{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8660/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8660","id":"gutenberg_8660","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8660","summary":null,"tags":["Birth control","Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Health & Medicine","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Category: Sociology"],"text":"Produced by Eric Eldred and Distributed Proofeaders.\n\n\n\n\nWOMAN AND THE NEW RACE\n\nBY\n\nMARGARET SANGER\n\n\nWith A Preface By Havelock Ellis\n\n       *       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNew York 1920\n\n       *       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDEDICATED TO\n\nTHE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER,  A MOTHER\n\nWHO GAVE BIRTH TO ELEVEN LIVING CHILDREN\n\n       *       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe modern Woman Movement, like the modern Labour Movement, may be\nsaid to have begun in the Eighteenth century. The Labour movement\narose out of the Industrial Revolution with its resultant tendency to\nover-population, to unrestricted competition, to social misery and\ndisorder. The Woman movement appeared as an at first neglected\nby-product of the French Revolution with its impulses of general\nhuman expansion, of freedom and of equality.\n\nSince then, as we know, these two movements have each had a great and\nvigorous career which is still far from completed. On the whole they\nhave moved independently along separate lines, and have at times\nseemed indeed almost hostile to each other. That has ceased to be the\ncase. Of recent years it has been seen not only that these two\nmovements are not hostile, but that they may work together\nharmoniously for similar ends.\n\nOne final step remained to be taken--it had to be realised not only\nthat the Labour movement could give the secret of success to the woman\nmovement by its method and organization, but that on the other hand,\nwoman held the secret without which labour is impotent to reach its\nends. Woman, by virtue of motherhood is the regulator of the\nbirthrate, the sacred disposer of human production. It is in the\ndeliberate restraint and measurement of human production that the\nfundamental problems of the family, the nation, the whole brotherhood\nof mankind find their solution. The health and longevity of the\nindividual, the economic welfare of the workers, the general level of\nculture of the community, the possibility of abolishing from the world\nthe desolating scourge of war--all these like great human needs,\ndepend, primarily and fundamentally, on the wise limitation of the\nhuman output. It does not certainly make them inevitable, but it\nrenders them possible of accomplishment; without it they have been\nclearly and repeatedly proved to be impossible.\n\nThese facts have long been known to the few who view the world\nrealistically. But it is not the few who rule the world. It is the\nmasses--the ignorant, emotional, volatile, superstitious masses--who\nrule the world. It is they who choose the few supreme persons who\nmanage or mismanage the world's affairs. Even the most stupid of us\nmust be able to see how it is done now, for during recent years the\nwhole process has been displayed before us on the very largest scale.\n\nThe lesson has not been altogether in vain. It is furnishing a new\nstimulus to those who are working for the increase of knowledge, and\nof practical action based on knowledge, among the masses, the masses\nwho alone possess the power to change the force of the world for good\nor for evil, and by growth in wisdom to raise the human race on to a\nhigher level.\n\nThat is why the little book by Margaret Sanger, whose right to speak\nwith authority on these matters we all recognize, cannot be too widely\nread. To the few who think, though they may here and there differ on\npoints of detail, it is all as familiar as A. B. C. But to the\nmillions who rule the world it is not familiar, and still less to the\nhandful of superior persons whom the masses elect to supreme\npositions. Therefore, let this book be read; let it be read by every\nman and woman who can read. And the sooner it is not only read but\nacted on, the better for the world.\n\nHAVELOCK ELLIS.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER\n\nI WOMAN'S ERROR AND HER DEBT\n\nII WOMAN'S STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM\n\nIII THE MATERIAL OF THE NEW RACE\n\nIV TWO CLASSES OF WOMEN\n\nV THE WICKEDNESS OP CREATING LARGE FAMILIES\n\nVI CRIES OF DESPAIR\n\nVII WHEN SHOULD A WOMAN AVOID HAVING CHILDREN?\n\nVIII BIRTH CONTROL--A PARENTS' PROBLEM OR WOMAN'S?\n\nIX CONTINENCE--IS IT PRACTICABLE OR DESIRABLE?\n\nX CONTRACEPTIVES OR ABORTION?\n\nXI ARE PREVENTIVE MEANS CERTAIN?\n\nXII WILL BIRTH CONTROL HELP THE CAUSE OF LABOR?\n\nXIII BATTALIONS OF UNWANTED BABIES THE CAUSE OF WAR\n\nXIV WOMAN AND THE NEW MORALITY\n\nXV LEGISLATING WOMAN'S MORALS\n\nXVI WHY NOT BIRTH CONTROL CLINICS IN AMERICA?\n\nXVII PROGRESS WE HAVE MADE\n\nXVIII THE GOAL\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nWOMAN AND THE NEW RACE\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nWOMAN'S ERROR AND HER DEBT\n\n\nThe most far-reaching social development of modern times is the revolt\nof woman against sex servitude. The most important force in the\nremaking of the world is a free motherhood. Beside this force, the\nelaborate international programmes of modern statesmen are weak and\nsuperficial. Diplomats may formulate leagues of nations and nations\nmay pledge their utmost strength to maintain them, statesmen may dream\nof reconstructing the world out of alliances, hegemonies and spheres\nof influence, but woman, continuing to produce explosive populations,\nwill convert these pledges into the proverbial scraps of paper; or she\nmay, by controlling birth, lift motherhood to the plane of a\nvoluntary, intelligent function, and remake the world. When the world\nis thus remade, it will exceed the dream of statesman, reformer and\nrevolutionist.\n\nOnly in recent years has woman's position as the gentler and weaker\nhalf of the human family been emphatically and generally questioned.\nMen assumed that this was woman's place; woman herself accepted it. It\nseldom occurred to anyone to ask whether she would go on occupying it\nforever.\n\nUpon the mere surface of woman's organized protests there were no\nindications that she was desirous of achieving a fundamental change in\nher position. She claimed the right of suffrage and legislative\nregulation of her working hours, and asked that her property rights be\nequal to those of the man. None of these demands, however, affected\ndirectly the most vital factors of her existence. Whether she won her\npoint or failed to win it, she remained a dominated weakling in a\nsociety controlled by men.\n\nWoman's acceptance of her inferior status was the more real because it\nwas unconscious. She had chained herself to her place in society and\nthe family through the maternal functions of her nature, and only\nchains thus strong could have bound her to her lot as a brood animal\nfor the masculine civilizations of the world. In accepting her r\u00f4le as\nthe \"weaker and gentler half,\" she accepted that function. In turn,\nthe acceptance of that function fixed the more firmly her rank as an\ninferior.\n\nCaught in this \"vicious circle,\" woman has, through her reproductive\nability, founded and perpetuated the tyrannies of the Earth. Whether\nit was the tyranny of a monarchy, an oligarchy or a republic, the one\nindispensable factor of its existence was, as it is now, hordes of\nhuman beings--human beings so plentiful as to be cheap, and so cheap\nthat ignorance was their natural lot. Upon the rock of an\nunenlightened, submissive maternity have these been founded; upon the\nproduct of such a maternity have they flourished.\n\nNo despot ever flung forth his legions to die in foreign conquest, no\nprivilege-ruled nation ever erupted across its borders, to lock in\ndeath embrace with another, but behind them loomed the driving power\nof a population too large for its boundaries and its natural\nresources.\n\nNo period of low wages or of idleness with their want among the\nworkers, no peonage or sweatshop, no child-labor factory, ever came\ninto being, save from the same source. Nor have famine and plague been\nas much \"acts of God\" as acts of too prolific mothers. They, also, as\nall students know, have their basic causes in over-population.\n\nThe creators of over-population are the women, who, while wringing\ntheir hands over each fresh horror, submit anew to their task of\nproducing the multitudes who will bring about the _next_ tragedy of\ncivilization.\n\nWhile unknowingly laying the foundations of tyrannies and providing\nthe human tinder for racial conflagrations, woman was also unknowingly\ncreating slums, filling asylums with insane, and institutions with\nother defectives. She was replenishing the ranks of the prostitutes,\nfurnishing grist for the criminal courts and inmates for prisons. Had\nshe planned deliberately to achieve this tragic total of human waste\nand misery, she could hardly have done it more effectively.\n\nWoman's passivity under the burden of her disastrous task was almost\naltogether that of ignorant resignation. She knew virtually nothing\nabout her reproductive nature and less about the consequences of her\nexcessive child-bearing. It is true that, obeying the inner urge of\ntheir natures, _some_ women revolted. They went even to the extreme of\ninfanticide and abortion. Usually their revolts were not general\nenough. They fought as individuals, not as a mass. In the mass they\nsank back into blind and hopeless subjection. They went on breeding\nwith staggering rapidity those numberless, undesired children who\nbecome the clogs and the destroyers of civilizations.\n\nTo-day, however, woman is rising in fundamental revolt. Even her\nefforts at mere reform are, as we shall see later, steps in that\ndirection. Underneath each of them is the feminine urge to complete\nfreedom. Millions of women are asserting their right to voluntary\nmotherhood. They are determined to decide for themselves whether they\nshall become mothers, under what conditions and when. This is the\nfundamental revolt referred to. It is for woman the key to the temple\nof liberty.\n\nEven as birth control is the means by which woman attains basic\nfreedom, so it is the means by which she must and will uproot the evil\nshe has wrought through her submission. As she has unconsciously and\nignorantly brought about social disaster, so must and will she\nconsciously and intelligently _undo_ that disaster and create a new\nand a better order.\n\nThe task is hers. It cannot be avoided by excuses, nor can it be\ndelegated. It is not enough for woman to point to the self-evident\ndomination of man. Nor does it avail to plead the guilt of rulers and\nthe exploiters of labor. It makes no difference that she does not\nformulate industrial systems nor that she is an instinctive believer\nin social justice. In her submission lies her error and her guilt. By\nher failure to withhold the multitudes of children who have made\ninevitable the most flagrant of our social evils, she incurred a debt\nto society. Regardless of her own wrongs, regardless of her lack of\nopportunity and regardless of all other considerations, _she_ must pay\nthat debt.\n\nShe must not think to pay this debt in any superficial way. She cannot\npay it with palliatives--with child-labor laws, prohibition,\nregulation of prostitution and agitation against war. Political\nnostrums and social panaceas are but incidentally and superficially\nuseful. They do not touch the source of the social disease.\n\nWar, famine, poverty and oppression of the workers will continue while\nwoman makes life cheap. They will cease only when she limits her\nreproductivity and human life is no longer a thing to be wasted.\n\nTwo chief obstacles hinder the discharge of this tremendous\nobligation. The first and the lesser is the legal barrier. Dark-Age\nlaws would still deny to her the knowledge of her reproductive nature.\nSuch knowledge is indispensable to intelligent motherhood and she must\nachieve it, despite absurd statutes and equally absurd moral canons.\n\nThe second and more serious barrier is her own ignorance of the extent\nand effect of her submission. Until she knows the evil her subjection\nhas wrought to herself, to her progeny and to the world at large, she\ncannot wipe out that evil.\n\nTo get rid of these obstacles is to invite attack from the forces of\nreaction which are so strongly entrenched in our present-day society.\nIt means warfare in every phase of her life. Nevertheless, at whatever\ncost, she must emerge from her ignorance and assume her\nresponsibility.\n\nShe can do this only when she has awakened to a knowledge of herself\nand of the consequences of her ignorance. The first step is birth\ncontrol. Through birth control she will attain to voluntary\nmotherhood. Having attained this, the basic freedom of her sex, she\nwill cease to enslave herself and the mass of humanity. Then, through\nthe understanding of the intuitive forward urge within her, she will\nnot stop at patching up the world; she will remake it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nWOMAN'S STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM\n\nBehind all customs of whatever nature; behind all social unrest,\nbehind all movements, behind all revolutions, are great driving\nforces, which in their action and reaction upon conditions, give\ncharacter to civilization. If, in seeking to discover the source of a\ncustom, of a movement or of a revolution, we stop at surface\nconditions, we shall never discern more than a superficial aspect of\nthe underlying truth.\n\nThis is the error into which the historian has almost universally\nfallen. It is also a common error among sociologists. It is the\nfashion nowadays, for instance, to explain all social unrest in terms\nof economic conditions. This is a valuable working theory and has done\nmuch to awaken men to their injustice toward one another, but it\nignores the forces within humanity which drive it to revolt. It is\nthese forces, rather than the conditions upon which they react, that\nare the important factors. Conditions change, but the animating force\ngoes on forever.\n\nSo, too, with woman's struggle for emancipation. Women in all lands\nand all ages have instinctively desired family limitation. Usually\nthis desire has been laid to economic pressure. Frequently the\npressure has existed, but the driving force behind woman's aspiration\n_toward freedom_ has lain deeper. It has asserted itself among the\nrich and among the poor, among the intelligent and the unintelligent.\nIt has been manifested in such horrors as infanticide, child\nabandonment and abortion.\n\nThe only term sufficiently comprehensive to define this motive power\nof woman's nature is the _feminine spirit_. That spirit manifests\nitself most frequently in motherhood, but it is greater than\nmaternity. Woman herself, all that she is, all that she has ever been,\nall that she may be, is but the outworking of this inner spiritual\nurge. Given free play, this supreme law of her nature asserts itself\nin beneficent ways; interfered with, it becomes destructive. Only when\nwe understand this can we comprehend the efforts of the feminine\nspirit to liberate itself.\n\nWhen the outworking of this force within her is hampered by the\nbearing and the care of too many children, woman rebels. Hence it is\nthat, from time immemorial, she has sought some form of family\nlimitation. When she has not employed such measures consciously, she\nhas done so instinctively. Where laws, customs and religious\nrestrictions do not prevent, she has recourse to contraceptives.\nOtherwise, she resorts to child abandonment, abortion and infanticide,\nor resigns herself hopelessly to enforced maternity.\n\nThese violent means of freeing herself from the chains of her own\nreproductivity have been most in evidence where economic conditions\nhave made the care of children even more of a burden than it would\notherwise have been. But, whether in the luxurious home of the\nAthenian, the poverty-ridden dwelling of the Chinese, or the crude hut\nof the primitive Australian savage, the woman whose development has\nbeen interfered with by the bearing and rearing of children has tried\ndesperately, frantically, too often in vain, to take and hold her\nfreedom.\n\nIndividual men have sometimes acquiesced in these violent measures,\nbut in the mass they have opposed. By law, by religious canons, by\npublic opinion, by penalties ranging all the way from ostracism to\nbeheading, they have sought to crush this effort. Neither threat of\nhell nor the infliction of physical punishment has availed. Women have\ndeceived and dared, resisted and defied the power of church and state.\nQuietly, desperately, consciously, they have marched to the gates of\ndeath to gain the liberty which the feminine spirit has desired.\n\nIn savage life as well as in barbarism and civilization has woman's\ninstinctive urge to freedom and a wider development asserted itself in\nan effort, successful or otherwise, to curtail her family.\n\n\"The custom of infanticide prevails or has prevailed,\" says Westermark\nin his monumental work, _The Origin and Development of the Moral\nIdea_, \"not only in the savage world but among the semi-civilized and\ncivilized races.\"\n\nWith the savage mother, family limitation ran largely to infanticide,\nalthough that practice was frequently accompanied by abortion as a\ntribal means. As McLennan says in his \"Studies in Ancient History,\"\ninfanticide was formerly very common among the savages of New Zealand,\nand \"it was generally perpetrated by the mother.\" He notes much the\nsame state of affairs among the primitive Australians, except that\nabortion was _also_ frequently employed. In numerous North American\nIndian tribes, he says, infanticide and abortion were not uncommon,\nand the Indians of Central America were found by him \"to have gone to\nextremes in the use of abortives.\"\n\nWhen a traveller reproached the women of one of the South American\nIndian tribes for the practice of infanticide, McLennan says he was\nmet by the retort, \"Men have no business to meddle with women's\naffairs.\"\n\nMcLennan ventures the opinion that the practice of abortion so widely\nnoted among Indians in the Western Hemisphere, \"must have supervened\non a practice of infanticide.\"\n\nSimilar practices have been found to prevail wherever historians have\ndug deep into the life of savage people. Infanticide, at least, was\npracticed by African tribes, by the primitive peoples of Japan, India\nand Western Europe, as well as in China, and in early Greece and Rome.\nThe ancient Hebrews are sometimes pointed out as the one possible\nexception to this practice, because the Mosaic law, as it has come\ndown to us, is silent upon the subject. Westermark is of the opinion\nthat it \"hardly occurred among the Hebrews in historic times. But we\nhave reason to believe that at an earlier period, among them, as among\nother branches of the Semitic race, child murder was frequently\npracticed as a sacrificial rite.\"\n\nWestermark found that \"the murder of female infants, whether by the\ndirect employment of homicidal means, or exposure to privation and\nneglect, has for ages been a common practice or even a genuine custom\namong various Hindu castes.\"\n\nStill further light is shed upon the real sources of the practice, as\nwell as upon the improvement of the status of woman through the\npractice, by an English student of conditions in India. Captain S.\nCharles MacPherson, of the Madras Army, in the Journal of the Royal\nAsiatic Society for 1852, said: \"I can here but very briefly advert to\nthe customs and feelings which the practice of infanticide (among the\nKhonds of Orissa) alternately springs from and produces. The influence\nand privileges of women are exceedingly great among the Khonds, and\nare, I believe, greatest among the tribes which practice infanticide.\nTheir opinions have great weight in all public and private affairs;\ntheir direct participation is often considered essential in the\nformer.\"\n\nIf infanticide did not spring from a desire within the woman herself,\nfrom a desire stronger than motherhood, would it prevail where women\nenjoy an influence equal to that of men? And does not the fact that\nthe women in question do enjoy such influence, point unmistakably to\nthe motive behind the practice?\n\nInfanticide did not go out of fashion with the advance from savagery\nto barbarism and civilization. Rather, it became, as in Greece and\nRome, a recognized custom with advocates among leaders of thought and\naction.\n\nSo did abortion, which some authorities regard as a development\nspringing from infanticide and tending to supersede it as a means of\ngetting rid of undesired children.\n\nAs progress is made toward civilization, infanticide, then, actually\nincreased. This tendency was noted by Westermark, who also calls\nattention to the conclusions of Fison and Howitt (in Kamilaroi and\nKurnai). \"Mr. Fison who has lived for a long time among uncivilized\nraces,\" says Westermark, \"thinks it will be found that infanticide is\nfar less common among the lower savages than among the more advanced\ntribes.\"\n\nFollowing this same tendency into civilized countries, we find\ninfanticide either advocated by philosophers and authorized by law, as\nin Greece and Rome, or widely practiced in spite of the law, civil and\necclesiastical.\n\nThe status of infanticide as an established, legalized custom in\nGreece, is well summed up by Westermark, who says: \"The exposure of\ndeformed or sickly infants was undoubtedly an ancient custom in\nGreece; in Sparta, at least, it was enjoined by law. It was also\napproved of by the most enlightened among the Greek philosophers.\nPlato condemns all those children who are imperfect in limbs as well\nas those who are born of depraved citizens.\"\n\nAristotle, who believed that the state should fix the number of\nchildren each married pair should have, has this to say in _Politics_,\nBook VII, Chapter V:\n\n\"With respect to the exposing and nurturing of children, let it be a\nlaw that nothing mutilated shall be nurtured. And in order to avoid\nhaving too great a number of children, if it be not permitted by the\nlaws of the country to expose them, it is then requisite to define how\nmany a man may have; and if any have more than the prescribed number,\nsome means must be adopted that the fruit be destroyed in the womb of\nthe mother before sense and life are generated in it.\"\n\nAristotle was a conscious advocate of family limitation even if\nattained by violent means. \"It is necessary,\" he says, \"to take care\nthat the increase of the people should not exceed a certain number in\norder to avoid poverty and its concomitants, sedition and other\nevils.\"\n\nIn Athens, while the citizen wives were unable to throw off the\nrestrictions of the laws which kept them at home, the great number of\n_hetera_, or stranger women, were the glory of the \"Golden Age.\" The\nhomes of these women who were free from the burden of too many\nchildren became the gathering places of philosophers, poets, sculptors\nand statesmen. The _hetera_ were their companions, their inspiration\nand their teachers. Aspasia, one of the greatest women of antiquity,\nwas such an emancipated individuality. True to the urge of the\nfeminine spirit, she, like Sappho, the poetess of Lesbia, sought to\narouse the Greek wives to the expression of their individual selves.\nOne writer says of her efforts: \"This woman determined to do her\nutmost to elevate her sex. The one method of culture open to women at\nthat time was poetry. There was no other form of literature, and\naccordingly she systematically trained her pupils to be poets, and to\nweave into the verse the noblest maxims of the intellect and the\ndeepest emotions of the heart. Young pupils with richly endowed minds\nflocked to her from all countries and formed a kind of Woman's\nCollege.\n\n\"There can be no doubt that these young women were impelled to seek\nthe society of Sappho from disgust with the low drudgery and\nmonotonous routine to which woman's life was sacrificed, and they were\nanxious to rise to something nobler and better.\"\n\nCan there be any doubt that the unfortunate \"citizen wives\" of Athens,\nbound by law to their homes, envied the brilliant careers of the\n\"stranger women,\" and sought all possible means of freedom? And can\nthere be any doubt that they acquiesced in the practice of infanticide\nas a means to that end? Otherwise, how could the custom of destroying\ninfants have been so thoroughly embedded in the jurisprudence, the\nthought and the very core of Athenian civilization?\n\nAs to the Spartan women, Aristotle says that they ruled their husbands\nand owned two-fifths of the land. Surely, had they not approved of\ninfanticide for some very strong reasons of their own, they would have\nabolished it.\n\nAthens and Sparta must be regarded as giving very strong indications\nthat the Grecian women not only approved of family limitation by the\ndestruction of unwanted children, but that at least part of their\nmotive was personal freedom.\n\nIn Rome, an avowedly militaristic nation, living by conquest of weaker\nstates, all sound children were saved. But the weakly or deformed were\ndrowned. Says Seneca: \"We destroy monstrous births, and we also drown\nour children if they are born weakly or unnaturally formed.\" Wives of\nRomans, however, were relieved of much of the drudgery of child\nrearing by the slaves which Rome took by the thousands and brought\nhome. Thus they were free to attain an advanced position and to become\nthe advisors of their husbands in politics, making and unmaking\npolitical careers.\n\nWhen we come to look into the proverbial infanticide of the Chinese,\nwe find the same positive indications that it grew out of the\ninstinctive purpose of woman to free herself from the bondage of too\ngreat reproductivity.\n\n\"In the poorest districts of China,\" says Westermark, \"female infants\nare often destroyed by their parents immediately after their birth,\nchiefly on account of poverty. Though disapproved of by educated\nChinese, the practice is treated with forbearance or indifference by\nthe man of the people and is acquiesced in by the mandarins.\"\n\n\"When seriously appealed to on the subject,\" says the Rev. J.\nDoolittle in _Social Life of the Chinese_, \"though all deprecate it as\ncontrary to the dictates of reason and the instincts of nature, many\nare ready boldly to apologize for it and declare it to be necessary,\nespecially in the families of the excessively poor.\"\n\nHere again the wide prevalence of the custom is the first and best\nproof that women are driven by some great pressure within themselves\nto accede to it. If further proof were necessary, it is afforded by\nthe testimony of Occidentals who have lived in China, that Chinese\nmidwives are extremely skillful in producing early abortion. Abortions\nare not performed without the consent and usually only at the demand\nof the woman.\n\nIn China, as in India, the religions of the country condemned, even as\nthey to-day condemn, infanticide. Both foreign and native governments\nhave sought to make an end of the custom. But in both countries it\nstill prevails. Nor are these Eastern countries substantially\ndifferent from their Western neighbors.\n\nThe record of Western Europe is summarized by Oscar Helmuth Werner,\nPh.D., in his book, _\"The Unmarried Mother in German Literature.\"_\n\"Infanticide,\" says Dr. Werner, \"was the most common crime in Western\nEurope from the Middle Ages down to the end of the Eighteenth\nCentury.\" This fact, of course, means that it was even more largely\npracticed by the married than the unmarried, the married mothers being\nfar greater in number.\n\n\"Another problem which confronted the church,\" he says in another\nplace, \"was the practice of exposure and killing of children by legal\nparents.\" A sort of final word from Dr. Werner is this: \"Infanticide\nby legal parents has practically ceased in civilized countries, but\nabortion, its substitute, has not.\"\n\nHow desperately woman desired freedom to develop herself as an\nindividual, apart from motherhood, is indicated by the fact that\ninfanticide was \"the most common crime of Western Europe,\" in spite of\nthe fact that some of the most terrible punishments ever inflicted by\nlaw were meted out to those women who sought this means of escape from\nthe burden of unwanted children. Dr. Werner shows that in Germany, for\ninstance, in the year 1532, it was the law that those guilty of\ninfanticide were \"to be buried alive or impaled. In order to prevent\ndesperation, however, they shall be drowned if it is possible to get\nto a stream or river, in which they shall be torn with glowing tongs\nbeforehand.\"\n\nNotwithstanding the fact that at one time in Germany, the punishment\nwas that of drowning in a sack containing a serpent, a cat and a\ndog--in order that the utmost agony might be inflicted--one sovereign\nalone condemned 20,000 women to death for infanticide, without\nnoticeably reducing the practice.\n\nTo-day, in spite of the huge numbers of abortions and the\nmultiplication of foundlings' homes and orphans' asylums, infanticide\nis still an occasional crime in all countries. As to woman's share in\nthe practice, let us add this word from Havelock Ellis, taken from the\nchapter on \"Morbid Psychic Phenomena\" in his book, _Man and Woman_:\n\n\"Infanticide is the crime in which women stand out in the greatest\ncontrast to men; in Italy, for example, for every 100 men guilty of\ninfanticide, there are 477 women.\" And he remarks later that when a\nman commits this crime, \"he usually does it at the instance of some\nwoman.\"\n\nInfanticide tends to disappear as skill in producing abortions is\ndeveloped or knowledge of contraceptives is spread, and only then. One\nauthority, as will be seen in a later chapter, estimates the number of\nabortions performed annually in the United States at 1,000,000, and\nanother believes that double that number are produced.\n\n\"Among the Hindus and Mohammedans, artificial abortion is extremely\ncommon,\" says Westermark. \"In Persia every illegitimate pregnancy ends\nwith abortion. In Turkey, both among the rich and the poor, even\nmarried women very commonly procure abortion after they have given\nbirth to two children, one of which is a boy.\"\n\nThe nations mentioned are typical of the world, except those countries\nwhere information concerning contraceptives has enabled women to limit\ntheir families without recourse to operations.\n\nIt is apparent that nothing short of contraceptives can put an end to\nthe horrors of abortion and infanticide. The Roman Catholic church,\nwhich has fought these practices from the beginning, has been unable\nto check them; and no more powerful agency could have been brought\ninto play. It took that church, even in the days of its unlimited\npower, many centuries to come to its present sweeping condemnation of\nabortion. The severity of the condemnation depended upon the time at\nwhich the development of the foetus was interfered with. An\nilluminating resume of the church's efforts in this direction is given\nby Dr. William Burke Ryan in his authoritative and exhaustive study\nentitled \"_Infanticide; Its Law, Prevalence, Prevention and History\"_.\nDr. Ryan says: \"Theologians of the church of Rome made a distinction\nbetween the inanimate and the animate foetus to which the soul is\nadded by the creation of God, and adopted the opinions of some of the\nold philosophers, more particularly those of Aristotle, as to\nanimation in the male and female, but the canon law altogether\nnegatived the doctrine of the Stoics, for Innocent II condemned the\nfollowing proposition:\n\n\"'It seems probable that the foetus does not possess a rational soul\nas long as it is in the womb, and only begins to possess it when born,\nand consequently in no abortion is homicide committed.' Sextus V\ninflicted severe penalties for the crime of abortion at any period;\nthese were in some degree mitigated by Gregory XIV, who, however,\nstill held that those producing the abortion of an animated foetus\nshould be subject to them, viz., and excommunication reserved to the\nbishop and also an 'irregularity' reserved to the Pope himself for\nabsolution.