People who believe in eugenics think that people should eliminate all undesirable characteristics from the general population until they no longer exist. Eugenicists categorize disabled people as genetically inferior and even dangerous to the overall fitness of human race because they are different. Because of eugenics, even people today believe that disabled people are abnormal and therefore less human.

 Nazi Germany used eugenics to justify killing millions of people in the Holocaust. Likewise, other countries, including the United States, have used eugenics to eradicate other “inferior” groups of people. Starting in 1907, for instance, the Indiana legislature passed dozens of sterilization laws aimed at Disabled people, women, people of color, and criminals. This included the Deaf, Blind, and intellectually disabled people as well as people labeled as dependents, like orphans and the homeless, and “sexual perverts,” which included all members of the LGBTQ+ community. And these issues haven’t disappeared. While still restrained by her conservatorship, even Britany Spears, who deemed by the state to have limited mental capacity, was threatened with forced temporary sterilization by her father who felt she was incapable of being a parent. Forced sterilization is still legal in over 30 states. The threat of eugenics against people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and mentally ill individuals is still an issue today.

Eugenics influenced policies and practices throughout the Western world, leading to many of today’s systems of oppression, such as ableism, racism, sexism, and classism. For example, during COVID-19, New York directed hospitals to release COVID-19 patients into nursing homes, infecting immuno-compromised residents. In Oregon, Disabled people were even denied care for their “low quality of life” so resources could be used to treat able-bodied people. Governments also failed to provide nursing homes, long-term care homes, and institutions with proper PPE and supplies.