If Pauling's eugenics policies were bad, then the laws against incest that are currently on the books in many states (which are also eugenics policies that use the same mechanism) are also bad. There are different forms of eugenics policies, and Pauling's proposal to restrict the mating choices of people carrying certain recessive genes so their children don't suffer is ethically different from Hitler exterminating people with certain genes and also ethically different from other governments sterilizing people with certain genes. He later supported voluntary abortion with genetic testing, which is now standard practice in the US today, though no longer in a few states with ethically questionable laws restricting abortion. This again is ethically different from forced abortion.

https://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/pauling/blood/nar...