\"\n\nTo-day, the Roman church stands firmly upon the proposition that\n\"directly intended, artificial abortion must be regarded as wrongful\nkilling, as murder.\" [Footnote: Pastoral Medicine] But it required a\nlong time for it to reach that point, in the face of the demand for\nrelief from large families.\n\nAs it was with the fight of the church against abortion, so it is with\nthe effort to prevent abortion in the United States to-day. All\nefforts to stop the practice are futile. Apparently, the numbers of\nthese illegal operations are increasing from year to year. From year\nto year more women will undergo the humiliation, the danger and the\nhorror of them, and the terrible record, begun with the infanticide of\nthe primitive peoples, will go on piling up its volume of human misery\nand racial damage, until society awakens to the fact that a\nfundamental remedy must be applied.\n\nTo apply such a remedy, society must recognize the terrible lesson\ntaught by the innumerable centuries of infanticide and foeticide. If\nthese abhorrent practices could have been ended by punishment and\nsuppression, they would have ceased long ago. But to continue\nsuppression and punishment, and let the matter rest there, is only to\nmiss the lesson--only to permit conditions to go from bad to worse.\n\nWhat is that lesson? It is this: woman's desire for freedom is born of\nthe feminine spirit, which is the absolute, elemental, inner urge of\nwomanhood. It is the strongest force in her nature; it cannot be\ndestroyed; it can merely be diverted from its natural expression into\nviolent and destructive channels.\n\nThe chief obstacles to the normal expression of this force are\nundesired pregnancy and the burden of unwanted children. These\nobstacles have always been and always will be swept aside by a\nconsiderable proportion of women. Driven by the irresistible force\nwithin them, they will always seek wider freedom and greater\nself-development, regardless of the cost. The sole question that society\nhas to answer is, how shall women be permitted to attain this end?\n\nAre you horrified at the record set down in this chapter? It is well\nthat you should be. You cannot help society to apply the fundamental\nremedy unless you know these facts and are conscious of their fullest\nsignificance.\n\nSociety, in dealing with the feminine spirit, has its choice of\nclearly defined alternatives. It can continue to resort to violence in\nan effort to enslave the elemental urge of womanhood, making of woman\na mere instrument of reproduction and punishing her when she revolts.\nOr, it can permit her to choose whether she shall become a mother and\nhow many children she will have. It can go on trying to crush that\nwhich is uncrushable, or it can recognize woman's claim to freedom,\nand cease to impose diverting and destructive barriers. If we choose\nthe latter course, we must not only remove all restrictions upon the\nuse of scientific contraceptives, but we must legalize and encourage\ntheir use.\n\nThis problem comes home with peculiar force to the people of America.\nDo we want the millions of abortions performed annually to be\nmultiplied? Do we want the precious, tender qualities of womanhood, so\nmuch needed for our racial development, to perish in these sordid,\nabnormal experiences? Or, do we wish to permit woman to find her way\nto fundamental freedom through safe, unobjectionable, scientific\nmeans? We have our choice. Upon our answer to these questions depends\nin a tremendous degree the character and the capabilities of the\nfuture American race.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE MATERIALS OF THE NEW RACE\n\n\nEach of us has an ideal of what the American of the future should be.\nWe have been told times without number that out of the mixture of\nstocks, the intermingling of ideas and aspirations, there is to come a\nrace greater than any which has contributed to the population of the\nUnited States. What is the basis for this hope that is so generally\nindulged in? If the hope is founded upon realities, how may it be\nrealized? To understand the difficulties and the obstacles to be\novercome before the dream of a greater race in America can be\nattained, is to understand something of the task before the women who\nshall give birth to that race.\n\nWhat material is there for a greater American race? What elements make\nup our present millions? Where do they live? How do they live? In what\ndirection does our national civilization bend their ideals? What is\nthe effect of the \"melting pot\" upon the foreigner, once he begins to\n\"melt\"? Are we now producing a freer, juster, more intelligent, more\nidealistic, creative people out of the varied ingredients here?\n\nBefore we can answer these questions, we must consider briefly the\nraces which have contributed to American population.\n\nAmong our more than 100,000,000 population are Negroes, Indians,\nChinese and other colored people to the number of 11,000,000. There\nare also 14,500,000 persons of foreign birth. Besides these there are\n14,000,000 children of foreign-born parents and 6,500,000 persons\nwhose fathers or mothers were born on foreign soil, making a total of\n46,000,000 people of foreign stock. Fifty per cent of our population\nis of the native white strain.\n\nOf the foreign stock in the United States, the last general census,\ncompiled in 1910, shows that 25.7 per cent was German, 14 per cent was\nIrish, 8.5 per cent was Russian or Finnish, 7.2 was English, 6.5 per\ncent Italian and 6.2 per cent Austrian. The Abstract of the same\ncensus points out several significant facts. The Western European\nstrains in this country are represented by a majority of native-born\nchildren of foreign-born or mixed parentage. This is because the\nimmigration from those sources has been checked. On the other hand,\nimmigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, including Russia and\nFinland, increased 175.4 per cent from 1900 to 1910. During that\nperiod, the slums of Europe dumped their submerged inhabitants into\nAmerica at a rate almost double that of the preceding decade, and the\nflow was still increasing at the time the census was taken. So it is\nmore than likely that when the next census is taken it will be found\nthat following 1910 there was an even greater flow from Spain, Italy,\nHungary, Austria, Russia, Finland, and other countries where the iron\nhand of economic and political tyrannies had crushed great populations\ninto ignorance and want. These peoples have not been in the United\nStates long enough to produce great families. The census of 1920 will\nin all probability tell a story of a greater and more serious problem\nthan did the last.\n\nOver one-fourth of all the immigrants over fourteen years of age,\nadmitted during the two decades preceding 1910, were illiterate. Of\nthe 8,398,000 who arrived in the 1900-1910 period, 2,238,000 could not\nread or write. There were 1,600,000 illiterate foreigners in the\nUnited States when the 1910 census was taken. Do these elements give\npromise of a better race? Are we doing anything genuinely constructive\nto overcome this situation?\n\nTwo-thirds of the white foreign stock in the United States live in\ncities. Four-fifths of the populations of Chicago and New York are of\nthis stock. More than two-thirds of the populations of Boston,\nCleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Newark, Jersey\nCity, Providence, Worcester, Scranton, Paterson, Fall River, Lowell,\nCambridge, Bridgeport, St. Paul, Minneapolis and San Francisco are of\nother than native white ancestry. Of the fifty principal cities of the\nUnited States there are only fourteen in which fifty per cent of the\npopulation is of unmixed native white parentage.\n\nOnly one state in the Union--North Carolina--has less than one per\ncent of the white foreign stock. New York, New Jersey, Delaware,\nMassachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Michigan, Illinois,\nWisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana and Utah have more than\nfifty per cent foreign stock. Eleven states, including those on the\nPacific Coast, have from 35 to 50 per cent. Maine, Ohio and Kansas\nhave from 25 to 35 per cent. Maryland, Indiana, Missouri and Texas\nhave from 15 to 25 per cent. These proportions are increasing rather\nthan decreasing, owing to the extraordinarily high birth rate of the\nforeign strains.\n\nA special analysis of 1915 vital statistics for certain states, in the\nWorld Almanac for 1918, shows that foreign-born mothers gave birth to\nnearly 62 per cent of the children born in Connecticut, nearly 58 per\ncent in Massachusetts, nearly 33 per cent in Michigan, nearly 58 per\ncent in Rhode Island, more than 43 per cent in New Hampshire, more\nthan 54 per cent in New York and more than 38 per cent in\nPennsylvania.\n\nAll these figures, be it remembered, fail to include foreign stock of\nthe second generation after landing. If the statistics for children\nwho have native parents but foreign-born grandparents, or who have one\nforeign-born parent, were given, they would doubtless leave but a\nsmall percentage of births from stocks native to the soil for several\ngenerations.\n\nImmigrants or their children constitute the majority of workers\nemployed in many of our industries. \"Seven out of ten of those who\nwork in our iron and steel industries are drawn from this class,\" says\nthe National Geographic Magazine (February, 1917), \"seven out of ten\nof our bituminous coal miners belong to it. Three out of four who work\nin packing towns were born abroad or are children of those who were\nborn abroad; four out of five of those who make our silk goods, seven\nout of eight of those employed in woolen mills, nine out of ten of\nthose who refine our petroleum, and nineteen out of twenty of those\nwho manufacture our sugar are immigrants or the children of\nimmigrants.\" And it might have shown a similarly high percentage of\nthose in the ready-made clothing industries, railway and public works\nconstruction of the less skilled sort, and a number of others.\n\nThat these foreigners who have come in hordes have brought with them\ntheir ignorance of hygiene and modern ways of living and that they are\nhandicapped by religious superstitions is only too true. But they also\nbring in their hearts a desire for freedom from all the tyrannies that\nafflict the earth. They would not be here if they did not bear within\nthem the hardihood of pioneers, a courage of no mean order. They have\nthe simple faith that in America they will find equality, liberty and\nan opportunity for a decent livelihood. And they have something else.\nThe cell plasms of these peoples are freighted with the potentialities\nof the best in Old World civilization. They come from lands rich in\nthe traditions of courage, of art, music, letters, science and\nphilosophy. Americans no longer consider themselves cultured unless\nthey have journeyed to these lands to find access to the treasures\ncreated by men and women of this same blood. The immigrant brings the\npossibilities of all these things to our shores, but where is the\nopportunity to reproduce in the New World the cultures of the old?\n\nWhat opportunities have we given to these peoples to enrich our\ncivilization? We have greeted them as \"a lot of ignorant foreigners,\"\nwe have shouted at, bustled and kicked them.\n\nOur industries have taken advantage of their ignorance of the\ncountry's ways to take their toil in mills and mines and factories at\nstarvation wages. We have herded them into slums to become diseased,\nto become social burdens or to die. We have huddled them together like\nrabbits to multiply their numbers and their misery. Instead of saying\nthat we Americanize them, we should confess that we animalize them.\nThe only freedom we seem to have given them is the freedom to make\nheavier and more secure their chains. What hope is there for racial\nprogress in this human material, treated more carelessly and brutally\nthan the cheapest factory product?\n\nNor are all our social handicaps bound up in the immigrant.\n\nThere were in the United States, when the Federal Industrial Relations\nCommittee finished its work in 1915, several million migratory\nworkers, most of them white, many of them married but separated from\ntheir families, who were compelled, like themselves, to struggle with\ndire want.\n\nThere were in 1910 more than 2,353,000 tenant farmers, two-thirds of\nwhom lived and worked under the terrible conditions which the\nIndustrial Relations Commission's report showed to prevail in the\nSouth and Southwest. These tenant farmers, as the report showed, were\nalways in want, and were compelled by the very terms of the prevailing\ntenant contracts to produce children who must go to the fields and do\nthe work of adults. The census proved that this tenancy was on the\nincrease, the number of tenants in all but the New England and Middle\nAtlantic States having increased approximately 30 per cent from 1900\nto 1910.\n\nMoreover, there were in the United States in 1910, 5,516,163\nilliterates. Of these 1,378,884 were of pure native white stock. In\nsome states in the South as much as 29 per cent of the population is\nilliterate, many of these, of course, being Negroes.\n\nThere is still another factor to be considered--a factor which because\nof its great scope is more ominous than any yet mentioned. This is the\nunderpaid mass of workers in the United States--workers whose\nlow wages are forcing them deeper into want each day. Let Senator\nBorah, not a radical nor even a reformer, but a leader of the\nRepublican party, tell the story. \"Fifty-seven per cent of the\nfamilies in the United States have incomes of $800 or less,\" said\nhe in a speech before the Senate, August 24, 1917, \"Seventy per cent\nof the families of our country have incomes of $1,000 or less. Tell me\nhow a man so situated can have shelter for his family; how he can provide\nfood and clothing. He is an industrial peon. His home is scant and pinched\nbeyond the power of language to tell. He sees his wife and children on the\nragged edge of hunger from week to week and month to month. If sickness\ncomes, he faces suicide or crime. He cannot educate his children;\nhe cannot fit them for citizenship; he cannot even fit them as soldiers\nto die for their country.\n\n\"It is the tragedy of our whole national life--how these people live\nin such times as these. We have not yet gathered the fruits of such an\nindustrial condition in this country. We have been saved thus far by\nreason of the newness of our national life, our vast public lands now\nalmost exhausted, our great natural resources now fast being seized\nand held, but the hour of reckoning will come.\"\n\nSenator Borah was thinking, doubtless, of open revolution, of\nbloodshed and the destruction of property. In a far more terrible\nsense, the reckoning which he has referred to is already upon us. The\nills we suffer as the result of the conditions now prevailing in the\nUnited States are appalling in their sum.\n\nIt is these conditions that produce the 3,000,000 child laborers of\nthe United States; child slaves who undergo hardships that blight them\nphysically and mentally, leaving them fit only to produce human beings\nwhose deficiencies and misfortunes will exceed their own.\n\nFrom these same elements, living under these same conditions come the\nfeebleminded and other defectives. Just how many feebleminded there\nare in the United States, no one knows, because no attempt has ever\nbeen made to give public care to all of them, and families are more\ninclined to conceal than to reveal the mental defects of their\nmembers. Estimates vary from 350,000 at the present time to nearly\n400,000 as early as 1890, Henry H. Goddard, Ph. D., of the Vineland,\nN. J., Training School, being authority for the latter statement. Only\n34,137 of these unfortunates were under institutional care in the\nUnited States in 1916, the rest being free to propagate their kind--piling\nup public burdens for future generations. The feebleminded are\nnotoriously prolific in reproduction. The close relationship between\npoverty and ignorance and the production of feebleminded is shown by\nAnne Moore, Ph.D., in a report to the Public Education Association of\nNew York in 1911. She found that an overwhelming proportion of the\nclassified feebleminded children in New York schools came from large\nfamilies living in overcrowded slum conditions, and that only a small\npercentage were born of native parents.\n\nSixty thousand prostitutes go and come anew each year in the United\nStates. This army of unfortunates, as social workers and scientists\ntestify, come from families living under like conditions of want.\n\nIn the New York City schools alone in December, 1916, 61 per cent of\nthe children were suffering from undernourishment and 21 per cent in\nimmediate danger of it. These facts, also the result of the conditions\noutlined, were discovered by the city Bureau of Child Hygiene.\n\nAnother item in the sordid list is that of venereal disease. In his\npamphlet entitled \"_The Venereal Diseases_,\" issued in 1918, Dr.\nHermann M. Biggs head of the New York State Department of Health\nquoted authorities who gave estimates of the amount of syphilis and\ngonorrhea in the United States. One says that 60 per cent of the men\ncontract one disease or the other at some time. Another said that 40\nper cent of the population of New York City had syphilis, one of the\nmost terrible of all maladies. Poverty, delayed marriage,\nprostitution--a brief and terrible chain accounts for this scourge.\n\nFinally, there is tuberculosis, bred by bad housing conditions and\ncontributed to in frightful measure by poor food and unhealthy\nsurroundings during the hours of employment. Dr. Frederick L. Hoffman,\ndirector of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of\nTuberculosis and foremost statistical authority upon tuberculosis in\nthe United States, says: \"We know of 2,000,000 tubercular persons in\nthe United States.\"\n\nDoes this picture horrify the reader? This is not the whole truth. A\nfew scattered statistics lack the power to reflect the broken lives of\noverworked fathers, the ceaseless, increasing pain of overburdened\nmothers and the agony of childhood fighting its way against the\nhandicaps of ill health, insufficient food, inadequate training and\nstifling toil.\n\nCan we expect to remedy this situation by dismissing the problem of\nthe submerged native elements with legislative palliatives or treating\nit with careless scorn? Do we better it by driving out of the\nimmigrant's heart the dream of liberty that brought him to our shores?\nDo we solve the problem by giving him, instead of an opportunity to\ndevelop his own culture, low wages, a home in the slums and those\npseudo-patriotic preachments which constitute our machine-made\n\"Americanization\"?\n\nEvery detail of this sordid situation means a problem that must be\nsolved before we can even clear the way for a greater race in America.\nNor is there any hope of solving any of these problems if we continue\nto attack them in the usual way.\n\nMen have sentimentalized about them and legislated upon them. They\nhave denounced them and they have applied reforms. But it has all been\nridiculously, cruelly futile.\n\nThis is the condition of things for which those stand who demand more\nand more children. Each child born under such conditions but makes\nthem worse--each child in its own person suffers the consequence of\nthe intensified evils.\n\nIf we are to develop in America a new race with a racial soul, we must\nkeep the birth rate within the scope of our ability to understand as\nwell as to educate. We must not encourage reproduction beyond our\ncapacity to assimilate our numbers so as to make the coming generation\ninto such physically fit, mentally capable, socially alert individuals\nas are the ideal of a democracy.\n\nThe intelligence of a people is of slow evolutional development--it\nlags far behind the reproductive ability. It is far too slow to cope\nwith conditions created by an increasing population, unless that\nincrease is carefully regulated.\n\nWe must, therefore, not permit an increase in population that we are\nnot prepared to care for to the best advantage--that we are not\nprepared to do justice to, educationally and economically. We must\npopularize birth control thinking. We must not leave it haphazardly to\nbe the privilege of the already privileged. We must put this means of\nfreedom and growth into the hands of the masses.\n\nWe must set motherhood free. We must give the foreign and submerged\nmother knowledge that will enable her to prevent bringing to birth\nchildren she does not want. We know that in each of these submerged\nand semisubmerged elements of the population there are rich factors of\nracial culture. Motherhood is the channel through which these cultures\nflow. Motherhood, when free to choose the father, free to choose the\ntime and the number of children who shall result from the union,\nautomatically works in wondrous ways. It refuses to bring forth\nweaklings; refuses to bring forth slaves; refuses to bear children who\nmust live under the conditions described. It withholds the unfit,\nbrings forth the fit; brings few children into homes where there is\nnot sufficient to provide for them. Instinctively it avoids all those\nthings which multiply racial handicaps. Under such circumstances we\ncan hope that the \"melting pot\" will refine. We shall see that it will\nsave the precious metals of racial culture, fused into an amalgam of\nphysical perfection, mental strength and spiritual progress. Such an\nAmerican race, containing the best of all racial elements, could give\nto the world a vision and a leadership beyond our present imagination.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTWO CLASSES OF WOMEN\n\n\nThus far we have been discussing mainly one class in America--the\nworkers. Most women who belong to the workers' families have no\naccurate or reliable knowledge of contraceptives, and are, therefore,\nbringing children into the world so rapidly that they, their families\nand their class are overwhelmed with numbers. Out of these numbers, as\nhas been shown, have grown many of the burdens with which society in\ngeneral is weighted; out of them have come, also, the want, disease,\nhard living conditions and general misery of the workers.\n\nThe women of this class are the greatest sufferers of all. Not only do\nthey bear the material hardships and deprivations in common with the\nrest of the family, but in the case of the mother, these are\nintensified. It is the man and the child who have first call upon the\ninsufficient amount of food. It is the man and the child who get the\nrecreation, if there is any to be had, for the man's hours of labor\nare usually limited by law or by his labor union.\n\nIt is the woman who suffers first from hunger, the woman whose\nclothing is least adequate, the woman who must work all hours, even\nthough she is not compelled, as in the case of millions, to go into a\nfactory to add to her husband's scanty income. It is she, too, whose\nhealth breaks first and most hopelessly, under the long hours of work,\nthe drain of frequent childbearing, and often almost constant nursing\nof babies. There are no eight-hour laws to protect the mother against\noverwork and toil in the home; no laws to protect her against ill\nhealth and the diseases of pregnancy and reproduction. In fact there\nhas been almost no thought or consideration given for the protection\nof the mother in the home of the workingman.\n\nThere are no general health statistics to tell the full story of the\nphysical ills suffered by women as a result of too great\nreproductivity. But we get some light upon conditions through the\nstatistics on maternal mortality, compiled by Dr. Grace L. Meigs, for\nthe Children's Bureau of the United States Department of Labor. These\nfigures do not include the deaths of women suffering from diseases\ncomplicated by pregnancy.\n\n\"In 1913, in this country at least 15,000 women, it is estimated, died\nfrom conditions caused by childbirth; about 7,000 of these died from\nchildbed fever and the remaining 8,000 from diseases now known to be\nto a great extent preventable or curable,\" says Dr. Meigs in her\nsummary, \"Physicians and statisticians agree that these figures are a\n_great underestimate_.\"\n\nThink of it--the needless deaths of 15,000 women a \"great\nunderestimate\"! Yet even this number means that virtually every hour\nof the day and night two women die as the result of childbirth in the\nhealthiest and supposedly the most progressive country in the world.\n\nIt is apparent that Dr. Meigs leaves out of consideration the many\nthousands of deaths each year of women who become pregnant while\nsuffering from tuberculosis. Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, addressing the\nforty-fourth annual convention of the American Public Health\nAssociation, in Cincinnati in 1916, called attention to the fact that\nsome authors hold that \"65 per cent of the women afflicted with\ntuberculosis, even when afflicted only in the relatively early and\ncurable stages, die as the result of pregnancy which could have been\navoided and their lives saved had they but known some means of\nprevention.\" Nor were syphilis, various kidney and heart disorders and\nother diseases, often rendered fatal by pregnancy, taken into account\nby Dr. Meigs' survey.\n\nStill, leaving out all the hundreds of thousands of women who die\nbecause pregnancy has complicated serious diseases, Dr. Meigs finds\nthat \"in 1913, the death rate per 100,000 of the population from all\nconditions caused by childbirth was little lower than that from\ntyphoid fever. This rate would be almost quadrupled if only the group\nof the population which can be affected, women of child-bearing ages,\nwere considered. In 1913, childbirth caused more deaths among women 15\nto 44 years old than any disease except tuberculosis.\"\n\nFrom what sort of homes come these deaths from childbirth? Most of\nthem occur in overcrowded dwellings, where food, care, sanitation,\nnursing and medical attention are inadequate. Where do we find most of\nthe tuberculosis and much of the other disease which is aggravated by\npregnancy? In the same sort of home.\n\nThe deadly chain of misery is all too plain to anyone who takes the\ntrouble to observe it. A woman of the working class marries and with\nher husband lives in a degree of comfort upon his earnings. Her\nhousehold duties are not beyond her strength. Then the children begin\nto come--one, two, three, four, possibly five or more. The earnings of\nthe husband do not increase as rapidly as the family does. Food,\nclothing and general comfort in the home grow less as the numbers of\nthe family increase. The woman's work grows heavier, and her strength\nis less with each child. Possibly--probably--she has to go into a\nfactory to add to her husband's earnings. There she toils, doing her\nhousework at night. Her health goes, and the crowded conditions and\nlack of necessities in the home help to bring about disease--especially\ntuberculosis. Under the circumstances, the woman's chances of\nrecovering from each succeeding childbirth grow less. Less too are\nthe chances of the child's surviving, as shown by tables in another\nchapter. Unwanted children, poverty, ill health, misery, death--these\nare the links in the chain, and they are common to most of the\nfamilies in the class described in the preceding chapter.\n\nNor is the full story of the woman's sufferings yet told. Grievous as\nis her material condition, her spiritual deprivations are still\ngreater. By the very fact of its existence, mother love demands its\nexpression toward the child. By that same fact, it becomes a necessary\nfactor in the child's development. The mother of too many children, in\na crowded home where want, ill health and antagonism are perpetually\ncreated, is deprived of this simplest personal expression. She can\ngive nothing to her child of herself, of her personality. Training is\nimpossible and sympathetic guidance equally so. Instead, such a mother\nis tired, nervous, irritated and ill-tempered; a determent, often,\ninstead of a help to her children. Motherhood becomes a disaster and\nchildhood a tragedy.\n\nIt goes without saying that this woman loses also all opportunity of\npersonal expression outside her home. She has neither a chance to\ndevelop social qualities nor to indulge in social pleasures. The\nfeminine element in her--that spirit which blossoms forth now and then\nin women free from such burdens--cannot assert itself. She can\ncontribute nothing to the wellbeing of the community. She is a\nbreeding machine and a drudge--she is not an asset but a liability to\nher neighborhood, to her class, to society. She can be nothing as long\nas she is denied means of limiting her family.\n\nIn sharp contrast with these women who ignorantly bring forth large\nfamilies and who thereby enslave themselves, we find a few women who\nhave one, two or three children or no children at all. These women,\nwith the exception of the childless ones, live full-rounded lives.\nThey are found not only in the ranks of the rich and the well-to-do,\nbut in the ranks of labor as well. They have but one point of basic\ndifference from their enslaved sisters--they are not burdened with the\nrearing of large families.\n\nWe have no need to call upon the historian, the sociologist nor the\nstatistician for our knowledge of this situation. We meet it every day\nin the ordinary routine of our lives. The women who are the great\nteachers, the great writers, the artists, musicians, physicians, the\nleaders of public movements, the great suffragists, reformers, labor\nleaders and revolutionaries are those who are not compelled to give\nlavishly of their physical and spiritual strength in bearing and\nrearing large families. The situation is too familiar for discussion.\nWhere a woman with a large family is contributing directly to the\nprogress of her times or the betterment of social conditions, it is\nusually because she has sufficient wealth to employ trained nurses,\ngovernesses, and others who perform the duties necessary to child\nrearing. She is a rarity and is universally recognized as such.\n\nThe women with small families, however, are free to make their choice\nof those social pleasures which are the right of every human being and\nnecessary to each one's full development. They can be and are, each\naccording to her individual capacity, comrades and companions to their\nhusbands--a privilege denied to the mother of many children. Theirs is\nthe opportunity to keep abreast of the times, to make and cultivate a\nvaried circle of friends, to seek amusements as suits their taste and\nmeans, to know the meaning of real recreation. All these things remain\nunrealized desires to the prolific mother.\n\nWomen who have a knowledge of contraceptives are not compelled to make\nthe choice between a maternal experience and a marred love life; they\nare not forced to balance motherhood against social and spiritual\nactivities. Motherhood is for them to choose, as it should be for\nevery woman to choose. Choosing to become mothers, they do not thereby\nshut themselves away from thorough companionship with their husbands,\nfrom friends, from culture, from all those manifold experiences which\nare necessary to the completeness and the joy of life.\n\nFit mothers of the race are these, the courted comrades of the men\nthey choose, rather than the \"slaves of slaves.\" For theirs is the\nmagic power--the power of limiting their families to such numbers as\nwill permit them to live full-rounded lives. Such lives are the\nexpression of the feminine spirit which is woman _and all of her_--not\nmerely art, nor professional skill, nor intellect--but all that woman\nis, or may achieve.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE WICKEDNESS OF CREATING LARGE FAMILIES\n\n\nThe most serious evil of our times is that of encouraging the bringing\ninto the world of large families. The most immoral practice of the day\nis breeding too many children. These statements may startle those who\nhave never made a thorough investigation of the problem. They are,\nnevertheless, well considered, and the truth of them is abundantly\nborne out by an examination of facts and conditions which are part of\neveryday experience or observation.