HEALTH DECLARATION BEFORE MARRIAGE 



JON ALFRED MJ0EN 



Chairman of the Consultative Eugenics Commission of Norway, Oslo 



The first time the new population-politic called race hygiene was officially 

 discussed by politicians in Norway was at a meeting of the Democratic 

 Party 1915. The chairman, the then Prime Minister, was to begin with, 

 not very much inclined to allow eugenics to take up such a broad place at 

 a political congress, but the delegates voted therefore owing especially to 

 the support which Mowinckel, President of the Storting, and Haakon 

 Ljzlken, County Governor for Oslo gave the matter. After the lecture 1 

 and the very lively discussion that followed the Prime Minister proposed 

 that the lecture and the records of the proceeding should be printed and 

 distributed to all the local organisations in the country. The proposal met 

 with an exceptional support all over the country. The result was that 

 "The Prevention of Racial and National Diseases as a Function of the 

 State" being adopted as an item of the political program. Hereby the 

 question of race-hygiene for the first time came into active politics and the 

 consequences were soon seen. 



On the one hand, the representatives elected to the Storting were bound 

 by their party's program to get the question of racial diseases and their 

 causes and prevention taken up for discussion in the fullest extent. On 

 the other hand, the opponents realised that this meant actuality and a 

 real advance for the new doctrine, and the attack on the eugenic movement 

 in general and the Vinderen Laboratory especially before and after this 

 meeting was one of the severest in our Social-political history. 



In the meantime a bill for a new alcohol-legislation based on eugenic 

 principles, a proposal for maternity insurance and an amendment to the 

 marriage law was prepared at Vinderen Laboratory and submitted to the 

 Storting. 



The amendment to the new marriage law intended to introduce a per- 

 sonal health declaration before marriage (obligatory). This declaration, 

 solemnly affirmed before a medical doctor authorised and paid by the 



1 The lecture was held by Dr. Mj0en, Vinderen Laboratorium who in 1908 had sent 

 out the first Eugenic Program later known as the Norwegian Program f. Race-hygiene 

 adopted in principle at the Eugenics Meeting in Paris, 1913. 



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