37,080
to social problems.

452
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:44,360
Even some of the most progressive
members of society,

453
00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:46,560
people I think of as heroes,

454
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:50,560
imagined that eugenics
might make Britain better.

455
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:55,200
This is the site of an early
birth control clinic

456
00:28:55,200 --> 00:29:01,160
opened in London in 1925
by feminist pioneer Marie Stopes.

457
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:04,760
I've always admired her.

458
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:08,600
But there's another side
to the Stopes story,

459
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:12,280
one that lies in the vaults
of the Science Museum.

460
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:17,000
Tell me more about Marie Stopes.
What kind of person was she?

461
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:20,240
I suppose I always see Marie Stopes
as somebody who knew she was right

462
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:23,240
and she was utterly convinced
that her way of doing things

463
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:25,200
was the only way of doing things.

464
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:27,200
She definitely broke
a lot of taboos.

465
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:29,640
At that point in time then,

466
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:31,520
how important was birth
control to people?

467
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:33,600
Were people
using contraceptives generally?

468
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:35,920
It was probably more of a
middle-class thing,

469
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:40,080
more educated people knew what to do
and how to go about it.

470
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:43,120
But this was not the case
for the working classes.

471
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:50,880
In her clinics, Stopes gave
poor and working class women access

472
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:53,160
to birth control.

473
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:54,400
Why did that bother her?

474
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:56,720
Why did she care so much that the
working classes

475
00:29:56,720 --> 00:29:58,840
weren't getting access
to contraceptives?

476
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:03,240
I think what's important for us to
understand is that, at this time,

477
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:06,920
birth control was really synonymous
with eugenics.

478
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:10,920
Right, OK. So that's not something
that we make the connection for

479
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:13,600
today at all, it's very much
a personal choice

480
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,280
but certainly in the inter-war
period,

481
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:18,800
eugenics and birth
control go hand-in-hand.

482
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:20,560
They are almost the same thing.

483
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:22,360
They were worried that,

484
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:24,960
particularly the middle classes

485
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:28,240
or the more prudent careful
and healthy people,

486
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:31,800
were producing
children at a much slower rate

487
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:34,560
than the imprudent and feckless,

488
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:39,080
and people who are less physically
strong, who were producing children

489
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:42,480
at a rate that they found
very alarming.

490
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:45,880
Not only was it the theory
behind her work

491
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:49,160
but actually
it was very much part of the brand.

492
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:52,760
So, we've got here two examples
of a cervical cap

493
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:57,120
and it's just...classic barrier
method of contraception.

494
00:30:57,120 --> 00:30:59,360
But if you look more closely
at these caps,

495
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:03,440
you can actually see
the words "Pro Race" on them.

496
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:07,680
So, literally, if you're about
to have sex and you pop one

497
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:10,400
of those over your cervix to make
sure you don't get pregnant,

498
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:13,160
you are literally promoting
the strength of the race

499
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:15,800
by doing that and you've got it
written over your cervix.

500
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:18,360
It's quite shocking. It is.

501
00:31:18,360 --> 00:31:21,400
It's offputting, as well, I imagine!

502
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:24,640
I suppose, really, instead
of improving diet and housing,

503
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:28,960
the idea was that they were poor
because they were being profligate

504
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:31,640
and having too many children,
and therefore, if you tackle

505
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:35,480
that angle, then the health
of society would improve.

506
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:39,680
And it was incredibly
complicated because often, you know,

507
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:42,040
working women themselves would be
desperate not to have

508
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:45,200
any more children. I mean, there's
heart-rending letters of them,

509
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:48,520
you know, writing and saying you
know, we know that there is a way

510
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:51,120
of stopping this.
How do we stop it?

511
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:53,960
Because if you can't afford to care
for the children you've got,

512
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:55,560
then you don't want any more.

513
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:59,760
And that is why Marie Stopes was
such a pioneering feminist figure

514
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:03,440
and so important for women,
because she gave us that freedom.

515
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:06,240
You know, she allowed us
to be able to have the choice

516
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:08,480
not to have more children
than we wanted.

517
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:12,040
And I mean, that's the complexity
of her legacy then, I suppose.

518
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:14,320
On the one hand we know she
was a eugenicist -

519
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:16,840
she has "race" written on the same
contraceptives

520
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:18,160
that she was handing out,

521
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:21,040
but at the same time,
she liberated us.

522
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:24,000
I think what's really important
for us to remember

523
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:28,440
is that eugenics was not some
strange frowned-on sideline.

524
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:30,960
This was absolutely mainstream.

525
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:42,160
I wanted to know more about
the victims of eugenics,

526
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:44,680
the people in the 1920s and '30s

527
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:47,000
who were locked up in colonies

528
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:49,640
for the so called
mentally deficient.

529
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:56,080
So I'm curious. What were
these places like?

530
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:57,760
It's one thing
hearing about all this

531
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:00,400
in a historical context

532
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:04,040
as to how the 1913 Act
played itself out.

533
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:06,200
But what were these places
actually like?

534
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:08,720
Could you live there?
Could you work there?

535
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:11,040
What were the day-to-day operations
and lifestyles like

536
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:13,760
of the people living there?

537
00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:17,080
I'm...I'm fascinated.

538
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:21,000
So, we're off to a place in Leeds
called Meanwood Park

539
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:24,560
that was one of many institutions
up and down the country.

540
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:27,640
I'm going to go and talk to
a guy called Mark Davis

541
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:31,520
who has an archive,
knows the people's stories.

542
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:41,160
This particular block here
is the old mansion.

543
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:42,640
They housed 87 people.

544
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:44,080
It was pretty tough.

545
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:45,960
You know, you came in here
and the first thing

546
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,360
they did was segregate you,
segregate the sexes.

547
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:50,600
Because it was all about,

548
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:54,440
erm, stopping them procreating,
you see?

549
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:57,440
So you would have the male
and female separated.

550
00:33:57,440 --> 00:33:59,080
They'd put you to work.

551
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:01,440
If you were bad, they'd put you
in seclusion cells,

552
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:05,680
they'd have you scrubbing, they'd
have you doing all sorts of things.

553
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:08,200
It sounds a lot like prison.

554
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:09,360
Yeah, essentially.

555
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:11,920
And anybody coming in
here's a mental defective.

556
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:14,320
It was always classed,
once mentally defective,

557
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:15,800
always mentally defective.

558
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:18,320
So it was really
an arbitrary life sentence.

559
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:21,240
You didn't get out.
You wasn't ever going to get out.

560
00:34:21,240 --> 00:34:24,760
And, of course, when you take that
kind of thing away from somebody,

561
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:28,360
you take away the most precious
thing, which is hope itself,

562
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:30,080
because without hope, what have
you got?

563
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:37,880
Mark tells me the story
of Samuel Wormald.

564
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:42,240
He was an enthusiastic
and terrifying county official

565
00:34:42,240 --> 00:34:45,320
whose job was to select
potential inmates.

566
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:52,720
There was a chap employed as what
they call the Executive Officer

567
00:34:52,720 --> 00:34:55,840
and he was a eugenicist
and was called Samuel Wormald.

568
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:57,160
And he was like the bogeyman.

569
00:34:57,160 --> 00:35:00,040
You know, the kids, they're like
"the bogeyman's going to get you",

570
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:02,880
you're going to end up in Meanwood
Park and end up in the nuthouse,

571
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:04,000
all this sort of thing.

572
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:06,120
And he was also known as
a rat catcher.

573
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:09,320
And he was the man that
specifically went out

574
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:12,480
looking for "special" people,
people that were different.

575
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:16,800
He'd go into the schools,
he'd go into the mills.

576
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:20,720
And initially, when he were bringing
people in here, especially the kids,

577
00:35:20,720 --> 00:35:23,920
he'd actually bring them in the
basket in the front of his bicycle.

578
00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:26,840
So I could have been like just down
the park or at school,

579
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:28,440
minding my own business.

580
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:30,880
Samuel could have been...
You'd have been spied.

581
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:33,040
He was looking for
all sorts of people.

582
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:35,400
The deaf, the blind,
the dumb, anybody.

583
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,240
He brought them in here
and this guy, you know,

584
00:35:38,240 --> 00:35:41,600
when he retired in 1939,
he was quite proud of the fact

585
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:45,560
that he'd captured over 2,000
people - men, women and children -

586
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:48,960
and put them in the largest mental
deficiency colony in Yorkshire.

587
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:50,840
It sounds a lot like kidnapping.

588
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:54,320
Just going round,
picking up people...on his bike.

589
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:56,640
Well, it was all about eugenics.

590
00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:59,080
They didn't want these people
to breed again.

591
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:01,240
So they put them in
here. Containment.

592
00:36:01,240 --> 00:36:03,360
Segregation and containment.

593
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:05,680
And do not allow them to procreate.

594
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:20,400
Meeting Mark today was good
but also kind of sinister.

595
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:23,760
Before I started this journey

596
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:28,200
I'd only heard of eugenics
in kind of vague generalities.

597
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:31,600
It's kind of a cliche, "Ooh,
it were well rough back in t'day..."

598
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:34,600
whereas to come and talk
to someone who's passionate about it

599
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:38,960
and knows about it and has
essentially made it his life,

600
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:44,280
to hear kind of people were here
for 50, 60 years for no good reason.

601
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:47,360
And if I'd have been born here
in like the '20s,

602
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:50,560
as opposed to Croydon in the '80s,

603
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:53,520
I'd have been picked up
by some nutter on a bike

604
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:56,040
and I'd have been here
for the rest of my life.

605
00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:57,560
It's just terrifying.

606
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:12,600
The 1920s and '30s were a time

607
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:16,480
when Britain was locking disabled
people away

608
00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:18,720
in places like Meanwood,

609
00:37:18,720 --> 00:37:22,280
and yet it was also a time
when it seemed possible

610
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:25,200
to design a better way of living.

611
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:27,320
New towns like this appeared -

612
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:30,640
Welwyn Garden City,
founded in 1920.

613
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:35,600
The person behind this was
Ebenezer Howard,

614
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:37,360
a planning visionary

615
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:42,160
who lived here until he died
in the utopia he had designed.

616
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:47,440
And there was a sense
that you could create environments

617
00:37:47,440 --> 00:37:51,000
that would actually uplift
people, that would make them...

618
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:53,080
Historian Dr Sue Correll

619
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:56,480
has studied Howard's
garden cities movement.

620
00:37:56,480 --> 00:38:00,640
So, Ebenezer Howard,
his idea was based on utopian ideas

621
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:03,720
that you could transform
people's lives

622
00:38:03,720 --> 00:38:06,880
by putting them in
the right environment.

623
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:13,320
Howard produced these stylised
plans outlining his radical vision.

624
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:18,880
What you see here is a perfectly
rationally planned garden city.

625
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:24,400
You have the municipal centre
of the largest city in the middle,

626
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:27,880
and then satellite towns
around the edge.

627
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:31,240
Everyone has a garden where
they can grow their own vegetables.

628
00:38:31,240 --> 00:38:34,840
Everyone has enough space to live
and to have children,

629
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:37,760
and to have big families -
big, healthy families.

630
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:42,840
In these towns, everyone
has their place

631
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:46,320
and those who eugenicists considered
less desirable

632
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:50,320
were separated,
kept well away from the rest.

633
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,640
Here you have the epileptic farms.

634
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:56,200
There's a home for waifs

635
00:38:56,200 --> 00:38:59,240
so these are kind of homeless,
unwanted people.

636
00:38:59,240 --> 00:39:01,720
Home for inebriates. Yeah.

637
00:39:01,720 --> 00:39:04,440
And there's an insane asylum here.

638
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:07,240
There's a separation
of the desirable

639
00:39:07,240 --> 00:39:08,840
and the undesirable.

640
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:12,720
The desirable people get to live in
the cities and the nice suburbs

641
00:39:12,720 --> 00:39:16,080
with their beautiful
names like Philadelphia and
Concord,

642
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:20,520
and everybody else is stuck
in these kind of in-between places.

643
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:23,960
The underlying influences
on this definitely come

644
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:27,640
from eugenic
ideas about uplift and improvement

645
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:30,400
but also segregation
and separation.

646
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:40,720
Many influential inter-war figures
were drawn to eugenics.

647
00:39:40,720 --> 00:39:43,840
Policies encouraging the healthy
to have children

648
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:46,960
and discouraging
the poor from doing so

649
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:50,520
seemed like a scientific
way of improving society.

650
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:55,760
This vision attracted the likes
of Sidney and Beatrice Webb

651
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:57,400
of the Fabian Society...

652
00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:02,760
..and William Beveridge,
creator of the welfare state.

653
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:13,080
I think that's what I learnt
in Welwyn Garden City.

654
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:15,800
Here is a place that I could see
myself living

655
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:23,080
and it was built on these principles
of living a healthy, positive life

656
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:27,520
in a society built on very
rational, scientific principles.

657
00:40:27,520 --> 00:40:31,880
This idea that we can create
a utopian future,

658
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:35,880
that we can use the science
and technology of the time

659
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:38,640
to solve society's problems,

660
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:42,520
I can't help but wonder if I had
been around at that time

661
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:47,360
and been part of those intellectual
circles, whether these ideas

662
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:49,840
would have appealed to me, too.

663
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:51,720
And it's quite a disturbing thought.

664
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:01,320
ADAM: Support for eugenics
peaked in the 1920s

665
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:05,680
and spread out of Britain and was
taken up across Europe and America.

666
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:10,800
It became the mantra of the day.

667
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:12,800
You have beauty contests organized,

668
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:16,520
you have literary festivals
organized, people writing poems.

669
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:21,120
You have drawings organized
about the ideal type of human being.

670
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:24,120
So it really becomes part and parcel
of what we call today

671
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:26,120
"popular culture".

672
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:28,080
Professor Marius Turda

673
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:30,880
is a leading expert in the field.

674
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:34,480
He talks me through how
all this turned very dark.

675
00:41:36,720 --> 00:41:38,240
During the 1920s,

676
00:41:38,240 --> 00:41:41,840
several US states passed
eugenic laws.

677
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:43,800
Over the following decades,

678
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:47,280
around 60,000 people
were forcibly sterilised.

679
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:53,360
European eugenicists
watched with interest.

680
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:59,360
There is a lot of conversation
already in the 1920s amongst

681
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:04,240
eugenicists in America and Germany,
and to some extent, Britain,

682
00:42:04,240 --> 00:42:10,040
about the best way forward
to achieve the perfect society.

683
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:15,960
Adolf Hitler was an early fan
of American eugenics,

684
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:17,760
praising it in Mein Kampf.

685
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:22,400
Nazi sterilisation laws
were directly influenced

686
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:25,360
by sterilisation policies
in the USA.

687
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:36,400
It's impossible to blame
the Holocaust on any one thing.

688
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:39,720
But along with anti-Semitism
and nationalism,

689
00:42:39,720 --> 00:42:43,200
eugenics was a key part
of the Nazi vision.

690
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:46,200
It inspired something
called Aktion T4,

691
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:48,600
a project to murder the disabled.

