This dissertation is entitled Parental Eugenics because its main thesis is that a substantial number of selective non-treatment decisions in the United States are partly driven by eugenics and that it is the parents who are ultimately (although not necessarily exclusively) responsible for these decisions. Although some scholars have alluded to the concept of parental eugenics, most have tended to ground their arguments in the assumption that it is the progeny of the new powers of biotechnology, and that it only began to powerfully emerge with the introduction of amniocentesis, advanced reproductive technologies, and genetic engineering during the last three decades of the twentieth century. Yet, if we acknowledge that selective non-treatment can be, and sometimes is, eugenic in both purpose and practice, and if we agree that, in some cases, it is the parents who are ultimately responsible for these decisions, then we must broaden our conception of parental eugenics and also significantly revise its periodization. In particular, if we enlarge the concept of parental eugenics to include the selective non-treatment of congenitally anomalous newborns, then we must also push the origins of public discussion of the subject back to the fall of 1915, when the Baby Bollinger case began making national headlines.