Editing Transhumanism (section)

=== New eugenics ===
{{Main article|New eugenics}}
The tradition of human enhancement originated with the eugenics movement that was once prominent in the biological sciences, and was later [[Politicization of science|politicized]] in various ways. This continuity is especially clear in the case of [[Julian Huxley#Eugenics and race|Julian Huxley]] himself.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Weindling |first=Paul |date=18 June 2024 |title=Julian Huxley and the Continuity of Eugenics in Twentieth-century Britain |journal=Journal of Modern European History |volume=10 |issue=4 |pages=480–499 |doi=10.17104/1611-8944_2012_4|doi-broken-date=February 19, 2025 |pmid=25798079 |pmc=4366572 }}</ref>

The major transhumanist organizations strongly condemn the [[coercion]] involved in such policies and reject the [[scientific racism|racist]] and [[classist]] assumptions on which they were based, along with the [[pseudoscientific]] notions that eugenic improvements could be accomplished in a practically meaningful time frame through selective human breeding.<ref name="Bashford545">{{cite book | title= The Oxford Handbook of The History of Eugenics |author=[[Bashford, A.]] |author2=[[Levine, P.]] | page= 545| publisher = Oxford University Press | year= 2010 | isbn= 978-0-19-537314-1 }}</ref> Instead, most transhumanist thinkers advocate a "[[new eugenics]]", a form of [[egalitarian]] [[liberal eugenics]].<ref name="WTA FAQ 3.2" /> In their 2000 book ''From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice'', non-transhumanist bioethicists Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels and Daniel Wikler have argued that liberal societies have an obligation to encourage as wide an adoption of eugenic enhancement technologies as possible (so long as such policies do not infringe on individuals' [[reproductive rights]] or exert undue pressures on prospective parents to use these technologies) to maximize [[public health]] and minimize the inequalities that may result from both natural genetic endowments and unequal access to genetic enhancements.<ref name="Buchanan 2000" /> Most transhumanists holding similar views nonetheless distance themselves from the term "eugenics" (preferring "[[germinal choice]]" or "[[reprogenetics]]")<ref name="Silver 1998" /> to avoid having their position confused with the discredited theories and practices of early-20th-century eugenic movements.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Levine |first=Susan B. |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/31995/chapter-abstract/267764064?redirectedFrom=fulltext |title=Posthuman Bliss? The Failed Promise of Transhumanism |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2021 |isbn=9780190051495 |chapter=Creating a Higher Breed: Transhumanism and the Prophecy of Anglo-American Eugenics}}</ref>

Health law professor [[George Annas]] and technology law professor [[Lori Andrews]] are prominent advocates of the position that the use of these technologies could lead to human-[[posthuman]] [[caste]] warfare.<ref name="Darnovsky Crossroads" /><ref name="Annas 2002" />