692
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:55,720
With respect to eugenic arguments,
I think the T4 programme is,

693
00:42:55,720 --> 00:42:59,560
in a way, illustrative
of how the Nazi regime

694
00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:04,480
saw the creation of the internal
cleansing of the national body,

695
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,000
getting rid of all the weeds,
defectives,

696
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:09,760
people who don't conform.

697
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:14,720
And indeed, do not tolerate any
form of disability whatsoever.

698
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:19,880
Aktion T4 began in 1939.

699
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:23,160
Hitler ordered his personal doctor
Karl Brandt

700
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:24,920
and SS officer Philipp Bouhler

701
00:43:24,920 --> 00:43:27,040
to implement a programme
to kill people

702
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:30,280
considered to carry
hereditary defects.

703
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,560
During the 1930s, the Nazis funded
films and posters

704
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:36,680
stressing how much
people with hereditary illnesses

705
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:38,400
cost the taxpayer.

706
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,680
This poster shows a disabled
person cost the taxpayer

707
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:43,840
60,000 reichsmarks.

708
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:49,200
Big argument on the propaganda
posters about the T4,

709
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:53,640
about how much money people
with disability cost the state.

710
00:43:54,720 --> 00:43:59,080
If you're not useful at all,
then why do you exist for?

711
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:00,800
The individual was nothing.

712
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:03,160
Society, or in the case
of Nazi Germany, race,

713
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:05,960
was everything.

714
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:09,720
The SS trialled poison gas
on disabled people.

715
00:44:09,720 --> 00:44:11,920
As part of Aktion T4,

716
00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:13,840
300,000 people,

717
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:17,520
including several thousand children,
were murdered.

718
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:25,920
ANGELA: As I've been learning
on this journey, Hitler's theories

719
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:29,600
of racial hygiene didn't
emerge out of a vacuum.

720
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:35,160
They arose out of a scientific
and political context

721
00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:38,840
that was part
of the mainstream here in Britain.

722
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:43,400
It's a history that curator
of the Galton Collection

723
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:46,640
Subhadra Das
has also struggled with.

724
00:44:48,240 --> 00:44:51,280
It's just shocking to think
that these ideas,

725
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:54,880
the birthplace of these ideas,
wasn't in Nazi Germany.

726
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:57,960
It was right here,
near where I live. Exactly.

727
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:01,080
And in the university in
which I work. We invented it.

728
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:02,520
Galton is a British scientist.

729
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:05,880
If you say "eugenics", immediately,
if people have even heard the word,

730
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,400
they will think "Nazis". But no.
British. British idea.

731
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:15,720
It's difficult to get your head
around the fact that this,

732
00:45:15,720 --> 00:45:18,920
the greatest horrors
of the 20th century,

733
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:21,760
the ideological roots
are partly right here in London,

734
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:23,960
near where I live.

735
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:30,560
I always find it difficult not
to judge people by modern standards

736
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:32,720
but at the same time,

737
00:45:32,720 --> 00:45:38,240
maybe we can blame him, partly,
for the legacies of these ideas

738
00:45:38,240 --> 00:45:39,960
and what came after he died.

739
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:44,440
But I feel morally conflicted
about it because...

740
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:48,280
..because he was also
a man of his time.

741
00:45:55,960 --> 00:46:00,760
'I want to find out, how do
modern-day scientists reflect

742
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:03,560
'on this complicated legacy?

743
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:10,080
'I'm on my way to meet the current
head of what was, for decades,

744
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:12,160
'The Eugenics Society.

745
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:15,760
'It's now known
as The Galton Institute.'

746
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:19,680
She's a very distinguished
geneticist in her own right.

747
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:21,320
She's had a very illustrious career

748
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:24,040
and what I really want
to understand is,

749
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:27,400
what does the legacy
of Francis Galton mean to her?

750
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:30,040
Why does she feel that

751
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:34,160
an institute like this
is still appropriate

752
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:37,000
and what she is
doing leading it?

753
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:44,800
'Veronica van Heyningen could not
be further from a eugenicist.

754
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:49,640
'Her research has advanced medical
knowledge

755
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,080
by identifying genetic
mutations

756
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:54,840
'associated with serious
eye diseases.'

757
00:46:57,080 --> 00:47:00,320
Well, I don't think, I don't know.

758
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:02,640
I, I don't think so.

759
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:06,800
She knows better than most the
murderous consequences

760
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:09,640
of 20th-century race science.

761
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:13,880
So, these are my parents.

762
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:16,880
Survivor of Mauthausen
and of Auschwitz,

763
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:19,840
Ravensbruck and Buchenwald.

764
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:22,360
I do think a lot about my
parents

765
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:25,520
and wish I'd asked
them more questions.

766
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:27,600
My father never talked
about his experiences

767
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:30,160
but my mother
talked quite a lot.

768
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:32,600
My mother was in Auschwitz,

769
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:35,040
as a Jew, of course,

770
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:40,200
and all her family were killed
in Auschwitz.

771
00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:44,840
So I had no grandparents on that
side or the other side, actually.

772
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:50,160
My father had been taken
to a labour camp

773
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:54,080
and he survived that
and they married after the war.

774
00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:57,800
And I was born in Hungary in 1946.

775
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:01,600
The Nazis wanted to purify the race.

776
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:05,040
It's a really terrible idea
ethically,

777
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:07,960
but actually, in my view,
biologically, as well

778
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:11,080
because the greater diversity
we can maintain,

779
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:13,600
I think the better it is
for the world.

780
00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:16,600
Quite incredible to have that
knowledge,

781
00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:20,600
to know that the terrible
uses of eugenics... Absolutely.

782
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:23,400
..but then, for you now
in the 21st century,

783
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:25,320
to be head
of The Galton Institute

784
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:27,440
which used to be
The Eugenics Society.

785
00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:29,480
I mean, how do you square that?

786
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:36,040
I just know that they are just not
involved in any way in eugenics now

787
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:42,200
and that what we spend our efforts
on is to bring modern genetics

788
00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:44,440
to as many people as we can.

789
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:47,600
In order to avoid genetic
abnormalities

790
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:49,440
we need to understand them

791
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:52,240
and that has been
my life's work, really.

792
00:48:52,240 --> 00:48:56,320
But how does it feel for you to know
that Galton's name is still used

793
00:48:56,320 --> 00:49:00,440
in these contexts, that the name
of the institute that you're heading

794
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:02,440
carries his name? Do you feel...

795
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:04,720
I mean, how do you feel
about Galton now?

796
00:49:04,720 --> 00:49:06,840
I think he was a great geneticist.

797
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:11,320
I mean, he was he was the person
who coined the term "eugenics",

798
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:15,400
and he was, he was racist, as well.

799
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:18,360
I think people took his ideas

800
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:21,960
and subverted them
to much worse use

801
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:25,040
and I think it would be much better

802
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:29,280
not to forget about Galton,
but to talk about him.

803
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:33,480
If we start along the line of
rejecting all the people

804
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:40,680
who had troubling
and now-dismissed ideas

805
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:45,400
and, along with that, reject
all their other work as well,

806
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:49,720
we're going to get into
tremendous difficulties.

807
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:03,760
I think it's very risky to judge
people by the standards of our time,

808
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:05,160
for obvious reasons.

809
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:08,200
We know that, we know all
the terrible things that happened

810
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:10,960
in the 20th century
and the consequences of eugenics,

811
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:13,760
but they didn't know that.

812
00:50:13,760 --> 00:50:17,160
Because the view was that eugenics
could have offered

813
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:21,800
this glittering, wonderful new
society very quickly, this utopia.

814
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:22,840
Erm...

815
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:26,000
And I guess that's a lesson
for us now

816
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:28,680
to be careful
when new science comes along,

817
00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:31,240
to not rush to...

818
00:50:31,240 --> 00:50:33,680
..deploy it in the real world,

819
00:50:33,680 --> 00:50:35,960
to think about
the consequences of it

820
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:38,040
and, erm, be careful.

821
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:52,640
Right at the beginning of my
journey,

822
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:54,840
I heard about the story
of Mabel Cooper.

823
00:50:57,160 --> 00:50:59,120
She was locked up in 1957

824
00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:02,640
after a cursory examination
by two doctors.

825
00:51:04,240 --> 00:51:07,640
There is no way you can escape
these walls.

826
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:11,000
Mabel spent two decades
in an institution.

827
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:14,440
But as I found out,
it wasn't the end of her story.

828
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:15,640
Right.

829
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:18,800
Welcome...

830
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:20,680
..to Paradise Fields.

831
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:22,600
While you are here

832
00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:26,840
you will be doing daily chores.

833
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:31,560
I'm in east London with
theatre company Access All Areas.

834
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:34,960
They've researched Mabel Cooper's
life for a play

835
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:38,160
about her experiences.

836
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:39,840
On your marks...

837
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:43,160
Mable was eventually sent
to an institution

838
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:46,840
called St Lawrence's Hospital

839
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:49,400
where she was treated

840
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:52,840
fucking brutally, seriously.

841
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:55,400
She wasn't taught to read
or write,

842
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:58,400
she wasn't allowed
to wear her own clothes,

843
00:51:58,400 --> 00:52:01,560
and it gave her what I call
a secondary handicap,

844
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:04,840
not a natural handicap
but a secondary handicap.

845
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:08,880
And if you think about it,
this wasn't hundreds of years ago.

846
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:13,160
This was, it was only in the 1950s
that she was in these institutions

847
00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:14,800
and she was there for a long time.

848
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:18,240
Yeah, yeah.
And it's kind of a scary thought,

849
00:52:18,240 --> 00:52:20,280
that to think if kind of you or I

850
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:23,120
had been born kind of 50, 60,
70 years ago... Yeah, God...

851
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:25,880
..this would have been us.

852
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:30,320
You are here because society
has no room for you!

853
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:34,680
Access All Areas have invited me
to take part in rehearsals.

854
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:36,160
Quickly.

855
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:39,160
In this scene, inmates queue
up to brush their teeth,

856
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:42,200
sharing one
toothbrush for every five people.

857
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:47,920
We're all doing our bit to make
the now late Mabel Cooper,

858
00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:52,960
proud, you know, and hundreds,
if not thousands, of these

859
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:57,160
patients all around the world

860
00:52:57,160 --> 00:53:03,040
have been in this, this
awful, brutal position.

861
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:06,440
You will now scrub the floor.

862
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:10,520
Right. Start scrubbing.

863
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:13,840
Part of the theatre
company is Harvey Waterman.

864
00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:18,360
He was certified under the Mental
Deficiency Act at the age of four.

865
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:24,160
He spent 29 years at St Lawrence's
at the same time as Mabel Cooper.

866
00:53:24,160 --> 00:53:28,080
Would you be able to tell me
about your time in St Lawrence's?

867
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:31,240
Well, it wasn't all that good.

868
00:53:31,240 --> 00:53:33,480
Why? Why not?

869
00:53:33,480 --> 00:53:35,760
Because they kept the doors locked.

870
00:53:37,040 --> 00:53:40,840
If you wanted to go out,
they had to unlock the door.

871
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:43,840
And what was the day-to-day like?

872
00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:46,680
Just wasn't good.

873
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:50,360
Well, every time you tried to do
anything,

874
00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:52,480
was all these tablets,

875
00:53:52,480 --> 00:53:55,320
you had to share the toothbrush,

876
00:53:55,320 --> 00:53:56,880
all the time.

877
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:02,400
The system at St Lawrence's
was designed to stop the inmates

878
00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:03,960
from having children.

879
00:54:05,560 --> 00:54:08,480
Was there any kind of social
activities?

880
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:10,480
A dance hall.

881
00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:12,920
We had to go to the dances.

882
00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:13,960
SWING-STYLE JAZZ

883
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:19,880
All the men were one side

884
00:54:19,880 --> 00:54:21,760
and the women were the other side.

885
00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:23,360
Back to your places.

886
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:28,120
We couldn't mix, we couldn't
go on the female corridors.

887
00:54:28,120 --> 00:54:31,480
Did you want to go on
the female corridors?

888
00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:35,120
I'd like to see Gloria again.

889
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:37,280
Tell me more about Gloria.

890
00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:40,400
She was my first friend.

891
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:43,440
How did you meet?
We met at the hospital.

892
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:45,120
And were you friends?

893
00:54:45,120 --> 00:54:47,120
Were you more than friends?

894
00:54:47,120 --> 00:54:50,280
Well, she was my first girlfriend.

895
00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:51,840
And how was that?

896
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:54,040
That was great.

897
00:54:54,040 --> 00:54:57,080
Because she was quite nice.

898
00:54:57,080 --> 00:54:59,840
And how would you feel now,

899
00:54:59,840 --> 00:55:03,120
kind of looking back
at your experience

900
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:05,120
in St Lawrence's?

901
00:55:05,120 --> 00:55:09,080
It makes me a bit
happier being out.

902
00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:13,600
What would you say to people
who may find themselves,

903
00:55:13,600 --> 00:55:18,200
for whatever reason,
in similar circumstances?

904
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:20,200
Find a way of getting out.

905
00:55:24,280 --> 00:55:26,200
As for Mabel Cooper,

906
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:28,920
she left St Lawrence's in 1977.

907
00:55:30,120 --> 00:55:33,160
She'd then join and eventually
ran an organization

908
00:55:33,160 --> 00:55:36,720
campaigning for people
with learning disabilities.

909
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:40,360
She was an inspirational person
to many,

910
00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:43,200
co-authoring a book
and receiving an honorary degree.

911
00:55:45,640 --> 00:55:48,720
For me, one of the worst aspects
of eugenics was

912
00:55:48,720 --> 00:55:52,800
it caused so many talented people
to be shut out of society.

913
00:55:55,880 --> 00:55:58,600
So would you say that this kind of,

914
00:55:58,600 --> 00:56:01,680
what is almost eugenic thinking

915
00:56:01,680 --> 00:56:07,280
is still echoing
throughout the decades to now?

916
00:56:07,280 --> 00:56:12,440
Back in, like, the 19th century,
they used to have freak shows.

917
00:56:12,440 --> 00:56:14,480
Like, people like you and me
would be...

918
00:56:14,480 --> 00:56:16,640
Well, I would
I would be the village idiot.

919
00:56:16,640 --> 00:56:18,320
You would be the elephant man.

920
00:56:18,320 --> 00:56:22,440
Yeah. Sorry to say it but...
I say it about myself.

921
00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:25,760
These days, you know,
we can't afford a repeat

922
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:28,360
of the last of the last 60,

923
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:31,160
of the last hundred years.

924
00:56:31,160 --> 00:56:32,720
We've come far.

925
00:56:32,720 --> 00:56:36,200
But our journey is far from over.

926
00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:51,080
After my experiences with Access
All Areas,

927
00:56:51,080 --> 00:56:53,760
I've decided to come on
a small pilgrimage.

928
00:56:57,280 --> 00:57:01,280
'So, where I'm standing
is all that now remains

929
00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:02,720
'of what was St Lawrence's.

930
00:57:02,720 --> 00:57:05,200
'The railings and the pillars
are all that stand.

931
00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:07,920
'There's a blue plaque to
commemorate the whole thing.

932
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:10,000
'What lies beyond here now

933
00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:13,080
'is actually
a very nice housing estate.'

934
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:18,560
So I've not necessarily come here
to see St Lawrence's,

935
00:57:18,560 --> 00:57:20,800
because it doesn't exist any more.

