Editing Nazi Medical Experimentation (section)

===Sterilization and fertility experiments===
The [[Law for the Prevention of Genetically Defective Progeny]], which was passed on 14 July 1933, legalized the involuntary sterilization of persons with diseases claimed to be hereditary: weak-mindedness, schizophrenia, alcohol abuse, insanity, blindness, deafness, and physical deformities. The law was used to encourage growth of the Aryan race through the sterilization of persons who fell under the quota of being genetically defective.<ref>Gardella JE. The cost-effectiveness of killing: an overview of Nazi "euthanasia." Medical Sentinel 1999;4:132-5</ref> 1% of citizens between the age of 17 to 24 had been sterilized within two years of the law passing.

Within four years, 300,000 patients had been sterilized.<ref>Dahl M. [Selection and destruction-treatment of "unworthy-to-live" children in the Third Reich and the role of child and adolescent psychiatry], Prax Kinderpsychol Kinderpsychiatr 2001;50:170-91.</ref> From about March 1941 to about January 1945, [[Forced sterilization|sterilization]] experiments were conducted at Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, and other places by [[Carl Clauberg]].<ref name="trials" /> The purpose of these experiments was to develop a method of sterilization which would be suitable for sterilizing millions of people with a minimum of time and effort. The targets for sterilization included Jewish and Roma populations.<ref name=":2" /> These experiments were conducted by means of [[X-ray]], surgery and various [[medication|drugs]]. Thousands of victims were sterilized. Aside from its experimentation, the Nazi government sterilized around 400,000 people as part of its [[compulsory sterilization]] program.<ref>{{cite web |author=Piotrowski, Christa |title=Dark Chapter of American History: U.S. Court Battle Over Forced Sterilization |date=21 July 2000 |work=CommonDreams.org News Center |url=http://www.commondreams.org/views/072100-106.htm |access-date=23 March 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080415181618/http://www.commondreams.org/views/072100-106.htm |archive-date=15 April 2008 }}</ref>

Carl Clauberg was the leading research developer in the search for cost effective and efficient means of mass sterilization. He was particularly interested in experimenting on women from age twenty to forty who had already given birth. Prior to any experiments, Clauberg X-rayed women to make sure that there was no obstruction to their ovaries. Next, over the course of three to five sessions, he injected the women's cervixes with the goal of blocking their fallopian tubes. The women who stood against him and his experiments or were deemed as unfit test subjects were sent to be killed in the gas chambers.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|title=The Nazi doctors : medical killing and the psychology of genocide|last=Lifton, Robert Jay, 1926- author.|isbn=978-0-465-09339-7|oclc=1089625744|date = 16 May 2017}}</ref>

Intravenous injections of solutions speculated to contain [[iodine]] and [[silver nitrate]] were successful, but had unwanted side effects such as vaginal bleeding, severe abdominal pain, and cervical cancer.<ref>{{cite news |author=Meric, Vesna |title=Forced to take part in experiments |date=27 January 2005 |work=BBC News |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4212061.stm  }}</ref> Therefore, [[gamma radiation|radiation]] treatment became the favored choice of sterilization. Specific amounts of exposure to radiation destroyed a person's ability to produce ova or sperm, sometimes administered through deception. Many suffered severe [[radiation burns]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Medical Experiments at Auschwitz |work=Jewish Virtual Library |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/aumed.html |access-date=23 March 2008 }}</ref>

The Nazis also implemented X-ray radiation treatment in their search for mass sterilization. They gave the women abdomen X-rays, men received them on their genitalia, for abnormal periods of time in attempt to invoke infertility. After the experiment was complete, they surgically removed their reproductive organs, often without anesthesia, for lab analysis.<ref name=":3" />

M.D. William E. Seidelman, a professor from the University of Toronto, in collaboration with Dr. Howard Israel of Columbia University, published a report on an investigation on the medical experimentation performed in Austria under the Nazi regime. In that report he mentions a Doctor Hermann Stieve, who used the war to experiment on live humans. Stieve specifically focused on the reproductive system of women. He would tell women their date of death in advance, and he would evaluate how their psychological distress would affect their menstruation cycles. After they were murdered, he would dissect and examine their reproductive organs. Some of the women were raped after they were told the date when they would be killed so that Stieve could study the path of sperm through their reproductive system.<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/medicine-and-murder-in-the-third-reich#2 "Medicine and Murder in the Third Reich"]. ''www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org''. Retrieved 2017-04-14.</ref>