\n\nThe immorality of large families lies not only in their injury to the\nmembers of those families but in their injury to society. If one were\nasked offhand to name the greatest evil of the day one might, in the light\nof one's education by the newspapers, or by agitators, make any one of a\nnumber of replies. One might say prostitution, the oppression of labor,\nchild labor, or war. Yet the poverty and neglect which drives a girl into\nprostitution usually has its source in a family too large to be properly\ncared for by the mother, if the girl is not actually subnormal because her\nmother bore too many children, and, therefore, the more likely to become a\nprostitute. Labor is oppressed because it is too plentiful; wages go up\nand conditions improve when labor is scarce. Large families make plentiful\nlabor and they also provide the workers for the child-labor factories as\nwell as the armies of unemployed. That population, swelled by\noverbreeding, is a basic cause of war, we shall see in a later chapter.\nWithout the large family, not one of these evils could exist to any\nconsiderable extent, much less to the extent that they exist to-day. The\nlarge family--especially the family too large to receive adequate care--is\nthe one thing necessary to the perpetuation of these and other evils and\nis therefore a greater evil than any one of them.\n\nFirst of the manifold immoralities involved in the producing of a\nlarge family is the outrage upon the womanhood of the mother. If no\nmother bore children against her will or against her feminine\ninstinct, there would be few large families. The average mother of a\nbaby every year or two has been forced into unwilling motherhood, so\nfar as the later arrivals are concerned. It is not the less immoral\nwhen the power which compels enslavement is the church, state or the\npropaganda of well-meaning patriots clamoring against \"race suicide.\"\nThe wrong is as great as if the enslaving force were the unbridled\npassions of her husband. The wrong to the unwilling mother, deprived\nof her liberty, and all opportunity of self-development, is in itself\nenough to condemn large families as immoral.\n\nThe outrage upon the woman does not end there, however. Excessive\nchildbearing is now recognized by the medical profession as one of the\nmost prolific causes of ill health in women. There are in America\nhundreds of thousands of women, in good health when they married, who\nhave within a few years become physical wrecks, incapable of mothering\ntheir children, incapable of enjoying life.\n\n\"Every physician,\" writes Dr. Wm. J. Robinson in _Birth Control or The\nLimitation of Offspring_, \"knows that too frequent childbirth, nursing\nand the sleepless nights that are required in bringing up a child\nexhaust the vitality of thousands of mothers, make them prematurely\nold, or turn them into chronic invalids.\"\n\nThe effect of the large family upon the father is only less disastrous\nthan it is upon the mother. The spectacle of the young man, happy in\nhealth, strength and the prospect of a joyful love life, makes us\nsmile in sympathy. But this same young man ten years later is likely\nto present a spectacle as sorry as it is familiar. If he finds that\nthe children come one after another at short intervals--so fast indeed\nthat no matter how hard he works, nor how many hours, he cannot keep\npace with their needs--the lover whom all the world loves will have\nbeen converted into a disheartened, threadbare incompetent, whom all\nthe world pities or despises. Instead of being the happy, competent\nfather, supporting one or two children as they should be supported, he\nis the frantic struggler against the burden of five or six, with the\ntragic prospect of several more. The ranks of the physically weakened,\nmentally dejected and spiritually hopeless young fathers of large\nfamilies attest all too strongly the immorality of the system.\n\nIf its effects upon the mother and the wage-earning father were not\nenough to condemn the large family as an institution, its effects upon\nthe child would make the case against it conclusive. In the United\nStates, some 300,000 children under one year of age die each twelve\nmonths. Approximately ninety per cent of these deaths are directly or\nindirectly due to malnutrition, to other diseased conditions resulting\nfrom poverty, or to excessive childbearing by the mother.\n\nThe direct relationship between the size of the wage-earner's family\nand the death of children less than one year old has been revealed by\na number of studies of the infant death rate. One of the clearest of\nthese was that made by Arthur Geissler among miners and cited by Dr.\nAlfred Ploetz before the First International Eugenic Congress.\n[Footnote: Problems in Eugenics, London, 1913.] Taking 26,000 births\nfrom unselected marriages, and omitting families having one and two\nchildren, Geissler got this result:\n\n                     Deaths During\n                     First Year.\n   1st born children    23%\n   2nd  \"    \"          20%\n   3rd  \"    \"          21%\n   4th  \"    \"          23%\n   5th  \"    \"          26%\n   6th  \"    \"          29%\n   7th  \"    \"          31%\n   8th  \"    \"          33%\n   9th  \"    \"          36%\n  10th  \"    \"          41%\n  11th  \"    \"          51%\n  12th  \"    \"          60%\n\nThus we see that the second and third children have a very good chance\nto live through the first year. Children arriving later have less and\nless chance, until the twelfth has hardly any chance at all to live\ntwelve months.\n\nThis does not complete the case, however, for those who care to go\nfarther into the subject will find that many of those who live for a\nyear die before they reach the age of five.\n\nMany, perhaps, will think it idle to go farther in demonstrating the\nimmorality of large families, but since there is still an abundance of\nproof at hand, it may be offered for the sake of those who find\ndifficulty in adjusting old-fashioned ideas to the facts. The most\nmerciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members\nis to kill it. The same factors which create the terrible infant\nmortality rate, and which swell the death rate of children between the\nages of one and five, operate even more extensively to lower the\nhealth rate of the surviving members. Moreover, the overcrowded homes\nof large families reared in poverty further contribute to this\ncondition. Lack of medical attention is still another factor, so that\nthe child who must struggle for health in competition with other\nmembers of a closely packed family has still great difficulties to\nmeet after its poor constitution and malnutrition have been accounted\nfor.\n\nThe probability of a child handicapped by a weak constitution, an\novercrowded home, inadequate food and care, and possibly a deficient\nmental equipment, winding up in prison or an almshouse, is too evident\nfor comment. Every jail, hospital for the insane, reformatory and\ninstitution for the feebleminded cries out against the evils of too\nprolific breeding among wage-workers.\n\nWe shall see when we come to consider the relation of voluntary\nmotherhood to the rights of labor and to the prevention of war that\nthe large family of the worker makes possible his oppression, and that\nit also is the chief cause of such human holocausts as the one just\nclosed after the four and a half bloodiest years in history. No such\nextended consideration is necessary to indicate from what source the\nyoung slaves in the child-labor factories come. They come from large\nimpoverished families--from families in which the older children must\nput their often feeble strength to the task of supporting the younger.\n\nThe immorality of bringing large families into the world is recognized\nby those who are combatting the child-labor evil. Mary Alden Hopkins,\nwriting in Harper's Weekly in 1915, quotes Owen R. Lovejoy, general\nsecretary of the National Child Labor Committee, as follows:\n\n\"How many are too many? ... Any more than the mother can look after\nand the father make a living for ... Under present conditions as soon\nas there are too many children for the father to feed, some of them go\nto work in the mine or factory or store or mill near by. In doing\nthis, they not only injure their tender growing bodies, but\nindirectly, they drag down the father's wage ... The home becomes a\nmere rendezvous for the nightly gathering of bodies numb with\nweariness and minds drunk with sleep.\" And if they survive the\nfactory, they marry to perpetuate and multiply their ignorance,\nweakness and diseases.\n\nWhat have large families to do with prostitution? Ask anyone who has\nstudied the problem. The size of the family has a direct bearing on\nthe lives of thousands of girls who are living in prostitution.\nPoverty, lack of care and training during adolescence, overcrowded\nhousing conditions which accompany large families are universally\nrecognized causes of \"waywardness\" in girls. Social workers have cried\nout in vain against these conditions, pointing to their inevitable\nresults.\n\nIn the foreword to \"Downward Paths,\" A. Maude Royden says: \"Intimately\nconnected with this aspect of the question is that of home and\nhousing, especially of the child. The age at which children are first\ncorrupted is almost incredibly early, until we consider the nature of\nthe surroundings in which they grow up. Insufficient space, over-crowding,\nthe herding together of all ages and both sexes--these things break\ndown the barriers of a natural modesty and reserve. Where decency\nis practically impossible, unchastity will follow, and follow\nalmost as a matter of course.\" And the child who has no place to play\nexcept in the street, who lacks mother care, whose chief emotional\nexperience is the longing for the necessities of life? We know too\nwell the end of the sorry tale. The forlorn figures of the shadows\nwhere lurk the girls who sell themselves that they may eat and be\nclothed rise up to damn the moral dogmatists, who mouth their\nsickening exhortations to the wives and mothers of the workers to\nbreed, breed, breed.\n\nThe evidence is conclusive as regards the large family of the\nwage-worker. Social workers, physicians and reformers cry out to stop the\nbreeding of these, who must exist in want until they become permanent\nmembers of the ranks of the unfit.\n\nBut what of the family of the wealthy or the merely well-to-do? It is\namong these classes that we find the women who have attained to\nvoluntary motherhood. It is to these classes, too, that the \"race\nsuicide\" alarmists have from time to time addressed specially\nemphasized pleas for more children. The advocates of more prolific\nbreeding urge that these same women have more intelligence, better\nhealth, more time to care for children and more means to support them.\nThey therefore declare that it is the duty of such women to populate\nthe land with strong, healthy, intelligent offspring--to bear children\nin great numbers.\n\nIt is high time to expose the sheer foolishness of this argument. The\nfirst absurdity is that the women who are in comfortable circumstances\ncould continue to be cultured and of social value if they were the\nmothers of large families. Neither could they maintain their present\nstandard of health nor impart it to their children.\n\nWhile it is true that they have resources at their command which ease\nthe burden of child-bearing and child rearing immeasurably, it is also\ntrue that the wealthy mother, as well as the poverty-stricken mother,\nmust give from her own system certain elements which it takes time to\nreplace. Excessive childbearing is harder on the woman who lacks care\nthan on the one who does not, but both alike must give their bodies\ntime to recover from the strain of childbearing. If the women in\nfortunate circumstances gave ear to the demand of masculine\n\"race-suicide\"[A] fanatics they could within a few years be down to the\ncondition of their sisters who lack time to cultivate their talents\nand intellects. A vigorous, intelligent, fruitfully cultured\nmotherhood is all but impossible if no restriction is placed by that\nmotherhood upon the number of children.\n\n[Footnote A: Interesting and perhaps surprising light is thrown upon\nthe origin of the term \"race suicide\" by the following quotation from\nan article by Harold Bolce in the Cosmopolitan (New York) for May,\n1909:\n\n\"'The sole effect of prolificacy is to fill the cemeteries with tiny\ngraves, sacrifices of the innocents to the Moloch of immoderate\nmaternity.' Thus insists Edward A. Ross, Professor of Sociology in the\nUniversity of Wisconsin; and he protests against the 'dwarfing of\nwomen and the cheapening of men' as regards the restriction of the\nbirth rate as a 'movement at bottom salutary, and its evils minor,\ntransient and curable.' This is virile gospel, and particularly\nsignificant coming from the teacher who invented the term 'race\nsuicide,' which many have erroneously attributed to Mr. Roosevelt.\"]\n\nWage-workers and salaried people have a vital interest in the size of\nthe families of those better situated in life. Large families among\nthe rich are immoral not only because they invade the natural right of\nwoman to the control of her own body, to self-development and to\nself-expression, but because they are oppressive to the poorer elements of\nsociety. If the upper and middle classes of society had kept pace with\nthe poorer elements of society in reproduction during the past fifty\nyears, the working class to-day would be forced down to the level of\nthe Chinese whose wage standard is said to be a few handfuls of rice a\nday.\n\nIf these considerations are not enough to halt the masculine advocate\nof large families who reminds us of the days of our mothers and\ngrandmothers, let it be remembered that bearing and rearing six or\neight children to-day is a far different matter from what it was in\nthe generations just preceding. Physically and nervously, the woman of\nto-day is not fitted to bear children as frequently as was her mother\nand her mother's mother. The high tension of modern life and the\ncomplicating of woman's everyday existence have doubtless contributed\nto this result. And who of us can say, until a careful scientific\ninvestigation is made, how much the rapid development of tuberculosis\nand other grave diseases, even among the well-nurtured, may be due to\nthe depletion of the physical capital of the unborn by the too\nprolific childbearing of preceding generations of mothers?\n\nThe immorality of bringing into being a large family is a wrong-doing\nshared by three--the mother, the father and society. Upon all three\nfalls the burden of guilt. It may be said for the mother and father\nthat they are usually ignorant. What shall be said of society? What\nshall be said of us who permit outworn laws and customs to persist in\npiling up the appalling sum of public expense, misery and spiritual\ndegradation? The indictment against the large unwanted family is\nwritten in human woe. Who in the light of intelligent understanding\nshall have the brazenness to stand up and defend it?\n\nOne thing we know--the woman who has escaped the chains of too great\nreproductivity will never again wear them. The birth rate of the\nwealthy and upper classes will never appreciably rise. The woman of\nthese classes is free of her most oppressive bonds. Being free, we\nhave a right to expect much of her. We expect her to give still\ngreater expression to her feminine spirit--we expect her to enrich the\nintellectual, artistic, moral and spiritual life of the world. We\nexpect her to demolish old systems of morals, a degenerate prudery,\nDark-Age religious concepts, laws that enslave women by denying them\nthe knowledge of their bodies, and information as to contraceptives.\nThese must go to the scrapheap of vicious, cast-off things. Hers is\nthe power to send them there. Shall we look to her to strike the first\nblow which shall wrench her sisters from the grip of the dead hand of\nthe past?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nCRIES OF DESPAIR AND SOCIETY'S PROBLEMS\n\n\nBefore we pass to a further consideration of our subject, shall we not\npause to take a still closer look at the human misery wrought by the\nenslavement of women through unwilling motherhood? Would you know the\nappalling sum of this misery better than any author, any scientist,\nany physician, any social worker can tell you? Hear the story from the\nlips of the women themselves. Learn at first hand what it means to\nmake a broken drudge of a woman who might have been the happy mother\nof a few strong children. Learn from the words of the victims of\ninvoluntary motherhood what it means to them, to their children and to\nsociety to force the physically unfit or the unwilling to bear\nchildren. When you have learned, stop to ask yourself what is the\nworth of the law, the moral code, the tradition, the religion, that\nfor the sake of an outworn dogma of submission would wreck the lives\nof these women, condemn their progeny to pain, want, disease and\nhelplessness. Ask yourself if these letters, these cries of despair,\nborn of the anguish of woman's sex slavery are not in themselves\nenough to stop the mouths of the demagogues, the imperialists and the\necclesiastics who clamor for more and yet more children? And if the\npain of others has no power to move your heart and stir your hands and\nbrain to action, ask yourself the more selfish question: Can the\nchildren of these unfortunate mothers be other than a burden to\nsociety--a burden which reflects itself in innumerable phases of cost,\ncrime and general social detriment?\n\n\"For our own sakes--for our children's sakes--\" plead the mothers,\n\"help us! Let us be women, rather than breeding machines.\"\n\nThe women who thus cry out are pleading not only for themselves and\ntheir children, but for society itself. Their plea is for us and\nours--it is the plea for happier conditions, for higher ideals, for a\nstronger, more vigorous, more highly developed race.\n\nThe letters in this chapter are the voices of humble prophets crying\nout to us stop our national habit of human waste. They are warnings\nagainst disaster which we now share and must continue to share as it\ngrows worse, unless we heed the warning and put our national house in\norder.\n\nEach and every unwanted child is likely to be in some way a social\nliability. It is only the wanted child who is likely to be a social\nasset. If we have faith in this intuitive demand of the unfortunate\nmothers, if we understand both its dire and its hopeful significance,\nwe shall dispose of those social problems which so insistently and\nmenacingly confront us today. For the instinct of maternity to protect\nits own fruits, the instinct of womanhood to be free to give something\nbesides surplus of children to the world, cannot go astray. The rising\ngeneration is always the material of progress, and motherhood is the\nagency for the improvement and the strengthening and guiding of that\ngeneration.\n\nThe excerpts contained in this chapter are typical of the letters\nwhich come to me by the thousands. They tell their own story,\nsimply--sometimes ungrammatically and illiterately, but nevertheless\nirresistibly. It is the story of slow murder of the helpless by a\nsociety that shields itself behind ancient, inhuman moral creeds--which\ndares to weigh those dead creeds against the agony of the living\nwho pray for the \"mercy of death.\"\n\nCan a mother who would \"rather die\" than bear more children serve\nsociety by bearing still others? Can children carried through nine\nmonths of dread and unspeakable mental anguish and born into an\natmosphere of fear and anger, to grow up uneducated and in want, be a\nbenefit to the world? Here is what the mother says:\n\n\"I have read in the paper about you and am very interested in Birth\nControl I am a mother of four living children and one dead the oldest\n10 and baby 22 months old. I am very nervous and sickly after my\nchildren. I would like you to advise me what to do to prevent from\nhaving any more as I would rather die than have another. I am keeping\naway from my husband as much as I can, but it causes quarrels and\nalmost separation. All my babies have had marasmus in the first year\nof their lives and I almost lost my baby last summer. I always worry\nabout my children so much. My husband works in a brass foundry it is\nnot a very good job and living is so high that we have to live as\ncheap as possible. I've only got 2 rooms and kitchen and I do all my\nwork and sewing which is very hard for me.\"\n\nShall this woman continue to be forced into a life of unnatural\ncontinence which further aggravates her ill health and produces\nconstant discord? Shall she go on having children who come into being\nwith a heritage of ill health and poverty, and who are bound to become\npublic burdens? Or would it be the better policy to let motherhood\nfollow its instinct to save itself, its offspring and society from\nthese ills?\n\nOr shall women be forced into abortion, as is testified by the mother\nwhose daughters are mothers, and who, in the hope of saving them from\nboth slavery and the destruction of their unborn children, wrote the\nletter which follows:\n\n\"I have born and raised 6 children and I know all the hardships of\nraising a large family. I am now 53 years old and past having children\nbut I have 3 daughters that have 2 children each and they say they\nwill die before they will have any more and every now and again they\ngo to a doctor and get rid of one and some day I think it will kill\nthem but they say they don't care for they will be better dead than\nlive in hell with a big family and nothing to raise them on. It is for\nthere sakes I wish you to give me that information.\"\n\nWhat could the three women mentioned in this letter contribute to the\nwellbeing of the future American race? Nothing, except by doing\nexactly what they wish to do--refusing to bear children that they do\nnot want and cannot care for. Their instinct is sound--but what is to\nbe said of the position of society at large, which forces women who\nare in the grip of a sound instinct to seek repeated abortions in\norder to follow that instinct? Are we not compelling women to choose\nbetween inflicting injury upon themselves, their children and the\ncommunity, and undergoing an abhorrent operation which kills the\ntenderness and delicacy of womanhood, even as it may injure or kill\nthe body?\n\nWill the offspring of a paralytic, who must perforce neglect the\nphysical care and training of her children, enhance the common good by\ntheir coming? Here is a letter from a paralytic mother, whose days and\nnights are tortured by the thought of another child, and whose reason\nis tottering at the prospect of leaving her children without her care:\n\n\"I sent for a copy of your magazine and now feel I must write you to\nsee if you can help me.\n\n\"I was a high school girl who married a day laborer seven years ago.\nIn a few months I will again be a mother, the fourth child in less\nthan six years. While carrying my babies am always partly paralyzed on\none side. Do not know the cause but the doctor said at last birth we\nmust be 'more careful,' as I could not stand having so many children.\nAm always very sick for a long time and have to have chloroform.\n\n\"We can afford help only about 3 weeks, until I am on my feet again,\nafter confinement. I work as hard as I can but my work and my children\nare always neglected. I wonder if my body does survive this next birth\nif my reason will.\n\n\"It is terrible to think of bringing these little bodies and souls\ninto the world without means or strength to care for them. And I can\nsee no relief unless you give it to me or tell me where to get it. I\nam weaker each time and I know that this must be the last one, for it\nwould be better for me to go, than to bring more neglected babies into\nthe world. I can hardly sleep at night for worrying. Is there an\nanswer for women like me?\"\n\nIn another chapter, we have gotten a glimpse of the menace of the\nfeebleminded. Here is a woman who is praying for help to avoid adding\nto the number of mentally helpless:\n\n\"My baby is only 10 months old and the oldest one of four is 7, and\nmore care than a baby, has always been helpless. We do not own a roof\nover our heads and I am so discouraged I want to die if nothing can be\ndone. Can't you help me just this time and then I know I can take care\nof myself. Ignorance on this all important subject has put me where I\nam. I don't know how to be sure of bringing myself around. I beg of\nyou to help me and anything I can do to help further your wonderful\nwork I will do. Only help me this once, no one will know only I will\nbe blessed.\n\n\"I not only have a terrible time when I am confined but caring for the\noldest child it preys so on my mind that I fear more defective\nchildren. Help me please!\"\n\nThe offspring of one feebleminded man named Jukes has cost the public\nin one way and another $1,300,000 in seventy-five years. Do we want\nmore such families? Is this woman standing guard for the general\nwelfare? Had she been permitted the use of contraceptives before she\nwas forced to make a vain plea for abortion, would she not have\nrendered a service to her fellow citizens, as well as to herself?\n\nMillions are spent in the United States every year to combat\ntuberculosis. The national waste involved in illness and deaths from\ntuberculosis runs up into the billions. Is it then good business, to\nsay nothing of the humane aspects of the situation, to compel the\nwriter of the following letter to go on adding to the number of the\ntubercular? Which is the guardian of public welfare here--the mother\ninstinct which wishes to avoid bearing tubercular children, or the\nstatute which forbids her to know how to avoid adding to the census of\n\"white plague\" victims? The letter reads:\n\n\"Kindly pardon me for writing this to you, not knowing what trouble\nthis may cause you. But I've heard of you through a friend and realize\nyou are a friend of humanity. If people would see with your light, the\nworld would be healthy. I married the first time when I was eighteen\nyears old, a drinking man. I became mother to five children. In 1908\nmy husband died of consumption. I lost two of my oldest children from\nthe same disease, one at 16 and the other at 23. The youngest of them\nall, a sweet girl of nineteen, now lies at ---- sanatorium expecting\nto leave us at any time. The other sister and brother look very\npoorly.\n\n\"I have always worked very hard, because I had to. In 1913 I married\nagain, a good man this time, but a laboring man, and our constant fear\nand trouble is what may happen if we bring children into the world.\nI'm forty-six years old this month and not very well any more, either.\nSo a godsend will be some one who can tell me how to care for myself,\nso I can be free from suffering and also not bring mortals to earth to\nsuffer and die.\"\n\nNot even the blindest of all dogmatists can ignore the danger to the\ncommunity of to-day and the race of to-morrow in permitting an insane\nwoman to go on bearing children. Here is a letter which tells a\ntwo-sided story--how mother instinct, even when clouded by periodic\ninsanity, seeks to protect itself and society, and how society\nprevents her from attaining that end:\n\n\"There is a woman in this town who has six children and is expecting\nanother. Directly after the birth of a child, she goes insane, a\nraving maniac, and they send her to the insane asylum. While she is\ngone, her home and children are cared for by neighbors. After about\nsix months, they discharge her and she comes home and is in a family\nway again in a few months. Still the doctors will do nothing for her.\n\n\"She is a well-educated woman and says if she would not have any more\nchildren, she is sure she could be entirely free from these insane\nspells.\n\n\"If you will send me one of your pamphlets, I will give it to her and\nseveral others equally deserving.\n\n\"Hoping you will see fit to grant my request, I remain, etc.\"\n\nThe very word \"syphilis\" brings a shudder to anyone who is familiar\nwith the horrors of the malady. Not only in the suffering brought to\nthe victim himself and in the danger of infecting others, but in the\ndire legacy of helplessness and disease which is left to the offspring\nof the syphilitic, is this the most destructive socially, of all\n\"plagues.\" Here is a letter, which as a criticism of our present\npublic policy in regard to national waste and to contraceptives,\ndefies comment:\n\n\"I was left without a father when a girl of fourteen years old. I was\nthe oldest child of five. My mother had no means of support except her\ntwo hands, so we worked at anything we could, my job being nurse girl\nat home while mother worked most of the time, as she could earn more\nmoney than I could, for she could do harder work.\n\n\"I wasn't very strong and finally after two years my mother got so\ntired and worn out trying to make a living for so many, she married\nagain, and as she married a poor man, we children were not much better\noff. At the age of seventeen I married a man, a brakeman on\nthe ---- Railroad, who was eleven years older than I. He drank some and\nwas a very frail-looking man, but I was very ignorant of the world and did\nnot think of anything but making a home for myself and husband. After\neleven months I had a little girl born to me. I did not want more\nchildren, but my mother-in-law told me it was a terrible sin to do\nanything to keep from having children and that the Lord only sent just\nwhat I could take care of and if I heard of anything to do I was told\nit was injurious, so I did not try.\n\n\"In eleven months again, October 25, I had another little puny girl.\nIn twenty-three months, Sept. 25th, I had a seven-lb. boy. In ten\nmonths, July 15, I had a seven-months baby that lived five hours. In\neleven months, June 20, I had another little girl. In seventeen\nmonths, Nov. 30, another boy. In nine months a four months'\nmiscarriage. In twelve months another girl, and in three and a half\nyears another girl.\n\n\"All of these children were born into poverty; the father's health was\nalways poor, and when the third girl was born he was discharged from\nthe road because of his disability, yet he was still able to put\nchildren into the world. When the oldest child was twelve years old\nthe father died of concussion of the brain while the youngest child\nwas born two months after his death.\n\n\"Now, Mrs. Sanger, I did not want those children, because even in my\nignorance I had sense enough to know that I had no right to bring\nthose children into such a world where they could not have decent\ncare, for I was not able to do it myself nor hire it done. I prayed\nand I prayed that they would die when they were born. Praying did no\ngood and to-day I have read and studied enough to know that I am the\nmother of seven living children and that I committed a crime by\nbringing them into the world, their father was syphilitic (I did not\nknow about such things when I was a girl). One son is to be sent to\nMexico, while one of my girls is a victim of the white slave traffic.\n\n\"I raised my family in a little college town in ---- and am well known\nthere, for I made my living washing and working for the college people\nwhile I raised my little brood. I often wondered why those educated\nwell-to-do people never had so many children. I have one married\ndaughter who is tubercular, and she also has two little girls, only a\nyear apart. I feel so bad about it, and write to ask you to send me\ninformation for her. Don't stop your good work; don't think it's not\nappreciated; for there are hundreds of women like myself who are not\nafraid to risk their lives to help you to get this information to poor\nwomen who need it.\"\n\nThere is no need to go on repeating these cries. These letters have\ncome to me by the thousands. There are enough of them to fill many\nvolumes--each with its own individual tragedy, each with its own\nwarning to society.