Liberal Forum

GOP War On Women ContinuesExactly."It puts a target on women's and physicians' backs," he told HuffPost. "I think it's a very dangerous piece of legislation and serves no purpose I can tell other than trying to intimidate women and physicians."Throughout the Weimar period there had been agitation tolegalize abortion. The liberalization of abortion was opposedby many physicians who warned about killing, moral decay andGermany's low birth rate [6]. The result of the debate was that,in 1926, abortion was reduced from the status of a felony to amisdemeanor. Many marriage counseling centers and sex reformorganizations were formed as the Weimar government concerneditself with eugenics and sterilization, but the law, uneasinessabout public opinion, and a desire for more knowledge aboutheredity held them back [7]. The infrastructure for the Nazisterilization and abortion program had been laid by the Weimardemocracy, and the same medical association that had been op-posed to abortion was to change rapidly under the Nazi regime.From their first year of power the Nazi politicians utilized medicineand physicians in promoting "positive eugenics" to encouragedesirable births. In response to Hitler's declaration that "thewoman's battlefield was to be the home," the German medicalprofession adopted appropriate measures. In 1933 ProfessorWagner, director of the women's clinic of Berlin's Charite Hospitaland editor of a prestigious gynecology journal, declared "thenation's stock of the ovaries a national resource and propertyof the German state." He called for "mandatory care for thesevital organs, vital not only for the individual but for the healthand future of the entire Volk." The Nazis, with the support of theGerman medical community, encouraged healthy German womento produce as many desirable children as possible. Nazi efforts toincrease the "healthy" German birthrate involved a combinationof propaganda, financial incentives and special benefits. Medicaljournals published criticisms of unmarried or childless colleagues.In 1942, the Reich Health Fuhrer (leader) Leonardo Conti orderedthat doctors use every means at their disposal to help childlesscouples bear children. Marriage loans were granted only after apublic health physician had examined the prospective couple forgenetic diseases. Research was encouraged to determine when ina woman's menstrual cycle it was optimal to conceive children.Anti-abortion policy for healthy Aryan women was paramountfor the Nazis. Legislation was introduced that made sterilizationand abortion "crimes against the body of the German people."Access to birth control for these German women in all forms wasalso severely curtailed. Bavaria's official medical journal declaredabortion as a form of treason. Heinrich Himmler established theReich's "Central Agency for the Struggle against Homosexualityand Abortion." Abortions were permitted only if the life of theGerman mother was in danger [8].emphasis addedDoctors, Pregnancy, Childbirth and Abortion during the Third ReichPDF documentTessa Chelouche MDLook, I'm the nut the squirrel ran off with! Edited by tech guy, 20 March 2012 - 11:08 AM.