936
00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:25,800
I just wanted to come and see
what they would look out on, what,

937
00:57:25,800 --> 00:57:32,040
what they would see as a world
that I very much take for granted.

938
00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:35,520
And to see the actual physical
parameters of their existence.

939
00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:42,960
For them, this would have been
like a harsh reality.

940
00:57:42,960 --> 00:57:45,840
The basic freedoms I take for
granted,

941
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:48,920
like the ability to pop
round the corner for a coffee

942
00:57:48,920 --> 00:57:51,000
or pop over the road for a pint,

943
00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:52,800
just would not have existed.

944
00:57:53,840 --> 00:57:57,520
It's erm, it's a bit haunting,
really.

945
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:10,200
'In the next episode, we investigate
how the influence of eugenics

946
00:58:10,200 --> 00:58:13,080
'continued long after the war.'

947
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:16,520
We have eight million sterilisation
happening in India

948
00:58:16,520 --> 00:58:19,800
within one year. That's
shocking. Eight million!

949
00:58:19,800 --> 00:58:22,160
ADAM: And do recent medical
breakthroughs,

950
00:58:22,160 --> 00:58:23,880
combined with prejudice, mean

951
00:58:23,880 --> 00:58:27,880
we're about to enter a new era
of eugenics?

952
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:29,840
"I think we need to kill
these people.

953
00:58:29,840 --> 00:58:32,240
"At the very least, imprison them."

954
00:59:05,600 --> 00:59:11,000
Should some of us be stopped
from having children?

955
00:59:12,400 --> 00:59:15,100
Eugenics is the controversial belief

956
00:59:15,100 --> 00:59:17,580
that we can improve the human race

957
00:59:17,580 --> 00:59:21,220
by selecting who can
and who can't reproduce.

958
00:59:23,300 --> 00:59:25,420
It would have been better by far,
for them

959
00:59:25,420 --> 00:59:29,220
and for the rest of the community,
if they had never been born.

960
00:59:30,380 --> 00:59:34,980
Eugenics was notoriously used
to justify the Holocaust.

961
00:59:34,980 --> 00:59:38,620
But we've seen that it was first
developed and promoted

962
00:59:38,620 --> 00:59:40,860
by British scientists
and politicians.

963
00:59:42,300 --> 00:59:44,140
My goodness.

964
00:59:44,140 --> 00:59:45,940
British.

965
00:59:45,940 --> 00:59:47,460
British idea.

966
00:59:47,460 --> 00:59:48,860
We invented it.

967
00:59:48,860 --> 00:59:52,140
It's led to disabled, poor
and non-white people

968
00:59:52,140 --> 00:59:54,620
being locked up and sterilised.

969
00:59:54,620 --> 00:59:57,100
The greatest horrors of
the 20th century,

970
00:59:57,100 --> 01:00:00,140
the ideological roots were partly
right here in London,

971
01:00:00,140 --> 01:00:01,780
near where I live.

972
01:00:03,380 --> 01:00:06,460
I'm Angela Saini, an author
and science journalist.

973
01:00:08,100 --> 01:00:12,340
Now I want to investigate
how eugenics rebranded itself

974
01:00:12,340 --> 01:00:15,140
after the horrors of the
Second World War,

975
01:00:15,140 --> 01:00:19,180
and how its devastating legacy
continued across the world.

976
01:00:20,660 --> 01:00:25,140
We have eight million sterilisations
happening in India within one year.

977
01:00:25,140 --> 01:00:27,940
That's shocking. Eight million!

978
01:00:27,940 --> 01:00:30,860
We'll see how eugenics-style
attitudes

979
01:00:30,860 --> 01:00:34,860
towards the poor remain with us
in today's Britain.

980
01:00:34,860 --> 01:00:38,380
It is, quite explicitly, a message
to some to parts of society -

981
01:00:38,380 --> 01:00:41,180
"We think
you're having too many children."

982
01:00:43,340 --> 01:00:48,020
I'm Adam Pearson, a reporter and
disability rights activist.

983
01:00:48,020 --> 01:00:50,620
I was born with a genetic condition.

984
01:00:53,500 --> 01:00:56,700
I want to explore -
do medical breakthroughs,

985
01:00:56,700 --> 01:01:00,300
combined with prejudice
against disabled people,

986
01:01:00,300 --> 01:01:03,540
mean we are on the verge of a new
era of eugenics?

987
01:01:05,140 --> 01:01:08,380
I think we need to kill
these people, right?

988
01:01:08,380 --> 01:01:10,700
At the very least, imprison them.

989
01:01:12,180 --> 01:01:15,980
Could we be heading for a society
where anyone not considered perfect

990
01:01:15,980 --> 01:01:18,460
will be prevented from being born?

991
01:01:23,740 --> 01:01:27,900
If you're telling me that the world
without me is a better world,

992
01:01:27,900 --> 01:01:29,460
what does that say about me?

993
01:01:29,460 --> 01:01:30,940
Well, that's eugenics, isn't it?

994
01:01:30,940 --> 01:01:31,980
Exactly.

995
01:01:31,980 --> 01:01:35,100
Philosophically, it's a minefield.

996
01:01:36,180 --> 01:01:37,860
Complete minefield.

997
01:01:46,260 --> 01:01:48,980
In the aftermath of World War II,

998
01:01:48,980 --> 01:01:52,540
the horrors of the Holocaust became
widely known.

999
01:01:52,540 --> 01:01:57,740
But few connected these events with
the work of British scientists.

1000
01:02:00,340 --> 01:02:02,820
Eugenics, one of the ideologies

1001
01:02:02,820 --> 01:02:05,900
driving the Nazis' genocidal
project,

1002
01:02:05,900 --> 01:02:08,140
originated in Victorian London.

1003
01:02:09,700 --> 01:02:13,260
It had become part of mainstream
British thought,

1004
01:02:13,260 --> 01:02:16,220
and even helped
shape government policy.

1005
01:02:18,620 --> 01:02:22,420
This was now an inconvenient truth,

1006
01:02:22,420 --> 01:02:24,940
and most British advocates of
eugenics

1007
01:02:24,940 --> 01:02:27,020
distanced themselves from it.

1008
01:02:28,060 --> 01:02:29,900
But some did not.

1009
01:02:32,900 --> 01:02:36,100
This is King's College, London,

1010
01:02:36,100 --> 01:02:38,020
where I studied as a postgraduate.

1011
01:02:39,460 --> 01:02:42,620
I've asked to see the collected
papers of

1012
01:02:42,620 --> 01:02:44,300
Reginald Ruggles Gates.

1013
01:02:44,300 --> 01:02:46,180
Professor of Botany here,

1014
01:02:46,180 --> 01:02:50,980
he continued to espouse openly
eugenic views throughout the 1950s.

1015
01:02:54,140 --> 01:02:56,060
My goodness.

1016
01:02:56,060 --> 01:02:58,780
So this is a skin colour chart.

1017
01:02:58,780 --> 01:03:00,620
And it shows at the beginning,
it says,

1018
01:03:00,620 --> 01:03:03,980
"Represents the skin colour
of an individual coloured person."

1019
01:03:03,980 --> 01:03:07,020
So this is presumably someone
who isn't racially mixed,

1020
01:03:07,020 --> 01:03:10,100
and the skin colour of a white
person who isn't racially mixed,

1021
01:03:10,100 --> 01:03:12,220
and then lots of colours in between.

1022
01:03:12,220 --> 01:03:15,620
And the purpose of this is
to look at racial mixing,

1023
01:03:15,620 --> 01:03:19,860
so that he can identify
who is more mixed and who isn't.

1024
01:03:19,860 --> 01:03:23,500
He was obsessed by skin colour,
clearly.

1025
01:03:23,500 --> 01:03:26,020
I mean, he's drawn up a chart, for
goodness' sake.

1026
01:03:26,020 --> 01:03:28,620
And here it comes in a wheel,
as well.

1027
01:03:30,220 --> 01:03:33,060
Gates believed that racial
intermarriage

1028
01:03:33,060 --> 01:03:36,780
would cause mental and physical
disabilities.

1029
01:03:36,780 --> 01:03:42,580
"Would dilute and degrade the more
advanced race," was how he put it.

1030
01:03:42,580 --> 01:03:45,660
Gates believed that races
were different species,

1031
01:03:45,660 --> 01:03:49,860
so not just that we have superficial
differences like skin colour,

1032
01:03:49,860 --> 01:03:52,660
but that we evolved separately.

1033
01:03:52,660 --> 01:03:57,620
And so for him, there was a real
danger here in races mixing.

1034
01:03:57,620 --> 01:03:59,740
In the early 1960s,

1035
01:03:59,740 --> 01:04:03,660
Gates helped found a notorious
journal called

1036
01:04:03,660 --> 01:04:07,500
Mankind Quarterly,
which argued for eugenics.

1037
01:04:08,980 --> 01:04:13,060
It was influential with supporters
of racial segregation in America

1038
01:04:13,060 --> 01:04:15,900
and apartheid in South Africa.

1039
01:04:15,900 --> 01:04:20,540
Even today, it's present in the
toxic ideologies of the far right.

1040
01:04:21,980 --> 01:04:25,620
Gates's interest in race spans
so far,

1041
01:04:25,620 --> 01:04:30,700
that in his papers I even stumbled
on something personal to me.

1042
01:04:31,980 --> 01:04:34,900
I was looking through the catalogue.

1043
01:04:34,900 --> 01:04:39,420
One mentioned Sainis, which is my
surname, so I've got this here.

1044
01:04:40,420 --> 01:04:45,420
The study of ABO Blood Groups
of Sainis of Punjab.

1045
01:04:45,420 --> 01:04:49,620
The subjects of various districts
was studied in Punjab -

1046
01:04:49,620 --> 01:04:51,780
Hoshiarpur, Jullundur and Ambala.

1047
01:04:51,780 --> 01:04:55,060
Hoshiarpur is
where my father's family are from.

1048
01:04:55,060 --> 01:04:59,900
So these were blood tests taken from
people who could well

1049
01:04:59,900 --> 01:05:03,820
very easily have been members
of my family at the time.

1050
01:05:06,620 --> 01:05:09,100
And that's so strange.

1051
01:05:10,620 --> 01:05:12,180
It's unnerving.

1052
01:05:12,180 --> 01:05:15,420
Although this paper wasn't written
by Gates,

1053
01:05:15,420 --> 01:05:19,180
he collected it as part
of a scientific quest

1054
01:05:19,180 --> 01:05:21,260
to promote racial difference.

1055
01:05:22,580 --> 01:05:23,940
We need to read this.

1056
01:05:23,940 --> 01:05:27,180
We need to understand the history
of this because if we don't,

1057
01:05:27,180 --> 01:05:29,500
then it just gets swept under the
carpet.

1058
01:05:29,500 --> 01:05:32,260
So even though it's painful to read
it, and personally painful,

1059
01:05:32,260 --> 01:05:37,060
especially for me, it's incredibly
important, I think, that we see it.

1060
01:05:37,060 --> 01:05:38,900
And I'm glad
this archive is here.

1061
01:05:47,300 --> 01:05:49,740
Investigating eugenics,

1062
01:05:49,740 --> 01:05:52,220
I know I'd uncover stories
of people whose lives

1063
01:05:52,220 --> 01:05:54,020
have been deeply damaged.

1064
01:05:55,940 --> 01:06:00,700
But I didn't realise how disturbing
it would be to meet them in person.

1065
01:06:03,780 --> 01:06:05,940
Elena is a member of the Roma
community

1066
01:06:05,940 --> 01:06:08,020
who live
in the Czech Republic.

1067
01:06:19,660 --> 01:06:23,660
In 1990, in hospital for the birth
of her second child,

1068
01:06:23,660 --> 01:06:27,140
Elena had no idea what was about to
happen to her.

1069
01:07:12,540 --> 01:07:15,340
She was told later that as her
previous two children

1070
01:07:15,340 --> 01:07:18,660
had been born
via Caesarean section,

1071
01:07:18,660 --> 01:07:22,780
she was sterilised to prevent
further risky pregnancies.

1072
01:07:25,820 --> 01:07:27,580
But she was never consulted,

1073
01:07:27,580 --> 01:07:32,620
and soon found out that other Romany
women have had similar experiences.

1074
01:07:44,820 --> 01:07:47,220
Why do you think you were
sterilised?

1075
01:08:00,940 --> 01:08:03,980
Why Romany women in particular?

1076
01:08:19,220 --> 01:08:22,020
Elena is now the head
of a group of Romany women

1077
01:08:22,020 --> 01:08:24,140
who all claim they were sterilised,

1078
01:08:24,140 --> 01:08:26,780
and have campaigned for years
for justice.

1079
01:08:29,420 --> 01:08:33,620
Recently, a Czech MP introduced
a bill to the country's parliament

1080
01:08:33,620 --> 01:08:35,860
to compensate them
for what happened to them.

1081
01:08:38,540 --> 01:08:41,380
A bit messed up, isn't it, that

1082
01:08:41,380 --> 01:08:46,420
a woman who was already from a
marginalised community just died.

1083
01:08:47,460 --> 01:08:48,540
It angers me.

1084
01:08:49,940 --> 01:08:52,500
That this is happening
in the '90s,

1085
01:08:52,500 --> 01:08:56,620
I can't get my head around

1086
01:08:56,620 --> 01:08:58,180
that timeline at all.

1087
01:08:59,300 --> 01:09:03,100
I've been saying for a while now,
"This could have been me."

1088
01:09:03,100 --> 01:09:05,620
But in reality, it could've
been anyone.

1089
01:09:05,620 --> 01:09:11,180
Anyone could have been handed a
document to sign in a blind panic

1090
01:09:11,180 --> 01:09:13,340
and then been sterilised.

1091
01:09:20,820 --> 01:09:24,780
It's a little known fact that
sterilisation policies carried

1092
01:09:24,780 --> 01:09:28,100
on in many countries after the war.

1093
01:09:28,100 --> 01:09:32,420
In Sweden, more than 60,000 people
were sterilised

1094
01:09:32,420 --> 01:09:35,540
to improve racial purity in a state
programme

1095
01:09:35,540 --> 01:09:38,100
which carried on until the
mid-1970s.

1096
01:09:39,380 --> 01:09:43,780
Two Canadian provinces and
33 American states

1097
01:09:43,780 --> 01:09:48,100
practised sterilisation
before and after the war.

1098
01:09:48,100 --> 01:09:51,980
North Carolina alone sterilised
more than 7,000 people.

1099
01:09:56,140 --> 01:09:59,020
Historian Marius Turda
has investigated

1100
01:09:59,020 --> 01:10:03,140
how sterilisation programmes
were the result of years

1101
01:10:03,140 --> 01:10:06,900
of lobbying by American
and European eugenicists.

1102
01:10:09,940 --> 01:10:13,140
He begins by telling me about
Carlos Blacker,

1103
01:10:13,140 --> 01:10:19,300
the general secretary of the British
Eugenics Society from 1931 to 1952.

1104
01:10:21,340 --> 01:10:26,700
He was a very important eugenicist,
both before and after 1945.