\n\nEvery ill that we are trying to cure to-day is reflected in them. The\nwife who through an unwilling continence drives her husband to\nprostitution; habitual drunkenness, which prohibition may or may not\nhave disposed of as a social problem; mothers who toil in mills and\nwhose children must follow them to that toil, adding to the long train\nof evils involved in child labor; mothers who have brought eight, ten,\ntwelve or fifteen undernourished, weakly children into the world to\nbecome public burdens of one sort or another--all these and more, with\nthe ever-present economic problem, and women who are remaining\nunmarried because they fear a large family which must exist in want;\nmen who are living abnormal lives for the same reason. All the social\nhandicaps and evils of the day are woven into these letters--and out\nof each of them rises these challenging facts: First, oppressed\nmotherhood knows that the cure for these evils lies in birth control;\nsecond, society has not yet learned to permit motherhood to stand\nguard for itself, its children, the common good and the coming race.\nAnd one reading such letters, and realizing their significance, is\nconstrained to wonder how long such a situation can exist.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nWHEN SHOULD A WOMAN AVOID HAVING CHILDREN?\n\n\nAre overburdened mothers justified in their appeals for contraceptives\nor abortions? What shall we say to women who write such letters as\nthose published in the preceding chapter? Will anyone, after reading\nthose letters, dare to say to these women that they should go on\nbringing helpless children into the world to share their increasing\nmisery?\n\nThe women who thus cry for aid are the victims of ignorance. Awakening\nfrom that ignorance, they are demanding relief. Had they been\npermitted a knowledge of their sex functions, had they had some\nguiding principle of motherhood, those who at this late day are asking\nfor contraceptives would have swept aside all barriers and procured\nthem long ago. Those who are appealing for abortions would never have\nbeen in such a situation.\n\nTo say to these women that they should continue their helpless\nbreeding of the helpless is stupid brutality. The facts set forth\nearlier in this book, and the cries of tortured motherhood which echo\nthrough the letters just referred to, are more than ample evidence\nthat there are times when it is woman's highest duty to refuse to bear\nchildren.\n\nThere has seemed to be a great deal of disagreement among the medical\nauthorities who have attempted to say when a woman should not have\nchildren. This disagreement has been rendered even more confusing by a\nbabel of voices from the ranks of sociologists. Within the past few\nyears, however, so much light has been shed upon the subject that it\nis now comparatively easy for the student to separate the well-founded\nconclusions from those which are of doubtful value, or plainly\nworthless. The opinions which I summarize here are not so much my own,\noriginally, as those of medical authorities who have made deep and\ncareful investigations. There is, however, nothing set forth here\nwhich I have not in my own studies tested and proved correct. In\naddition to carrying the weight of the best medical authority, a fact\neasily confirmed by the first specialist you meet, they are further\nreinforced by the findings of the federal Children's Bureau, and other\norganizations which have examined infant mortality and compiled rates.\n\nTo the woman who wishes to have children, we must give these answers\nto the question when not to have them.\n\nChildbearing should be avoided within two or three years after the\nbirth of the last child. Common sense and science unite in pointing\nout that the mother requires at least this much time to regain her\nstrength and replenish her system in order to give another baby proper\nnourishment after its birth. Authorities are insistent upon their\nwarnings that too frequent childbearing wrecks the woman's health.\nWeakness of the reproductive organs and pelvic ailments almost\ncertainly result if a woman bears children too frequently.\n\nBy all means there should be no children when either mother or father\nsuffers from such diseases as tuberculosis, gonorrhea, syphilis,\ncancer, epilepsy, insanity, drunkenness and mental disorders. In the\ncase of the mother, heart disease, kidney trouble and pelvic\ndeformities are also a serious bar to childbearing.\n\nThousands of volumes have been written by physicians upon the danger\nto mothers and offspring of having children when one or both parents\nare suffering from the diseases mentioned above. As authorities have\npointed out in all these books, the jails, hospitals for the insane,\npoorhouses and houses of prostitution are filled with the children\nborn of such parents, while an astounding number of their children are\neither stillborn or die in infancy.\n\nThese facts are now so well known that they would need little\ndiscussion here, even if space permitted. Miscarriages, which are\nparticularly frequent in cases of syphilis and pelvic deformities, are\na great source of danger to the health and even to the life of the\nmother. Where either parent suffers from gonorrhea, the child is in\ndanger of being born blind. Tuberculosis in the parent leaves the\nchild's system in such condition that it is likely to suffer from the\ndisease. Childbearing is also a grave danger to the tubercular mother.\nA tendency to insanity, if not insanity itself, may be transmitted to\nthe child, or it may be feebleminded if one of the parents is insane\nor suffers from any mental disorder. Drunkenness in the parent or\nparents has been found to be the cause of feeblemindedness in the\noffspring and to leave the child with a constitution too weak to\nresist disease as it should.\n\nNo more children should be born when the parents, though healthy\nthemselves, find that their children are physically or mentally\ndefective. No matter how much they desire children, no man and woman\nhave a right to bring into the world those who are to suffer from\nmental or physical affliction. It condemns the child to a life of\nmisery and places upon the community the burden of caring for it,\nprobably for its defective descendants for many generations.\n\nGenerally speaking, no woman should bear a child before she is twenty-two\nyears old. It is better still that she wait until she is twenty-five.\nHigh infant mortality rates for mothers under twenty-two attest\nthis fact. It is highly desirable from the mother's standpoint to\npostpone childbearing until she has attained a ripe physical and\nmental development, as the bearing and nursing of infants interferes\nwith such development. It is also all important to the child; the\noffspring of a woman who is twenty-five or somewhat older has the best\nchance of good physical and mental equipment.\n\nIn brief, a woman should avoid having children unless both she and the\nfather are in such physical and mental condition as to assure the\nchild a healthy physical and mental being. This is the answer that\nmust be made to women whose children are fairly sure of good care,\nsufficient food, adequate clothing, a fit place to live and at least a\nfair education.\n\nA distinctly different and exceedingly important side of the problem\nmust be considered when the women workers, the wives and the mothers\nof workers, wish to know when to avoid having children. Such a woman\nmust answer her own question. What anyone else may tell her is far\nless important than what she herself shall reply to a society that\ndemands more and more children and which gives them less and less when\nthey arrive.\n\nWhat shall this woman say to a society that would make of her body a\nreproductive machine only to waste prodigally the fruit of her being?\nDoes society value her offspring? Does it not let them die by the\nhundreds of thousands of want, hunger and preventable disease? Does it\nnot drive them to the factories, the mills, the mines and the stores\nto be stunted physically and mentally? Does it not throw them into the\nlabor market to be competitors with her and their father? Do we not\nfind the children of the South filling the mills, working side by side\nwith their mothers, while the fathers remain at home? Do we not find\nthe father, mother and child competing with one another for their\ndaily bread? Does society not herd them in slums? Does it not drive\nthe girls to prostitution and the boys to crime? Does it educate them\nfor free-spirited manhood and womanhood? Does it even give them during\ntheir babyhood fit places to live in, fit clothes to wear, fit food to\neat, or a clean place to play? Does it even permit the mother to give\nthem a mother's care?\n\nThe woman of the workers knows what society does with her offspring.\nKnowing the bitter truth, learned in unspeakable anguish, what shall\nthis woman say to society? The power is in her hands. She can bring\nforth more children to perpetuate these conditions, or she can\nwithhold the human grist from these cruel mills which grind only\ndisaster.\n\nShall she say to society that she will go on multiplying the misery\nthat she herself has endured? Shall she go on breeding children who\ncan only suffer and die? Rather, shall she not say that until society\nputs a higher value upon motherhood she will not be a mother? Shall\nshe not sacrifice her mother instincts for the common good and say\nthat until children are held as something better than commodities upon\nthe labor market, she will bear no more? Shall she not give up her\ndesire for even a small family, and say to society that until the\nworld is made fit for children to live in, she will have no children\nat all?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nBIRTH CONTROL--A PARENTS' PROBLEM OR WOMAN'S?\n\n\nThe problem of birth control has arisen directly from the effort of\nthe feminine spirit to free itself from bondage. Woman herself has\nwrought that bondage through her reproductive powers and while\nenslaving herself has enslaved the world. The physical suffering to be\nrelieved is chiefly woman's. Hers, too, is the love life that dies\nfirst under the blight of too prolific breeding. Within her is wrapped\nup the future of the race--it is hers to make or mar. All of these\nconsiderations point unmistakably to one fact--it is woman's duty as\nwell as her privilege to lay hold of the means of freedom. Whatever\nmen may do, she cannot escape the responsibility. For ages she has\nbeen deprived of the opportunity to meet this obligation. She is now\nemerging from her helplessness. Even as no one can share the suffering\nof the overburdened mother, so no one can do this work for her. Others\nmay help, but she and she alone can free herself.\n\nThe basic freedom of the world is woman's freedom. A free race cannot\nbe born of slave mothers. A woman enchained cannot choose but give a\nmeasure of that bondage to her sons and daughters. No woman can call\nherself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call\nherself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will\nnot be a mother.\n\nIt does not greatly alter the case that some women call themselves\nfree because they earn their own livings, while others profess freedom\nbecause they defy the conventions of sex relationship. She who earns\nher own living gains a sort of freedom that is not to be undervalued,\nbut in quality and in quantity it is of little account beside the\nuntrammeled choice of mating or not mating, of being a mother or not\nbeing a mother. She gains food and clothing and shelter, at least,\nwithout submitting to the charity of her companion, but the earning of\nher own living does not give her the development of her inner sex\nurge, far deeper and more powerful in its outworkings than any of\nthese externals. In order to have that development, she must still\nmeet and solve the problem of motherhood.\n\nWith the so-called \"free\" woman, who chooses a mate in defiance of\nconvention, freedom is largely a question of character and audacity.\nIf she does attain to an unrestricted choice of a mate, she is still\nin a position to be enslaved through her reproductive powers. Indeed,\nthe pressure of law and custom upon the woman not legally married is\nlikely to make her more of a slave than the woman fortunate enough to\nmarry the man of her choice.\n\nLook at it from any standpoint you will, suggest any solution you\nwill, conventional or unconventional, sanctioned by law or in defiance\nof law, woman is in the same position, fundamentally, until she is\nable to determine for herself whether she will be a mother and to fix\nthe number of her offspring. This unavoidable situation is alone\nenough to make birth control, first of all, a woman's problem. On the\nvery face of the matter, voluntary motherhood is chiefly the concern\nof the woman.\n\nIt is persistently urged, however, that since sex expression is the\nact of two, the responsibility of controlling the results should not\nbe placed upon woman alone. Is it fair, it is asked, to give her,\ninstead of the man, the task of protecting herself when she is,\nperhaps, less rugged in physique than her mate, and has, at all\nevents, the normal, periodic inconveniences of her sex?\n\nWe must examine this phase of her problem in two lights--that of the\nideal, and of the conditions working toward the ideal. In an ideal\nsociety, no doubt, birth control would become the concern of the man\nas well as the woman. The hard, inescapable fact which we encounter\nto-day is that man has not only refused any such responsibility, but\nhas individually and collectively sought to prevent woman from\nobtaining knowledge by which she could assume this responsibility for\nherself. She is still in the position of a dependent to-day because\nher mate has refused to consider her as an individual apart from his\nneeds. She is still bound because she has in the past left the\nsolution of the problem to him. Having left it to him, she finds that\ninstead of rights, she has only such privileges as she has gained by\npetitioning, coaxing and cozening. Having left it to him, she is\nexploited, driven and enslaved to his desires.\n\nWhile it is true that he suffers many evils as the consequence of this\nsituation, she suffers vastly more. While it is true that he should be\nawakened to the cause of these evils, we know that they come home to\nher with crushing force every day. It is she who has the long burden\nof carrying, bearing and rearing the unwanted children. It is she who\nmust watch beside the beds of pain where lie the babies who suffer\nbecause they have come into overcrowded homes. It is her heart that\nthe sight of the deformed, the subnormal, the undernourished, the\noverworked child smites first and oftenest and hardest. It is _her_\nlove life that dies first in the fear of undesired pregnancy. It is\nher opportunity for self expression that perishes first and most\nhopelessly because of it.\n\nConditions, rather than theories, facts, rather than dreams, govern\nthe problem. They place it squarely upon the shoulders of woman. She\nhas learned that whatever the moral responsibility of the man in this\ndirection may be, he does not discharge it. She has learned that,\nlovable and considerate as the individual husband may be, she has\nnothing to expect from men in the mass, when they make laws and decree\ncustoms. She knows that regardless of what ought to be, the brutal,\nunavoidable fact is that she will never receive her freedom until she\ntakes it for herself.\n\nHaving learned this much, she has yet something more to learn. Women\nare too much inclined to follow in the footsteps of men, to try to\nthink as men think, to try to solve the general problems of life as\nmen solve them. If after attaining their freedom, women accept\nconditions in the spheres of government, industry, art, morals and\nreligion as they find them, they will be but taking a leaf out of\nman's book. The woman is not needed to do man's work. She is not\nneeded to think man's thoughts. She need not fear that the masculine\nmind, almost universally dominant, will fail to take care of its own.\nHer mission is not to enhance the masculine spirit, but to express the\nfeminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made world, but to create a\nhuman world by the infusion of the feminine element into all of its\nactivities.\n\nWoman must not accept; she must challenge. She must not be awed by\nthat which has been built up around her; she must reverence that\nwithin her which struggles for expression. Her eyes must be less upon\nwhat is and more clearly upon what should be. She must listen only\nwith a frankly questioning attitude to the dogmatized opinions of\nman-made society. When she chooses her new, free course of action, it must\nbe in the light of her own opinion--of her own intuition. Only so can\nshe give play to the feminine spirit. Only thus can she free her mate\nfrom the bondage which he wrought for himself when he wrought hers.\nOnly thus can she restore to him that of which he robbed himself in\nrestricting her. Only thus can she remake the world.\n\nThe world is, indeed, hers to remake, it is hers to build and to\nrecreate. Even as she has permitted the suppression of her own\nfeminine element and the consequent impoverishment of industry, art,\nletters, science, morals, religions and social intercourse, so it is\nhers to enrich all these.\n\nWoman must have her freedom--the fundamental freedom of choosing\nwhether or not she shall be a mother and how many children she will\nhave. Regardless of what man's attitude may be, that problem is hers--and\nbefore it can be his, it is hers alone.\n\nShe goes through the vale of death alone, each time a babe is born. As\nit is the right neither of man nor the state to coerce her into this\nordeal, so it is her right to decide whether she will endure it. That\nright to decide imposes upon her the duty of clearing the way to\nknowledge by which she may make and carry out the decision.\n\nBirth control is woman's problem. The quicker she accepts it as hers\nand hers alone, the quicker will society respect motherhood. The\nquicker, too, will the world be made a fit place for her children to\nlive.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nCONTINENCE--IS IT PRACTICABLE OR DESIRABLE?\n\n\nThousands of well-intentioned people who agree that there are times\nand conditions under which it is woman's highest duty to avoid having\nchildren advocate continence as the one permissible means of birth\ncontrol. Few of these people agree with one another, however, as to\nwhat continence is. Some have in mind absolute continence. Others urge\ncontinence for periods varying from a few weeks to many years. Still\nothers are thinking of Karezza, or male continence, as it is sometimes\ncalled.\n\nThe majority of physicians and sex psychologists hold that the\npractice of absolute continence is, for the greater part of the human\nrace, an absurdity. Were such continence to be practiced, there is no\ndoubt that it would be a most effective check upon the birth rate. It\nis seldom practiced, however, and when adhered to under compulsion the\nusual result is injury to the nervous system and to the general\nhealth. Among healthy persons, this method is practicable only with\nthose who have a degree of mentally controlled development as yet\nneither often experienced nor even imagined by the mass of humanity.\n\nAbsolute continence was the ideal of the early Christian church for\nall of its communicants, as shall be seen in another chapter. We shall\nalso see how the church abandoned this standard and now confines the\ndoctrine of celibacy to the unmarried, to the priesthood and the nuns.\n\nCelibacy has been practiced in all ages by a few artists,\npropagandists and revolutionists in order that their minds may be\nsingle to the work which has claimed their lives and all the forces of\ntheir beings may be bent in one direction. Sometimes, too, such\npersons have remained celibate to avoid the burden of caring for a\nfamily.\n\nThe Rev. Dr. Thomas Robert Malthus, who in 1798 issued the first of\nthose works which exemplified what is called the Malthusian doctrine,\nalso advocated celibacy or absolute continence until middle age.\nMalthus propounded the now widely recognized principle that population\ntends to increase faster than the food supply and that unlimited\nreproduction brings poverty and many other evils upon a nation. His\ntheological training naturally inclined him to favor continence--not\nso much from its practicability, perhaps, as because he believed that\nit was the only possible method.\n\nWe would be ignoring a vital truth if we failed to recognize the fact\nthat there are individuals who through absorption in religious zeal,\nconsecration to a cause, or devotion to creative work are able to live\nfor years or for a lifetime a celibate existence. It is doubtless true\nthat the number of those who are thus able to transmute their sex\nforces into other creative forms is increasing. It is not with these,\nhowever, that we are concerned. Rather it is with the mass of\nhumanity, who practice continence under some sort of compulsion.\n\nWhat is the result of forcing continence upon those who are not fitted\nor do not desire to practice it? The majority opinion of medical\nscience and the evidence of statistics are united on this point.\nEnforced continence is injurious--often highly so.\n\n\"Physiology,\" writes Dr. J. Rutgers in _Rassenverbesserung_, \"teaches\nthat every function gains in power and efficiency through a certain\ndegree of control, but that the too extended suppression of a desire\ngives rise to pathological disturbances and in time cripples the\nfunction. Especially in the case of women may the damage entailed by\ntoo long continued sexual abstinence bring about deep disturbances.\"\n\nAll this, be it understood, refers to persons of mature age. For young\nmen and women under certain ages, statistics and the preponderance of\nmedical opinion agree that continence is highly advisable, in many\ncases seemingly altogether necessary to future happiness. The famous\nDr. Bertillon, of France, inventor of the Bertillon system of\nmeasurements for the human body, has made, perhaps, the most\nexhaustive of all studies in this direction. He demonstrates a large\nmortality for the boy who marries before his twentieth year. When\nsingle, the mortality of French youths averages only 14 per thousand;\namong married youths it rises to 100 per thousand. Which shows that it\nis six or eight times more perilous for a youth to be incontinent than\ncontinent up to that age. Dr. Bertillon's conclusions are that men\nshould marry between their twenty-fifth and thirtieth years, and that\nwomen should marry when they have passed twenty. With the single\nexception of young men and women below the ages noted, Dr. Bertillon's\nstatistics tell a very different story. And where it relates to\ncelibates, it is a shocking one.\n\n\"Dr. Bertillon shows that in France, Belgium and Holland married men\nlive considerably longer than single ones,\" writes Dr. Charles R.\nDrysdale, in summing up the matter in \"_The Population Question_\" \"and\nare much less subject to becoming insane, criminal or vicious.\" From\nthe same studies we learn that the conjugal state is also more\nfavorable to the health of the woman over twenty years of age, in the\nthree countries covered.\n\nAn analysis of criminal records showed that more than twice as many\nunmarried men and women had been held for crimes of all kinds than\nmarried persons. Rates based upon 10,000 cases of insanity among men\nand women in the same countries showed 3.95 per thousand for male\ncelibates against 2.17 for married men. For single women the rate was\n3.4 against but 1.9 for married women. Insanity was reduced one-half\namong women by marriage.\n\nMore startling still is the evidence of the mortality statistics.\nBertillon found that the death rates of bachelors and widowers\naveraged from nearly two to nearly three times as high as those of\nmarried men of the same ages. Dr. Mayer, in his _Rapports Conjugaux_,\nshowed that the death rates among the celibate religious orders\nstudied were nearly twice as high as those of the laity.\n\nCan anyone knowing the facts ask that we recommend continence as a\nbirth-control measure?\n\nVirtually all of the dangers to health involved in absolute continence\nare involved also in the practice of continence broken only when it is\ndesired to bring a child into the world. In the opinion of some\nmedical authorities, it is even worse, because of the almost constant\nexcitation of unsatisfied sex desire by the presence of the mate.\nPeople who think that they believe in this sort of family limitation\nhave much to say about \"self-control.\" Usually they will admit that to\nabstain from all but a single act of sexual intercourse each year is\nan indication of high powers of self-restraint. Yet that one act,\nperformed only once a year, might be sufficient to \"keep a woman with\none child in her womb and another at her breast\" during her entire\nchildbearing period. That would mean from eighteen to twenty-four\nchildren for each mother, provided she survived so many births and\nlactations. Contraceptives are quite as necessary to these\n\"self-controlled\" ones who do not desire children every year\nas to those who lead normal, happy love lives.\n\nFrom the necessity of contraceptives and from the dangers of this\nlimited continence certain persons are, of course, relieved. They are\nthe ones whose mental and spiritual development is so high as to make\nthis practice natural to them. These individuals are so exceedingly\nrare, however, that they need not be discussed here. Moreover, they\nare capable of solving their own problems.\n\nFew who advocate the doctrine of absolute continence live up to it\nstrictly. I met one woman who assured me that she had observed it\nfaithfully in the thirteen years since her youngest child was born.\nShe had such a loathing for sexual union, however, that it was\ndoubtless the easiest and best thing for her to do.\n\nLoathing, disgust or indifference to the sex relationship nearly\nalways lies behind the advocacy to continence except for the conscious\npurpose of creating children. In other words, while one in ten\nthousand persons may find full play for a diverted and transmuted sex\nforce in other creative functions, the rest avoid the sex union from\nrepression. These are two widely different situations--one may make\nfor racial progress and the happiness of the few individuals capable\nof it; the other poisons the race at its fountain and brings nothing\nbut the discontent, unhappiness and misery which follow enforced\ncontinence. For all that, an increasing number of persons, mostly\nwomen, are advocating continence within marriage.\n\nSexual union is nearly always spoken of by such persons as something\nin itself repugnant, disgusting, low and lustful. Consciously or\nunconsciously, they look upon it as a hardship, to be endured only, to\nbring \"God's image and likeness\" into the world. Their very attitude\nprecludes any great probability that their progeny will possess an\nabundance of such qualities.\n\nMuch of the responsibility for this feeling upon the part of many\nthousands of women must be laid to two thousand years of Christian\nteaching that all sex expression is unclean. Part of it, too, must be\nlaid to the dominant male's habit of violating the love rights of his\nmate.\n\nThe habit referred to grows out of the assumed and legalized right of\nthe husband to have sexual satisfaction at any time he desires,\nregardless of the woman's repugnance for it. The law of the state\nupholds him in this regard. A husband need not support his wife if she\nrefuses to comply with his sexual demands.\n\nOf the two groups of women who regard physical union either with\ndisgust and loathing, or with indifference, the former are the less\nnumerous. Nevertheless, there are many thousands of them. I have\nlistened to their stories often, both as a nurse in obstetrical cases\nand as a propagandist for birth control. An almost universal cause of\ntheir attitude is a sad lack of understanding of the great beauties of\nthe normal, idealistic love act. Neither do they understand the\nuplifting power of such unions for both men and women. Ignorance of\nlife, ignorance of all but the sheer reproductive function of mating,\nand especially a wrong training, are most largely responsible for this\ntragic state of affairs. When this ignorance extends to the man in\nsuch a degree as to permit him to have the all too frequent coarse and\nbrutal attitude toward sex matters, the tragedy is only deepened.\n\nTruly the church and those \"moralists\" who have been insisting upon\nkeeping sex matters in the dark have a huge list of concealed crimes\nto answer for. The right kind of a book, a series of clear, scientific\nlectures, or a common-sense talk with either the man or woman will\noften do away with most of the repugnance to physical union. When the\nrepugnance is gone, the way is open to that upliftment through sex\nidealism which is the birthright of all women and men.\n\nWhen I have had the confidence of women indifferent to physical union,\nI have found the fault usually lay with the husband. His idea of\nmarriage is too often that of providing a home for a female who would\nin turn provide for his physical needs, including sexual satisfaction.\nSuch a husband usually excludes such satisfaction from the category of\nthe wife's needs, physical or spiritual.\n\nThis man is not concerned with his wife's sex urge, save as it\nresponds to his own at times of his choosing. Man's code has taught\nwoman to be quite ashamed of such desires. Usually she speaks of\nindifference without regret; often proudly. She seems to regard\nherself as more chaste and highly endowed in purity than other women\nwho confess to feeling physical attraction toward their husbands. She\nalso secretly considers herself far superior to the husband who makes\nno concealment of his desire toward her. Nevertheless, because of this\ndesire upon the husband's part, she goes on \"pretending\" to mutual\ninterest in the relationship.\n\nOnly the truth, plainly spoken, can help these people. The woman is\ncondemned to physical, mental and spiritual misery by the ignorance\nwhich society has fixed upon her. She has her choice between an\nenforced continence, with its health-wrecking consequences and its\nconstant aggravation of domestic discord, and the sort of prostitution\nlegalized by the marriage ceremony. The man may choose between\nenforced continence and its effects, or he may resort to an unmarried\nrelationship or to prostitution. Neither of these people--the one\nschooled directly or indirectly by the church and the other trained in\nthe sex ethics of the gutter--can hope to lift the other to the\nregenerating influences of a pure, clean, happy love life. As long as\nwe leave sex education to the gutter and houses of prostitution, we\nshall have millions of just such miserable marriage failures.\n\nSuch continence as is involved in dependence upon the so-called \"safe\nperiod\" for family limitation will harm no one. The difficulty here is\nthat the method is not practical. It simply does not work. The woman\nwho employs this method finds herself in the same predicament as the\none who believes that she is not in danger of pregnancy when she does\nnot respond passionately to her husband. That this woman is more\nlikely to conceive than the emotional one, is a well-known fact. The\nwoman who refuses to use contraceptives, but who rejects sex\nexpression except for a few days in the month, is likely to learn too\nsoon the fallacy of her theory as a birth-control method.\n\nFor a long time the \"safe period\" was suggested by physicians. It was\nalso the one method of birth control countenanced by the\necclesiastics. Women are learning from experience and specialists are\ndiscovering by investigation that the \"safe period\" is anything but\nsafe for all women. Some women are never free from the possibility of\nconception from puberty to the menopause. Others seemingly have \"safe\nperiods\" for a time, only to become pregnant when they have begun to\nfeel secure in their theory. Here again, continence must give way, as\na method of birth control, to contraceptives.\n\nIn the same category as the \"safe period,\" as a method of birth\ncontrol, must be placed so-called \"male continence.\" The same practice\nis also variously known as \"Karezza,\" \"Sedular Absorption\" and\n\"Zugassent's Discovery.