HEREDITY 



Our divorce laws are even worse than our marriage 

 laws. For the most part they are projections of outworn 

 theological tabus having ofttimes no rational basis. 

 We are not thinking of the delight which some of our 

 theologians appear to take in punishing a couple for a 

 mistake in judgment by a lifetime of misery; we refer 

 to their punishment of the next generation by refusing 

 to see in feeble-mindedness or a heritable tendency to 

 insanity a just cause for divorce. 



There are also other laws of biological import in dire 

 need of revision. We should humanize our statutes regard- 

 ing illegitimacy, making it possible, or even inevitable, 

 that the child born out of wedlock be legitimatized and 

 given certain rights of protection. Our mediaeval laws 

 regarding contraception should be modified. At present 

 they fail to safeguard mothers against unwanted preg- 

 nancies when, through certain diseases of the heart, lungs, 

 and kidneys, pregnancy means probable death; and they 

 fail adequately to guarantee the child that reasonably 

 healthy start in life which would be guaranteed by the 

 proper spacing of children. We should also encourage 

 the more general adoption of laws providing for the steri- 

 lization of the feeble-minded, of the type so effective in 

 California. The California laws are sound scientifically, 

 and they have been pronounced constitutional by the Su- 

 preme Court of the United States. "Three generations of 

 imbeciles are enough," said Justice Holmes in his brief. 



Other instances of the applicability of genetic philosophy 

 to social problems might be given were space available. 

 Under the circumstances I must content myself with the 

 suggestion that it would be desirable to have intelligence 

 tests as part of the physical examination of would-be 

 immigrants. 



The United States has been, and is, an extraordinarily 

 prosperous nation. To what does it owe this good fortune? 



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