On this day 76 years ago (July 14, 1933) a sterilization law was passed in Nazi Germany, known as Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses (Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring).  Any German was a target if they were found to be suffering from a range of perceived hereditary ailments, such as congenital mental deficiency, schizophrenia, manic-depressive insanity, epilepsy, Huntington's chorea, blindness, deafness, any severe hereditary deformity or even severe alcoholism.  Official pronouncements insisted that these individuals were a drain on the German people, both biologically and financially (see right).  The law passed on this day ultimately led to an estimated 400,000 people being involuntarily sterilized in pursuit of this national goal of "racial hygiene," to eliminate handicapped descendants. 

Creationists are fond of laying the blame for Nazi eugenics on Charles Darwin.  They insist that his materialist argument that humans evolved from animals and his conception of natural selection inspired the Nazis to implement a widespread policy of artificial selection within the Fatherland.  However, these claims are as baseless as was the so-called "science" that the Nazis employed. 

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