\" Those who regard it as a method of family\nlimitation are likely to find themselves disappointed.\n\nAs a form of continence, however, if it can be called continence, it\nis asserted to bring none of the long course of evils which too often\nfollow the practice of lifelong abstinence, or abstinence broken only\nwhen a child is desired.\n\nIts devotees testify that they avoid ill effects and achieve the\nhighest possible results. These results are due, probably, to two\nfactors.\n\nFirst, those who practice Karezza are usually of a high mental and\nspiritual development and are, therefore, capable of an exalted degree\nof self-control without actual repression. Second, they have the\nbenefit of that magnetic interchange between man and woman which makes\nfor physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing. This stimulation becomes\ndestructive irritation in ordinary forms of continence.\n\nThe Oneida Community, a religious group comprising about 130 men and\n150 women, which occupied a part of an old Indian reservation in the\nstate of New York, were the chief exponents of \"male continence.\" The\npractice was a religious requirement with them and they laid great\nstress upon three different functions which they attributed to the\nsexual organs. They held that these functions were urinary,\nreproductive and amative, each separate and distinct in its use from\nthe others. Cases are cited in which both men and women are said to\nhave preserved their youth and their sexual powers to a ripe old age,\nand to have prolonged their honeymoons throughout married life. The\ntheory, however, interesting as it may be when considered as\n\"continence,\" is not to be relied upon as a method of birth control.\n\nSumming it all up, then, continence may meet the needs of a few\nnatures, but it does not meet the needs of the masses. To enforce\ncontinence upon those whose natures do not demand it, is an injustice,\nthe cruelty and the danger of which has been underestimated rather\nthan exaggerated. It matters not whether this wrong is committed by\nthe church, through some outworn dogma; by the state, through the laws\nprohibiting contraceptives, or by society, through the conditions\nwhich prevent marriage when young men and women reach the age at which\nthey have need of marriage.\n\nThe world has been governed too long by repression. The more\nfundamental the force that is repressed the more destructive its\naction. The disastrous effects of repressing the sex force are written\nplainly in the health rates, the mortality statistics, the records of\ncrime and the entry books of the hospitals for the insane. Yet this is\nnot all the tale, for there are still the little understood hosts of\nsexually abnormal people and the monotonous misery of millions who do\nnot die early nor end violently, but who are, nevertheless, devoid of\nthe joys of a natural love life.\n\nAs a means of birth control, continence is as impracticable for most\npeople as it is undesirable. Celibate women doubtless have their place\nin the regeneration of the world, but it is not they, after all, who\nwill, through experience and understanding recreate it. It is mainly\nthrough fullness of expression and experience in life that the mass of\nwomen, having attained freedom, will accomplish this unparalleled\ntask.\n\nThe need of women's lives is not repression, but the greatest possible\nexpression and fulfillment of their desires upon the highest possible\nplane. They cannot reach higher planes through ignorance and\ncompulsion. They can attain them only through knowledge and the\ncultivation of a higher, happier attitude toward sex. Sex life must be\nstripped of its fear. This is one of the great functions of\ncontraceptives. That which is enshrouded in fear becomes morbid. That\nwhich is morbid cannot be really beautiful.\n\nA true understanding of every phase of the love life, and such an\nunderstanding alone, can reveal it in its purity--in its power of\nupliftment. Force and fear have failed from the beginning of time.\nTheir fruits are wrecks and wretchedness. Knowledge and freedom to\nchoose or reject the sexual embrace, according as it is lovely or\nunlovely, and these alone, can solve the problem. These alone make\npossible between man and woman that indissoluble tie and mutual\npassion, and common understanding, in which lies the hope of a higher\nrace.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nCONTRACEPTIVES OR ABORTION?\n\n\nSociety has not yet learned the significance of the age-long effort of\nthe feminine spirit to free itself of the burden of excessive\nchildbearing. It has been singularly blind to the real forces\nunderlying the cause of infanticide, child abandonment and abortion.\nIt has permitted the highest and most powerful thing in woman's nature\nto be hindered, diverted, repressed and confused. Society has\npermitted this inner urge of woman to be rendered violent by\nrepression until it has expressed itself in cruel forms of family\nlimitation, which this same society has promptly labeled \"crimes\" and\nsought to punish. It has gone on blindly forcing women into these\n\"crimes,\" deaf alike to their entreaties and to the lessons of\nhistory.\n\nAs we have seen in the second chapter of this book, child abandonment\nand infanticide are by no means obsolete practices. As for abortion,\nit has not decreased but increased with the advance of civilization.\nThe reader will recall that one authority says that there are\n1,000,000 abortions in the United States every year, while another\nestimates double that number.\n\nMost of the women of the middle and upper classes in America seem\nsecure in their knowledge of contraceptives as a means of birth\ncontrol. Under present conditions, when the laws in most states regard\nthis knowledge, howsoever it be imparted, as illicit, and the federal\nstatutes prohibit the sending of it through the mails, even the women\nin more fortunate circumstances sometimes have difficulty in getting\nscientific information. Nevertheless, so strong is their purpose that\nthey do obtain it and use it, correctly or incorrectly.\n\nThe great majority of women, however, belong to the working class.\nNearly all of these women will fall into one of two general groups--the\nones who are having children against their wills, and those who,\nto escape this evil, find refuge in abortion. Being given their choice\nby society--to continue to be overburdened mothers or to submit to a\nhumiliating, repulsive, painful and too often gravely dangerous\noperation, those women in whom the feminine urge to freedom is\nstrongest choose the abortionist. One group goes on bringing children\nto birth, hoping that they will be born dead or die. The women of the\nother group strive consciously by drastic means to protect themselves\nand the children already born.\n\n\"Our examinations,\" says Dr. Max Hirsch, an authority on the subject,\n\"have informed us that the largest number of abortions (in the United\nStates) are performed on married women. This fact brings us to the\nconclusion that contraceptive measures among the upper classes and the\npractice of abortion among the lower class, are the real means\nemployed to regulate the number of offspring.\"\n\nThus a high percentage of women in comfortable circumstances escape\noverbreeding by the use of contraceptives. A similarly high percentage\nof women not in comfortable circumstances are forced to submit to\nforced maternity, because their only alternative at present is\nabortion. When accidental conception takes place, some women of both\nclasses resort to abortion if they can obtain the services of an\nabortionist.\n\nWhen society holds up its hands in horror at the \"crime\" of abortion,\nit forgets at whose door the first and principal responsibility for\nthis practice rests. Does anyone imagine that a woman would submit to\nabortion if not denied the knowledge of scientific, effective\ncontraceptives? Does anyone believe that physicians and midwives who\nperform abortions go from door to door soliciting patronage? The\nabortionist could not continue his practice for twenty-four hours if\nit were not for the fact that women come desperately begging for such\noperations. He could not stay out of jail a day if women did not so\ngenerally approve of his services as to hold his identity an open but\nseldom-betrayed secret.\n\nThe question, then, is not whether family limitation should be\npracticed. It _is_ being practiced; it has been practiced for ages and\nit will always be practiced. The question that society must answer is\nthis: Shall family limitation be achieved through birth control or\nabortion? Shall normal, safe, effective contraceptives be employed, or\nshall we continue to force women to the abnormal, often dangerous\nsurgical operation?\n\nThis question, too, the church, the state and the moralist must\nanswer. The knowledge of contraceptive methods may yet for a time be\ndenied to the woman of the working class, but those who are\nresponsible for denying it to her, and she herself, should understand\nclearly the dangers to which she is exposed because of the laws which\nforce her into the hands of the abortionist.\n\nTo understand the more clearly the difference between birth control by\ncontraceptives and family limitation through abortion it is necessary\nto know something of the processes of conception. Knowledge of these\nprocesses will also enable us to comprehend more thoroughly the\ndangers to which woman is exposed by our antiquated laws, and how much\nbetter it would be for her to employ such preventive measures as would\nkeep her out of the hands of the abortionist, into which the laws now\ndrive her.\n\nIn every woman's ovaries are imbedded millions of ovules or eggs. They\nare in every female at birth, and as the girl develops into womanhood,\nthese ovules develop also. At a certain age, varying slightly with the\nindividual, the ripest ovule leaves the nest or ovary and comes down\none of the tubes connecting with the womb and passes out of the body.\nWhen this takes place, it is said that the girl is at the age of\npuberty. When it reaches the womb the ovule is ready for the process\nof conception--that is, fertilization by the male sperm.\n\nAt the time the ovule is ripening, the womb is preparing to receive\nit. This preparation consists of a reinforced blood supply brought to\nits lining. If fertilization takes place, the fertilized ovule or ovum\nwill cling to the lining of the womb and there gather its nourishment.\nIf fertilization does not take place, the ovum passes out of the body\nand the uterus throws off its surplus blood supply. This is called the\nmenstrual period. It occurs about once a month or every twenty-eight\ndays.\n\nIn the male organs there are glands called testes. They secrete a\nfluid called the semen. In the semen is the life-giving principle\ncalled the sperm.\n\nWhen intercourse takes place, if no preventive is employed, the semen\nis deposited in the woman's vagina. The ovule is not in the vagina,\nbut is in the womb, farther up, or perhaps in the tube on its way to\nthe womb. As steel is attracted to the magnet, the sperm of the male\nstarts on its way to seek the ovum. Several of these sperm cells\nstart, but only one enters the ovum and is absorbed into it. This\nprocess is called fertilization, conception or impregnation.\n\nIf no children are desired, the meeting of the male sperm and the ovum\nmust be prevented. When scientific means are employed to prevent this\nmeeting, one is said to practice birth control. The means used is\nknown as a contraceptive.\n\nIf, however, a contraceptive is not used and the sperm meets the ovule\nand development begins, any attempt at removing it or stopping its\nfurther growth is called abortion.\n\nThere is no doubt that women are apt to look upon abortion as of\nlittle consequence and to treat it accordingly. An abortion is as\nimportant a matter as a confinement and requires as much attention as\nthe birth of a child at its full term.\n\n\"The immediate dangers of abortion,\" says Dr. J. Clifton Edgar, in his\nbook, \"_The Practice of Obstetrics_,\" \"are hemorrhage, retention of an\nadherent placenta, sepsis, tetanus, perforation of the uterus. They\nalso cause sterility, anemia, malignant diseases, displacements,\nneurosis, and endometritis.\"\n\nIn plain, everyday language, in an abortion there is always a very\nserious risk to the health and often to the life of the patient.\n\nIt is only the women of wealth who can afford the best medical skill,\ncare and treatment both at the time of the operation and afterwards.\nIn this way they escape the usual serious consequences.\n\nThe women whose incomes are limited and who must continue at work\nbefore they have recovered from the effects of an abortion are the\ngreat army of sufferers. It is among such that the deaths due to\nabortion usually ensue. It is these, too, who are most often forced to\nresort to such operations.\n\nIf death does not result, the woman who has undergone an abortion is\nnot altogether safe from harm. The womb may not return to its natural\nsize, but remain large and heavy, tending to fall away from its\nnatural position. Abortion often leaves the uterus in a condition to\nconceive easily again and unless prevention is strictly followed\nanother pregnancy will surely occur. Frequent abortions tend to cause\nbarrenness and serious, painful pelvic ailments. These and other\nconditions arising from such operations are very likely to ruin a\nwoman's general health.\n\nWhile there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as\njustifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds\nof thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a\ndisgrace to civilization.\n\nThe effects of such operations upon a woman, serious as they may be,\nare nothing as compared to the injury done her general health by drugs\ntaken to produce the same result. Even such drugs as are prescribed by\nphysicians have harmful effects, and nostrums recommended by druggists\nare often worse still.\n\nEven more drastic may be the effect upon the unborn child, for many\nwomen fill their systems with poisonous drugs during the first weeks\nof their pregnancy, only to decide at last, when drugs have failed, as\nthey usually do, to bring the child to birth.\n\nThere are no statistics, of course, by which we may compute the amount\nof suffering to mother and child from the use of such drugs, but we\nknow that the total of physical weakness and disease must be\nastounding. We know that the woman's own system feels the strain of\nthese drugs and that the embryo is usually poisoned by them. The child\nis likely to be rickety, have heart trouble, kidney disorder, or to be\ngenerally weak in its powers of resistance. If it does not die before\nit reaches its first year, it is probable that it will have to\nstruggle against some of these weaknesses until its adolescent period.\n\nIt needs no assertion of mine to call attention to the grim fact that\nthe laws prohibiting the imparting of information concerning the\npreventing of conception are responsible for tens of thousands of\ndeaths each year in this country and an untold amount of sickness and\nsorrow. The suffering and the death of these women is squarely upon\nthe heads of the lawmakers and the puritanical, masculine-minded\nperson who insist upon retaining the abominable legal restrictions.\n\nTry as they will they cannot escape the truth, nor hide it under the\ncloak of stupid hypocrisy. If the laws against imparting knowledge of\nscientific birth control were repealed, nearly all of the 1,000,000 or\n2,000,000 women who undergo abortions in the United States each year\nwould escape the agony of the surgeon's instruments and the long trail\nof disease, suffering and death which so often follows.\n\n\"He who would combat abortion,\" says Dr. Hirsch, \"and at the same time\ncombat contraceptive measures may be likened to the person who would\nfight contagious diseases and forbid disinfection. For contraceptive\nmeasures are important weapons in the fight against abortion.\n\n\"America has a law since 1873 which prohibits by criminal statute the\ndistribution and regulation of contraceptive measures. It follows,\ntherefore, that America stands at the head of all nations in the huge\nnumber of abortions.\"\n\nThere is the case in a nutshell. Family limitation will always be\npracticed as it is now being practiced--either by birth control or by\nabortion. We know that. The one means health and happiness--a\nstronger, better race. The other means disease, suffering, death.\n\nThe woman who goes to the abortionist's table is not a criminal but a\nmartyr--a martyr to the bitter, unthinkable conditions brought about\nby the blindness of society at large. These conditions give her the\nchoice between the surgeon's instruments and the sacrificing of what\nis highest and holiest in her--her aspiration to freedom, her desire\nto protect the children already hers. These conditions--not the\nwoman--outface society with this question:\n\n\"Contraceptives or Abortion--which shall it be?\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nARE PREVENTIVE MEANS CERTAIN?\n\n\nThere are several means of preventing conception which are both\ncertain and harmless. What those means are the state laws forbid me to\nsay. If I should defy the state laws and name those contraceptives,\nthe federal laws would forbid this book's going through the mails. Nor\ncan I, without coming into conflict with the laws, tell _why_ these\nmeans are reliable. It is difficult to discuss the subject without\nusing franker language than the statutes permit, and I do not wish to\nviolate the law in this particular book.\n\n\"Can I rely upon this? Is it certain? Will it prevent absolutely?\"\nSuch questions, always asked by women who seek advice concerning\ncontraceptives, testify both to their fear of involuntary motherhood\nand their doubt as to any and all means offered for their deliverance.\n\nDoubt as to the certainty of contraceptives arises from two sources.\nOne is the uninformed element in the medical profession. A physician\nwho belongs to this element may object to birth control upon general\ngrounds, or he may repeat old-fashioned objections to cover his\nignorance of contraceptives. For, strange as it may seem, there is an\namazing ignorance among physicians of this supremely important\nsubject. The uninformed objector often assumes to speak with the voice\nof authority, asserting that there are no thoroughly dependable\ncontraceptives that are not injurious to the user.\n\nThe other source of distrust is the experience of the woman herself.\nHaving no place to go for scientific advice, she gathers her\ninformation from neighbors and friends. One offers this suggestion,\nanother offers that, each urging the means that she has found\nsuccessful and condemning others. All this is very confusing and\nextremely disturbing to the woman who, for one reason or another, is\nliving in constant fear of pregnancy.\n\nIt is not at all surprising that such a state of affairs exists. There\nhas been so much secrecy about the whole subject and so much\ndependence upon amateurish and nonprofessional advice that it is\nalmost impossible for anyone to procure reliable information or to\nrecognize it when given. This is especially true in the United States\nwhere there are both federal and state laws to punish those who\ndisseminate knowledge of birth-control methods.\n\nEven under present conditions, however, there is a certain amount of\nreliable information concerning methods of birth control. We know that\nthere are several methods of prevention which are not only dependable,\nbut which can be used without injury either to the man or the woman.\nKnowledge of what these methods are and how to apply them should be\navailable to every married man and woman. It is safe to predict that\nin a very few years they will be available.\n\nSome methods are more dependable than others, just as there are some\nmore simple of adjustment than others. Some are cheap and less\ndurable; others are expensive and last for years. There are some which\nfor a quarter of a century have stood the test of certainty in\nHolland, France, England and the United States among the wealthier\nclasses, as the falling birth rate among these classes indicates. And\njust as the reliable, primitive wheelbarrow is antiquated beside the\nlatest airplane, so, as scientific investigators turn their attention\nmore and more to this field, will the awkward, troublesome methods of\nthe past give way to the simpler, more convenient methods of the\nmorrow.\n\nAlthough the law forbids information concerning reliable means of\ncontraception, it is hardly likely that it can be invoked to prevent\nwarnings against widely practiced methods which are NOT reliable. The\nemployment of such methods leads not only to disappointment but often\nto ill health.\n\nOne of the most common practices of this kind is that of nursing one\nbaby too long in the hope of preventing the birth of the next. The\n\"poor whites\" of the South and many of the foreign-born women of the\nUnited States pin their hopes to this method. Often they persist in\nnursing a child until it is eighteen months old--almost always until\nthey become pregnant again.\n\nProlonged nursing hurts both child and mother, it is said. In the\nchild it causes a tendency to brain disease, probably through\ndisordered digestion and nutrition. In the mother it causes a strong\ntendency to deafness and blindness. If a child is nursed after it is\ntwelve months old, it is generally pale, flabby and unhealthy, often\nrickety, one authority points out, while the mother is usually\nnervous, emaciated and hysterical. If pregnancy occurs under these\nconditions, the mother not only injures her own health but that of the\nnext child, often developing in it a weakness of constitution which it\nnever overcomes.\n\nMoreover, prolonged nursing has been found to be unreliable as a\ncontraceptive. We know this upon good authority. It should not be\ndepended upon at all.\n\nIn the same class is the so-called \"safe period\" referred to in\nanother chapter. For many women there is never any \"safe period.\"\nOthers have \"safe periods\" for a number of years, only to find\nthemselves pregnant because these periods have ceased without warning.\n\nOne of the most frequent of all the mistakes made in recommending\ncontraceptives is the advice to use an antiseptic or cold-water\ndouche. This error seems to be surprisingly persistent. I am\nparticularly surprised to hear from women that such douches have been\nprescribed by physicians. Any physician who knows the first rudiments\nof physiology and anatomy must also know that necessary and important\nas an antiseptic douche is as a cleanser and hygienic measure, it is\nassuredly not to be advised as a means of preventing conception.\n\nA woman may, and often does, become pregnant before she can make use\nof a douche. This is particularly likely to happen if her uterus is\nlow. And the woman who does much walking, who stands for long hours or\nwho uses the sewing machine a great deal is likely to have a low\nuterus. It is then much easier for the spermatazoa to enter almost\ndirectly into the womb than it would otherwise be, and the douche, no\nmatter how soon it is used, is likely to be ineffective. The tendency\nof the uterus to drop under strain goes far to explain why some women\nwho have depended upon the douche for years suddenly find themselves\npregnant. Do not depend upon the douche. As a cleansing agent, it is a\nnecessary part of every woman's toilet, but it is not a preventive.\n\nEven if the douche were dependable, the absence of sanitary\nconvenience from households in remote districts and the difficulty of\nusing a douche in crowded tenements would prevent many women from\nmaking use of it.\n\nDespite the unreliability of some methods and the harmfulness of some\nothers, there _are_ methods which are both harmless and certain. This\nmuch the woman who is seeking means of limiting her family may be told\nhere. _In using any method_, whatsoever, all depends upon the care\ntaken to use it properly. No surgeon, no matter how perfect his\ninstruments, would expect perfect results from the simplest operation\ndid he not exercise the greatest possible care. Common sense, good\njudgment and taking pains are necessary in the use of all\ncontraceptives.\n\nMore and more perfect means of preventing conception will be developed\nas women insist upon them. Every woman should make it plain to her\nphysician that she expects him to be informed upon this subject. She\nshould refuse to accept evasive answers. An increasing demand upon\nphysicians will inevitably result in laboratory researches and\nexperimentation. Such investigation is indeed already beginning and we\nmay expect great progress in contraceptive methods in the near future.\nWe may also expect more authoritative opinions upon preventive methods\nand devices. When women confidently and insistently demand them, they\nwill have access to contraceptives which are both certain and\nharmless.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nWILL BIRTH CONTROL HELP THE CAUSE OF LABOR?\n\n\nLabor seems instinctively to have recognized the fact that its\nservitude springs from numbers. Seldom, however, has it applied its\nknowledge logically and thoroughly. The basic principle of craft\nunionism is limitation of the number of workers in a given trade. This\nhas been labor's most frequent expedient for righting its wrongs.\nEvery unionist knows, as a matter of course, that if that number is\nkept small enough, his organization can compel increases of wages,\nsteady employment and decent working conditions. Craft unionism has\nsucceeded in attaining these insofar as it has been able to apply this\nprinciple. It has failed insofar as it has been unable to apply it.\n\nThe weakness of craft unionism is that it does not carry its principle\nfar enough. It applies its policy of limitation of numbers only to the\ntrade. In his home, the worker, whether he is a unionist or\nnon-unionist, goes on producing large numbers of children to compete\nwith him eventually in the labor market.\n\n\"The history of labor,\" says Teresa Billington-Greig in the _Common\nSense of The Population Question_, \"is the history of an ever\nunsuccessful effort upon the part of man to bring his productive\nability as a worker up to his reproductive ability. It has been a\nlosing battle all the way.\"\n\nThe small percentage of highly skilled, organized workers lead in the\nstruggle for better conditions. Craft unions, by limiting the number\nof men available for any one trade, manage to procure better pay,\nshorter hours and other advantages for their members.\n\nDisaster, in the form of famine, pestilence, tidal waves, earthquakes\nor war, sometimes limits the number of available workers. Then those\nwho live in parts of the world that are not affected, or who stay at\nhome during wars, reap a temporary advantage. These advantages,\nhowever, are quickly offset by increased prices, or by competition for\njobs when soldiers return from war. This form of limitation of numbers\nworks to the advantage of labor as long as it is available, but great\ndisasters are not constantly in operation while the worker's\nreproductive ability is. So in a few years they have lost what\nnature's destructiveness won for them.\n\nThe great mass of the workers--including children and women--are\nunskilled and unorganized. Not only that, they are for some\nconsiderable part of the time seeking employment. They are, of course,\npoorly paid. Thus, through their low wages and their seeking of\nemployment, they always come into direct competition with one another\nand with the skilled and organized workmen. As their families live in\nwant and are often diseased, they create the chief social problems of\nthe day. They bring children into the world as fast as women can bear\nthem. With each child they increase their own misery and provide\nanother worker to force down wages and prolong hours, through\ncompetition for employment.\n\nThis has been the way of labor from the beginning. It is labor's way\nin every country.\n\nHaving discovered that there is no relief in legislation, labor\norganizes to limit its numbers in certain trades. Meanwhile the women\nof the working class go on breeding more workers to wipe out in the\nfuture the advantages gained for the present. In Paris, for instance,\nthe proletarian quarters of the city show a birth rate more than three\ntimes as high as the birth rate in the well-to-do sections.\n\n\"Dr. Jacques Bartillon furnishes us with statistics which prove that\nthe birth rate in any quarter of Paris is in inverse ratio to its\ndegree of affluence,\" says G. Hardy in _How to Prevent Pregnancy_.\n\"The rich Champs-Elysees has a birth rate a third of that Bellerville\nor of the Buttes-Chaumont. From 1,000 women from the age of fifteen to\nfifty, Menimontant gives 116 births; the Champs-Elysees thirty-four\nbirths.\n\n\"It is the same in Berlin. For 1,000 women from the age of fifteen to\nthat of fifty, a very poor quarter gives 157 births; a rich quarter\ngives 47 births.\"\n\nAnd so it is the world over. The very word \"proletarian,\" as Hardy\npoints out, means \"producer of children.\"\n\nThe children thus carelessly produced undermine the health of the\nmother, deepen the family's poverty, destroy the happiness of the\nhome, and dishearten the father; all this in addition to being future\ncompetitors in the labor market. Too often their increasing number\ndrives the mother herself into industry, where her beggarly wages tend\nto lower the level of those of her husband.\n\nThe first sickening feature of this general situation is the high\ninfant mortality among the children of the workers. Many children come\nmerely to sap the strength of the mother, suffer and die, leaving to\nshow for their coming and going only an increased burden of sorrow and\ndebt. The lower the family income, the more of these babies die before\nthey are a year old.\n\nA survey of infant mortality in Johnstown, Pa., by the federal\nChildren's Bureau, gave these typical results for the year 1911:\n\n                          Infant Mortality\n  Father's Earnings            Rate\n  Under $521.................. 197.3\n  $521 to $624................ 193.1\n  $625 to $779................ 163.1\n  $780 to $899................ 168.4\n  $900 to $1,199.............. 142.3\n  $1,200 or over.............. 102.\n  Ample........................ 88.\n\nThese figures do not represent the total income of all families.\nNeither will money buy as much in 1920 as it did in 1911. Seventy per\ncent of the people of the United States have incomes of less than\n$1,000. This means that from 142 to 197 children born into such\nfamilies die before they are one year old. The births and deaths of\nthese children represent just so much useless burden of anguish and\nsorrow to the workers.\n\nDespite this high infant death rate, the workers of the United States\nstill have more children than they can care for. There are enough of\nthem left over to provide 3,000,000 child laborers, who by working for\na pittance crowd their parents out of employment and force the\nfamilies deeper into poverty.\n\nWhen all is said and done, the workers who produce large families have\nthemselves to blame for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed\ngrasping for jobs, for the strike breakers, for the policemen who beat\nup and arrest strikers and for the soldiers who shoot strikers down.\nAll these come from the families of workingmen. Their fathers and\nmothers are workers for wages. Out of the loins of labor they come\ninto the world and compel surplus labor to betray labor that is\nemployed.\n\nNor is this all. When a workman of superior strength and skill,\nprotected by his union, manages to maintain a large or moderate sized\nfamily in a degree of comfort, there always comes a time when he must\nstrike to preserve what he has won. If he is not beaten by unorganized\nworkers who seek his job, he still has to face the possibility of\nlistening to the cries of several hungry children. If the strike is a\nlong one, these cries often down the promptings of loyalty and class\ninterest--often they defeat him when nothing else could.