EXPERTS DIFFER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 289, 7 December 1933, Page 11

EXPERTS DIFFER.

TREATMENT OF UNFIT.

SOCIAL WORKER'S VIEW

"PROTECT THE COMMUNITY." i l (From Our Own Correspondent.) | SYDNEY, December 2. Just now there is a goo* deal of pub-; lie discussion in progress here over «a question that seems periodically to force itself upon the public mind or conscience without- getting any satisfactory answer—"the sterilisation of the unfit." No doubt Germany's new eugenic law, which is already in force, has had a great deal to.' do with the renewal of public interest throughout the world in this problem. This law lays down the general principle that anyone who is "hereditarily ailing" may be' sterilised if "in, the experience of medical science it is with great probability to be expected that his progeny will suffer from severe bodily and mental hereditary diseases."

The question of sterilising those guilty -of violent sexual crime as a protection for people around them can be argued on other lines; but it will be observed that the German law is based on the assumption that some mental and moral and physical defects arc definitely hereditary, and that we may with a reasonable degree, of certainty expect them to be transmitted. This unfortunately is a hypothesis of a very hazy character, and there is not enough evidence available to warrant us in accepting it as a scientific truth. "Five Classes of Unfit." It is amazing to find well-meaning people who might be expected to realise the very dubious nature of the problem talking with cheerful irresponsibility about the possibilities of sterilisation. Tn Sydney Canon Hammond, a social worker and philanthropist whose eiTorts on behalf of the poor and the unemployed have won for him universal respect and sympathy, has stated publicly that the community "might rightly protect itself" against five distinct classes —the "mentally diseased'' or insane, the "mentally defective" or feeble-minded, the "emotionally unstable," the physically unfit who may be expected to transmit disease, and sexua 1 perverts.

The fact that a British Departmental Committee, which has been investigating the position, has reported lately that "an effective and painless method "of sterilisation can be adopted without to the life or health of the patient" seems to have provided the advocates of sterilisation with, new arguments in its favour; but Canon Hammoad, and those who share his views, here, fail to realise that the real difficulty about their plan is not that it might cause suffering or deprivation to individuate, but that it may react most injuriously upon the community and the race. Are Defects Hereditary? Dr. Phillips, of our Education Department, has expressed himself "amazed" at the opposition that such proposals encounter from medical men, and Canon Hammond has said in almost the same words that "it is wonderful how many good people can be so stupid." Apparently Canon Hammond and Dr. Phillips and their friends take it for granted that we know all ahout heredity, and that it is possible to be sure that mental or moral or physical defects and weaknesses of certain kinds are always tranemissable.

Jt is quite true that a large proportion of the population in every country is physically or mentally defectiveAccording to Lord Horder, the Prince of Wales' physician, one in 200 is insane, one in 120 is feeble minded, among the British population. But there is no certainty that either insanity or mental weakness is hereditary; nor is it possible to assert positive!}' that the child of mentally defective parents will not bo a genius. In a report compiled last your by a special committee of the B.M.A. at Home, it was stated clearly that "the lack of knowledge of the effect iu' heredity in producing mental deficiency" leaves the whole problem in a haze of uncertainty and speculation. "A Great Deal To Learn." Last year Professor Dawson, delivering an address at the University Union during Health Week, reminded his hearers that "we have to learn a great deal more about human heredity before wo are justified in doing anything in the nature of sterilisation"; and lie added that very few medical men would support a proposal to follow the lead given by certain American communities; but though the doctors and the professors, the alienists and the nerve specialists confess that they do not know much ahout heredity, and cannot predict its effect*;, the philanthropists are prepared quite cheerfully to rush in and take any risks, for themselves or others, that the problem may present. The other day Dr. C. Burt, Professor of Psychology at University College, London, asked "the upholders of wholesale sterilisation" whether they realised that, to effect their purpose, "it would be necessary to sterilise one-fifth of the population"; but though the magnitude of the task might hot discourage them, they might well be daunted by its tragic possibilities. Considering that no one knows precisely what constitutes insanity, that the conditon may be permanent or .curable, that "mental weakness" is simply indefinable, and that it is sometimes impossible to draw the line between madness and genius—considering all these things, the sterilisers should be prepared to admit that their project is likely to result in what one of the critics of the German sterilisation law has termed "a waste of valuable biologic material."

Headmaster's Warning. Bernard Shaw has remarked that "none of us are normal" and that if sterilisation had been generally practised, he would never have been allowed to come into existence. As to the "emotionally unstable" strain which Canon Hammond and his friends are prepared to sacrifice on the altar of efficiency, one may wonder how many poetical or musical prodigies, how many sculptors ana painters, how many men and women who have added immeasurably to the beauty and happiness of human life, might have been missing from the records of history if the advocates of sterilisation had succeeded centuries ago in getting their way. But there is a darker: side to the question than this. Dr. Norwood, headmaster of Harrow, warned the people, of England recently that "sterilisation might prove a dreadful tyranny,"' and this, quite part from the ethical or religious view of the question, is an aspect of the problem tliat the civilised world cannot afford to ignore.