Today we’re told there is no other way to achieve the research results we desire, because fetal tissue is a “uniquely rich source” of stem cells, which provide invaluable clues to human development. Second, we’re led to believe that research on aborted babies will heal diseases, eradicate physical defects, and greatly enhance the human condition. And finally, we’re warned that prohibiting medical experimentation of this kind would mean “subordinating science to religion.”

Well, now. It ought to give us pause that each of these claims was enlisted a century ago when it was believed that the tools of evolutionary science could be applied to improve the human species. “What Nature does blindly, slowly, ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly,” English anthropologist Francis Galton told a learned society in London in 1909. “As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work in that direction.”

What “duty” did Galton have in mind? It was the obligation to improve the human gene pool through the scientific methods of selective breeding and sterilization. Galton coined the term eugenics — “good birth” — to promote his social vision. What began as a fringe, pseudo-scientific exercise became, in barely a generation, mainstream thinking among scientific and academic elites. “It must be introduced into the national conscience,” Galton said, “like a new religion.”