Health protection-disease prevention measures that are legally required are not eugenic as long as they do not compel a pregnant woman or couple into actions that they do not wish to take. Thalassemia treatment is very costly and threatened to bankrupt the entire health care system in both areas, leaving the children to die. Most people, desiring to have healthy babies, decide to have the tests. The testing program is called Dor Yeshorim. In these tightly-knit communities, marriages are arranged by the parents and require the permission of the rabbi.
Abortion is forbidden.
If this type of program were generalized to the entire U.S. population, it would be considered coercive eugenics and would arouse howls of protest. However, in a closed community whose members accept and live by many rules in daily life, including arranged marriages, a requirement for genetic testing may not appear coercive to those involved. For example, some private organizations in the U.S. have offered money to women on welfare to be sterilized. These groups have a right to make such offers under the Constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech. However, the implied statement that women on welfare should not have more children inextricably mixes social, health and possibly even genetic considerations.