1105
01:10:26,700 --> 01:10:30,340
Blacker joined forces with people
like Margaret Sanger,

1106
01:10:30,340 --> 01:10:33,740
the American Birth Control
activist and eugenicist.

1107
01:10:33,740 --> 01:10:38,740
They campaigned against
overpopulation in places like India.

1108
01:10:38,740 --> 01:10:41,860
By 1952, they all convened
in Bombay, India,

1109
01:10:41,860 --> 01:10:45,140
to actually convince
the Indian governments

1110
01:10:45,140 --> 01:10:47,340
that the only way to deal
with poverty

1111
01:10:47,340 --> 01:10:49,620
is to diminish the fertility rates.

1112
01:10:49,620 --> 01:10:54,420
We need to bring some form of

1113
01:10:54,420 --> 01:10:58,300
eugenic therapy, inverted commas,
to countries such as India.

1114
01:10:58,300 --> 01:11:01,580
And the Indian government is finally
persuaded.

1115
01:11:01,580 --> 01:11:06,580
The Indian government offered cash
to its citizens to get sterilised.

1116
01:11:08,540 --> 01:11:11,060
I mean, these are enormous figures.

1117
01:11:11,060 --> 01:11:13,460
So just in this one place in Madras

1118
01:11:13,460 --> 01:11:17,980
between 1956 and 1962,

1119
01:11:17,980 --> 01:11:21,740
more than 55,000
people were sterilised.

1120
01:11:22,860 --> 01:11:24,700
In the 1960s and '70s,

1121
01:11:24,700 --> 01:11:29,020
as India suffered natural
disasters and famine,

1122
01:11:29,020 --> 01:11:31,780
the American government and aid
agencies

1123
01:11:31,780 --> 01:11:34,460
made it clear to the
Indian authorities

1124
01:11:34,460 --> 01:11:36,180
that if they wanted aid,

1125
01:11:36,180 --> 01:11:39,020
they would have to control
the population.

1126
01:11:40,140 --> 01:11:42,660
Lyndon Johnson told one
of his advisers,

1127
01:11:42,660 --> 01:11:46,020
"I'm not going to piss away foreign
aid in nations

1128
01:11:46,020 --> 01:11:49,260
"where they refuse to deal
with their own population problems."

1129
01:11:51,020 --> 01:11:52,740
The message got through.

1130
01:11:54,620 --> 01:11:58,700
In the mid-1970s, Indian Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi

1131
01:11:58,700 --> 01:12:02,940
suspended democratic rule and her
son, Sanjay Gandhi,

1132
01:12:02,940 --> 01:12:07,660
led an extraordinary campaign to
reduce the country's birth rate.

1133
01:12:09,460 --> 01:12:12,100
And by 1976-77,

1134
01:12:12,100 --> 01:12:16,900
we have eight million sterilisations
happening in India within one year.

1135
01:12:16,900 --> 01:12:19,300
Shocking. Eight million!

1136
01:12:19,300 --> 01:12:20,500
I can't...

1137
01:12:20,500 --> 01:12:21,980
Yes, it is quite a number.

1138
01:12:21,980 --> 01:12:25,020
It is shocking to me that I don't
know that. Yes.

1139
01:12:25,020 --> 01:12:28,580
The Indian government didn't call
this policy eugenics.

1140
01:12:28,580 --> 01:12:31,100
It was framed as an answer to
famine,

1141
01:12:31,100 --> 01:12:35,980
but human rights critics argue
that the burden of sterilisation

1142
01:12:35,980 --> 01:12:40,820
fell heavily on India's poor,
echoing the history of eugenics.

1143
01:12:40,820 --> 01:12:44,860
We have stories about bulldozers
going into very poor neighbourhoods

1144
01:12:44,860 --> 01:12:47,380
and, you know, fishing out the men
and sterilising them.

1145
01:12:47,380 --> 01:12:50,100
There's some speculation that up
to this point maybe we're talking

1146
01:12:50,100 --> 01:12:55,580
about 40 million people sterilised
in India since 1950 to this day.

1147
01:12:55,580 --> 01:13:00,060
It's important not to damn the whole
population control movement.

1148
01:13:00,060 --> 01:13:02,540
They weren't all eugenicists.

1149
01:13:02,540 --> 01:13:05,900
Many were driven by sincere
environmental concerns,

1150
01:13:05,900 --> 01:13:09,740
or to improve women's access
to birth control.

1151
01:13:09,740 --> 01:13:11,740
Not all of these people
are eugenicists.

1152
01:13:11,740 --> 01:13:15,260
There are lots of people
interested in population issues

1153
01:13:15,260 --> 01:13:17,660
who are not eugenicists.

1154
01:13:17,660 --> 01:13:22,900
However, it was the big figures
in this movement, at least

1155
01:13:22,900 --> 01:13:26,260
in the 1950s, had that eugenic
inclination.

1156
01:13:29,500 --> 01:13:32,940
Well, I think one thing that is
recurrent in the story of eugenics

1157
01:13:32,940 --> 01:13:35,540
throughout the 20th century

1158
01:13:35,540 --> 01:13:38,780
is that the target always seems
to be the poorest.

1159
01:13:38,780 --> 01:13:42,020
Whether that's
the poorest within British society

1160
01:13:42,020 --> 01:13:45,060
or whether that's the poor wherever
they happen to be in the world.

1161
01:13:45,060 --> 01:13:47,420
Just goes to show that that element

1162
01:13:47,420 --> 01:13:52,940
of wanting to get rid of poor people
one way or another remains.

1163
01:13:54,620 --> 01:14:00,700
And, in some ways, is the darkest
element of eugenics that, you know,

1164
01:14:00,700 --> 01:14:03,140
only the wealthy should be allowed
to have children.

1165
01:14:03,140 --> 01:14:06,820
That has never changed.
That's been the constant throughout.

1166
01:14:11,260 --> 01:14:14,180
The other side of the British
eugenic vision

1167
01:14:14,180 --> 01:14:19,700
was to encourage the educated middle
classes to have more children,

1168
01:14:19,700 --> 01:14:23,700
something eugenicists pushed
even after the war.

1169
01:14:23,700 --> 01:14:28,220
I'm meeting a retired academic
with a strange story.

1170
01:14:28,220 --> 01:14:30,180
In the early 1960s,

1171
01:14:30,180 --> 01:14:31,940
Hilary Rose and her husband

1172
01:14:31,940 --> 01:14:35,260
were working at the London School
of Economics.

1173
01:14:35,260 --> 01:14:37,100
To Hilary's surprise,

1174
01:14:37,100 --> 01:14:42,260
the LSC quietly offered an incentive
to academics to have more babies.

1175
01:14:43,340 --> 01:14:44,460
Why?

1176
01:14:44,460 --> 01:14:49,020
Because they were seen
as the brightest and the best.

1177
01:14:49,020 --> 01:14:50,260
And it was funny.

1178
01:14:51,340 --> 01:14:55,460
What we got was £50 for every
child that you had.

1179
01:14:55,460 --> 01:14:57,980
And how was this presented to you?

1180
01:14:57,980 --> 01:15:00,100
It just was there in your payslip.

1181
01:15:00,100 --> 01:15:02,900
I mean, nobody told you about it.

1182
01:15:02,900 --> 01:15:05,940
You just thought, "Where did this
money come from?"

1183
01:15:05,940 --> 01:15:08,140
So for all the extra children
you had...

1184
01:15:08,140 --> 01:15:09,540
We had two children. Right.

1185
01:15:09,540 --> 01:15:12,020
We got £200.

1186
01:15:12,020 --> 01:15:15,660
If we'd only had one academic,
obviously a male academic,

1187
01:15:15,660 --> 01:15:18,740
then they would have only got £100.

1188
01:15:18,740 --> 01:15:20,620
Remarkably, the scheme

1189
01:15:20,620 --> 01:15:23,900
had originally been proposed in the
1920s,

1190
01:15:23,900 --> 01:15:27,060
by then LSC director
William Beveridge,

1191
01:15:27,060 --> 01:15:30,620
the future architect
of the welfare state.

1192
01:15:30,620 --> 01:15:34,580
He had been fascinated by the idea
of positive eugenics.

1193
01:15:35,940 --> 01:15:37,980
When you look back on that now,

1194
01:15:37,980 --> 01:15:39,620
now in the 21st century,

1195
01:15:39,620 --> 01:15:42,060
how do you feel about it?

1196
01:15:42,060 --> 01:15:43,540
Well, a bit guilty.

1197
01:15:43,540 --> 01:15:46,620
I mean, it's, you know,
it was so unjust.

1198
01:15:47,700 --> 01:15:50,180
But did you feel at all flattered
that you were considered

1199
01:15:50,180 --> 01:15:53,420
the desirable parents,
that you were the good people?

1200
01:15:53,420 --> 01:15:54,860
I mean, we just laughed about it.

1201
01:15:54,860 --> 01:15:57,700
I mean, look, I'm married to a
biologist.

1202
01:15:57,700 --> 01:16:02,620
I mean, he knows the whole thing
is just scientific garbage.

1203
01:16:02,620 --> 01:16:05,700
I regard it as just monstrous.

1204
01:16:05,700 --> 01:16:09,020
You know, if you believe
that all children should be treated

1205
01:16:09,020 --> 01:16:11,820
with love and care
and have a good life.

1206
01:16:13,180 --> 01:16:17,180
I mean, how could I feel that as an
incentive?

1207
01:16:19,380 --> 01:16:21,980
Hilary went on to have
a distinguished career

1208
01:16:21,980 --> 01:16:23,700
as a sociologist.

1209
01:16:23,700 --> 01:16:27,380
She's spoken out against
the promotion of eugenics

1210
01:16:27,380 --> 01:16:31,860
under the guise of population
control or social improvement.

1211
01:16:31,860 --> 01:16:34,660
What do you do if you've got
a litter of dogs

1212
01:16:34,660 --> 01:16:37,100
and one is the runt of the litter?

1213
01:16:37,100 --> 01:16:40,780
You strangle it, or you put
it in a bucket of water.

1214
01:16:40,780 --> 01:16:47,260
And that's how I think the ruling
strata thought about the people,

1215
01:16:47,260 --> 01:16:50,100
is that you want to look after it,

1216
01:16:50,100 --> 01:16:53,140
you want to look
after the national stock.

1217
01:16:55,500 --> 01:16:57,860
I couldn't have imagined
that eugenics

1218
01:16:57,860 --> 01:17:01,180
would continue in Britain
after the war.

1219
01:17:01,180 --> 01:17:03,700
But now I'm wondering if its key
dogma -

1220
01:17:03,700 --> 01:17:07,140
that the poor are some kind
of burden - has survived.

1221
01:17:08,180 --> 01:17:10,420
The phrase "Problem Families"

1222
01:17:10,420 --> 01:17:13,620
was used by the Eugenics Society
in the 1950s

1223
01:17:13,620 --> 01:17:17,460
to describe an underclass in which
crime, poverty

1224
01:17:17,460 --> 01:17:21,700
and unemployability runs through
generations.

1225
01:17:21,700 --> 01:17:24,660
More recent politicians don't
talk about this

1226
01:17:24,660 --> 01:17:26,220
as a genetic problem,

1227
01:17:26,220 --> 01:17:30,100
but they have talked in terms
of culture and society.

1228
01:17:32,420 --> 01:17:37,140
In 1974, senior Conservative
politician Keith Joseph said

1229
01:17:37,140 --> 01:17:41,700
the human stock was threatened
by poor people breeding too much.

1230
01:17:43,740 --> 01:17:45,500
In 2006,

1231
01:17:45,500 --> 01:17:49,620
Tony Blair said problem families
were a menace to society.

1232
01:17:50,780 --> 01:17:54,540
And in 2011, after riots in British
cities,

1233
01:17:54,540 --> 01:17:59,580
David Cameron laid some of the blame
on troubled families.

1234
01:17:59,580 --> 01:18:01,620
I think we've all known for years

1235
01:18:01,620 --> 01:18:04,260
that a relatively small number
of families

1236
01:18:04,260 --> 01:18:08,740
are the source of a large proportion
of problems in our society.

1237
01:18:08,740 --> 01:18:12,140
Drug addiction, alcohol abuse,
crime,

1238
01:18:12,140 --> 01:18:15,620
a culture of disruption and
irresponsibility

1239
01:18:15,620 --> 01:18:18,540
that cascades through generations.

1240
01:18:18,540 --> 01:18:22,500
But in recent years, a series
of reports and inquiries

1241
01:18:22,500 --> 01:18:25,540
have debunked the notion
that unemployment

1242
01:18:25,540 --> 01:18:27,420
and crime run in families.

1243
01:18:30,460 --> 01:18:34,900
Professor Jonathan Portes was one
of a number of experts asked

1244
01:18:34,900 --> 01:18:38,580
by the government to carry out
an independent evaluation

1245
01:18:38,580 --> 01:18:40,420
of its troubled families programme.

1246
01:18:42,900 --> 01:18:45,100
The myth of intergenerational
worklessness

1247
01:18:45,100 --> 01:18:47,340
has been comprehensively exploded.

1248
01:18:47,340 --> 01:18:51,580
There are very, very few
families that are workless

1249
01:18:51,580 --> 01:18:53,460
for more than one generation,

1250
01:18:53,460 --> 01:18:55,940
let alone for two or three
generations.

1251
01:18:55,940 --> 01:18:59,620
There's always been a view
that there were the deserving poor

1252
01:18:59,620 --> 01:19:01,340
and the undeserving poor.

1253
01:19:01,340 --> 01:19:05,660
The way it's sold or justified
is typically with, you know,

1254
01:19:05,660 --> 01:19:10,860
a spread in a tabloid newspaper of a
mum with ten or 11 children.

1255
01:19:10,860 --> 01:19:12,820
And the message is,

1256
01:19:12,820 --> 01:19:18,340
"These people are special, they're
somehow breeding like rabbits,

1257
01:19:18,340 --> 01:19:23,220
"and you, the honest, hardworking
taxpayer, are paying for them."

1258
01:19:23,220 --> 01:19:25,900
I'm sure there's no politicians,
no policy makers now

1259
01:19:25,900 --> 01:19:27,700
who would ever think in these terms,

1260
01:19:27,700 --> 01:19:28,900
who would ever advocate,

1261
01:19:28,900 --> 01:19:31,220
as they did in the 1920s and 1930s,

1262
01:19:31,220 --> 01:19:33,620
sterilisation for certain groups of
people.

1263
01:19:33,620 --> 01:19:38,300
Or, you know, to encourage certain
people to reproduce and not others.

1264
01:19:38,300 --> 01:19:41,140
Well, that's not quite true,
of course. Really?

1265
01:19:41,140 --> 01:19:44,340
Well, I mean we have just chosen
to introduce

1266
01:19:44,340 --> 01:19:47,900
a three-child limit
in Universal Credit.

1267
01:19:47,900 --> 01:19:50,780
You know, more than two children,
that is your lot.

1268
01:19:50,780 --> 01:19:55,380
You are being irresponsible,
and you, your family, your children

1269
01:19:55,380 --> 01:19:58,060
will have to accept the financial
consequences

1270
01:19:58,060 --> 01:20:00,220
of that irresponsibility.

