Neoeugenics
A term referring to contemporary forms of eugenic thinking that have shed the explicit racism and coercion of historical eugenics but retain its core logic: the classification of human traits as superior or inferior, the framing of variation as defect, and the project of engineering "better" populations through selective reproduction, genetic screening, or enhancement technologies. Neoeugenics operates through consumer choice rather than state coercion, through "personalized medicine" rather than racial hygiene, through "enhancement" rather than elimination. Critics argue that neoeugenics is more dangerous for being invisible—it frames its project as liberation while reproducing the same hierarchies, treats elimination as choice, and assumes that some people shouldn't exist while calling it progress.
Example: "The prenatal testing that screens for 'undesirable' traits was called neoeugenics—not because parents were forced, but because it assumed some lives weren't worth living, and called that choice."
Neoeugenics by Abzugal March 22, 2026
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