\n\nIs it any wonder that under handicaps like these labor becomes\nconfused and flounders? It has been offered a multitude of\nremedies--political reforms, wage legislation, statutory regulation of\nhours, and so on. It has been invited to embrace craft and industrial\nunionism, syndicalism, anarchism, socialism as panaceas for its\nliberation. Except in a few countries, it has not attained to\naggressive power, but has been a tool for unscrupulous politicians.\n\nEven with the temporary advantages gained by the wiping out of\nmillions of workers in the Great War, labor's problem remains\nunsolved. It has now, as always, to contend with the crop of young\nlaborers coming into the market, and with the ever-present \"labor-saving\"\nmachine which, instead of relieving the worker's situation,\nmakes it all the harder for him to escape. Fewer laborers are needed\nto-day for a given amount of production and distribution than before\nthe invention of these machines. Yet, owing to the increase in the\nnumber of the workers, labor finds itself enslaved instead of\nliberated by the machine.\n\n\"Hitherto,\" says John Stuart Mill, \"it is questionable if all the\nmechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any\nhuman being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same\nlife of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of\nmanufacturers and others to make fortunes.\"\n\nThat, in a few words, sums up the greater part of labor's progress. We\nblame capitalism and its wasteful, brutal industrial system for all\nour social problems, but our numbers were vast and our bondage\ngrievous before modern industry came into existence. We may curse the\ntrusts, but our subjection was accomplished before the trusts had\nemerged from the brain of evolution. We may blame public officials and\nindividual employers, but our burdens were crushing before these were\nborn. We look now here, now there, for the cause of our\ncondition--everywhere but at the one to blame. We fight again and\nagain for our rights, only to be conquered by our own kind, our\nown children, our brother's, our neighbor's.\n\nLet us carry to its logical conclusion the principle of limitation\nwhich has been partially applied by labor unions. The way to get rid\nof labor problems, unemployment, low wages, the surplus, unwanted\npopulation, is to stop breeding. They come from our own ranks--from\nour own families. The way to get better wages, shorter hours, a new\nsystem for the advancement of labor, is to make labor's numbers fewer.\nLet us not wait for war, famine and plague to do it. Let us cease\nbringing unwanted children into the world to suffer a while, add to\nour burdens and die. Let us cease bringing others into the world to\ncompete with us for a living. Let the women workers practice birth\ncontrol.\n\nWhat are the concrete things which the worker can gain at once through\nbirth control? First, a small family can live much better than a large\none upon the wages now received. Workers could be better fed, clothed\nand educated. Again, fewer children in the families of the workers\nwould tend to check the rise in the prices of food, which are forced\nup as the demand increases. Within a few years it would reduce the\nnumber of workers competing for jobs. The worker could the more easily\nforce society to give him more of the product of his labor--or all of\nit. And while these things are taking place, the slums, with their\ndisease, their moral degradation and all their sordid accompaniments,\nwould automatically disappear. No worker would need to live in such\ntenements--hence they would be modernized or torn down. At the same\ntime, the few children that were being born to the workers would be\nstronger, healthier, more courageous. They would be fit human\nbeings--not miserable victims of murderous conditions.\n\nBirth control does not propose to replace any of the idealistic\nmovements and philosophies of the workers. It is not a substitute, it\nprecedes. It is of itself a principle that lifts the heaviest of the\nburdens that afflict labor. It can and it must be the foundation upon\nwhich any permanently successful improvement in conditions is\nattained. It is, therefore, a necessary prelude in all effective\npropaganda.\n\nA few years of systematic agitation for birth control would put labor\nin a position to solve all its problems. Labor, organized or\nunorganized, must take heed of this fact. Groups and parties working\nfor a new social order must include it in their programmes. No social\nsystem, no workers' democracy, no Socialist republic can operate\nsuccessfully and maintain its ideals unless the practice of birth\ncontrol is encouraged to a marked and efficient degree.\n\nIn Spain I saw a bull fight. It was in the great arena at Barcelona.\nAs bull after bull went down, his magnificent, defeated strength\nbleeding away through wounds inflicted by his weak but skillful\nassailant, I thought of the world of workers and their oppressors.\n\nAs each bull was sent into the arena, he was confronted by one\nassailant and twenty _confusers_. There was but one enemy for him to\nface, but there were twenty brilliant flags, each of a different\ncolor, to distract his attention from the man who held the weapon. No\nsooner was his real antagonist in danger, than one of the confusers\nfluttered a flag before his anger-maddened eyes. With one toss of his\nhorns he could have ripped the life from the toreador, but his\nconfusers were always there with the flags. One after another he\ncharged them, only to spend the force of his lunges in the empty air.\nHe found that as he was about to toss one of his confusers into the\nair, he was confronted by another flag, which he charged with equal\nfutility.\n\nFinally, utterly bewildered and exhausted, too spiritless to meet the\nattack, he falls under the sword thrust of the toreador. And the sun\nshines in the deep blue overhead, the band plays, the ten thousand\ngayly-clad spectators shout, while the victim is dragged out to make\nroom for another.\n\nIt is the drama of labor.\n\nIt will be the drama of labor until labor finds its real enemy. That\nenemy is the reproductive ability of the working class which gluts the\nchannels of progress with the helpless and weak, and stimulates the\ntyrants of the world in their oppression of mankind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII  BATTALIONS OF UNWANTED BABIES THE CAUSE OF WAR\n\n\nIn every nation of militaristic tendencies we find the reactionaries\ndemanding a higher and still higher birth rate. Their plea is, first,\nthat great armies are needed to defend the country from its possible\nenemies; second, that a huge population is required to assure the\ncountry its proper place among the powers of the world. At bottom the\ntwo pleas are the same.\n\nAs soon as the country becomes overpopulated, these reactionaries\nproclaim loudly its moral right to expand. They point to the huge\npopulation, which in the name of patriotism they have previously\ndemanded should be brought into being. Again pleading patriotism, they\ndeclare that it is the moral right of the nation to take by force such\nroom as it needs. Then comes war--usually against some nation supposed\nto be less well prepared than the aggressor.\n\nDiplomats make it their business to conceal the facts, and politicians\nviolently denounce the politicians of other countries. There is a long\nbeating of tom-toms by the press and all other agencies for\ninfluencing public opinion. Facts are distorted and lies invented\nuntil the common people cannot get at the truth. Yet, when the war is\nover, if not before, we always find that \"a place in the sun,\" \"a path\nto the sea,\" \"a route to India\" or something of the sort is at the\nbottom of the trouble. These are merely other names for expansion.\n\nThe \"need of expansion\" is only another name for overpopulation. One\nsupreme example is sufficient to drive home this truth. That the Great\nWar, from the horror of which we are just beginning to emerge, had its\nsource in overpopulation is too evident to be denied by any serious\nstudent of current history.\n\nFor the past one hundred years most of the nations of Europe have been\npiling up terrific debts to humanity by the encouragement of unlimited\nnumbers. The rulers of these nations and their militarists have\nconstantly called upon the people to breed, breed, breed! Large\npopulations meant more people to produce wealth, more people to pay\ntaxes, more trade for the merchants, more soldiers to protect the\nwealth. But more people also meant need of greater food supplies, an\nurgent and natural need for expansion.\n\nAs shown by C.V. Drysdale's famous \"War Map of Europe,\" the great\nconflict began among the high birth rate countries--Germany, with its\nrate of 31.7, Austria-Hungary with 33.7 and 36.7, respectively, Russia\nwith 45.4, Serbia with 38.6. Italy with her 38.7 came in, as the world\nis now well informed through the publication of secret treaties by the\nSoviet government of Russia, upon the promise of territory held by\nAustria. England, owing to her small home area, is cramped with her\ncomparatively low birth rate of 26.3. France, among the belligerents,\nis conspicuous for her low birth rate of 19.9, but stood in the way of\nexpansion of high birth rate Germany. Nearly all of the persistently\nneutral countries--Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland\nhave low birth rates, the average being a little over 26.\n\nOwing to the part Germany played in the war, a survey of her birth\nstatistics is decidedly illuminating. The increase in the German birth\nrate up to 1876 was great. Though it began to decline then, the\ndecline was not sufficient to offset the tremendous increase of the\nprevious years. There were more millions to produce children, so while\nthe average number of births per thousand was somewhat smaller, the\nnet increase in population was still huge. From 41,000,000 in 1871,\nthe year the Empire was founded, the German population grew to\napproximately 67,000,000 in 1918. Meanwhile her food supply increased\nonly a very small per cent. In 1910, Russia had a birth rate even\nhigher than Germany's had ever been--a little less than 48 per\nthousand. When czarist Russia wanted an outlet to the Mediterranean by\nway of Constantinople, she was thinking of her increasing population.\nGermany was thinking of her increasing population when she spoke as\nwith one voice of a \"place in the sun.\"\n\n\"For some decades,\" said the Royal Prussian Journal, in an article\nquoted by the Malthusian (London) of April 15, 1911, \"the great growth\nof German population has been almost entirely forced into the towns,\nsince of the four millions of increase in five years, only a few can\nfind places in agriculture, as most properties are too small to permit\nof letting off a portion. And as regards the larger farms, the\ntendency of modern, cheaper machine methods is rather to produce a\nsaving of the more costly manual labor.\"\n\n\"For some time past Germany has no longer been in the position of\nfeeding her own population, and large quantities of food as\nraw-materials have to be imported, for which exports have to be exchanged.\nIt is doubtful whether even this can for long keep pace with the\npresent rate of increase of population.\"\n\nThere were other utterances which just as frankly acknowledged that,\nhaving produced surplus population, Germany proposed to procure by\nmeans of war the expansion necessary to care for it. Adelyne More, in\n\"Uncontrolled Breeding,\" a study of the birth rate in its relation to\nwar, quoted the Berliner Post: \"Can a great and rapidly growing nation\nlike Germany always renounce all claims to further development or to\nthe expansion of its political power? The final settlement with France\nand England, the expansion of our colonial possessions, in order to\ncreate new German homes for the overflow of our population--these are\nproblems which must be faced in the near future.\" This was published\nin 1913.\n\nJust as frank was the recognition of the true cause of international\nconflicts by a number of British authorities.\n\nIn \"Uncontrolled Breeding,\" the author quotes the British National\nCommission's report on The Declining Birth Rate: \"The pressure of\npopulation in any country brings, as a chief historic consequence,\noverflows and migrations not only for peaceful settlement, but for\nconquest and for the subjugation and exploitation of weaker peoples.\nThis always remains a chief cause of international disputes.\"\n\nThe militaristic claim for Germany's right to new territory was simply\na claim to the right of life and food for the German babies--the same\nright that a chick claims to burst its shell. If there had not been\nother millions of people claiming the same right, there would have\nbeen no war. But there were other millions.\n\nThe German rulers and leaders pointed out the fact that expansion\nmeant more business for German merchants, more work for German workmen\nat better wages, and more opportunities for Germans abroad. They also\npointed out that lack of expansion meant crowding and crushing at\nhome, hard times, heavy burdens, lack of opportunity for Germans, and\nwhat not. In this way, they gave the people of the Empire a startling\nand true picture of what would happen from overcrowding. Once they\nrealized the facts, the majority of Germans naturally welcomed the\nso-called war of defense.\n\nThe argument was sound. Once the German mothers had submitted to the\nplea for overbreeding, it was inevitable that imperialistic Germany\nshould make war. Once the battalions of unwanted babies came into\nexistence--babies whom the mothers did not want but which they bore as\na \"patriotic duty\"--it was too late to avoid international conflict.\nThe great crime of imperialistic Germany was its high birth rate.\n\nIt has always been so. Behind all war has been the pressure of\npopulation. \"Historians,\" says Huxley, \"point to the greed and\nambition of rulers, the reckless turbulence of the ruled, to the\ndebasing effects of wealth and luxury, and to the devastating wars\nwhich have formed a great part of the occupation of mankind, as the\ncauses of the decay of states and the foundering of old civilizations,\nand thereby point their story with a moral. But beneath all this\nsuperficial turmoil lay the deep-seated impulse given by unlimited\nmultiplication.\"\n\nRobert Thomas Malthus, formulator of the doctrine which bears his\nname, pointed out, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, the\nrelation of overpopulation to war. He showed that mankind tends to\nincrease faster than the food supply. He demonstrated that were it not\nfor the more common diseases, for plague, famine, floods and wars,\nhuman beings would crowd each other to such an extent that the misery\nwould be even greater than it now is. These he described as \"natural\nchecks,\" pointing out that as long as no other checks are employed,\nsuch disasters are unavoidable. If we do not exercise sufficient\njudgment to regulate the birth rate, we encounter disease, starvation\nand war.\n\nBoth Darwin and John Stuart Mill recognized, by inference at least,\nthe fact that so-called \"natural checks\"--and among them war--will\noperate if some sort of limitation is not employed. In his _Origin of\nSpecies_, Darwin says: \"There is no exception to the rule that every\norganic being naturally increases at so high a rate, if not destroyed,\nthat the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair.\"\nElsewhere he observes that we do not permit helpless human beings to\ndie off, but we create philanthropies and charities, build asylums and\nhospitals and keep the medical profession busy preserving those who\ncould not otherwise survive. John Stuart Mill, supporting the views of\nMalthus, speaks to exactly the same effect in regard to the\nmultiplying power of organic beings, among them humanity. In other\nwords, let countries become overpopulated and war is inevitable. It\nfollows as daylight follows the sunrise.\n\nWhen Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Annie Besant were on trial in England\nin 1877 for publishing information concerning contraceptives, Mrs.\nBesant put the case bluntly to the court and the jury:\n\n\"I have no doubt that if natural checks were allowed to operate right\nthrough the human as they do in the animal world, a better result\nwould follow. Among the brutes, the weaker are driven to the wall, the\ndiseased fall out in the race of life. The old brutes, when feeble or\nsickly, are killed. If men insisted that those who were sickly should\nbe allowed to die without help of medicine or science, if those who\nare weak were put upon one side and crushed, if those who were old and\nuseless were killed, if those who were not capable of providing food\nfor themselves were allowed to starve, if all this were done, the\nstruggle for existence among men would be as real as it is among\nbrutes and would doubtless result in the production of a higher race\nof men.\n\n\"But are you willing to do that or to allow it to be done?\"\n\nWe are not willing to let it be done. Mother hearts cling to children,\nno matter how diseased, misshapen and miserable. Sons and daughters\nhold fast to parents, no matter how helpless. We do not allow the weak\nto depart; neither do we cease to bring more weak and helpless beings\ninto the world. Among the dire results is war, which kills off, not\nthe weak and the helpless, but the strong and the fit.\n\nWhat shall be done? We have our choice of one of three policies. We\nmay abandon our science and leave the weak and diseased to die, or\nkill them, as the brutes do. Or we may go on overpopulating the earth\nand have our famines and our wars while the earth exists. Or we can\naccept the third, sane, sensible, moral and practicable plan of birth\ncontrol. We can refuse to bring weak, the helpless and the unwanted\nchildren into the world. We can refuse to overcrowd families, nations\nand the earth. There are these ways to meet the situation, and only\nthese three ways.\n\nThe world will never abandon its preventive and curative science; it\nmay be expected to elevate and extend it beyond our present\nimagination. The efforts to do away with famine and the opposition to\nwar are growing by leaps and bounds. Upon these efforts are largely\nbased our modern social revolutions.\n\nThere remains only the third expedient--birth control, the real cure\nfor war. This fact was called to the attention of the Peace Conference\nin Paris, in 1919, by the Malthusian League, which adopted the\nfollowing resolution at its annual general meeting in London in June\nof that year:\n\n\"The Malthusian League desires to point out that the proposed scheme\nfor the League of Nations has neglected to take account of the\nimportant questions of _the pressure of population_, which _causes the\ngreat international economic competition_ and rivalry, and of the\n_increase of population_, which is put forward as a justification for\n_claiming increase of territory_. It, therefore, wishes to put on\nrecord its belief that the League of Nations will only be able to\nfulfill its aim _when it adds a clause_ to the following effect:\n\n\"'That each Nation desiring to enter into the League of Nations shall\npledge itself _so to restrict its birth rate_ that its people shall be\nable to live in comfort _in their own dominions without need_ for\nterritorial expansion, and that it shall recognize that _increase of\npopulation shall not justify_ a demand either for increase of\nterritory or for the compulsion of other Nations to admit its\nemigrants; so that when all Nations in the League have shown their\nability to live on their own resources without international rivalry,\nthey will be in a position to fuse into an international federation,\nand territorial boundaries will then have little significance.'\"\n\nAs a matter of course, the Peace Conference paid no attention to the\nresolution, for, as pointed out by Frank A. Vanderlip, the American\nfinancier, that conference not only ignored the economic factors of\nthe world situation, but seemed unaware that Europe had produced more\npeople than its fields could feed. So the resolution amounted to so\nmuch propaganda and nothing more.\n\nThis remedy can be applied only by woman and she will apply it. She\nmust and will see past the call of pretended patriotism and of glory\nof empire and perceive what is true and what is false in these things.\nShe will discover what base uses the militarist and the exploiter make\nof the idealism of peoples. Under the clamor of the press, permeating\nthe ravings of the jingoes, she will hear the voice of Napoleon, the\narchtype of the militarists of all nations, calling for \"fodder for\ncannon.\"\n\n\"Woman is given to us that she may bear children,\" said he. \"Woman is\nour property, we are not hers, because she produces children for\nus--we do not yield any to her. She is, therefore, our possession as the\nfruit tree is that of the gardener.\"\n\nThat is what the imperialist is _thinking_ when he speaks of the glory\nof the empire and the prestige of the nation. Every country has its\nappeal--its shibboleth--ready for the lips of the imperialist. German\nrulers pointed to the comfort of the workers, to old-age pensions,\nmaternal benefits and minimum wage regulations, and other material\nbenefits, when they wished to inspire soldiers for the Fatherland.\nEngland's strongest argument, perhaps, was a certain phase of liberty\nwhich she guarantees her subjects, and the protection afforded them\nwherever they may go. France and the United States, too, have their\nappeals to the idealism of democracy--appeals which the politicians of\nboth countries know well how to use, though the peoples of both lands\nare beginning to awake to the fact that their countries have been\nliving on the glories of their revolutions and traditions, rather than\nthe substance of freedom. Behind the boast of old-age pensions,\nmaterial benefits and wage regulations, behind the bombast concerning\nliberty in this country and tyranny in that, behind all the slogans\nand shibboleths coined out of the ideals of the peoples for the uses\nof imperialism, woman must and will see the iron hand of that same\nimperialism, condemning women to breed and men to die for the will of\nthe rulers.\n\nUpon woman the burden and the horrors of war are heaviest. Her heart\nis the hardest wrung when the husband or the son comes home to be\nburied or to live a shattered wreck. Upon her devolve the extra tasks\nof filling out the ranks of workers in the war industries, in addition\nto caring for the children and replenishing the war-diminished\npopulation. Hers is the crushing weight and the sickening of soul. And\nit is out of her womb that those things proceed. When she sees what\nlies behind the glory and the horror, the boasting and the burden, and\ngets the vision, the human perspective, she will end war. She will\nkill war by the simple process of starving it to death. For she will\nrefuse longer to produce the human food upon which the monster feeds.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nWOMAN AND THE NEW MORALITY\n\n\nUpon the shoulders of the woman conscious of her freedom rests the\nresponsibility of creating a new sex morality. The vital difference\nbetween a morality thus created by women and the so-called morality of\nto-day, is that the new standard will be based upon knowledge and\nfreedom while the old is founded upon ignorance and submission.\n\nWhat part will birth control play in bringing forth this new standard?\nWhat effect will its practice have upon woman's moral development?\nWill it lift her to heights that she has not yet achieved, and if so,\nhow? Why is the question of morality always raised by the objector to\nbirth control? All these questions must be answered if we are to get a\ntrue picture of the relation of the feminine spirit to morals. They\ncan best be answered by considering, first, the source of our present\nstandard of sex morals and the reasons why those standards are what\nthey are; and, second, the source and probable nature of the new\nmorality.\n\nWe get most of our notions of sex morality from the Christian\nchurch--more particularly from the oldest existing Christian church, known\nas the Roman Catholic. The church has generally defined the \"immoral\nwoman\" as one who mates out of wedlock. Virtually, it lets it go at\nthat. In its practical workings, there is nothing in the church code\nof morals to protect the woman, either from unwilling submission to\nthe wishes of her husband, from undesired pregnancy, nor from any\nother of the outrages only too familiar to many married women. Nothing\nis said about the crime of bringing an unwanted child into the world,\nwhere often it cannot be adequately cared for and is, therefore,\ncondemned to a life of misery. The church's one point of insistence is\nupon the right of itself to legalize marriage and to compel the woman\nto submit to whatever such marriage may bring. It is true that there\nare remedies of divorce in the case of the state, but the church has\nadhered strictly to the principle that marriage, once consummated, is\nindissoluble. Thus, in its operation, the church's code of sex morals\nhas nothing to do with the basic sex rights of the woman, but\nenforces, rather, the assumed property rights of the man to the body\nand the services of his wife. They are man-made codes; their vital\nfactor, as they apply to woman, is submission to the man.\n\nClosely associated with and underlying the principle of submission,\nhas been the doctrine that the sex life is in itself unclean. It\nfollows, therefore, that all knowledge of the sex physiology or sex\nfunctions is also unclean and taboo. Upon this teaching has been\nfounded woman's subjection by the church and, largely through the\ninfluence of the church, her subjection by the state to the needs of\nthe man.\n\nLet us see how these principles have affected the development of the\npresent moral codes and some of their shifting standards. When we have\nfinished this analysis, we shall know why objectors to birth control\nraise the \"morality\" question.\n\nThe church has sought to keep women ignorant upon the plea of keeping\nthem \"pure.\" To this end it has used the state as its moral policeman.\nMen have largely broken the grip of the ecclesiastics upon masculine\neducation. The ban upon geology and astronomy, because they refute the\nbiblical version of the creation of the world, are no longer\neffective. Medicine, biology and the doctrine of evolution have won\ntheir way to recognition in spite of the united opposition of the\nclerics. So, too, has the right of woman to go unveiled, to be\neducated, and to speak from public platforms, been asserted in spite\nof the condemnations of the church, which denounced them as\ndestructive of feminine purity. Only in sex matters has it succeeded\nin keeping the bugaboo alive.\n\nIt clings to this last stronghold of ignorance, knowing that woman\nfree from sexual domination would produce a race spiritually free and\nstrong enough to break the last of the bonds of intellectual darkness.\n\nIt is within the marriage bonds, rather than outside them, that the\ngreatest immorality of men has been perpetrated. Church and state,\nthrough their canons and their laws, have encouraged this immorality.\nIt is here that the woman who is to win her way to the new morality\nwill meet the most difficult part of her task of moral house cleaning.\n\nIn the days when the church was striving for supremacy, when it needed\nsingle-minded preachers, proselyters and teachers, it fastened upon\nits people the idea that all sexual union, in marriage or out of it,\nis sinful. That idea colors the doctrines of the Church of Rome and\nmany other Christian denominations to this hour. \"Marriage, even for\nthe sake of children was a carnal indulgence\" in earlier times, as\nPrincipal Donaldson points out in \"_The Position of Women Among the\nEarly Christians._\" [Footnote: Contemporary Review, 1889.] It was held\nthat the child was \"conceived in sin,\" and that as the result of the\nsex act, an unclean spirit had possession of it. This spirit can be\nremoved only by baptism, and the Roman Catholic baptismal service even\nyet contains these words: \"Go out of him, thou unclean spirit, and\ngive place unto the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.\"\n\nIn the _Intellectual Development of Europe_, John William Draper,\nspeaking of the teaching of celibacy among the Early Fathers,\n[Footnote: 2-Vol. 1, page 426.] says: \"The sinfulness of the marriage\nrelation and the preeminent value of chastity followed from their\nprinciples. If it was objected to such practices that by their\nuniversal adoption the human species would soon be extinguished and no\nman would remain to offer praises to God, these zealots, remembering\nthe temptations from which they had escaped, with truth replied that\nthere would always be sinners enough in the world to avoid that\ndisaster, and that out of their evil work, good would be brought.\nSaint Jerome offers us the pregnant reflection that though it may be\nmarriage that fills the earth, it is virginity that replenishes\nheaven.\"\n\nThe early church taught that there were enough children on earth. It\nneeded missionaries more than it needed babies, and impressed upon its\nfollowers the idea that the birth wails of the infant were a protest\nagainst being born into so sordid a world.\n\nThus are we presented with one of the enormous inconsistencies of the\nchurch in sex matters. The teachings of the \"Early Fathers\" were\neffect the advocacy of an attempt to enforce birth control through\nabsolute continence, while later it reverted, as it reverts to-day, to\nthe Mosaic injunction to \"be fruitful and multiply.\"\n\nThe very force of the sex urge in humanity compelled the church to\nabandon the teaching of celibacy for its general membership. Paul, who\npreferred to see Christians unmarried rather than married, had\nrecognized the power of this force. In the seventh chapter of the\nFirst Epistle to the Corinthians (according to the Douay translation\nof the Vulgate, which is accepted by the Church of Rome), he said:\n\n\"8--But I say unto you the unmarried and the widows; it is good if\nthey continue even as I.\n\n\"9--But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry, for it is\nbetter to marry than to be burnt.\"\n\nWhen the church became a political power rather than a strictly\nreligious institution, it needed a high birth rate to provide laymen\nto support its increasingly expensive organization. It then began to\nexploit the sex force for its own interest. It reversed its position\nin regard to children. It encouraged marriage under its own control\nand exhorted women to bear as many children as possible. The world was\njust as sordid and the birth wails of the infants were just as\npiteous, but the needs of the hierarchy had changed. So it modified\nthe standard of sex morality to suit its own requirements--marriage\nnow became a sacrament.\n\nShrewd in changing its general policy from celibacy to marriage, the\nchurch was equally shrewd in perpetuating the doctrine of woman's\nsubjection for its own interest. That doctrine was emphatically stated\nin the Third Chapter of the First Epistle of Peter and the Fifth\nChapter of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. In the Douay version of\nthe latter, we find this:\n\n\"22--Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord.\n\n\"23--Because the husband is the head of the wife; as Christ is the\nhead of the Church.\n\n\"24--Therefore, as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives\nbe to their husbands in all things.\"\n\nThese doctrines, together with the teaching that sex life is of itself\nunclean, formed the basis of morality as fixed by the Roman church.\n\nNor does the St. James version of the Bible, generally used by\nProtestant churches to-day, differ greatly in these particulars from\nthe accepted Roman Catholic version, as a comparison will show.\n\nIf Christianity turned the clock of general progress back a thousand\nyears, it turned back the clock two thousand years for woman. Its\ngreatest outrage upon her was to forbid her to control the function of\nmotherhood under any circumstances, thus limiting her life's work to\nbringing forth and rearing children. Coincident with this, the\nchurchmen deprived her of her place in and before the courts, in the\nschools, in literature, art and society. They shut from her heart and\nher mind the knowledge of her love life and her reproductive\nfunctions. They chained her to the position into which they had thrust\nher, so that it is only after centuries of effort that she is even\nbeginning to regain what was wrested from her.