Inserting the word eugenics in the brazilian journal of nursing - REBEN, 1932 to 2002

Abstract

The publication of a Brazilian Journal of Nursing - REBEn, besides unveiling important aspects of the history of nursing in Brazil, it also allows to follow several movements that are intertwined with that history, such as the eugenist movement, whose first moves in Brazil occurred in the first decades of the 20th Century. The present article has the purpose to analyze the insertion in the REBEn the term eugenics and its correspondents, from 1932 to 2002. In a qualitative research, 227 fascicules were investigated and 18 texts that contained nominal reference to the term eugenics or correlates were selected. Three emphases or phases were delimited: conceptualization and objectives (1932 to 1951); ethical, legal and moral conflicts, (1954 to 1976) and eugenics as a theme of the beginning of the 20th century (1993 to 2002). It is noticed that the nursing has followed the movement around eugenics in the first two moments, in other words, the moments of defense and incentive to its practice and its subsequent decline, when ethical, legal and moral conflicts prevail. On the other hand, it is not signaling for the changes of concepts and the new forms of intervention linked to the biotechnologies of the present times.