My understanding is that he believes people should be able to exert some level of control over the genetics of their offspring, but that he is strongly opposed to any type of coercive eugenics. Some people would consider him a eugenicist because of his position.

I do consider that eugenics, but I just wouldn't use that term because people's brains turn off when they hear that term. It's a useful term if we want to discuss social policy, but only if people have the emotional reservoir for nuance.

All societies practice eugenics to some extent, whether in banning relatives from marrying, choosing abortion when the child would have terrible life conditions, or selecting mates based on biological traits like beauty.

From the first paragraph of Wikipedia:

> Eugenics (/juːˈdʒɛnɪks/ yoo-JEN-iks; from Ancient Greek εύ̃ (eû) 'good, well', and -γενής (genḗs) 'come into being, growing')[1][2] is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population,[3][4] historically by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or promoting those judged to be superior.[5] In recent years, the term has seen a revival in bioethical discussions on the usage of new technologies such as CRISPR and genetic screening, with a heated debate on whether these technologies should be called eugenics or not.[6]

If history, the source of the definitions of all words, has defined eugenics to mean men with mustaches filling out charts about which women are contributing the most to "race improvement," then it would probably be best to accept that's what it means.

> In recent years, the term has seen a revival in bioethical discussions on the usage of new technologies such as CRISPR and genetic screening, with a heated debate on whether these technologies should be called eugenics or not.

This contention referenced by Wikipedia shows that the debate goes well beyond Nazis. There's no other convenient non-euphemistic word for this concept.

Why don't we call the evil uses of the ideas of heredity "eugenics," and call the good uses of DNA science, "genetic medicine." Plenty of other words have good/evil divides, like "surgery" vs. "assault with a deadly weapon."

> exert some level of control over the genetics of their offspring

Isn’t that what choosing a partner to start a family with does?

Yes, but doing it naturally and unconsciously makes it not evil

There can be no public sanity regarding anything that was done by people in the wrong side of fresh (historical) memory

Doing things unconsciously doesn't make them less evil, if anything it's worse.

Arguably the worst things are completely natural and unconscious.

Natural selection by itself is very brutal, and often slow process, and doesn't always optimize for traits you yourself find desirable.

As far as sexual selection is concerned, it is very often conscious.

In other words, there's nothing inherently wrong about eugenics.

The wrong part is coercing people doing or not doing things.

certainly, and you've chosen your blonde, blue-eyed partner attentively, but those traits are recessive, so when you find that your children will not have them you want to abort and try again.

slippery-sloping the ideas of control very quickly leads to nightmarish scenarios, of course slopes tend not to be slippery just because we fear they may be, but sometimes the slipperiness of a slope will seem not a problem until the right social movement comes along and takes advantage of it, best to be prepared is the pessimist's take.

"No, but he encourages them to show up at his parties"