\n\n\"Christianity had no favorable effect upon women,\" says Donaldson,\n\"but tended to lower their character and contract the range of their\nactivity. At the time when Christianity dawned upon the world, women\nhad attained great freedom, power and influence in the Roman empire.\nTradition was in favor of restriction, but by a concurrence of\ncircumstances, women had been liberated from the enslaving fetters of\nthe old legal forms. They enjoyed freedom of intercourse in society.\nThey walked in the public thoroughfares with veils that did not hide\ntheir faces. They dined in the company of men. They studied literature\nand philosophy. They took part in political movements. They were\nallowed to defend their own law cases if they liked, and they helped\ntheir husbands in the government of provinces and the writing of\nbooks.\"\n\nAnd again: \"One would have imagined that Christianity would have\nfavored the extension of woman's freedom. In a very short time women\nare seen only in two capacities--as martyrs and deaconesses (or nuns).\nNow what the early Christians did was to strike the male out of the\ndefinition of man, and human being out of the definition of woman. Man\nwas a human being made to serve the highest and noblest purposes;\nwoman was a female, made to serve only one.\"\n\nThus the position attained by women of Greece and Rome through the\nexercise of family limitation, and in a considerable degree of\nvoluntary motherhood, was swept away by the rising tide of\nChristianity. It would seem that this pernicious result was\npremeditated, and that from the very early days of Christianity, there\nwere among the hierarchy those who recognized the creative power of\nthe feminine spirit, the force of which they sought to turn to their\nown uses. Certain it is that the hierarchy created about the whole\nlove life of woman an atmosphere of degradation.\n\nFear and shame have stood as grim guardians against the gate of\nknowledge and constructive idealism. The sex life of women has been\nclouded in darkness, restrictive, repressive and morbid. Women have\nnot had the opportunity to know themselves, nor have they been\npermitted to give play to their inner natures, that they might create\na morality practical, idealistic and high for their own needs.\n\nOn the other hand, church and state have forbidden women to leave\ntheir legal mates, or to refuse to submit to the marital embrace, no\nmatter how filthy, drunken, diseased or otherwise repulsive the man\nmight be--no matter how much of a crime it might be to bring to birth\na child by him.\n\nWoman was and is condemned to a system under which the lawful rapes\nexceed the unlawful ones a million to one. She has had nothing to say\nas to whether she shall have strength sufficient to give a child a\nfair physical and mental start in life; she has had as little to do\nwith determining whether her own body shall be wrecked by excessive\nchild-bearing. She has been adjured not to complain of the burden of\ncaring for children she has not wanted. Only the married woman who has\nbeen constantly loved by the most understanding and considerate of\nhusbands has escaped these horrors. Besides the wrongs done to women\nin marriage, those involved in promiscuity, infidelities and rapes\nbecome inconsequential in nature and in number.\n\nOut of woman's inner nature, in rebellion against these conditions, is\nrising the new morality. Let it be realized that this creation of new\nsex ideals is a challenge to the church. Being a challenge to the\nchurch, it is also, in less degree, a challenge to the state. The\nwoman who takes a fearless stand for the incoming sex ideals must\nexpect to be assailed by reactionaries of every kind. Imperialists and\nexploiters will fight hardest in the open, but the ecclesiastic will\nfight longest in the dark. He understands the situation best of all;\nhe best knows what reaction he has to fear from the morals of women\nwho have attained liberty. For, be it repeated, the church has always\nknown and feared the spiritual potentialities of woman's freedom.\n\nAnd in this lies the answer to the question why the opponent of birth\ncontrol raises the moral issue. Sex morals for women have been\none-sided; they have been purely negative, inhibitory and repressive. They\nhave been fixed by agencies which have sought to keep women enslaved;\nwhich have been determined, even as they are now, to use woman solely\nas an asset to the church, the state and the man. Any means of freedom\nwhich will enable women to live and think for themselves first, will\nbe attacked as immoral by these selfish agencies.\n\nWhat effect will the practice of birth control have upon woman's moral\ndevelopment? As we have seen in other chapters, it will break her\nbonds. It will free her to understand the cravings and soul needs of\nherself and other women. It will enable her to develop her love nature\nseparate from and independent of her maternal nature.\n\nIt goes without saying that the woman whose children are desired and\nare of such number that she can not only give them adequate care but\nkeep herself mentally and spiritually alive, as well as physically\nfit, can discharge her duties to her children much better than the\noverworked, broken and querulous mother of a large, unwanted family.\n\nThus the way is open to her for a twofold development; first, through\nher own full rounded life, and next, through her loving, unstrained,\nfull-hearted relationship with her offspring. The bloom of mother love\nwill have an opportunity to infuse itself into her soul and make her,\nindeed, the fond, affectionate guardian of her offspring that\nsentiment now pictures her but hard facts deny her the privilege of\nbeing. She will preserve also her love life with her mate in its\nripening perfection. She will want children with a deeper passion, and\nwill love them with a far greater love.\n\nIn spite of the age-long teaching that sex life in itself is unclean,\nthe world has been moving to a realization that a great love between a\nman and woman is a holy thing, freighted with great possibilities for\nspiritual growth. The fear of unwanted children removed, the assurance\nthat she will have a sufficient amount of time in which to develop her\nlove life to its greatest beauty, with its comradeship in many\nfields--these will lift woman by the very soaring quality of her innermost\nself to spiritual heights that few have attained. Then the coming of\neagerly desired children will but enrich life in all its avenues,\nrather than enslave and impoverish it as do unwanted ones to-day.\n\nWhat healthier grounds for the growth of sound morals could possibly\nexist than the ample spiritual life of the woman just depicted? Free\nto follow the feminine spirit, which dwells in the sanctuary of her\nnature, she will, in her daily life, give expression to that high\nidealism which is the fruit of that spirit when it is unhampered and\nunviolated. The love for her mate will flower in beauty of deeds that\nare pure because they are the natural expression of her physical,\nmental and spiritual being. The love for desired children will come to\nblossom in a spirituality that is high because it is free to reach the\nheights.\n\nThe moral force of woman's nature will be unchained--and of its own\ndynamic power will uplift her to a plane unimagined by those holding\nfast to the old standards of church morality. Love is the greatest\nforce of the universe; freed of its bonds of submission and unwanted\nprogeny, it will formulate and compel of its own nature observance to\nstandards of purity far beyond the highest conception of the average\nmoralist. The feminine spirit, animated by joyous, triumphant love,\nwill make its own high tenets of morality. Free womanhood, out of the\ndepths of its rich experiences, will observe and comply with the inner\ndemands of its being. The manner in which it learns to do this best\nmay be said to be the moral law of woman's being. So, in whatever\nwords the new morality may ultimately be expressed, we can at least be\nsure that it will meet certain needs.\n\nFirst of all, it will meet the physical and psychic requirements of\nthe woman herself, for she cannot adequately perform the feminine\nfunctions until these are met. Second, it will meet the needs of the\nchild to be conceived in a love which is eager to bring forth a new\nlife, to be brought into a home where love and harmony prevail, a home\nin which proper preparation has been made for its coming.\n\nThis situation implies in turn a number of conditions. Foremost among\nthem is woman's knowledge of her sexual nature, both in its physiology\nand its spiritual significance. She must not only know her own body,\nits care and its needs, but she must know the power of the sex force,\nits use, its abuse, as well as how to direct it for the benefit of the\nrace. Thus she can transmit to her children an equipment that will\nenable them to break the bonds that have held humanity enslaved for\nages.\n\nTo achieve this she must have a knowledge of birth control. She must\nalso assert and maintain her right to refuse the marital embrace\nexcept when urged by her inner nature.\n\nThe truth makes free. Viewed in its true aspect, the very beauty and\nwonder of the creative impulse will make evident its essential purity.\nWe will then instinctively idealize and keep holy that physical-spiritual\nexpression which is the foundation of all human life, and in that\nconception of sex will the race he exalted.\n\nWhat can we expect of offspring that are the result of \"accidents\"--who\nare brought into being undesired and in fear? What can we hope for\nfrom a morality that surrounds each physical union, for the woman,\nwith an atmosphere of submission and shame? What can we say for a\nmorality that leaves the husband at liberty to communicate to his wife\na venereal disease?\n\nSubversion of the sex urge to ulterior purposes has dragged it to the\nlevel of the gutter. Recognition of its true nature and purpose must\nlift the race to spiritual freedom. Out of our growing knowledge we\nare evolving new and saner ideas of life in general. Out of our\nincreasing sex knowledge we shall evolve new ideals of sex. These\nideals will spring from the innermost needs of women. They will serve\nthese needs and express them. They will be the foundation of a moral\ncode that will tend to make fruitful the impulse which is the source,\nthe soul and the crowning glory of our sexual natures.\n\nWhen women have raised the standards of sex ideals and purged the\nhuman mind of its unclean conception of sex, the fountain of the race\nwill have been cleansed. Mothers will bring forth, in purity and in\njoy, a race that is morally and spiritually free.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nLEGISLATING WOMAN'S MORALS\n\n\nOne of the important duties before those women who are demanding birth\ncontrol as a means to a New Race is the changing of our so-called\nobscenity laws. This will be no easy undertaking; it is usually much\neasier to enact statutes than to revise them. Laws are seldom exactly\nwhat they seem, rarely what their advocates claim for them. The\n\"obscenity\" statutes are particularly deceptive.\n\nEnacted, avowedly, to protect society against the obscene and the\nlewd, they make no distinction between the scientific works of human\nemancipators like Forel and Ellis and printed matter such as they are\nostensibly aimed at. Naturally enough, then, detectives and\nnarrow-minded judges and prosecutors who would chuckle over pictures that\nwould make a clean-minded woman shudder, unite to suppress the\nscientific works and the birth-control treatises which would enable\nmen and women to attain higher physical, mental, moral and spiritual\nstandards.\n\nWoman, bent upon her freedom and seeking to make a better world, will\nnot permit the indecent and unclean forces of reaction to mask\nthemselves forever behind the plea that it is necessary to keep her in\nignorance to preserve her purity. In the birth-control movement, she\nhas already begun to fight for her right to have, without legal\ninterference, all knowledge pertaining to her sex nature. This is the\nthird and most important of the epoch-making battles for general\nliberty upon American soil. It is most important because it is to\npurify the very fountain of the race and make the race completely\nfree.\n\nThe first and most dramatic of the three great struggles for liberty\nreached its apex, as we know, in the American Revolution. It had for\nits object the right to hold such political beliefs as one might\nchoose, and to act in accordance with those beliefs. If this political\nfreedom is now lost to us, it is because we did not hold strongly\nenough to those liberties fought for by our forefathers.\n\nNearly a hundred years after the Revolution the battle for religious\nliberty came to a climax in the career of Robert G. Ingersoll. His\nchampionship of the much vaunted and little exercised freedom of\nreligious opinion swept the blasphemy laws into the lumber room of\noutworn tyrannies. Those yet remaining upon the statute books are\ninvoked but rarely, and then the effort to enforce them is ridiculous.\n\nWithin a few years the tragic combination of false moral standards and\ninfamous obscenity laws will be as ridiculous in the public mind as\nare the now all but forgotten blasphemy laws. If the obscenity laws\nare not radically revised or repealed, few reactionaries will dare to\nface the public derision that will greet their attempts to use them to\nstay woman's progress.\n\nThe French have a saying concerning \"mort main\"--the dead hand. This\nhand of the past reaches up into the present to smother the rising\nflame of modern ideals, to reforge our chains when we have broken\nthem, to arrest progress. It is the hand of such as have lived on\nearth but have not loved humanity. At the call of those who fear\nprogress and freedom, it rises from the gloom of forgotten things to\noppress the living.\n\nIt is the dead hand that holds imprisoned within the obscenity laws\nall direct information concerning birth control. It is the dead hand\nthat thus compels millions of American women to remain in the bondage\nof maternity.\n\nPrevious to the year 1868, the obscenity laws of the various states in\nthe Union contained no specific prohibition of information concerning\ncontraceptives. In that year, however, the General Assembly of New\nYork passed an act which specifically included the subject of\ncontraceptives. The act made it exactly as great an offense to give\nsuch information as to exhibit the sort of pictures and writings at\nwhich the legislation was ostensibly aimed.\n\nIn 1873, the late Anthony Comstock, who with a list of contributors,\nmost of whom did not realize the real effects of his work, constituted\nthe so-called Society for the Suppression of Vice, succeeded in\nobtaining the passage of the federal obscenity act. This act was\npresented as one to prevent the circulation of pornographic literature\nand pictures among school children. As such, it was rushed through\nwith two hundred sixty other acts in the closing hours of the\nCongress. This act made it a crime to use the mails to convey\ncontraceptives or information concerning contraceptives. Other acts\nlater made the original law applicable to express companies and other\ncommon carriers, as well as to the mails.\n\nWith this precedent established--a precedent which a majority of the\ncongressmen could hardly have understood because of the hasty passage\nof the act--Comstock secured the enactment of state laws to the same\neffect. Meanwhile, the provisions regarding contraceptives had been\ndropped from the amended New York State law of 1872. In 1873, however,\na new section, said to have been drafted by Comstock himself, was\nsubstituted for the one enacted in 1872, and that section is\nessentially the substance of the present law. None of these acts made\nit an offense to prevent conception--all of them provided punishment\nfor anyone disseminating information concerning the prevention of\nconception. In the federal statutes, the maximum penalties were fixed\nat a fine of $5,000 or five years imprisonment, or both. The usual\nmaximum penalty under a state law is a fine of $1,000 or one year's\nimprisonment, or both.\n\nComstock has passed out of public notice. His body has been entombed\nbut the evil that he did lives after him. His dead hand still reaches\nforth to keep the subject of prevention of conception where he placed\nit--in the same legal category with things unclean and vile. Forty\nyears ago the laws were changed and the chief work of Comstock's life\naccomplished. Those laws still live, legal monuments to ignorance and\nto oppression. Through those laws reaches the dead hand to bring to\nthe operating table each year hundreds of thousands of women who\nundergo the agony of abortion. Each year this hand reaches out to\ncompel the birth of hundreds of thousands of infants who must die\nbefore they are twelve months old.\n\nLike many laws upon our statute books, these are being persistently\nand intelligently violated. Few members of the well-to-do and wealthy\nclasses think for a single moment of obeying them. They limit their\nfamilies to one, two or three well-cared-for children. Usually the\nprosecutor who presents the case against a birth-control advocate,\ntrapped by a detective hired by the Comstock Society, has no children\nat all or a small family. The family of the judge who passes upon the\ncase is likely to be smaller still. The words \"It is the law\" sums it\nall up for these officials when they pass sentence in court. But these\nwords, so magical to the official mind, have no weight when these same\nofficials are adjusting their own private lives. They then obey the\nhigher laws of their own beings--they break the obsolete statutes for\nthemselves while enforcing them for others.\n\nThis is not the situation with the poorer people of the United States,\nhowever. Millions of them know nothing of reliable contraceptives.\nWhen women of the impoverished strata of society do not break these\nlaws against contraceptives, they violate those laws of their inner\nbeings which tell them not to bring children into the world to live in\nwant, disease and general misery. They break the first law of nature,\nwhich is that of self preservation. Bound by false morals, enchained\nby false conceptions of religion, hindered by false laws, they endure\nuntil the pressure becomes so great that morals, religion and laws\nalike fail to restrain them. Then they for a brief respite resort to\nthe surgeon's instruments.\n\nFor many years the semi-official witch hunting of the Comstock\norganization had a remarkable and a deadly effect. Everyone, whether\nit was novelist, essayist, publicist, propagandist or artist, who\nsought to throw definite light upon the forbidden subject of sex, or\nupon family limitation, was prosecuted if detected. Among the many\nbooks suppressed were works by physicians designed to warn young men\nand women away from the pitfalls of venereal diseases and sexual\nerrors. The darkness that surrounded the whole field of sex was made\nas complete as possible.\n\nSince then the feeling of the awakened women of America has\nintensified. The rapidity with which women are going into industry,\nthe increasing hardship and poverty of the lower strata of society,\nthe arousing of public conscience, have all operated to give force and\nvolume to the demand for woman's right to control her own body that\nshe may work out her own salvation.\n\nThose who believe in strictly legal measures, as well as those who\nbelieve both in legal measures and in open defiance of these brutal\nand unjust laws, are demanding amendments to the obscenity statutes,\nwhich shall remove information concerning contraceptives from its\npresent classification among things filthy and obscene.\n\nAn amendment typical of those offered is that drawn up for the New\nYork statutes under the direction of Samuel McClure Lindsey, of\nColumbia University. The words and sentences in italics are those\nwhich it proposed to add:\n\n\"(Section 1145.) Physicians' instruments _and information_. An article\nor instrument used or applied by physicians lawfully practicing, or by\ntheir direction or prescription, for the cure or prevention of\ndisease, is not an article of indecent or immoral nature or use,\nwithin this article. The supplying of such articles to such physicians\nor by their direction or prescription, is not an offense under this\narticle. _The giving by a duly licensed physician or registered nurse\nlawfully practicing, of information or advice in regard to, or the\nsupplying to any person of any article or medicine for the prevention\nof, conception is not a violation of any provision of this article._\"\n\nThis proposed amendment should without doubt include midwives as well\nas nurses. There are thousands of women who never see a nurse or a\nphysician. Under this section, even as it now stands, physicians have\na right to prescribe contraceptives, but few of them have claimed that\nright or have even known that it has existed. It does exist, however,\nand was specifically declared by the New York State Court of Appeals,\nas we shall see when we consider that court's opinion in the Sanger\ncase, farther on in the book. It can do no harm to make the intent of\nthe law as regards physicians plainer, and it would be an immense step\nforward to include nurses and midwives in the section. With this\naddition it would remove one of the most serious obstacles to the\nfreedom and advancement of American womanhood. Every woman interested\nin the welfare of women in general should make it her business to\nagitate for such a change in the obscenity laws.\n\nThe above provision would take care of the case of the woman who is\nill, or who is plainly about to become ill, but it does not take care\nof the vast body of women who have not yet ruined their health by\nchildbearing and who are not yet suffering from diseases complicated\nby pregnancy. If this amendment had been attached to the laws in all\nthe states, there would still remain much to be done.\n\nShall we go on indefinitely driving the now healthy mother of two\nchildren into the hands of the abortionist, where she goes in\npreference to constant ill health, overwork and the witnessing of\ndying and starving babies? It is each woman's duty to herself and to\nsociety to hasten the repeal of all laws against the communication of\nbirth-control information now that she has the vote, she should use\nher political influence to strike, first of all, at these restrictive\nstatutes. It is not to her credit that a district attorney, arguing\nagainst a birth control advocate, is able to show that women have made\nno effort to wipe out such laws in states where they have had the\nballot for years.\n\nIt is time that women assert themselves upon this fundamental right,\nand the first and best use they can make of the ballot is in this\ndirection. These laws were made by men and have been instruments of\nmartyrdom and death for unnumbered thousands of women. Women now have\nthe opportunity to sweep them into the trash heap. They will do it at\nonce unless, like men, they use the ballot for those political honors\nwhich many years of experience have taught men to be hollow.\n\nIt is only a question of how long it will take women to make up their\nminds to this result. The law of woman's being is stronger than any\nstatute, and the man-made law must sooner or later give way to it. Man\nhas not protected woman in matters most vital to her--but she is\nawaking and will sooner or later realize this and assert herself. If\nshe acts in mass now, it will be another cheering evidence that she is\nmoving consciously toward her goal.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nWHY NOT BIRTH-CONTROL CLINICS IN AMERICA\n\n[Footnote: This chapter, in substance, and largely in language,\nappeared under the present title in the March, 1920, issue of American\nMedicine (New York) and is incorporated in this book by courtesy of\nthat publication.]\n\n\nThe absurd cruelty of permitting thousands of women each year to go\nthrough abortions to prevent the aggravation of diseases for which\nthey are under treatment assuredly cannot be much longer ignored by\nthe medical profession. Responsibility for the inestimable damage done\nby the practice of permitting patients suffering from certain ailments\nto become pregnant, because of their ignorance of contraceptives, when\nthe physician knows that if pregnancy goes to its full term it will\nhasten the disease and lead to the patient's death, must in all\nfairness be laid at his door.\n\nWhat these diseases are and what dangers are involved in pregnancy are\nknown to every practitioner of standing. Specialists have not been\nnegligent in pointing out the situation. Eager to enhance or protect\ntheir reputations in the profession, they continually call out to one\nanother: \"Don't let the patient bear a child--don't let pregnancy\ncontinue.\"\n\nThe warning has been sounded most often, perhaps, in the cases of\ntubercular women. \"In view of the fact that the tubercular process\nbecomes exacerbated either during pregnancy or after childbirth, most\nauthorities recommend that abortion be induced as a matter of routine\nin all tubercular women,\" says Dr. J. Whitridge Williams,\nobstetrician-in-chief to the Johns Hopkins Hospital, in his treatise\non _Obstetrics_. Dr. Thomas Watts Eden, obstetrician and gynecologist\nto Charing Cross Hospital and member of the staffs of other notable\nBritish hospitals, extends but does not complete the list in this\nparagraph on page 652 of his _Practical Obstetrics_: \"Certain of the\nconditions enumerated form absolute indications for the induction of\nabortion. These are nephritis, uncompensated valvular lesions of the\nheart, advanced tuberculosis, insanity, irremediable malignant tumors,\nhydatidiform mole, uncontrollable uterine hemorrhage, and acute\nhydramnios.\"\n\nWe know that abortion, when performed by skilled hands, under right\nconditions, brings almost no danger to the life of the patient, and we\nalso know that particular diseases can be more easily combatted after\nsuch an abortion than during a pregnancy allowed to come to full term.\nBut why not adopt the easier, safer, less repulsive course and prevent\nconception altogether? Why put these thousands of women who each year\nundergo such abortions to the pain they entail and in whatever danger\nattends them?\n\nWhy continue to send home women to whom pregnancy is a grave danger\nwith the futile advice: \"Now don't get this way again!\" They are sent\nback to husbands who have generations of passion and passion's claim\nto outlet. They are sent back without being given information as to\nhow to prevent the dangerous pregnancy and are expected, presumably,\nto depend for their safety upon the husband's continence. The wife and\nhusband are thrown together to bring about once more the same\ncondition. Back comes the patient again in a few months to be aborted\nand told once more not to do it again.\n\nDoes any physician believe that the picture is overdrawn? I have known\nof many such cases. A recent one that came under my observation was\nthat of a woman who suffered from a disease of the kidneys. Five times\nshe was taken to a maternity hospital in an ambulance after falling in\noffices or in the street. One of the foremost gynecologists of America\nsent her out three times without giving her information as to the\ncontraceptive means which would have prevented a repetition of this\nexperience.\n\nWhy does this situation exist? We do not question the good intent nor\nthe high purposes of these physicians. We know that they observe a\nhigh standard of ethics and that they are working for the uplift of\nthe race. But here is a situation that is absurd--hideously absurd.\nWhat is the matter?\n\nSeveral factors contribute to this state of affairs. First, the\nsubject of contraception has been kept in the dark, even in medical\ncolleges and in hospitals. Abortion has been openly discussed as a\nnecessity under certain conditions, but the subject of contraception,\nas any physician will admit, has not yet been brought to the front. It\nhas escaped specialized attention in the laboratories and the research\ndepartments. Thus there has been no professional stamp of approval by\ngreat bodies of experimenters. The result is that the average\nphysician has felt that contraceptive methods are not yet established\nas certainties and has, for that reason, refused to direct _their\nuse_.\n\nSpecialists are so busy with their own particular subjects and general\npractitioners are so taken up with their daily routine that they\ncannot give to the problem of contraception the attention it must\nhave. Consultation rooms in charge of reputable physicians who have\nspecialized in contraception, assisted by registered nurses--in a\nword, clinics designed for this specialty, would meet this crying\nneed. Such clinics should deal with each woman individually, taking\ninto account her particular disease, her temperament, her mentality\nand her condition, both physical and economic. Their sole function\nshould be to prevent pregnancy. In accomplishing this purpose, a\nhigher standard of hygiene is attained. Not only would a burden be\nremoved from the physician who sends a woman to such a clinic, but\nthere would be an improvement in the woman's general condition which\nwould in a number of ways reflect itself in benefit to her family.\n\nAll this for the diseased woman. But every argument that can be made\nfor preventive medicine can be made for birth-control clinics for the\nuse of the woman who has not yet lost her health. Sound and vigorous\nat the time of her marriage, she could remain so if given advice as to\nby what means she could space her children and limit their number.\nWhen she is not given such information, she is plunged blindly into\nmarried life and a few years is likely to find her with a large\nfamily, herself diseased and damaged, an unfit breeder of the unfit,\nand still ignorant!\n\nWhat are the fruits of this woeful ignorance in which women have been\nkept? First, a tremendous infant mortality--hundreds of thousands of\nbabies dying annually of diseases which flourish in poverty and\nneglect.\n\nNext, the rapid increase of the feebleminded, of criminal types and of\nthe pathetic victims of toil in the child-labor factories. Another\nresult is the familiar overcrowding of tenements, the forcing of the\nchildren into the street, the ensuing prostitution, alcoholism and\nalmost universal physical and moral unfitness.\n\nThose abhorrent conditions point to a blunder upon the part of those\nto whom we have entrusted the care of the health of the individual,\nthe family and the race. The medical profession, neglecting the\nprinciple involved in preventive medicine, has permitted these\nconditions to come about. If they were unavoidable, we should have to\nbear with them, but they are not unavoidable, as shown by facts and\nfigures from other countries where contraceptive information is\navailable.\n\nIn Holland, for instance, where the information concerning\ncontraceptives has been accessible to the people, through clinics and\npamphlets, since 1881, the general death rate and the infant mortality\nrate have fallen until they are the lowest in Europe. Amsterdam and\nThe Hague have the lowest infant mortality rates of any cities in the\nworld.\n\nIt is good to know that the first of the birth-control clinics of\nHolland followed shortly after a thorough and enthusiastic discussion\nof the subject at an international medical congress in Amsterdam in\n1878. The Dutch Neo-Malthusian League was founded in 1881. The first\nbirth-control clinic in the world was opened in 1885 by Dr. Aletta\nJacobs in Amsterdam. So great were the results obtained that there has\nbeen a remarkable increase in the wealth, stamina, stature and\nlongevity of the people, as well as a gradual increase in the\npopulation.