# Glass Put Genotype Ahead of Reproductive Choice by H. Bentley Glass > “In a world where each pair must be limited, on the average, to two offspring and no more, the right that must become paramount is not the right to procreate, but rather the right of every child to be born with a sound physical and mental constitution, based on a sound genotype. No parents will in that future time have the right to burden society with a malformed or a mentally incompetent child.” > **— H. Bentley Glass**, *1970 AAAS retiring presidential address; published 1971 in Science 171(3966), p. 28* Verification Status: Unverified — this supplied transcription has not been checked against the *Science* page-28 scan. Reproductions disagree on “have the right” versus “have a right” and on the final noun phrase; preserve the candidate wording until the primary page resolves it. ## Sources and Context - **Publication identity:** [National Library of Medicine record, *Science* 171(3966), 8 January 1971, pp. 23–29](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17737984/), DOI [10.1126/science.171.3966.23](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.171.3966.23). This settles the issue number as **3966**, not 3866. The wording above is the supplied Batch 5 transcription, not a primary-page check. - **Variant check:** A [scholarly reproduction with a page-specific footnote](https://irf.fhnw.ch/bitstreams/9b9364e1-44c5-4c38-bc74-91451c08d90d/download) prints “have a right” where Batch 5 prints “have the right.” Obtain the *Science* p. 28 scan before promotion. - **Historical context:** Glass argued that a child's purported right to a sound genotype should outrank parental reproductive choice under an anticipated two-child average. The passage is a historical proposal about selection and rights; it does not demonstrate that genotype can guarantee a child's capacities. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Were Never Going to Make It|We Were Never Going to Make It]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Eugenics|Eugenics]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/H. Bentley Glass|H. Bentley Glass]] - [[wiki/Eugenics|Eugenics]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “In a world where each pair must be limited, on the average, to two offspring and no more, the right that must become paramount is not the right to procreate, but rather the right of every child to be born with a sound physical and mental constitution, based on a sound genotype. No parents will in that future time have the right to burden society with a malformed or a mentally incompetent child.” — H. Bentley Glass, Science 171(3966), 1971 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-glass-genotype-reproductive-choice ```