1271
01:20:00,220 --> 01:20:04,940
With some exceptions,
families whose third child is born

1272
01:20:04,940 --> 01:20:09,380
after 6th April 2017 don't
receive Universal Credit

1273
01:20:09,380 --> 01:20:11,740
for that child, or any more.

1274
01:20:11,740 --> 01:20:14,260
We are effectively saying to
low-income families,

1275
01:20:14,260 --> 01:20:16,780
and that includes
low-income families in work,

1276
01:20:16,780 --> 01:20:20,380
that we are going to penalise you
for the act of having a third child.

1277
01:20:20,380 --> 01:20:24,420
And I think that is quite explicitly
a message to some parts of society,

1278
01:20:24,420 --> 01:20:27,060
"Actually, we think you're
having too many children."

1279
01:20:31,460 --> 01:20:35,900
The idea that some groups are a
burden to society is still with us.

1280
01:20:38,100 --> 01:20:41,420
And in recent years, social media
has become rife with prejudice.

1281
01:20:45,300 --> 01:20:51,100
Here, the eugenic idea that some
people aren't fit to breed is back

1282
01:20:51,100 --> 01:20:52,380
with a vengeance.

1283
01:20:55,380 --> 01:20:58,580
I'm going to Stoney Bridge,
just outside of Manchester.

1284
01:20:58,580 --> 01:21:02,940
The reason being, I've come to talk
to a friend of mine, Steve.

1285
01:21:02,940 --> 01:21:06,860
He's done a bit of TV work, advocacy
work, etc.

1286
01:21:07,980 --> 01:21:09,820
He's got a genetic condition,

1287
01:21:09,820 --> 01:21:13,660
and there's a 50/50 chance that he
could pass it on to his children

1288
01:21:13,660 --> 01:21:15,660
and, most crucial to this story,

1289
01:21:15,660 --> 01:21:19,940
has expressed interest in both
him and his wife starting a family.

1290
01:21:21,660 --> 01:21:23,500
Steve has a genetic condition,

1291
01:21:23,500 --> 01:21:24,740
Crouzon syndrome,

1292
01:21:24,740 --> 01:21:27,100
which means some of the bones in his
skull

1293
01:21:27,100 --> 01:21:29,620
fused together too early in infancy.

1294
01:21:32,820 --> 01:21:35,060
There are potentially dangerous side
effects,

1295
01:21:35,060 --> 01:21:36,940
but with modern medical care,

1296
01:21:36,940 --> 01:21:40,380
people with the syndrome
have a normal life expectancy.

1297
01:21:41,820 --> 01:21:45,460
But after Steve and his wife, Vicky,
told a newspaper they were thinking

1298
01:21:45,460 --> 01:21:50,020
of starting a family, they began
to receive online hate messages.

1299
01:21:52,140 --> 01:21:55,500
"I think we need to kill
these people, right?

1300
01:21:55,500 --> 01:21:58,380
"At the very least, imprison them.

1301
01:21:58,380 --> 01:22:01,620
"If you heard there was someone out
there intentionally inflicting

1302
01:22:01,620 --> 01:22:03,820
"people with debilitating diseases,

1303
01:22:03,820 --> 01:22:06,660
"would you let them run about and
continue to do so,

1304
01:22:06,660 --> 01:22:09,220
"or try to put a stop to it?

1305
01:22:09,220 --> 01:22:12,900
"How does society feel about forced
vasectomies?

1306
01:22:12,900 --> 01:22:15,100
"Some cords are just better cut.

1307
01:22:15,100 --> 01:22:17,940
"It's either that, or beat this guy
over the head with a rock

1308
01:22:17,940 --> 01:22:20,300
"and ship him down the river to the
'80s cult classic

1309
01:22:20,300 --> 01:22:21,860
"that he came from."

1310
01:22:21,860 --> 01:22:24,180
And that kind of shocked us more
than anything,

1311
01:22:24,180 --> 01:22:26,420
because it's not something I've
usually come across.

1312
01:22:26,420 --> 01:22:28,900
I've come across the bullying
comments,

1313
01:22:28,900 --> 01:22:32,260
people making childish names,

1314
01:22:32,260 --> 01:22:34,860
and abusing me,

1315
01:22:34,860 --> 01:22:38,340
but that's a whole new level
that I've experienced.

1316
01:22:39,740 --> 01:22:44,460
I was upset and, obviously,
hearing them say things

1317
01:22:44,460 --> 01:22:47,820
like that about my husband,
who I love dearly,

1318
01:22:47,820 --> 01:22:49,460
obviously is a massive shock.

1319
01:22:49,460 --> 01:22:51,980
I'm fully prepared for if I do have
a child with Crouzon's.

1320
01:22:51,980 --> 01:22:56,140
I was brought up with the situation
that you have a condition,

1321
01:22:56,140 --> 01:22:58,260
you're not
different from anyone else.

1322
01:22:58,260 --> 01:23:01,260
And that's the kind of environment
I can bring my child up in.

1323
01:23:01,260 --> 01:23:05,380
And you can still live a happy life.

1324
01:23:05,380 --> 01:23:07,220
He hasn't really thought this
through.

1325
01:23:07,220 --> 01:23:10,620
I mean, no-one knows the path of
Crouzon's better than you.

1326
01:23:10,620 --> 01:23:14,740
We both agree that we'd make
fantastic parents.

1327
01:23:14,740 --> 01:23:17,380
You know, I think if we did have
a baby, or children,

1328
01:23:17,380 --> 01:23:19,940
you know, they'd all be
greatly loved.

1329
01:23:25,580 --> 01:23:28,180
I'm really angry right now.

1330
01:23:28,180 --> 01:23:31,180
I want to know when did we as
a human race decide

1331
01:23:31,180 --> 01:23:35,660
when it was OK to say who can
and who can't have kids?

1332
01:23:36,700 --> 01:23:41,380
And it's made all the more
infuriating

1333
01:23:41,380 --> 01:23:43,100
by the fact that these are people I
know.

1334
01:23:43,100 --> 01:23:46,700
This is like a really good mate
of mine and his wife,

1335
01:23:46,700 --> 01:23:49,380
who wanted to start a family.

1336
01:23:49,380 --> 01:23:52,420
It's like a perfectly normal thing,

1337
01:23:52,420 --> 01:23:55,780
just subject to such scrutiny
and vitriol.

1338
01:24:01,700 --> 01:24:03,020
And to make matters worse,

1339
01:24:03,020 --> 01:24:04,420
there are also growing fears

1340
01:24:04,420 --> 01:24:07,060
around recent medical breakthroughs.

1341
01:24:09,180 --> 01:24:13,820
About one in five people in the UK
have a form of disability,

1342
01:24:13,820 --> 01:24:16,180
and some of them worry that emerging
science

1343
01:24:16,180 --> 01:24:18,620
might usher in a new era
of eugenics.

1344
01:24:23,980 --> 01:24:26,740
Sarah Leiter was born
with albinism

1345
01:24:26,740 --> 01:24:28,940
and is almost completely blind.

1346
01:24:30,540 --> 01:24:32,500
She's also a genetic researcher,

1347
01:24:32,500 --> 01:24:36,620
and is concerned about the potential
misuse of medical advances.

1348
01:24:41,180 --> 01:24:44,260
What is the medical landscape
like at the moment?

1349
01:24:44,260 --> 01:24:46,700
What's been developing a lot
over the past few years

1350
01:24:46,700 --> 01:24:47,900
has been screening.

1351
01:24:47,900 --> 01:24:50,100
So I think the most prominent
example people would know

1352
01:24:50,100 --> 01:24:53,660
about is Down's syndrome
screening in pregnancy.

1353
01:24:53,660 --> 01:24:58,300
Today, an estimated 90% of Down's
syndrome pregnancies are terminated.

1354
01:25:03,300 --> 01:25:06,940
Advocacy groups like the Don't
Screen Us Out campaign are concerned

1355
01:25:06,940 --> 01:25:08,980
that one day people
with Down's syndrome

1356
01:25:08,980 --> 01:25:11,100
will be eradicated from society.

1357
01:25:12,820 --> 01:25:17,780
And now a new technique is available
that could expand screening hugely.

1358
01:25:19,300 --> 01:25:22,180
Now we can do non-invasive antenatal
genetics

1359
01:25:22,180 --> 01:25:25,820
which is basically where you take
a blood sample from the mum

1360
01:25:25,820 --> 01:25:29,620
and you're basically... Because
there's a very small amount of DNA

1361
01:25:29,620 --> 01:25:33,340
from the baby is going to be
circulating in Mum's blood.

1362
01:25:33,340 --> 01:25:36,420
So actually by taking a sample
of blood from Mum, we can now

1363
01:25:36,420 --> 01:25:40,660
look at, are there certain
genetic changes in the baby?

1364
01:25:42,100 --> 01:25:45,340
And at the moment this is mostly
being done in a targeted approach.

1365
01:25:45,340 --> 01:25:50,220
So, like, a family might have one
child with cystic fibrosis

1366
01:25:50,220 --> 01:25:52,700
which is, you know, a life-limiting
condition.

1367
01:25:52,700 --> 01:25:57,820
They might say we don't want
a second child with cystic fibrosis.

1368
01:25:57,820 --> 01:26:00,020
So at the moment, I think
it's still very much based

1369
01:26:00,020 --> 01:26:01,900
on if you know your family
has a condition.

1370
01:26:04,020 --> 01:26:05,540
But who knows whether in future

1371
01:26:05,540 --> 01:26:08,380
this will just become a much
more broad approach,

1372
01:26:08,380 --> 01:26:11,460
where you say, actually we screen
for every potential genetic mutation

1373
01:26:11,460 --> 01:26:13,020
there is and then we like,
you know...

1374
01:26:13,020 --> 01:26:16,020
Actually, I don't know how many
embryos would be left in the end.

1375
01:26:16,020 --> 01:26:18,780
You'd actually have to rule out
probably

1376
01:26:18,780 --> 01:26:21,100
about a tenth of all pregnancies.

1377
01:26:21,100 --> 01:26:24,380
Could this mean that in the future
there'll be fewer people like me

1378
01:26:24,380 --> 01:26:25,780
and these children?

1379
01:26:27,900 --> 01:26:30,060
We share the same genetic
condition -

1380
01:26:30,060 --> 01:26:33,780
Neurofibromatosis Type 1,
or NF1.

1381
01:26:35,980 --> 01:26:38,500
It's caused by a mutation
on a single gene.

1382
01:26:42,300 --> 01:26:45,020
This causes benign tumours to
appear.

1383
01:26:45,020 --> 01:26:47,300
Mine are on my face,
but they can form anywhere,

1384
01:26:47,300 --> 01:26:50,580
causing many different
complications.

1385
01:26:52,420 --> 01:26:54,340
You eat pizza as well?

1386
01:26:54,340 --> 01:26:55,900
Yep.

1387
01:26:55,900 --> 01:26:58,860
Screening can now detect NF1
in embryos,

1388
01:26:58,860 --> 01:27:02,820
and couples can choose not
to go ahead with pregnancies.

1389
01:27:06,700 --> 01:27:10,700
I asked the mum of eight-year-old
Ellie what she thinks.

1390
01:27:10,700 --> 01:27:13,180
This is, I think, really, really
tough.

1391
01:27:13,180 --> 01:27:16,660
When you're thinking about it
from a eugenics point of view,

1392
01:27:16,660 --> 01:27:19,420
you're thinking about what genetic
issues

1393
01:27:19,420 --> 01:27:21,900
do you not want to carry on
populating.

1394
01:27:21,900 --> 01:27:25,180
But you're missing out
on what potentially

1395
01:27:25,180 --> 01:27:28,340
could you have aside from that.

1396
01:27:28,340 --> 01:27:30,780
And I think to view a person's life

1397
01:27:30,780 --> 01:27:33,620
as a catalogue of medical
appointments

1398
01:27:33,620 --> 01:27:38,100
really misses out on all the other
stuff that matters far more.

1399
01:27:41,780 --> 01:27:43,820
Some disabled people fear screening

1400
01:27:43,820 --> 01:27:46,020
will ultimately remove them
from society,

1401
01:27:46,020 --> 01:27:49,220
which is what
eugenicists have always wanted.

1402
01:27:53,140 --> 01:27:55,140
I'm with the Lichy family.

1403
01:27:55,140 --> 01:27:57,580
Mum, Dad
and both children are all deaf.

1404
01:28:00,420 --> 01:28:02,500
We're getting to the stage now
medically

1405
01:28:02,500 --> 01:28:04,820
where we can start screening

1406
01:28:04,820 --> 01:28:06,820
for things like deafness.

1407
01:28:06,820 --> 01:28:08,980
Is that a good idea?

1408
01:28:08,980 --> 01:28:10,900
No.

1409
01:28:10,900 --> 01:28:14,980
I was really angry when I first
heard that they were able

1410
01:28:14,980 --> 01:28:17,180
to look at the genes of a baby

1411
01:28:17,180 --> 01:28:20,900
or an embryo and then get rid
of the deaf genes.

1412
01:28:20,900 --> 01:28:23,180
And I thought,

1413
01:28:23,180 --> 01:28:26,380
"Do you think that deaf people's
lives aren't worth living?

1414
01:28:26,380 --> 01:28:30,500
"Does that mean deaf people
are lesser than hearing people?"

1415
01:28:30,500 --> 01:28:33,540
And I felt very offended by that.

1416
01:28:33,540 --> 01:28:35,580
I believe deaf people have a lot
of life to live

1417
01:28:35,580 --> 01:28:39,580
and a lot to offer
and provide to society.

1418
01:28:39,580 --> 01:28:40,860
I feel targeted.

1419
01:28:44,300 --> 01:28:47,340
Because all that campaigning
for human rights, for rights about,

1420
01:28:47,340 --> 01:28:51,900
for example, black, white
people, gay, straight people,

1421
01:28:51,900 --> 01:28:54,140
it just feels like all that
campaigning

1422
01:28:54,140 --> 01:28:55,860
for all of this equality law

1423
01:28:55,860 --> 01:28:57,700
actually doesn't mean anything,

1424
01:28:57,700 --> 01:29:01,020
because disabled people
are being targeted by this.

1425
01:29:01,020 --> 01:29:03,700
Yeah, it feels like two stories,
you know?

1426
01:29:03,700 --> 01:29:06,460
On one hand we're valued
and we should have equality,

1427
01:29:06,460 --> 01:29:07,700
and on the other hand,

1428
01:29:07,700 --> 01:29:09,940
we shouldn't have existed
in the first place.

1429
01:29:14,980 --> 01:29:17,980
But is screening always wrong?

1430
01:29:17,980 --> 01:29:20,940
Philosophically,
it's a minefield.

1431
01:29:22,220 --> 01:29:23,540
Complete minefield.

1432
01:29:25,020 --> 01:29:28,380
The worlds of Adam Pearson and NF1
are completely

1433
01:29:28,380 --> 01:29:30,220
and utterly inseparable.

1434
01:29:30,220 --> 01:29:32,100
I've dealt with that and I've got
no doubt

1435
01:29:32,100 --> 01:29:35,060
my prospective children will be able
to deal with it.

