The Fifth World Congress of Bioethics brought 700 people to London for four days of discussion and debate about life-and-death issues, providing an update on various aspects of the eugenics movement.

The congress, from September 21 to 24, 2000, was sponsored by the International Association of Bioethics (IAB), which was founded by Peter Singer. Singer is an animal rights activist who has gained notoriety for defending the idea of eugenic infanticide, killing children who are born with burdensome disabilities.

The participants included researchers, geneticists, philosophers, university professors, and representatives from various governmental bodies. The topics included specific issues (like genetic engineering, stem cell research, human cloning, AIDS, euthanasia, assisted reproduction), efforts to regulate (such as advance directives, informed consent), and particular perspectives (including gender justice, psychiatry and bioethics, Asian bioethics workshop).

The IAB meets every two years. The last meeting, in Tokyo, included a great deal of discussion of population control, with many Japanese speakers defending the Chinese population policy against "Western" criticisms. The London meeting had far less about population matters, far more about genetics.

For the third time, the meeting of the International Association of Bioethics provided the occasion for a formal meeting of the national bioethics advisory bodies from various nations. The first time was in San Francisco, when about 20 nations sent representatives; the second time was in Tokyo, with about ten more nations represented; this was the third time, with 40 nations represented. In other words, the organization founded by Peter Singer has established itself as the principal international bioethics forum, and national advisors come there for their meetings.

Lord Sainsbury, the Minister of Science and Innovation, presided at a reception for members of national bioethics commissions and other interested parties. The reception was at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where there are huge paintings depicting a Nordic race – blond Vikings right out of a Wagnerian opera, wearing helmets with horns – conquering foreign countries and imposing peace.

The huge gulf between bioethicists and the rest of the world may be easiest to describe by looking at a recently published book that was available at the conference, written by Daniel Wikler and others. Wikler helped Singer form the IAB, and succeeded him as president of the organization.

The new book, From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice, is a forthright defense of eugenics, by name. A key chapter in the book, written by Wikler, is an "ethical autopsy" of the eugenics movement that culminated in the Holocaust; it is supposed to show that the authors learned the lessons of the past. But it is not honest history; it is transparent propaganda.

For example, many (most? all?) historians of the eugenics movement point to a specific book published in Germany in the 1920s as an immensely significant event. That book was The Release of the Destruction of Life Not Worth Living. At the Nuremberg trials after the war, at least one of the judges stated his conviction that there was a straight and direct line from that book to the gas chambers. The book argued in medical and legal terms that some lives are not worth living, and should be destroyed. Wikler does not mention the murderous book. And in fact, he and his coauthors use the same phrase (p. 239, "a life not worth living") without apology, although they prefer to speak of conditions that are "incompatible with a worthwhile life." They have no problem with aborting children whose lives would not be "worthwhile," in their opinion. They do not advocate eugenics infanticide, but they do not oppose it either, nor attempt to draw a sharp line between abortion and infanticide. And yet, even as they go down the same path with the same ideology and language, they claim that they see how society can embark on a full-scale eugenics program again without making the same mistakes as last time.

One of the most bizarre aspects of the book is its complete reliance on the ostrich posture for dealing with population control. Wikler asserts that modern eugenics is not like Nazi eugenics, but then compares modern genetics to Nazi evils. Modern eugenics includes abuses of genetics, but also includes a very determined effort to drive down the birthrate of nonwhite populations. From Chance to Choice does not have a word about population control. It is simply dishonest to overlook this and claim to be a scholar.

It is disheartening that Wikler and his coauthors would perpetrate this fraud. But worse – and revealing of the state of bioethics today – the book was written with a grant from the American government, through a program designed to explore the ethical problems in the human genome project. Those funds were supposed to assure the public that there would be some scrutiny of the moral problems, but (in this case at least) the funds went to an extended and pompous whitewash.

One of the highlights of the meeting was the address given by the new president of the IAB, Ruth Macklin. Macklin is a no-nonsense professor, who speaks her mind clearly and vigorously. She is committed to abortion rights, supports human cloning, and is contemptuous of words that seem to her to be imprecise (like "dignity," a word that pro-lifers find indispensable in bioethical discussions). Still, from a pro-life perspective, her election may be very good news. In her speech, she urged that bioethicists pay more attention to the allocation of health resources internationally. This is a serious concern, which pro-lifers share with her.

One of the immense evils of the eugenics movement in our time is the expenditure of huge sums of money to improve the gene pool of wealthy people from developed nations while ignoring the desperate need for basic health care in many other nations. If Macklin can persuade bioethicists to focus on the grossly unjust allocation of resources, that will be a real service.

Of course, it is possible that she will simply make the eugenics movement look better, fending off one line of attack on the "ideology of arrogance." Expecting feminism by itself to contain eugenics would be extremely foolish (like trusting Dementors to guard the Death Eaters, to use the images from a recent bestseller).

When a new academic field develops, like bioethics, it is fair to expect that it will bring more precision to the questions it faces. But bioethics often serves to obscure the truth. One example: I spoke with a legislator at the meeting who came there for insight about how to write laws on human cloning. The legislator expressed strong opposition to the practice, and I was taken in by that. But then I learned that the proposed legislation would follow British lines, and would be shaped in part by the advice of Alastair Campbell, a proponent of human cloning. The bill supported by this legislator would be described as a "compromise," permitting cloning as long as the cloned embryos were killed after two weeks of growth. It is not clear to me whether the earnest lawmaker was engaged in self-deception, or was intent on deceiving me. In any case, bioethicists in America, Britain and elsewhere have distorted the language sufficiently that supporters can easily sound like opponents.

Twice during the meeting, there were picketers outside the meeting. The first time was at the opening of the congress, and one of the first speakers, Ian Kennedy from University College in London, referred to them contemptuously, saying that when people cannot argue logically, they resort to personal attacks. Security tightened up for the day, with aides standing at locked doors checking badges in order to keep out the riffraff.

Representatives from Eugenics Watch picketed a second time on Saturday morning, when Peter Singer spoke about human and animal experimentation. Singer questions whether it is ethical to use animals for research when the animals cannot give informed consent. But his views do not elevate animals so much as they degrade humans; he favors killing humans who are born with disabilities.

That morning, two people from disability groups came to the meeting in wheelchairs. One of them – Rachel Hurst, the vice chair for human rights of Disabled Peoples International, stopped to encourage the picketers, whose signs denounced eugenics. But the session of disabilities and bioethics was scheduled at the same time as Singer’s, so Hurst and others had no opportunity to respond to what he said, or even to hear it firsthand.

At a later session, Gregor Wolbring did speak in the main hall of the congress. He said that bioethical discussions and decisions are badly distorted when the disabled cannot present their view. He noted that the stage in the main hall did not have a ramp, and that since he does not have any legs, he needed help simply to get to the place where his voice could be heard.

The meeting this year was better than previous meetings of the IAB in one important respect: there were more people at the meeting aware of eugenics and opposing it in questions during sessions and discussions in the hallways. However, there was still a great deal of self-censorship going on; religious people and opponents of eugenics frequently hid their views rather than speak openly.