STERILISATION LAW

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 149, 9 June 1936, Page 8

STERILISATION LAW

Medical Standards Ignored in Germany A CRITICAL SURVEY (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, June 8. The “Sun-Herald” News Ageuey says: “Official figures published by ‘Deutsche Justiz’ (‘German Justice’) show that 64,000 Germans were steril- ] ised under the new Nazi laws during the second half of 1935. Of 28,000 women thus treated 1400 died, and it is officially stated that 1,200,000 persons are still liable to sterilisation.” The sterilisation law is part of Herr Hitler’s campaign “to purify the Aryan race.” Two hundred and fifty heredity and health boards and 26 appeal boards have been established; 85,000 persons were ordered to be sterilised during the half-year, but 24 per cent successfully appealed. I It is contended that there has been | little conformity with recognised medical standards and little attempt lo dis cover whether or not a defect is hereditary. The boards often fail to difI'eientiale between mental deficiency nml mere stupidity, dullness or backwardness. Some boards order sterilisation of children who are regarded as nut equal to the performance of everyday ’.asks. A fifteeuyear-olil school girl at Kiel was sterilised because the local board held I lint the crude manner in which she pei petiTled a slight deception portended mental deficiency. The same board gave a youth’s apparently responsible hut premature marriage ns a reason for ordering his sterilisation; simultaneously they ordered n mail’s sterilisation because he made an unsuccessful effort to marry.