1436
01:29:36,500 --> 01:29:38,700
But would it be easier if they
didn't have to?

1437
01:29:40,780 --> 01:29:43,020
Kind of, for me, I wouldn't change
it for the world,

1438
01:29:43,020 --> 01:29:44,420
because it's made me who I am

1439
01:29:44,420 --> 01:29:47,700
and it's given me the platform
that I now have.

1440
01:29:50,060 --> 01:29:54,620
But, you know, I've had 35
surgeries by 34 years of age.

1441
01:29:56,020 --> 01:29:57,540
That's not fun.

1442
01:29:57,540 --> 01:29:59,260
Got bullied a lot at school,

1443
01:29:59,260 --> 01:30:01,900
and there's the whole thing when you
have a facial disfigurement,

1444
01:30:01,900 --> 01:30:06,060
you somehow lose your anonymity
and become public property.

1445
01:30:06,060 --> 01:30:11,260
And it's also
not my decision exclusively, either.

1446
01:30:11,260 --> 01:30:14,060
You know, when we're talking about
kind of raising children,

1447
01:30:14,060 --> 01:30:16,340
there's invariably
always someone else involved.

1448
01:30:24,860 --> 01:30:27,940
I want to meet people who've used
screening to avoid passing

1449
01:30:27,940 --> 01:30:29,860
on a hereditary condition.

1450
01:30:31,140 --> 01:30:33,220
I'm meeting the Chiocci family.

1451
01:30:34,420 --> 01:30:36,980
Dad Michael, like me, has NF1.

1452
01:30:39,460 --> 01:30:42,260
So, much like me, you have NF1

1453
01:30:42,260 --> 01:30:45,500
but it's affected us
in very different ways, obviously.

1454
01:30:45,500 --> 01:30:49,020
I've got a lot of fibroma
on my face and upper body.

1455
01:30:49,020 --> 01:30:50,860
How has it affected you?

1456
01:30:50,860 --> 01:30:53,500
I've got quite a few
like fibromas as well.

1457
01:30:53,500 --> 01:30:56,300
So, obviously, I've got the
neurofibroma here.

1458
01:30:56,300 --> 01:30:58,580
I've got a few. I've got them all
down my back.

1459
01:30:58,580 --> 01:31:01,860
I just look like I've got a lot
of extra nipples all over my body,

1460
01:31:01,860 --> 01:31:03,180
generally on my back,

1461
01:31:03,180 --> 01:31:05,500
but I think, apart from that,
I'm still quite clumsy

1462
01:31:05,500 --> 01:31:07,020
and I think Emma will probably tell
you

1463
01:31:07,020 --> 01:31:09,220
that sometimes my short term
memory is not brilliant.

1464
01:31:09,220 --> 01:31:10,820
I kind of get quite forgetful
at times.

1465
01:31:10,820 --> 01:31:12,900
Yeah, very.
I'm clumsy as hell.

1466
01:31:12,900 --> 01:31:15,860
So, we have that in common.

1467
01:31:18,500 --> 01:31:21,060
Their first son Josh was conceived
naturally.

1468
01:31:22,140 --> 01:31:24,580
He has inherited the NF1 gene.

1469
01:31:26,220 --> 01:31:28,420
He's 13 years old now.

1470
01:31:28,420 --> 01:31:30,860
And how has NF affected Josh?

1471
01:31:30,860 --> 01:31:33,180
He's got moderate learning problems.

1472
01:31:33,180 --> 01:31:35,780
He's got...

1473
01:31:35,780 --> 01:31:38,460
..a plexi-form neurofibroma
under his tongue.

1474
01:31:38,460 --> 01:31:40,380
He's got them round his jaws.

1475
01:31:40,380 --> 01:31:42,220
He's hyper-mobility.

1476
01:31:42,220 --> 01:31:43,620
He's got scoliosis.

1477
01:31:43,620 --> 01:31:46,060
Very outgoing.

1478
01:31:46,060 --> 01:31:47,940
He doesn't let anything
stand in his way.

1479
01:31:47,940 --> 01:31:50,460
But I think he's starting
to realise now, doesn't he,

1480
01:31:50,460 --> 01:31:53,220
that he's a little bit different.

1481
01:31:55,220 --> 01:31:58,220
After Josh was born, Emma and
Michael heard about

1482
01:31:58,220 --> 01:32:00,580
a pioneering new medical
technique

1483
01:32:00,580 --> 01:32:03,780
called pre-implantation
genetic diagnosis,

1484
01:32:03,780 --> 01:32:06,820
which involves creating embryos
using IVF.

1485
01:32:09,460 --> 01:32:11,860
On average, in cases
like the Chioccis,

1486
01:32:11,860 --> 01:32:15,140
half will carry the NF gene and
half won't.

1487
01:32:16,980 --> 01:32:20,780
Doctors select the embryos
without the faulty gene

1488
01:32:20,780 --> 01:32:23,500
and implant them in the mother's
womb.

1489
01:32:23,500 --> 01:32:26,740
I think with us they
re-implanted two,

1490
01:32:26,740 --> 01:32:28,820
and that's how we ended up with
Oliver.

1491
01:32:28,820 --> 01:32:30,980
Nice. Yeah. Show your muscles!

1492
01:32:32,900 --> 01:32:35,220
The debate that rages on is,

1493
01:32:35,220 --> 01:32:39,140
are we ultimately screening
out disability?

1494
01:32:39,140 --> 01:32:42,460
How was the response
from the NF community?

1495
01:32:42,460 --> 01:32:45,900
Well, we did have a few people
that said that they didn't agree

1496
01:32:45,900 --> 01:32:47,420
with what we were doing,

1497
01:32:47,420 --> 01:32:49,820
which I did struggle
with for a while.

1498
01:32:49,820 --> 01:32:51,900
But I have no regrets.

1499
01:32:53,740 --> 01:32:57,620
But do you understand the point
they're making? Yeah, I do.

1500
01:32:57,620 --> 01:33:00,460
Are we or aren't we screening out
disability?

1501
01:33:00,460 --> 01:33:02,100
I do.
I do understand that.

1502
01:33:02,100 --> 01:33:06,740
But why should a child suffer
unnecessarily if they don't have to?

1503
01:33:06,740 --> 01:33:09,980
And you're not trying to get rid
of people who are alive today.

1504
01:33:09,980 --> 01:33:11,940
We're just trying to give people,
no,

1505
01:33:11,940 --> 01:33:13,780
to children who haven't even
been born yet,

1506
01:33:13,780 --> 01:33:15,140
the best chance for the future,

1507
01:33:15,140 --> 01:33:17,380
which is a completely different
thing altogether.

1508
01:33:17,380 --> 01:33:18,700
No, completely.

1509
01:33:18,700 --> 01:33:23,460
I mean, I do wonder sometimes
if I've given Michael and Joshua

1510
01:33:23,460 --> 01:33:27,780
the idea that maybe I was saying
that they weren't good enough,

1511
01:33:27,780 --> 01:33:30,940
but I was just doing it
to have a healthy child.

1512
01:33:30,940 --> 01:33:33,980
I didn't want another child to go
through what Joshua's been through.

1513
01:33:33,980 --> 01:33:36,620
I think like most parents,
all you ever want is what's best

1514
01:33:36,620 --> 01:33:38,260
for your children, really.

1515
01:33:38,260 --> 01:33:40,340
I don't think there's a right
or wrong answer.

1516
01:33:40,340 --> 01:33:44,540
I think it's what is best for you.

1517
01:33:44,540 --> 01:33:46,860
I don't think what we've done
is wrong.

1518
01:33:46,860 --> 01:33:48,540
Everyone makes their own decisions.

1519
01:33:48,540 --> 01:33:51,260
I think everyone's
circumstances are different.

1520
01:33:51,260 --> 01:33:53,260
Everyone's had different
experiences.

1521
01:33:53,260 --> 01:33:54,900
So, currently, this technology

1522
01:33:54,900 --> 01:33:58,780
is being used to screen for things
like NF and Huntington's.

1523
01:33:58,780 --> 01:34:03,380
But the big debate is that the
further advanced it becomes,

1524
01:34:03,380 --> 01:34:06,380
the more possibilities there are.

1525
01:34:06,380 --> 01:34:11,300
And it could stray off into a kind
of design your own baby area.

1526
01:34:11,300 --> 01:34:14,500
Where do you think
the line should be drawn?

1527
01:34:14,500 --> 01:34:16,820
I think we've got it right
in the UK at the moment.

1528
01:34:16,820 --> 01:34:18,460
I mean, when you go for your PGD,

1529
01:34:18,460 --> 01:34:20,500
there's not like a shopping list.

1530
01:34:20,500 --> 01:34:21,660
Do you want a boy or a girl?

1531
01:34:21,660 --> 01:34:23,940
What colour eyes
and hair do you want them to have?

1532
01:34:23,940 --> 01:34:26,820
It is solely, basically, to make
sure that the baby's healthy,

1533
01:34:26,820 --> 01:34:30,900
doesn't have the same problem
that you have yourself.

1534
01:34:32,300 --> 01:34:36,180
It seems perfectly reasonable to me
that a family where two members

1535
01:34:36,180 --> 01:34:40,380
already have a genetic condition
like NF1 would try PGD.

1536
01:34:43,340 --> 01:34:46,700
I really liked them, and they've
really thought it through.

1537
01:34:46,700 --> 01:34:50,940
Ultimately, parents want the
best possible life for their kids

1538
01:34:50,940 --> 01:34:54,500
which is what any parent wants
and it isn't unreasonable.

1539
01:34:54,500 --> 01:34:56,820
And I get it.

1540
01:34:56,820 --> 01:35:01,500
I would probably make a very similar
choice in their situation.

1541
01:35:01,500 --> 01:35:04,580
And I understand the objection

1542
01:35:04,580 --> 01:35:08,220
that if we start screening out
disability, what does that say

1543
01:35:08,220 --> 01:35:11,860
about how we value
disabled people?

1544
01:35:11,860 --> 01:35:14,180
And I don't think that's what
happening with PGD.

1545
01:35:14,180 --> 01:35:15,900
I think there's a definite line

1546
01:35:15,900 --> 01:35:17,540
that's been drawn in the sand.

1547
01:35:17,540 --> 01:35:20,740
Where this all starts to become
a bit more eugenic

1548
01:35:20,740 --> 01:35:25,460
in its practise is when you go from
trying to relieve suffering

1549
01:35:25,460 --> 01:35:30,020
and slowly creep towards enhancing
and altering humans.

1550
01:35:33,140 --> 01:35:36,180
Oliver is a living, breathing
example

1551
01:35:36,180 --> 01:35:41,020
of how modern genetic science
can alleviate suffering.

1552
01:35:41,020 --> 01:35:44,900
But what if the same kind
of technology that helped him

1553
01:35:44,900 --> 01:35:49,100
could be used to change
children in other ways?

1554
01:35:49,100 --> 01:35:53,300
What if you could use IVF to create
a number of embryos

1555
01:35:53,300 --> 01:35:57,020
and genetically test them
for skills or talents?

1556
01:35:58,380 --> 01:36:00,420
So, for instance, you could choose
the one likely

1557
01:36:00,420 --> 01:36:02,420
to be the most intelligent.

1558
01:36:04,380 --> 01:36:07,660
Current law prohibits this use
for PGD.

1559
01:36:07,660 --> 01:36:11,940
But some scientists say
it could be technically possible

1560
01:36:11,940 --> 01:36:14,220
and that we need to consider it.

1561
01:36:16,740 --> 01:36:19,860
When you look at the history
of eugenics, intelligence is key.

1562
01:36:19,860 --> 01:36:23,220
How do we figure out who are
the most intelligent people,

1563
01:36:23,220 --> 01:36:25,340
and who are the least intelligent.

1564
01:36:25,340 --> 01:36:28,340
But identifying intelligence
is so difficult.

1565
01:36:29,660 --> 01:36:32,340
Even now, we have IQ testing

1566
01:36:32,340 --> 01:36:35,540
but many scientists are not
confident

1567
01:36:35,540 --> 01:36:38,820
IQ tests really measure
intelligence.

1568
01:36:38,820 --> 01:36:41,540
Even if we know what intelligence
is in all its complexity,

1569
01:36:41,540 --> 01:36:45,300
it's such a kind of difficult thing
to pin down.

1570
01:36:45,300 --> 01:36:50,020
But there are some geneticists out
there who believe

1571
01:36:50,020 --> 01:36:53,940
that we can not only measure
intelligence through tests,

1572
01:36:53,940 --> 01:36:56,100
so through written-down tests,

1573
01:36:56,100 --> 01:36:58,580
but that if we look inside our DNA,

1574
01:36:58,580 --> 01:37:00,100
inside our genomes,

1575
01:37:00,100 --> 01:37:04,100
we might be able to
isolate intelligence in our genes.

1576
01:37:04,100 --> 01:37:06,740
And it's incredibly controversial.

1577
01:37:06,740 --> 01:37:09,740
I don't know if the science
is even there yet.

1578
01:37:09,740 --> 01:37:11,940
I don't think the science is there.

1579
01:37:11,940 --> 01:37:15,100
But I certainly want to understand

1580
01:37:15,100 --> 01:37:18,900
how it works and how they think
it might be possible.

1581
01:37:20,060 --> 01:37:23,460
I'm visiting scientists
at King's College, London.

1582
01:37:23,460 --> 01:37:28,260
They've called publicly for society
and government to urgently confront

1583
01:37:28,260 --> 01:37:31,500
the possibility that we will,
in the future,

1584
01:37:31,500 --> 01:37:34,580
be able to screen
embryos for intelligence.

1585
01:37:37,300 --> 01:37:39,460
Here, and around the world,

1586
01:37:39,460 --> 01:37:42,300
scientists have spent years looking

1587
01:37:42,300 --> 01:37:44,620
at educational achievement

1588
01:37:44,620 --> 01:37:48,500
and trying to find shared patterns
in DNA.

1589
01:37:48,500 --> 01:37:51,980
So if I were to have my DNA sample
and then send it into a company

1590
01:37:51,980 --> 01:37:54,220
it would end up something like that.
Yes.

1591
01:37:54,220 --> 01:37:56,380
They say that occasional
variations

1592
01:37:56,380 --> 01:38:00,620
in a person's genome, known
as their genetic score,

1593
01:38:00,620 --> 01:38:04,020
can partly explain how well that
person could do

1594
01:38:04,020 --> 01:38:06,260
at school and university.

1595
01:38:08,740 --> 01:38:13,140
And, in theory, you could do that
test before they're even born.

1596
01:38:15,340 --> 01:38:18,380
So we now have lots of information
from huge samples of people.

1597
01:38:18,380 --> 01:38:20,780
So these are called genome-wide
association studies.

1598
01:38:20,780 --> 01:38:24,820
The most recent study that looked at
this found that knowing someone's

1599
01:38:24,820 --> 01:38:27,860
genetic score right now, on the
information we have right now...

1600
01:38:27,860 --> 01:38:30,500
So a baby? Yeah. Yeah.

1601
01:38:30,500 --> 01:38:32,500
We could do that, or an adult.

1602
01:38:32,500 --> 01:38:34,580
You know, just take a DNA test,

1603
01:38:34,580 --> 01:38:37,140
saliva, or blood or whatever.

