Racehygiejnens tidlige indtog i det danske mediebillede

Sammanfattning: This thesis is a study of the moral, medical, and socioeconomic arguments in favor of a racial hygienic sterilization legislation carried out in conservative, social democratic and socialist newspapers in Denmark from 1911-1923. While the sterilization legislation did not come into effect until 1933, the question was heavily discussed publicly in the preceding years. The public belief in omniscience, authority, and infallibility of medical science was a part of the gradual transition of Christian faith as a system of explanation to rationality and science. The medical science was trusted to resolve the social problems of poverty and immorality as well as disabilities by controlling reproduction to strengthen the population’s unified genetic makeup. And controlling genetic heritage was deemed necessary for the development of the Danish welfare state. To study the moral, medical, and socioeconomic arguments in favor of a racial hygienic sterilization legislation, I used archival research to collect the material and a thematical content analysis to analyze how the argumentation and discourses were manifested in the public debate. I argue that the scientific debate of whether racial hygiene is a medical science or a social experiment and the belief in rationality and “expert society” provides the framework of which the rest of the analysis should be considered. I also argue that the main competing discourses were rationality in the ‘public good’ versus a discourse of humanity and civil rights. Lastly, I argue that the argumentations display conceptual confusion and that advocates of racial hygienic sterilization across the political spectrum had adverse interests.