\n\nThese clinics must not be confused with the white enameled rooms which\nwe associate with the term in America. They are ordinary offices with\nthe necessary equipment, or rooms in the homes of the nurses, fitted\nout for the work. They are places for consultation and examination,\nopened by specially trained nurses who have been instructed by Dr. J.\nRutgers, of The Hague, secretary of the Neo-Malthusian League, who has\ndevoted his life to this work. There have been more than fifty nurses\ntrained specially for this work by Dr. Rutgers. As a nurse completes\nher course of training, she establishes herself in a community and her\nplace of consultation is called a clinic.\n\nThe general results of this service are best judged by tables included\nin the _Annual Summary of Marriages, Births and Deaths in England,\nWales, Etc., for 1912_. [Footnote: (See table on page 208.)]\n\nIn Amsterdam, the birth rate dropped from 37.1 for the period of\n1881-85 to 24.7 for 1906 and 23.3 in 1912. During the same periods, the\ndeath rate fell from 25.1 to 13.1, and in 1912 to 11.2. Infant\nmortality for the same period fell from 203 for each thousand living\nbirths to 90, and in 1912 to 64. Illegitimate fertility also\ndecreased. Results in other cities, as shown by the table at the end\nof this chapter, are exactly similar.\n\nIn the Australian Commonwealth, where birth control is taken as a\nmatter of course, and information concerning contraceptives is\navailable to the masses, the births were so well distributed in 1915\nthat while the birth rate was 27.3, there was an infant death rate of\nonly 10.7. New Zealand, which is also one of the typical birth-control\ncountries, had a birth rate of 25.3 and an infant death rate of only\n9.1 for the same year. These figures are in marked and happy contrast\nwith those for the birth registration of the United States, where the\nreports for 1916 show a birth rate of 24.8, but an infant death rate\nof 14.7. A similar comparison may be made with the German Empire in\n1913, where there was a birth rate of 27.5 in 1913 and an infant\nmortality rate of 15. In these countries, birth control information is\nnot so generally within the reach of the masses and, consequently, the\nlargest percentage of births come to that class least able to bring\nchildren to full maturity, as indicated in the infant mortality rates.\n\nIn conclusion, I am going to make a statement which may at first seem\nexaggerated, but which is, nevertheless, carefully considered. The\neffort toward racial progress that is being made to-day by the medical\nprofession, by social workers, by the various charitable and\nphilanthropic organizations and by state institutions for the\nphysically and mentally unfit, is practically wasted. All these forces\nare in a very emphatic sense marking time. They will continue to mark\ntime until the medical profession recognizes the fact that the ever\nincreasing tide of the unfit is overwhelming all that these agencies\nare doing for society. They will continue to mark time until they get\nat the source of these destructive conditions and apply a fundamental\nremedy. That remedy is birth control.\n\n-----------------------------------------------\n\n[Footnote: Amsterdam [Malthusian (Birth Control) League started 1881;\nDr. Aletta Jacobs gave advice to poor women, 1885]:\n\n                    1881-85   1906-10   1912\n\nBirth rate.........  37.1      27.7     23.3 per 1,000 of population\nDeath rate.........  25.1      13.1     11.2 per 1,000 of population\n\nINFANTILE MORTALITY:\n\nDeaths in first\nyear................ 203        90      64 per thousand living births\n\n\nThe Hague [now headquarters of the Neo-Malthusian (Birth Control) League]:\n\n                     1881-85   1906-10   1912\n\nBirth rate........... 38.7     27.5     23.6 per 1,000 of population\nDeath rate........... 23.3     13.2     10.9 per 1,000 of population\n\nINFANTILE MORTALITY:\n\nDeaths in first\nyear................. 214      99       66 per thousand living births\n\nThese figures are the lowest in the whole list of death rates and\ninfantile mortalities in the summary of births and deaths in cities in\nthis report.\n\nRotterdam:\n\n                    1881-85   1906-10   1912\n\nBirth rate.......... 37.4      32.0     29.0 per 1,000 of population\nDeath rate.......... 24.2      13.4     11.3 per 1,000 of population\n\nINFANTILE MORTALITY:\n\nDeaths in first\nyear................ 209       105      79 per thousand living births\n\nFertility and Illegitimacy Rates:\n\n                      1880-2  1890-2  1900-2   (Legitimate births per\n                                                1,000 married women\nLegitimate fertility.. 306.4   296.5   252.7    aged 15 to 45.)\n\n\n                      1880-2  1890-2  1900-2  (Illegitimate births per\n                                               1,000 unmarried women,\nIllegitimate fertility..16.1   16.3    11.3    aged 15 to 45.)\n\n\nThe Hague:\n\n                        1880-2    1890-2    1900-2\n\nLegitimate fertility.... 346.5     303.9     255.0\nIllegitimate fertility... 13.4      13.6       7.7\n\n\nRotterdam:\n\n                         1880-2   1890-2   1900-2\n\nLegitimate fertility.... 331.4    312.0    299.0\nIllegitimate fertility... 17.4     16.5     13.1]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nPROGRESS WE HAVE MADE\n\n\nThe silence of the centuries has been broken. The wrongs of woman and\nthe rights of woman have found voices. These voices differ from all\nothers that have been raised in woman's behalf. They are not the\nindividual protests of great feminine minds, nor the masculine\nremedies for masculine oppression suggested by the stricken\nconsciences of a few men. Great voices are heard, both of women and of\nmen, but intermingled with them are millions of voices demanding\nfreedom.\n\nLet it be repeated that movements mothered by emancipated women are\noften deceptive in character. The demand for suffrage, the agitation\nagainst child labor, the regulation of working hours for women, the\ninsistence upon mothers' pensions are palliatives all. Yet as woman's\nunderstanding develops and she learns to think at the urgence of her\nown inner nature, rather than at the dictates of men, she moves on\nfrom these palliatives to fundamental remedies. So at the crest of the\nwave of woman's revolt comes the movement for voluntary motherhood--not\na separate, isolated movement, but the manifestation of a cosmic\nforce--the force that moves the wave itself.\n\nThe walls of the cloister have fallen before the cries of a rising\nwomanhood. The barriers of prurient puritanism are being demolished.\nFree woman has torn the veil of indecency from the secrets of life to\nreveal them in their power and their purity. Womanhood yet bound has\nbeheld and understood. A public whose thoughts and opinions had been\ngoverned by men and by women engulfed in the old order has been\nshocked awake.\n\nSneers and jests at birth control are giving way to a reverent\nunderstanding of the needs of woman. They who to-day deny the right of\na woman to control her own body speak with the hardihood of invincible\nignorance or with the folly of those blind ones who in all ages have\nopposed the light of progress. Few there are to insist openly that\nwoman remain a passive instrument of reproduction. The subject of\nbirth control is being lifted out of the mire into which it was cast\nby puritanism and given its proper place among the sciences and the\nideals of this generation. With this effort has come an illumination\nof all other social problems. Society is beginning to give ear to the\npromise of modern womanhood: \"When you have ceased to chain me, I\nshall by the virtue of a free motherhood remake the world.\"\n\nIt would be miraculous indeed if that victory which has been won, had\nbeen gained without great toil, insufferable anguish and sacrifice\nsuch as all persons experience when they dare to brave the conventions\nof the dead past or blaze a trail for a new order.\n\nBut where the vision is clear, the faith deep, forces unseen rally to\nassist and carry one over barriers which would otherwise have been\ninsurmountable. No part of this wave of woman's emancipation has won\nits way without such vision and faith.\n\nThis is the one movement in which pioneering was unnecessary. The cry\nfor deliverance always goes up. It is its own pioneer. The facts have\nalways stared us in the face. No one who has worked among women can be\nignorant of them. I remember that ever since I was a child, the idea\nof large families associated itself with poverty in my mind. As I grew\nto womanhood, and found myself working in hospitals and in the homes\nof the rich and the poor, the association between the two ideas grew\nstronger.\n\nIn every home of the poor, women asked me the same question. As far\nback as 1900, I began to inquire of my associates among the nurses\nwhat one could tell these worried women who asked constantly: \"What\ncan I do?\" It is the voice of the elemental urge of woman--it has\nalways been there; and whether we have heeded it or neglected it, we\nhave always heard it. Out of this cry came the birth control movement.\n\nEconomic conditions have naturally made this elemental need more\nplain; sometimes they have lent a more desperate voice to woman's cry\nfor freedom. Men and women have arisen since Knowlton and Robert Dale\nOwen, to advocate the use of contraceptives, but aside from these two\nnone has come forward to separate it from other issues of _sex_\nfreedom. But the birth control movement as a movement for woman's\n_basic_ freedom was born of that unceasing cry of the socially\nrepressed, spiritually stifled woman who is constantly demanding:\n\"What can I do to avoid more children?\"\n\nWhen it came time to arouse new public interest in birth control and\norganize a movement, it was found expedient to employ direct and\ndrastic methods to awaken a slumbering public. The Woman Rebel, a\nmonthly magazine, was established to proclaim the gospel of revolt.\nWhen its mission was accomplished and the words \"birth control\" were\non their way to be a symbol of woman's freedom in all civilized\ntongues, it went out of existence.\n\nThe deceptive \"obscenity law,\" invoked oftener to repress womanhood\nand smother scientific knowledge than to restrain the distribution of\nverbal and pictorial pornography, was deliberately challenged. This\ncourse had two purposes. It challenged the constitutionality of the\nlaw and thereby brought knowledge of contraceptives to hundreds of\nthousands of women.\n\nThe first general, organized effort reached in various ways to all\nparts of the United States. Particular attention was paid to the\nmining districts of West Virginia and Montana, the mill towns of New\nEngland and the cotton districts of the Southern states. Men and women\nfrom all these districts welcomed the movement. They sent letters\npledging their loyalty and their active assistance. They participated\ndirectly and indirectly in the protest which awakened the country.\n\nAs time went on, the work was extended to various foreign elements of\nthe population, this being made possible by the enthusiastic\ncooperation of workers who speak the foreign languages.\n\nLeagues were formed to organize those who favored changing the laws.\nLectures were delivered throughout the United States. Articles were\nwritten by eminent physicians, scientists, reformers and\nrevolutionists. Debates were arranged. Newspapers and magazines of all\nkinds, classes and languages gave the subject of birth control serious\nattention, taking one side or the other of the discussion that was\naroused. New books on the subject began to appear. Books by foreign\nauthors were reprinted and distributed in the United States. The Birth\nControl Review, edited by voluntary effort and supported by a stock\ncompany of women who make contributions instead of taking dividends,\nwas founded and continues its work.\n\nAfter a year's study in foreign countries for the purpose of\nsupplementing the knowledge gained in my fourteen years as a nurse, I\ncame back to the United States determined to open a clinic. I had\ndecided that there could be no better way of demonstrating to the\npublic the necessity of birth control and the welcome it would receive\nthan by taking the knowledge of contraceptive methods directly to\nthose who most needed it.\n\nA clinic was opened in Brooklyn. There 480 women received information\nbefore the police closed the consulting rooms and arrested Ethel\nByrne, a registered nurse, Fania Mindell, a translator, and myself.\nThe purpose of this clinic was to demonstrate to the public the\npracticability and the necessity of such institutions. All women who\ncame seeking information were workingmen's wives. All had children. No\nunmarried girls came at all. Men came whose wives had nursing children\nand could not come. Women came from the farther parts of Long Island,\nfrom cities in Massachusetts and Connecticut and even more distant\nplaces. Mothers brought their married daughters. Some whose ages were\nfrom 25 to 35 looked fifty, but the clinic gave them new hope to face\nthe years ahead. These women invariably expressed their love for\nchildren, but voiced a common plea for means to avoid others, in order\nthat they might give sufficient care to those already born. They\nwanted them \"to grow up decent.\"\n\nFor ten days the two rooms of this clinic were crowded to their\nutmost. Then came the police. We were hauled off to jail and\neventually convicted of a \"crime.\"\n\nEthel Byrne instituted a hunger strike for eleven days, which\nattracted attention throughout the nation. It brought to public notice\nthe fact that women were ready to die for the principle of voluntary\nmotherhood. So strong was the sentiment evoked that Governor Whitman\npardoned Mrs. Byrne.\n\nNo single act of self-sacrifice in the history of the birth-control\nmovement has done more to awaken the conscience of the public or to\narouse the courage of women, than did Ethel Byrne's deed of\nuncompromising resentment at the outrage of jailing women who were\nattempting to disseminate knowledge which would emancipate the\nmotherhood of America.\n\nCourage like hers and like that of others who have undergone arrest\nand imprisonment, or who night after night and day after day have\nfaced street crowds to speak or to sell literature--the faith and the\nuntiring labors of still others who have not come into public notice--have\ngiven the movement its dauntless character and assure the final victory.\n\nOne dismal fact had become clear long before the Brownsville clinic\nwas opened. The medical profession as a whole had ignored the tragic\ncry of womanhood for relief from forced maternity. The private\npractitioners, one after another, shook their heads and replied: \"It\ncannot be done. It is against the law,\" and the same answer came from\nclinics and public hospitals.\n\nThe decision of the New York State Court of Appeals has disposed of\nthat objection, however, though as yet few physicians have cared to\nmake public the fact that they take advantage of the decision. While\nthe decision of the lower courts in my own case was upheld, partly\nbecause I was a nurse and not a physician, the court incidentally held\nthat under the laws as they now stand in New York, any physician has a\nright to impart information concerning contraceptives to women as a\nmeasure for curing or preventing disease. The United States Supreme\nCourt threw out my appeal without consideration of the merits of the\ncase. Therefore, the decision of the New York State Court of Appeals\nstands. And under that decision, a physician has a right, and it is\ntherefore his duty, to prescribe contraceptives in such cases, at\nleast, as those involving disease.\n\nIt is true that Section 1142 of the Penal Code of New York State does\nnot except the medical man, and does not allow him to instruct his\npatient in birth control methods, even though she is suffering from\ntuberculosis, syphilis, kidney disorders or heart disease. Without\nlooking farther, the physicians had let that section go at its face\nvalue. No doctor had questioned either its purpose or its legal scope.\nThe medical profession was content to let this apparent limitation\nupon its rights stand, and it remained for a woman to go to jail to\ndemonstrate the fact that under another section of the same code--1145--the\nphysician had the vital right just described.\n\nIt is safe to say that many physicians do not even yet know of their\nlegal rights in this matter.\n\nBut here is what the New York State Court of Appeals said on January\n8, 1918, in an opinion thus far unquestioned and which is the law of\nthe state:\n\n\"Secondly, by section 1145 of the Penal Law, physicians are excepted\nfrom the provisions of this act under circumstances therein mentioned.\nThis section reads: 'An article or instrument, used or applied by\nphysicians lawfully practicing, or by their direction or prescription,\nfor the cure or prevention of disease, is not an article of indecent\nor immoral nature or use, within this article. The supplying of such\narticles to such physicians or by their direction or prescription, is\nnot an offense under this article.'\n\n\"This exception in behalf of physicians does not permit advertisements\nregarding such matters, nor promiscuous advice to patients\nirrespective of their condition, but it is broad enough to protect the\nphysician who in good faith gives such help or advice to a married\nperson to cure or prevent disease. 'Disease,' by Webster's\nInternational Dictionary, is defined to be, 'an alteration in the\nstate of the body, or of some of its organs, interrupting or\ndisturbing the performance of the vital functions, and causing or\nthreatening pain and sickness; illness, disorder.'\n\n\"The protection thus afforded the physician would also extend to the\ndruggist, or vendor, acting upon the physician's prescription or\norder.\"\n\nSection 1142, which shamelessly classes contraceptive information with\nabortion and things obscene, still stands, but under the decision of\nthe Court of Appeals, it is the law of New York State that physicians\nhave the right which they were seemingly denied. Such is probably the\nfact, also, in many other states, for the so-called \"obscenity\" laws\nare modelled more or less, after the same pattern.\n\nOne of the chief results of the Brownsville clinic was that of\nestablishing for physicians a right which they neglected to establish\nfor themselves, but which they are bound, in the very nature of\nthings, to exercise to an increasing degree. Similar tests by women in\nother states would doubtless establish the right elsewhere in America.\n\nWe know of some thirty-five arrests of women and men who have dared\nentrenched prejudice and the law to further the cause of birth\ncontrol. The persistent work in behalf of the movement, attended as it\nwas by danger of fines and jail sentences, seemed to puzzle the\nauthorities. Sometimes they dismissed the arrested persons, sometimes\nthey fined them, sometimes they imprisoned them. But the protests went\non, and through these self-sacrifices, word of the movement went\nconstantly to more and more people.\n\nEach of these arrests brought added publicity. Each became a center of\nlocal agitation. Each brought a part of the public, at least, face to\nface with the issue between the women of America and this barbarous\nlaw.\n\nMany thousands of letters have been answered and thousands of women\nhave been given personal consultations. Each letter and each\nconsultation means another center of influence from which the gospel\nof voluntary motherhood spreads.\n\nForced thus to the front, the problems of birth control and the right\nof voluntary motherhood have been brought more and more to the\nattention of medical students, nurses, midwives, physicians,\nscientists and sociologists. A new literature, ranging all the way\nfrom discussion of the means of preventing conception to the social,\npolitical, ethical, moral and spiritual possibilities of birth\ncontrol, is coming into being. Woman's cry for liberty is infusing\nitself into the thoughts and the consciences and the aspirations of\nthe intellectual leaders as well as into the idealism of society.\n\nIt is but a few years since it was said of The Woman Rebel that it was\n\"the first un-veiled head raised in America.\" It is but a few years\nsince men as well as women trembled at the temerity of a public\ndiscussion in which the subject of sex was mentioned.\n\nBut, measured in progress, it is a far cry from those days. The public\nhas read of birth control on the first page of its newspapers. It has\ndiscussed it in meetings and in clubs. It has been a favorite topic of\ndiscussion at correct teas. The scientist is giving it reverent and\nprofound attention. Even the minister, seeking to keep abreast of the\ntimes, proclaims it from the pulpit. And everywhere, serious-minded\nwomen and men, those with the vision, with a comprehension of present\nand future needs of society, are working to bring this message to\nthose who have not yet realized its immense and regenerating import.\n\nThe American public, in a word, has been permeated with the message of\nbirth control. Its reaction to that message has been exceedingly\nencouraging. People by the thousands have flocked to the meetings.\nOnly the official mind, serving ancient prejudices under the cloak of\n\"law and order,\" has been in opposition.\n\nIt is plain that puritanism is in the throes of a lingering death. If\nanyone doubts it, let it be remembered that the same people who, a few\nyears ago, formed the official opinion of puritanism have so far\nforsaken puritanism as to flood the country with millions of pamphlets\ndiscussing sex matters and venereal disease. This literature was\ndistributed by the United States Government, by state governments, by\nthe Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., and by similar organizations. It treated\nthe physiology of sex far more definitely than has birth-control\nliterature. This official educational barrage was at once a splendid\nsalute to the right of women and men to know their own bodies and the\nlast heavy firing in the main battle against ignorance in the field of\nsex. What remains now is but to take advantage of the victories.\n\nWhat does it all mean? It means that American womanhood is blasting\nits way through the d\u00e9bris of crumbling moral and religious systems\ntoward freedom. It means that the path is all but clear. It means that\nwoman has but to press on, more courageously, more confidently, with\nher face set more firmly toward the goal.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nTHE GOAL\n\n\nWhat is the goal of woman's upward struggle? Is it voluntary\nmotherhood? Is it general freedom? Or is it the birth of a new race?\nFor freedom is not fruitless, but prolific of higher things. Being the\nmost sacred aspect of woman's freedom, voluntary motherhood is\nmotherhood in its highest and holiest form. It is motherhood\nunchained--motherhood ready to obey its own urge to remake the world.\n\nVoluntary motherhood implies a new morality--a vigorous, constructive,\nliberated morality. That morality will, first of all, prevent the\nsubmergence of womanhood into motherhood. It will set its face against\nthe conversion of women into mechanical maternity and toward the\ncreation of a new race.\n\nWoman's r\u00f4le has been that of an incubator and little more. She has\ngiven birth to an incubated race. She has given to her children what\nlittle she was permitted to give, but of herself, of her personality,\nalmost nothing. In the mass, she has brought forth quantity, not\nquality. The requirement of a male dominated civilization has been\nnumbers. She has met that requirement.\n\nIt is the essential function of voluntary motherhood to choose its own\nmate, to determine the time of childbearing and to regulate strictly\nthe number of offspring. Natural affection upon her part, instead of\nselection dictated by social or economic advantage, will give her a\nbetter fatherhood for her children. The exercise of her right to\ndecide how many children she will have and when she shall have them\nwill procure for her the time necessary to the development of other\nfaculties than that of reproduction. She will give play to her tastes,\nher talents and her ambitions. She will become a full-rounded human\nbeing.\n\nThus and only thus will woman be able to transmit to her offspring\nthose qualities which make for a greater race.\n\nThe importance of developing these qualities in the mothers for\ntransmission to the children is apparent when we recall certain\nwell-established principles of biology. In all of the animal species below\nthe human, motherhood has a clearly discernible superiority over\nfatherhood. It is the first pulse of organic life. Fatherhood is the\nfertilizing element. Its development, compared to that of the mother\ncell, is comparatively new. Likewise, its influence upon the progeny\nis comparatively small. There are weighty authorities who assert that\nthrough the female alone comes those modifications of form, capacity\nand ability which constitute evolutionary progress. It was the mothers\nwho first developed cunning in chase, ingenuity in escaping enemies,\nskill in obtaining food, and adaptability. It was they also who\nattained unfailing discretion in leadership, adaptation to environment\nand boldness in attack. When the animal kingdom as a whole is\nsurveyed, these stand out as distinctly feminine traits. They stand\nout also as the characteristics by which the progress of species is\nmeasured.\n\nWhy is all this true of the lower species yet not true of human\nbeings? The secret is revealed by one significant fact--the female's\nfunctions in these animal species are not limited to motherhood alone.\nEvery organ and faculty is fully employed and perfected. Through the\ndevelopment of the individual mother, better and higher types of\nanimals are produced and carried forward. In a word, natural law makes\nthe female the expression and the conveyor of racial efficiency.\n\nBirth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law,\nis nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of\nweeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of\nthose who will become defectives. So, in compliance with nature's\nworking plan, we must permit womanhood its full development before we\ncan expect of it efficient motherhood. If we are to make racial\nprogress, this development of womanhood must precede motherhood in\nevery individual woman. Then and then only can the mother cease to be\nan incubator and be a mother indeed. Then only can she transmit to her\nsons and daughters the qualities which make strong individuals and,\ncollectively, a strong race.\n\nVoluntary motherhood also implies the right of marriage without\nmaternity. Two utterly different functions are developed in the two\nrelationships. In order to give the mate relationship its full and\nfree play, it is necessary that no woman should be a mother against\nher will. There are other reasons, of course--reasons more frequently\nemphasized--but the reason just mentioned should never be overlooked.\nIt is as important to the race as to the woman, for through it is\ndeveloped that high love impulse which, conveyed to the child, attunes\nand perfects its being.\n\nMarriage, quite aside from parentage, also gives two people invaluable\nexperience. When parentage follows in its proper time, it is a better\nparentage because of the mutual adjustment and development--because of\nthe knowledge thus gained. Few couples are fitted to understand the\nsacred mystery of child life until they have solved some of the\nproblems arising out of their own love lives.\n\nMaternal love, which usually follows upon a happy, satisfying mate\nlove, becomes a strong and urgent craving. It then exists for two\npowerful, creative functions. First, for its own sake, and then for\nthe sake of further enriching the conjugal relationship. It is from\nsuch soil that the new life should spring. It is the inherent right of\nthe new life to have its inception in such physical ground, in such\nspiritual atmosphere. The child thus born is indeed a flower of love\nand tremendous joy. It has within it the seeds of courage and of\npower. This child will have the greatest strength to surmount\nhardships, to withstand tyrannies, to set still higher the mark of\nhuman achievement.\n\nShall we pause here to speak again of the rights of womanhood, in\nitself and of itself, to be absolutely free? We have talked of this\nright so much in these pages, only to learn that in the end, a free\nwomanhood turns of its own desire to a free and happy motherhood, a\nmotherhood which does not submerge the woman, but which is enriched\nbecause she is unsubmerged. When we voice, then, the necessity of\nsetting the feminine spirit utterly and absolutely free, thought turns\nnaturally not to rights of the woman, nor indeed of the mother, but to\nthe rights of the child--of all children in the world. For this is the\nmiracle of free womanhood, that in its freedom it becomes the race\nmother and opens its heart in fruitful affection for humanity.\n\nHow narrow, how pitifully puny has become motherhood in its chains!\nThe modern motherhood enfolds one or two adoring children of its own\nblood, and cherishes, protects and loves them. It does not reach out\nto all children. When motherhood is a high privilege, not a sordid,\nslavish requirement, it will encircle all. Its deep, passionate\nintensity will overflow the limits of blood relationship. Its beauty\nwill shine upon all, for its beauty is of the soul, whose power of\nenfoldment is unbounded.\n\nWhen motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result\nof ignorance or accident, its children will become the foundation of a\nnew race. There will be no killing of babies in the womb by abortion,\nnor through neglect in foundling homes, nor will there be infanticide.\nNeither will children die by inches in mills and factories. No man\nwill dare to break a child's life upon the wheel of toil.\n\nVoluntary motherhood will not be passive, resigned, or weak. Out of\nits craving will come forth a fierceness of love for its fruits that\nwill make such men as remain unawakened stand aghast at its fury when\noffended. The tigress is less terrible in defense of her offspring\nthan will be the human mother. The daughters of such women will not be\ngiven over to injustice and to prostitution; the sons will not perish\nin industry nor upon the battle field. Nor could they meet these all\ntoo common fates if an undaunted motherhood were there to defend.\nChildhood and youth will be too valuable in the eyes of society to\nwaste them in the murderous mills of blind greed and hate.\n\nThis is the dawn. Womanhood shakes off its bondage. It asserts its\nright to be free. In its freedom, its thoughts turn to the race. Like\nbegets like. We gather perfect fruit from perfect trees. The race is\nbut the amplification of its mother body, the multiplication of flesh\nhabitations--beautified and perfected for souls akin to the mother\nsoul.\n\nThe relentless efforts of reactionary authority to suppress the\nmessage of birth control and of voluntary motherhood are futile. The\npowers of reaction cannot now prevent the feminine spirit from\nbreaking its bonds. When the last fetter falls the evils that have\nresulted from the suppression of woman's will to freedom will pass.\nChild slavery, prostitution, feeblemindedness, physical deterioration,\nhunger, oppression and war will disappear from the earth.\n\nIn their subjection women have not been brave enough, strong enough,\npure enough to bring forth great sons and daughters. Abused soil\nbrings forth stunted growths. An abused motherhood has brought forth a\nlow order of humanity. Great beings come forth at the call of high\ndesire. Fearless motherhood goes out in love and passion for justice\nto all mankind. It brings forth fruits after its own kind. When the\nwomb becomes fruitful through the desire of an aspiring love, another\nNewton will come forth to unlock further the secrets of the earth and\nthe stars. There will come a Plato who will be understood, a Socrates\nwho will drink no hemlock, and a Jesus who will not die upon the\ncross. These and the race that is to be in America await upon a\nmotherhood that is to be sacred because it is free.","title":"Woman and the New Race","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":43199}