Eugenics is the scientific study of improving the human gene pool through selective breeding. Today, with advances in biotechnology and genetic engineering coming faster and faster, I would also include such technologies as integral and valuable parts of a modern eugenics program.

• It is cruel to allow those with serious genetic defects to breed

  Here we are talking about those who themselves are healthy but possess the genes that can lead to debilitating conditions in their children, such as cystic fibrosis or Down's syndrome. In the first case it may seem cruel to forbid license to the parents to try for a child - they are capable of raising one and may dearly wish to do so. However, letting them go ahead with the genetic lottery is far crueller - better not to try in the first place than to try and fail, ending up with the loss of a life, something which has no place in any moral eugenics movement. Until such time as hereditary diseases can be detected and corrected, such people should instead opt for adoption of healthy, genetically strong children.

• It is cruel to allow spastics to breed

  Spastics on the other hand, are quite simply not capable of raising a child. Indeed, they are incapable of even understanding the potential consequences of having sex, and for someone with limited mental capabilities, being impregnated must be hugely upsetting and confusing. The child itself will almost certainly carry and show the same deficienes, leading to a perpetuating cycle of misery and public health burden. Any caring person can see that in this case, sterilisation of spastics allows them to continue leading as normal a lifestyle as they can without the burden a child would place.

• It is cruel to allow the poor to breed

  Already cities across the world heave with the starving masses, and millions are moving into the city every day. Increasing populations have led to a rise in territorial and sectarian violence, and in a thousand bloody conflicts refugees have fled their traditional homes and looked to the city as a refuge. Unfortunately, even in the richest nations of the Western world, there is only so much in the way of resource to go around and many lead lives of poverty and suffering. Is it right that these people, no matter how good their intentions are (remember what paves the road to Hell!), be allowed to inflict their misery and squalor upon an innocent child?

  No, it is not. To bring a child into the world without the means to support it is wrong, and these people should not be able to breed.

• It is cruel to allow a child to be inferior

  With a finite amount of resources and an ever-increasing population to compete over these, your child needs every advantage they can get to ensure they can seize as much of the pie as possible. Allowing the laws of genetics to have their way can equally result in a genius, an athlete or a simpleton. We use technology in every other way to cheat Nature, why do we have such a foolish fear when it comes to our children!

  It is cruel to risk that a child be inferior, that it suffer the taunts and risks that it cannot deal with. Indeed, why should we settle even for mediocrity when the means to greatness are almost within our technological grasp? Numerous studies have shown that brigher, smarter and better-looking children acheive better careers, have more rewarding social lives, have more chance of finding and then keeping a long-term partner, and claim to be happier.

  Are you cruel enough to deny this to your children?

As I have shown, eugenics is not the Nazi science that the ignorant portray it as. Applied compassionately, eugenics has the potential to ensure richer, fuller lives for all of those born by reducing the element of chance that can so easily damn a newborn to a life without hope. Why should we continue to allow children to be born into a lifetime of suffering? As a moral human being, I say we cannot continue this way.

So what is the way forward? The only rational and ethical way to acheive the goal of a perfect humanity is the introduction of Breeding Licenses which prospective parents must obtain from the State in order to breed. This can be enforced through temporary chemical sterlisation, which also has the benefit of eliminating unwanted pregnancy, a common occurance in the uneducated poor. In order to obtain a license I would suggest a series of tests and conditions:

• The parents both undergo medical examination to be sure they do not have any genetic diseases, no matter how "recessive" they may be. There is no sense in merely delaying the problem for a future generation; this is precisely what we are setting out to avoid!

  Of course, we can all hope that future advances in genetic engineering make the need for denying parents unnecessary. When it comes to the point where all such maladies can be corrected, we will no longer have to deny parents who have been so cruelly tainted by Nature.

• Additionally, to ensure that the child has all of the material and emotional support that it needs to grow up to be a healthy, happy and productive member of society, the parents should undergo both means testing and psychological testing by experts. After all, no matter how good the genetic stock of the child is, if it grows up in poverty or with abusive parents it cannot be expected to fufill its true potential, and being intelligent will undoubtedly recognise this and suffer.

  Parents who fail either of these tests will be refused the right to have children, although they may attempt to better themselves and retry later on.

• Finally parents must either agree to a set of desired traits for their child or to let these things be determined randomly (within a specific set of good traits of course). Undoubtedly parents will choose a phenotype that maximises their child's quality of life and choice of reproductive partners. Qualities that hamper a child in life - obesity, shortness, short-sightedness, ginger hair and so on - can be eliminated once and for all.

Optionally the State may require a small charge to cover administrative costs. Parents who truly want a child will be glad to pay such a small fee to cover the costs, and parents who are tight with their money over such a trivial matter are likely to be tight with their money when it comes to their children.

In conclusion is it plain that despite popular hysteria, eugenics is both practical and compassionate. For anything to be of worth, and most parents would agree that having children is worth almost anything, must be fought for, not handed out according to Nature's sexual lottery. And by advocating eugenics you are fighting for a brighter future, both for your children and for the human race as a whole.

No cause could be more moral. No cause could be more loving.