Attachment III - Page 9 
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we don't understand fully the process of evolution. Any 
species of animal needs a certain degree of diversity, some of 
which appears negative, in order for it to survive into the 
future. I don't think we should be manipulating the genetic 
material beyond the individual generation of the human 
involved. 
Then there is the question of eugenics to carefully consider. Eugenics is the 
inseparable ethical wing of the Age of Biotechnology. First coined by 
Charles Darwin's cousin, Sir Francis Galton, eugenics is generally cate- 
gorized into two types, negative and positive. Negative eugenics involves 
the systematic elimination of so-called biologically undesirable character- 
istics. Positive eugenics is concerned with the use of genetic manipulation 
to "improve" the characteristics of an organism or species. 
Eugenics is not a new phenomenon. At the turn of the century the U.S. 
sported a massive eugenics movement. Politicians, celebrities, academic- 
ians and prominent business leaders joined together in support of a eugenic's 
program for the country. The frenzy over eugenics reached a fever pitch 
with many states passing sterilization statutes and the U.S. Congress passing 
a new emigration law in the 1920's based on eugenics considerations. As a 
consequence of the new legislation, thousands of American citizens were 
sterilized so they could not pass on their "inferior" traits and the federal 
government locked its doors to certain emigrant groups deemed biologically 
unfit by then existing eugenics standards. 
While the Americans flirted with eugenics for the first thirty years of the 
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