Editing Human variability (section)

==Ideologies of superiority and inferiority==
The extreme exercise of social valuation of human difference is in the definition of "human." Differences between humans can lead to an individual's "nonhuman" status, in the sense of withholding identification, charity, and social participation. Views of these variations can change enormously between cultures over time. For example, nineteenth-century European and American ideas of race and [[eugenics]] culminated in the attempts of the [[Nazism|Nazi]]-led German society of the 1930s to deny not just reproduction, but life itself to a variety of people with "differences" attributed in part to biological characteristics. Hitler and Nazi leaders wanted to create a "[[master race]]" consisting of only Aryans, or blue-eyed, blonde-haired, and tall individuals, thus discriminating and attempting to exterminate those who didn't fit into this ideal.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007679|title=Nazi Racism|website=www.ushmm.org|publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|access-date=2016-11-14}}</ref>

Contemporary controversy continues over "what kind of human" is a fetus or child with a significant disability. On one end are people who would argue that [[Down's syndrome|Down syndrome]] is not a disability but a mere "difference," and on the other those who consider it such a calamity as to assume that such a child is better off "[[abortion|not born]]". For example, in India and China, being female is widely considered such a negatively valued human difference that female infanticide occurs such to severely affect the proportion of sexes.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/medical/infanticide_1.shtml|title=Ethics Guide: Female infanticide|website=BBC|access-date=2016-11-14}}</ref>