1604
01:38:37,140 --> 01:38:38,740
..it's about as good as knowing,

1605
01:38:38,740 --> 01:38:40,700
in terms of predicting how well

1606
01:38:40,700 --> 01:38:41,820
they'll do in school,

1607
01:38:41,820 --> 01:38:43,820
It's about as good as knowing
their parents' income.

1608
01:38:43,820 --> 01:38:45,460
So, like, not that good.

1609
01:38:45,460 --> 01:38:47,820
But like, you know,
obviously people differ a lot

1610
01:38:47,820 --> 01:38:50,180
with income brackets in how well
they do at school.

1611
01:38:50,180 --> 01:38:52,220
Some people do really well,
some people don't.

1612
01:38:52,220 --> 01:38:53,500
And with this genetic score,

1613
01:38:53,500 --> 01:38:55,620
some people do really well
and some people don't.

1614
01:38:55,620 --> 01:38:59,380
But it's about as good as knowing
their parents' income.

1615
01:38:59,380 --> 01:39:01,860
This is hotly debated.

1616
01:39:01,860 --> 01:39:04,900
Just because two things
are associated,

1617
01:39:04,900 --> 01:39:09,140
it doesn't mean one is necessarily
causing the other.

1618
01:39:09,140 --> 01:39:13,580
These genetic markers may not
be directly linked to intelligence

1619
01:39:13,580 --> 01:39:16,740
but may, for example, be more common
in better-off families

1620
01:39:16,740 --> 01:39:18,540
who took part in the study,

1621
01:39:18,540 --> 01:39:22,340
who can afford a higher
standard of education.

1622
01:39:22,340 --> 01:39:24,820
Whatever the true relationship,

1623
01:39:24,820 --> 01:39:29,660
Stuart and his colleagues argue
that they can use DNA

1624
01:39:29,660 --> 01:39:32,140
to partly
predict educational achievement.

1625
01:39:33,820 --> 01:39:35,900
Can you imagine a day when a mother

1626
01:39:35,900 --> 01:39:38,260
or father would be able to go
to a clinic,

1627
01:39:38,260 --> 01:39:40,900
have their foetuses tested,

1628
01:39:40,900 --> 01:39:45,900
and pick out the one that they think
of as the ideal child?

1629
01:39:45,900 --> 01:39:47,500
Yeah.

1630
01:39:47,500 --> 01:39:50,660
In future, yeah, I totally think
that the technology is possible

1631
01:39:50,660 --> 01:39:53,220
to do that, which is why we need to
be having this debate.

1632
01:39:53,220 --> 01:39:55,380
At the moment, we've made the
decision as a society

1633
01:39:55,380 --> 01:39:56,900
that we test for rare diseases,

1634
01:39:56,900 --> 01:39:59,380
because we don't want kids
growing up

1635
01:39:59,380 --> 01:40:03,020
with those devastating, rare
conditions.

1636
01:40:03,020 --> 01:40:05,220
But we need to adjust that debate

1637
01:40:05,220 --> 01:40:08,340
and start talking now about other
traits, as well,

1638
01:40:08,340 --> 01:40:10,620
and which we should be allowing
parents to select for.

1639
01:40:10,620 --> 01:40:12,260
This information is going
to be available

1640
01:40:12,260 --> 01:40:14,300
and we need to work out
what we're going to do with it.

1641
01:40:14,300 --> 01:40:16,940
We're now at the point where we can
make predictions,

1642
01:40:16,940 --> 01:40:19,460
we can say this person is predicted
to be, you know,

1643
01:40:19,460 --> 01:40:23,660
in the top end of the educational
distribution, for instance.

1644
01:40:23,660 --> 01:40:27,700
Or this person is as predicted to do
really, really poorly

1645
01:40:27,700 --> 01:40:29,540
in an intelligence test.

1646
01:40:29,540 --> 01:40:33,140
So really just by studying the DNA,
you can make that prediction? Yes.

1647
01:40:33,140 --> 01:40:35,900
So when we look at the history
of eugenics,

1648
01:40:35,900 --> 01:40:37,700
I mean, the entire impetus

1649
01:40:37,700 --> 01:40:41,060
behind it was the idea that we could
isolate in somebody's body

1650
01:40:41,060 --> 01:40:44,460
their innate capacities,
their innate abilities.

1651
01:40:44,460 --> 01:40:46,460
And from that be able to tell

1652
01:40:46,460 --> 01:40:51,100
whether they would be useful to
society or not so useful to society.

1653
01:40:51,100 --> 01:40:54,540
Do you feel that genetics now
is getting towards that?

1654
01:40:54,540 --> 01:40:56,020
No.

1655
01:40:56,020 --> 01:41:00,380
Because science doesn't tell us
anything about whether people

1656
01:41:00,380 --> 01:41:02,900
have any kind
of innate worth or value.

1657
01:41:02,900 --> 01:41:05,700
That's completely outside of the
realm of science.

1658
01:41:05,700 --> 01:41:07,340
We have to make judgments
about that.

1659
01:41:07,340 --> 01:41:09,700
My personal view is that everyone
has equal worth, no matter

1660
01:41:09,700 --> 01:41:11,700
what their intelligence test score.

1661
01:41:11,700 --> 01:41:13,620
They're just differences.
That's all they are.

1662
01:41:13,620 --> 01:41:16,020
And we have to work out
ways of dealing with that.

1663
01:41:17,700 --> 01:41:19,700
I mean, on the surface of it,

1664
01:41:19,700 --> 01:41:22,260
you could say if you could screen
out

1665
01:41:22,260 --> 01:41:25,700
a very damaging condition, something
that might shorten your child's life

1666
01:41:25,700 --> 01:41:27,940
or cause them severe disabilities
in the future,

1667
01:41:27,940 --> 01:41:30,580
then why would you not
want to be able to do that?

1668
01:41:30,580 --> 01:41:32,780
So to go one step further and say,

1669
01:41:32,780 --> 01:41:35,700
"Well, now that we can screen
out for these diseases,

1670
01:41:35,700 --> 01:41:38,420
"perhaps we can screen out
for everyday diseases."

1671
01:41:38,420 --> 01:41:39,860
And perhaps after that,

1672
01:41:39,860 --> 01:41:42,740
we could screen for the genes that
might make you

1673
01:41:42,740 --> 01:41:45,660
have a certain eye colour or a
certain hair colour,

1674
01:41:45,660 --> 01:41:47,740
or a certain level of intelligence.

1675
01:41:47,740 --> 01:41:49,860
And why then wouldn't you want to do
that, as well?

1676
01:41:49,860 --> 01:41:53,140
You know, if you're going one
step, why not go all the way?

1677
01:41:53,140 --> 01:41:55,780
Logically then, it's hard to fault
that,

1678
01:41:55,780 --> 01:42:00,020
because we've already
started walking down that path.

1679
01:42:01,180 --> 01:42:03,980
But it's incredibly fraught.

1680
01:42:03,980 --> 01:42:06,420
And I think it's as fraught now
as it was 100 years ago.

1681
01:42:06,420 --> 01:42:10,900
We haven't really resolved
these ethical queries for ourselves.

1682
01:42:13,900 --> 01:42:16,740
I've learned so far that today's
genetic technologies

1683
01:42:16,740 --> 01:42:18,780
are only used
to ease suffering.

1684
01:42:19,820 --> 01:42:21,300
But as science advances,

1685
01:42:21,300 --> 01:42:24,900
it puts current regulations
under more and more strain.

1686
01:42:26,940 --> 01:42:30,220
And, of course, regulations
can be broken.

1687
01:42:32,460 --> 01:42:35,820
This is the Francis Crick Institute
in London.

1688
01:42:35,820 --> 01:42:38,380
I am here to quiz Britain's top
geneticist

1689
01:42:38,380 --> 01:42:41,700
about a scientific scandal
that shocked the world.

1690
01:42:43,300 --> 01:42:47,820
It concerns a revolutionary
new technique known as gene editing,

1691
01:42:47,820 --> 01:42:50,340
and it's raised the spectre
of unborn children

1692
01:42:50,340 --> 01:42:52,380
being genetically enhanced.

1693
01:42:52,380 --> 01:42:53,580
A eugenic dream.

1694
01:42:55,780 --> 01:42:58,060
And it was all to do with this man.

1695
01:43:01,260 --> 01:43:05,340
In November, 2018, Chinese
scientist He Jiankui,

1696
01:43:05,340 --> 01:43:07,780
or JK as he refers to himself,

1697
01:43:07,780 --> 01:43:10,260
stunned the world when he made
an announcement

1698
01:43:10,260 --> 01:43:12,300
at a genetics
conference in Hong Kong.

1699
01:43:13,340 --> 01:43:18,100
First of all, we didn't know
when he accepted the invitation

1700
01:43:18,100 --> 01:43:19,620
to come and speak to us

1701
01:43:19,620 --> 01:43:22,780
any of the work
that he's now going to talk about.

1702
01:43:22,780 --> 01:43:25,940
Leading British geneticist
Robin Lovell-Badge

1703
01:43:25,940 --> 01:43:28,580
was one of the conference
organisers.

1704
01:43:29,740 --> 01:43:33,980
His hero is Bob Edwards, the pioneer
of in vitro fertilisation.

1705
01:43:35,260 --> 01:43:37,580
He told me that he wanted
to emulate this.

1706
01:43:37,580 --> 01:43:39,020
He wanted to do something

1707
01:43:39,020 --> 01:43:41,940
that would be of benefit
to millions of people.

1708
01:43:43,860 --> 01:43:47,020
For the last three years, JK
had been performing gene editing

1709
01:43:47,020 --> 01:43:49,420
experiments in secret on humans.

1710
01:43:52,500 --> 01:43:56,380
He was driven by huge ambition
and he was very wealthy.

1711
01:43:58,220 --> 01:44:02,460
JK recruited seven couples
where the man was HIV positive.

1712
01:44:04,380 --> 01:44:06,100
He told them he could use gene
editing

1713
01:44:06,100 --> 01:44:08,740
to make their children
immune to the disease.

1714
01:44:10,940 --> 01:44:12,980
Gene editing works thanks
to something called

1715
01:44:12,980 --> 01:44:14,020
CRISPR-Cas9,

1716
01:44:14,020 --> 01:44:16,420
a programmable molecular scissor.

1717
01:44:17,700 --> 01:44:20,620
This can be programmed to find
a specific location

1718
01:44:20,620 --> 01:44:22,460
on the DNA molecule and cut it.

1719
01:44:24,020 --> 01:44:26,980
Then a new piece of genetic
code can be inserted there.

1720
01:44:30,260 --> 01:44:33,940
JK tried to use this technique
to give embryos something called

1721
01:44:33,940 --> 01:44:36,740
a CCR5 Delta 32 mutation.

1722
01:44:38,180 --> 01:44:42,500
People born with this
can be resistant to HIV.

1723
01:44:42,500 --> 01:44:44,980
In late 2018, twin girls were born

1724
01:44:44,980 --> 01:44:47,740
who had undergone JK's gene editing.

1725
01:44:48,900 --> 01:44:51,940
But it seems
although he had made some change

1726
01:44:51,940 --> 01:44:55,580
to the baby's genes, it wasn't
the ones he'd intended.

1727
01:44:55,580 --> 01:44:58,700
He didn't actually make the Delta 32
mutation

1728
01:44:58,700 --> 01:45:01,500
which we understand
something about.

1729
01:45:01,500 --> 01:45:04,340
He made completely
random mutations

1730
01:45:04,340 --> 01:45:07,380
that we don't know the consequences
of the specific

1731
01:45:07,380 --> 01:45:09,540
mutations he's making in the gene.

1732
01:45:12,060 --> 01:45:14,700
The conference attendees were
shocked.

1733
01:45:14,700 --> 01:45:16,300
We were just stunned,

1734
01:45:16,300 --> 01:45:19,020
because basically what he had done

1735
01:45:19,020 --> 01:45:24,300
was completely outside all ethical
frameworks that we all stand by.

1736
01:45:24,300 --> 01:45:26,340
It's illegal in many countries.

1737
01:45:26,340 --> 01:45:28,820
And he was completely unregulated
and we've learnt

1738
01:45:28,820 --> 01:45:31,620
since that the ethics process
that he claimed to have gone

1739
01:45:31,620 --> 01:45:34,220
through wasn't real, it was fake.

1740
01:45:34,220 --> 01:45:37,140
And the consent process
that the families apparently engaged

1741
01:45:37,140 --> 01:45:42,140
with was also not real
and true, so it was fraudulent.

1742
01:45:42,140 --> 01:45:45,860
After the huge international outcry
against his work,

1743
01:45:45,860 --> 01:45:49,380
JK is reported
to be under house arrest in China.

1744
01:45:50,580 --> 01:45:55,100
So where does all this leave us
with the hype over designer babies?

1745
01:45:57,540 --> 01:46:00,500
At present, scientists have had some
limited success

1746
01:46:00,500 --> 01:46:02,100
editing genes in mice.

1747
01:46:03,420 --> 01:46:04,500
How successful?

1748
01:46:05,540 --> 01:46:09,220
Well, that's the problem. At the
moment, it's not efficient enough.

1749
01:46:10,660 --> 01:46:14,620
So when we're doing experiments
in mice,

1750
01:46:14,620 --> 01:46:16,940
occasionally, it works really well.

1751
01:46:16,940 --> 01:46:23,420
We get maybe 90%, 95%, sometimes
100% of the mice born

1752
01:46:23,420 --> 01:46:28,060
carrying the particular genetic
alteration we wanted.

1753
01:46:28,060 --> 01:46:29,780
But often, it's not that efficient.

1754
01:46:29,780 --> 01:46:33,140
It's down to about 20% or so.

1755
01:46:33,140 --> 01:46:34,580
So that's not good enough.

1756
01:46:34,580 --> 01:46:36,460
If we really want to use
these techniques,

1757
01:46:36,460 --> 01:46:40,060
we have to know
that they're going to work.

1758
01:46:40,060 --> 01:46:42,340
Preferably in all the embryos,

1759
01:46:42,340 --> 01:46:45,780
and certainly in all the cells
within each embryo.

1760
01:46:47,940 --> 01:46:49,580
These techniques will improve,

1761
01:46:49,580 --> 01:46:54,300
but will they ever be used to make
a baby stronger or cleverer?

1762
01:46:54,300 --> 01:46:57,500
Traits like these are the result
of your upbringing,

1763
01:46:57,500 --> 01:47:01,180
environment and hundreds of genes
working in tandem.

1764
01:47:02,780 --> 01:47:05,980
So the idea that designer babies
are just around the corner

1765
01:47:05,980 --> 01:47:07,700
is pure science fiction.

1766
01:47:09,820 --> 01:47:11,780
You know, it's hard enough altering
one gene

1767
01:47:11,780 --> 01:47:13,780
and making sure
that there are no problems,

1768
01:47:13,780 --> 01:47:16,420
that you've done exactly
the alteration you want.

1769
01:47:16,420 --> 01:47:20,500
If you start saying, "I want to
alter five genes,"

1770
01:47:20,500 --> 01:47:25,180
all the complications multiply each
time, so you increase the number.

