Story: Contraception and sterilisation

Eugenics

Eugenics

Eugenics is a philosophy that advocates controlliing reproduction to produce better offspring. It flourished in the early 1900s but lost credibility after the Nazis' horrifically extreme version of eugenics in the Second World War. Organised New Zealand eugenics groups in the early 1900s advocated sterilising those who were 'unfit' to breed. They urged upper-class and middle-class women to stop using contraception and to breed more, to stop the country being dominated by 'defectives'. This report of the establishment of a Eugenic Society in Christchurch appeared in the Poverty Bay Herald in August 1911.

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National Library of New Zealand, Papers Past
Reference: Poverty Bay Herald, 16 August 1911, p. 7

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How to cite this page:

Jane Tolerton, 'Contraception and sterilisation - Information about contraceptives', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/document/26996/eugenics (accessed 29 March 2024)

Story by Jane Tolerton, published 5 May 2011, reviewed & revised 7 Dec 2018