Inner eugenic thought and feminism

Their accusation was accepted seriously by women’s groups. For example, Kawasaki Women’s Conference stated as follows in 1973.

First of all, we have to criticize ourselves in that we are occupied by eugenic ideology, and in that we have discriminated and suppressed disabled people.
(…)
We have been occupied by the logic of efficiency, and we have considered rapidity as virtue. We have been wishing to give birth to babies with normal bodies. Therefore, in the first place, we have to start by confronting our own inner eugenic ideology.

They stressed the necessity of transforming themselves, and then tried to fight against discriminative society. We should pay attention to their words, “inner eugenic ideology.” This phrase implies that the fundamental problem is situated not outside, but just “inside us.” The word “inner” was added to emphasize this. Later, people began to call this notion “inner eugenic thought,” and these words became a keyword in contemporary Japanese bioethics. I believe the question how to tackle “inner eugenic thought” should be a big topic for our international bioethics and life studies.

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Disability Movement and Inner Eugenic Thought
(2002)
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