1771
01:47:25,180 --> 01:47:28,220
It's possible, but it gets
harder and harder.

1772
01:47:28,220 --> 01:47:32,500
And if you're talking about 20, 50
or 100 genes, forget it.

1773
01:47:32,500 --> 01:47:34,140
It's just not possible.

1774
01:47:34,140 --> 01:47:36,900
There's a big difference
between me and the missus

1775
01:47:36,900 --> 01:47:38,780
coming to you and saying,

1776
01:47:38,780 --> 01:47:41,260
"Hey, we want to correct
for the NF gene,"

1777
01:47:41,260 --> 01:47:42,900
and coming to you and saying,

1778
01:47:42,900 --> 01:47:45,220
"Hey, don't make it ginger, quite
smart,

1779
01:47:45,220 --> 01:47:47,780
"not too smart, and don't have
it like Chelsea."

1780
01:47:47,780 --> 01:47:49,540
That's a whole different...

1781
01:47:49,540 --> 01:47:51,860
Completely impossible
to do the latter.

1782
01:47:51,860 --> 01:47:54,060
We would hope to be able
to do the former,

1783
01:47:54,060 --> 01:47:56,140
but we could not possibly do the
latter.

1784
01:47:59,180 --> 01:48:01,940
Gene editing has enormous
potential.

1785
01:48:01,940 --> 01:48:05,740
One day, it will help cure
cancers and other diseases.

1786
01:48:06,900 --> 01:48:09,540
And, of course, it's impractical
to monitor

1787
01:48:09,540 --> 01:48:12,100
every scientist in every
corner of the world,

1788
01:48:12,100 --> 01:48:14,260
so abuses are still possible.

1789
01:48:15,380 --> 01:48:17,420
But I wanted to know
how we in the UK

1790
01:48:17,420 --> 01:48:20,820
are preparing
for future scientific breakthroughs.

1791
01:48:22,740 --> 01:48:24,460
So I've come to meet one of
the country's

1792
01:48:24,460 --> 01:48:26,420
leading genetic scientists.

1793
01:48:28,620 --> 01:48:31,420
Ewan Birney, director of Genomics
England,

1794
01:48:31,420 --> 01:48:34,380
was part of the team that sequenced
the human genome.

1795
01:48:37,060 --> 01:48:40,620
The first thing to emphasise
is that there were many questions

1796
01:48:40,620 --> 01:48:42,820
which don't get answered
by scientists here.

1797
01:48:42,820 --> 01:48:45,980
So there are many questions
where scientists gives us,

1798
01:48:45,980 --> 01:48:50,500
science gives us new options and
tools and things that we could do.

1799
01:48:50,500 --> 01:48:53,780
But we have to have a process
to decide, societally,

1800
01:48:53,780 --> 01:48:56,860
what is acceptable or not.

1801
01:48:56,860 --> 01:48:59,860
And so we need a forum
which isn't science-led,

1802
01:48:59,860 --> 01:49:03,820
where science informs
but the decision is made by society.

1803
01:49:03,820 --> 01:49:06,500
Now, in the UK, for many of these
decisions

1804
01:49:06,500 --> 01:49:09,900
the Human Fertilisation and Embryo
Authority

1805
01:49:09,900 --> 01:49:12,060
is a very good model for this.

1806
01:49:12,060 --> 01:49:13,860
It's one of the best in the world.

1807
01:49:13,860 --> 01:49:15,980
Where they have some legislative

1808
01:49:15,980 --> 01:49:18,500
framework that's set up by
parliament

1809
01:49:18,500 --> 01:49:22,820
and then they have a set of
non-scientists thinking very hard

1810
01:49:22,820 --> 01:49:25,740
and taking evidence from many
different groups

1811
01:49:25,740 --> 01:49:29,780
to make a decision about what's
allowable and what's not allowable.

1812
01:49:29,780 --> 01:49:33,180
So you understand the mistrust
because of past mistakes?

1813
01:49:33,180 --> 01:49:36,540
I think so and I think a real
mistake is to pretend

1814
01:49:36,540 --> 01:49:37,860
the history isn't there,

1815
01:49:37,860 --> 01:49:41,420
because some of the leading lights
who founded genetics

1816
01:49:41,420 --> 01:49:44,100
were also
strong proponents of eugenics.

1817
01:49:44,100 --> 01:49:47,140
So it's part of our history
that we have to understand and own,

1818
01:49:47,140 --> 01:49:49,580
and we have to be cognisant

1819
01:49:49,580 --> 01:49:54,420
that people can make these arguments
again.

1820
01:49:54,420 --> 01:49:59,340
And then we need to understand
and be able to rebut them,

1821
01:49:59,340 --> 01:50:02,980
both scientifically, but also engage
with people in society

1822
01:50:02,980 --> 01:50:06,260
to show that we understand
what we're doing

1823
01:50:06,260 --> 01:50:08,620
and how our tools can be used.

1824
01:50:10,740 --> 01:50:14,100
Eugenics is a chilling lesson
from history.

1825
01:50:14,100 --> 01:50:17,140
At its heart is the belief that who
we can be

1826
01:50:17,140 --> 01:50:22,340
and what we're capable of
is decided on the day we're born.

1827
01:50:22,340 --> 01:50:23,940
And as a science journalist,

1828
01:50:23,940 --> 01:50:26,100
what's particularly disturbing
for me

1829
01:50:26,100 --> 01:50:30,420
is to see how this aspect
of eugenics has survived.

1830
01:50:30,420 --> 01:50:32,020
Some people still believe

1831
01:50:32,020 --> 01:50:35,060
that there are substantial innate
differences

1832
01:50:35,060 --> 01:50:36,780
between classes and races.

1833
01:50:38,140 --> 01:50:40,940
As political tensions rise
around the world,

1834
01:50:40,940 --> 01:50:45,100
it's crucial that we understand
properly where the small differences

1835
01:50:45,100 --> 01:50:48,340
we see
between us actually come from.

1836
01:50:48,340 --> 01:50:52,460
I've come to Oxford to hear the
results of a giant research project

1837
01:50:52,460 --> 01:50:54,820
to answer precisely this question.

1838
01:50:56,980 --> 01:51:01,300
It was led by Oxford University
and John Radcliffe Hospital.

1839
01:51:02,620 --> 01:51:06,780
The Intergrowth-21st project
is a population-based study.

1840
01:51:06,780 --> 01:51:07,980
It's an international study

1841
01:51:07,980 --> 01:51:09,220
which has been carried out

1842
01:51:09,220 --> 01:51:11,260
in eight different countries across
the world.

1843
01:51:11,260 --> 01:51:14,460
Each site had 600 mothers
who were pregnant.

1844
01:51:15,660 --> 01:51:19,060
The baby's physical growth
and neurological development

1845
01:51:19,060 --> 01:51:23,700
were measured in the womb at birth
and through their early lives.

1846
01:51:24,900 --> 01:51:26,860
What we're doing at the moment

1847
01:51:26,860 --> 01:51:30,100
is a snapshot at the time
of their second birthday.

1848
01:51:30,100 --> 01:51:33,100
What we would expect
normally-developing children

1849
01:51:33,100 --> 01:51:36,140
to look like from a
neural development point of view

1850
01:51:36,140 --> 01:51:39,380
at the time
of their second birthday.

1851
01:51:39,380 --> 01:51:42,820
Mothers were chosen who were
well-nourished, healthy,

1852
01:51:42,820 --> 01:51:47,500
living in a good environment
and with good medical care.

1853
01:51:47,500 --> 01:51:50,140
The aim was to see how children
develop

1854
01:51:50,140 --> 01:51:53,580
if they're given an equal start
in life.

1855
01:51:53,580 --> 01:51:58,180
Professor Stephen Kennedy says
the results were clear.

1856
01:51:58,180 --> 01:52:02,060
When you study healthy women
around the world,

1857
01:52:02,060 --> 01:52:05,940
their babies grow
in a similar way inside the womb.

1858
01:52:07,500 --> 01:52:10,100
They achieve a similar size
at birth.

1859
01:52:11,780 --> 01:52:15,660
And they continue to grow
in a similar way

1860
01:52:15,660 --> 01:52:17,660
up until two years of age.

1861
01:52:17,660 --> 01:52:20,780
They've hit
the same, similar milestones.

1862
01:52:22,500 --> 01:52:26,020
Irrespective of the colour
of their skin,

1863
01:52:26,020 --> 01:52:27,940
irrespective of race,

1864
01:52:27,940 --> 01:52:30,060
ethnicity, any of these terms,

1865
01:52:30,060 --> 01:52:31,740
or where they're living.

1866
01:52:34,700 --> 01:52:38,860
We found that the differences
between countries was less than 10%.

1867
01:52:38,860 --> 01:52:41,540
And if their environments
are decent and good enough,

1868
01:52:41,540 --> 01:52:44,300
we'll show that the foetuses and the
children

1869
01:52:44,300 --> 01:52:46,540
in all these different countries

1870
01:52:46,540 --> 01:52:49,140
could achieve the very same
potential.

1871
01:52:50,940 --> 01:52:54,860
No-one is saying that genes do not
contribute something

1872
01:52:54,860 --> 01:52:57,340
to human growth
and brain development.

1873
01:52:57,340 --> 01:52:59,100
No-one is saying that.

1874
01:52:59,100 --> 01:53:01,900
All one is saying is that nurture

1875
01:53:01,900 --> 01:53:05,420
is far,
far more important than nature.

1876
01:53:05,420 --> 01:53:07,740
Get nurture right,

1877
01:53:07,740 --> 01:53:09,780
people will thrive,

1878
01:53:09,780 --> 01:53:14,580
will grow, as they should do,
to their full potential.

1879
01:53:16,660 --> 01:53:19,380
What's surprising to me
is that Professor Kennedy

1880
01:53:19,380 --> 01:53:22,340
says his team's work
has ruffled feathers.

1881
01:53:23,940 --> 01:53:26,380
It's generally believed

1882
01:53:26,380 --> 01:53:30,620
that there's an association

1883
01:53:30,620 --> 01:53:34,700
between a mother's skin colour

1884
01:53:34,700 --> 01:53:39,380
and how well children grow
inside the womb.

1885
01:53:39,380 --> 01:53:42,700
Really? Where is it generally
believed that this is the case?

1886
01:53:42,700 --> 01:53:46,940
In the scientific community,
and certainly in the lay community.

1887
01:53:46,940 --> 01:53:48,580
That's quite shocking.

1888
01:53:48,580 --> 01:53:54,380
They visit rural India and they see
that the children are stunted.

1889
01:53:54,380 --> 01:53:57,020
They don't ask themselves
the question,

1890
01:53:57,020 --> 01:53:59,020
"Why are these kids stunted?"

1891
01:53:59,020 --> 01:54:02,740
It's got nothing to do with
the mother's genetic inheritance.

1892
01:54:02,740 --> 01:54:07,220
It's got everything to do with
the fact that the mother may be
malnourished,

1893
01:54:07,220 --> 01:54:12,100
just as her parents
and her grandparents were.

1894
01:54:12,100 --> 01:54:15,060
So, you think there are still people
within the scientific community,

1895
01:54:15,060 --> 01:54:17,420
the mainstream scientific community,

1896
01:54:17,420 --> 01:54:21,660
who do cling to these ideas
that populations are different

1897
01:54:21,660 --> 01:54:24,020
and there are some kind of
fundamental differences

1898
01:54:24,020 --> 01:54:28,460
between people of different class
or different race? Absolutely.

1899
01:54:28,460 --> 01:54:31,460
It is... This is the belief
out there.

1900
01:54:31,460 --> 01:54:33,740
What your study really shows
is that that's not the case.

1901
01:54:33,740 --> 01:54:35,420
We are pretty much all the same.

1902
01:54:35,420 --> 01:54:40,140
We are all the same.
We are one species, Homo sapiens.

1903
01:54:40,140 --> 01:54:44,860
So the public health message
is massive.

1904
01:54:44,860 --> 01:54:51,340
If you wish to improve overall
human capital in your country...

1905
01:54:52,580 --> 01:54:56,420
..invest in women.

1906
01:55:00,020 --> 01:55:02,900
Eugenics began with scientists
claiming

1907
01:55:02,900 --> 01:55:05,860
that certain groups of people
are superior

1908
01:55:05,860 --> 01:55:08,740
because of what they inherit.

1909
01:55:08,740 --> 01:55:12,540
Our story ends with
the opposite conclusion -

1910
01:55:12,540 --> 01:55:15,860
as a species, human DNA
is unusually similar.

1911
01:55:20,060 --> 01:55:24,940
What makes us different
is much more than our genes.

1912
01:55:25,980 --> 01:55:27,820
For more than 100 years,

1913
01:55:27,820 --> 01:55:32,260
a lot of us have been fed
this message that we are who we are.

1914
01:55:32,260 --> 01:55:34,780
We're born a certain way,
and that is all...

1915
01:55:34,780 --> 01:55:38,460
That contains all the potential
for that human being.

1916
01:55:38,460 --> 01:55:41,860
That this baby's fate is decided
on the day that they're born.

1917
01:55:41,860 --> 01:55:45,540
I know the effects of racial
stereotypes. I've heard them myself,

1918
01:55:45,540 --> 01:55:48,980
living as a person
of Indian origin in Britain.

1919
01:55:48,980 --> 01:55:53,580
I am British, but I'm not
always treated as the same as
white British people.

1920
01:55:53,580 --> 01:55:56,980
I think it'll take a long time,
um...

1921
01:55:56,980 --> 01:55:59,820
..for us to move away from that
and have a more nuanced

1922
01:55:59,820 --> 01:56:02,940
and balanced understanding
of what it means to be human.

1923
01:56:05,780 --> 01:56:08,420
Making these films,
I've heard some amazing stories

1924
01:56:08,420 --> 01:56:10,540
and met some amazing people.

1925
01:56:13,300 --> 01:56:15,380
People I won't forget.

1926
01:56:15,380 --> 01:56:17,540
People who were written off
by society.

1927
01:56:17,540 --> 01:56:20,380
People who were deemed to be lesser.

1928
01:56:20,380 --> 01:56:22,460
People who proved everyone wrong.

1929
01:56:24,420 --> 01:56:27,580
If delving into eugenics
has taught me anything,

1930
01:56:27,580 --> 01:56:29,780
it's about humanity.

1931
01:56:29,780 --> 01:56:33,340
It's about how to root for
the underdog.

1932
01:56:33,340 --> 01:56:37,500
I'm the ultimate underdog,
how can I not root for them?

1933
01:56:37,500 --> 01:56:40,340
And at some point,
we're all going to be touched by

1934
01:56:40,340 --> 01:56:42,940
at least the principles of eugenics.

1935
01:56:44,300 --> 01:56:46,660
We're all going to get turned down
for something,

1936
01:56:46,660 --> 01:56:50,300
get knocked back because we're not
deemed useful enough,

1937
01:56:50,300 --> 01:56:52,900
or desirable enough
in a particular area.

1938
01:56:52,900 --> 01:56:56,900
And it's a case of,
how do we respond to that?

1939
01:56:56,900 --> 01:57:02,780
How far do we go to attain this
false narrative of...of perfection?