“Better babies.” “Fitter families.” “Survival of the fittest.” “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” These phrases are not merely historical reminders of the United States’ regrettable eugenic past but are appearing in an increasingly eugenic present. Eugenics may have seemed dormant, but has recently been reawakened by the alt-right, tech billionaires, and figures such as Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), Jr., Stephen Miller, and President Trump. Autism has become the most recent target of eugenic ideology.
The administration’s stoking fear of and offering feigned support for autistic children and their families has bolstered MAHA’s ongoing eugenic rhetoric about the “scourge” of autism. This harmful language continues despite scientific evidence supporting MAHA’s misplaced (and scientifically refuted) views about the causal roles of vaccines and Tylenol. Disastrous political ideologies of the 19th century dominate this administration’s policies, but none so perniciously as the ideology of eugenics as applied to autism.
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Historically, those promoting eugenics have often couched their agenda in terms of public health, which is precisely what RFK, Jr. and his MAHA cronies have been doing through their rhetoric around autism. They are utilizing a public health rationale to peel back decades of laws and regulations aimed at increasing vaccination rates to reduce communicable disease globally with one narrow and bogus goal: eliminating autism. This is problematic because reducing vaccination rates will not eliminate autism. It will, however, greatly harm many individuals while endangering public health. And it will ultimately lead to an increase rather than decrease in morbidity and mortality—exactly what MAHA claims it wants to prevent.
