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Title: Birth Control
Author: Halliday G. Sutherland
Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8773] [This file was first posted on August 12, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BIRTH CONTROL ***
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BIRTH CONTROL
A Statement of Christian Doctrine against the Neo-Malthusians
BY
HALLIDAY G. SUTHERLAND, M.D. (Edin.)
CONTENTS
* CHAPTER I
THE ESSENTIAL FALLACIES OF MALTHUSIAN TEACHING
Section 1. MALTHUS AND THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS.
(a) Malthus
(b) The Neo-Malthusians
Section 2. TEACHING BASED ON FALSE PREMISES.
(a) That Population progresses geometrically
(b) That Food Supply progresses arithmetically
(c) That Overpopulation is the cause of Poverty and Disease
Section 3. THE ROOT FALLACY
Section 4. WHAT OVERPOPULATION MEANS
Section 5. NO EVIDENCE OF OVERPOPULATION
(a) In the Suez Canal Zone
(b) In “Closed Countries” like Japan
Section 6. A NATURAL LAW CHECKING FERTILITY
Section 7. OVERPOPULATION IN THE FUTURE
Section 8. HOW NATIONS HAVE PERISHED
Section 9. PHYSICAL CATASTROPHES
(a) Disease
(b) War
Section 10. MORAL CATASTROPHES
* CHAPTER II
THE FALSE DEDUCTIONS CONCERNING POVERTY
Section 1. BIRTHRATE AND POVERTY
(a) Famines
(b) Abundance
(c) Wages
Section 2. POVERTY IN GREAT BRITAIN DUE TO OTHER CAUSES
(a) Under-development
(b) Severance of the Inhabitants from the Soil
Section 3. CAUSES OF POVERTY IN INDIA
Section 4. POVERTY IN FACT CAUSES A HIGH BIRTHRATE
(a) Malthusianism is an attack on the Poor
(b) A Hindrance to Reform
(c) A Quack Remedy for Poverty
Section 5. POVERTY AND CIVILISATION
* CHAPTER III
HIGH BIRTHRATES NOT THE CAUSE OF HIGH DEATH-RATES
Section 1. POVERTY AS NOW EXISTING
Section 2. HIGH BIRTHRATE NOT THE CAUSE OF HIGH DEATH-RATE:
PROVED FROM STATISTICS
(a) Canada
(b) Connaught
Section 3. A LOW BIRTHRATE NO GUARANTEE OF A LOW DEATH-RATE
Section 4. VITAL STATISTICS OF FRANCE
Section 5. COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION
* CHAPTER IV
HOW RELIGION AFFECTS THE BIRTHRATE
Section 1. FRENCH STATISTICS MISINTERPRETED BY MALTHUSIANS
Section 2. EVIDENCE FROM HOLLAND
Section 3. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Section 4. THE SAME RESULTS IN ENGLAND
* CHAPTER V
IS THERE A NATURAL LAW REGULATING THE PROPORTION OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS?
Section 1. THE THEORY OF THOMAS DOUBLEDAY REVIVED
Section 2. MR. PELL’S GENERALISATIONS CRITICISED
Section 3. THE LAW OF DECLINE
Section 4. ILLUSTRATED FROM GREEK HISTORY
(a) Moral Catastrophe in Ancient Greece
(b) The Physical Catastrophe induced by Selfishness
* CHAPTER VI
THE FALLING BIRTHRATE IN ENGLAND: ITS CAUSES
Section 1. NOT, AS MALTHUSIANS ASSERT, DUE MAINLY TO CONTRACEPTIVES
Section 2. DECLINE IN FERTILITY DUE TO SOME NATURAL LAW
Section 3. AND TO CHARACTER OF OCCUPATION.
Section 4. AGGRAVATED DOUBTLESS BY MALTHUSIANISM
* CHAPTER VII
THE EVILS OF ARTIFICIAL BIRTH CONTROL
Section 1. NOT A PHYSICAL BENEFIT
(a) A Cause of Sterility
(b) Neuroses
(c) Fibroid Tumours
Section 2. A SCANDALOUS SUGGESTION
Section 3. A CAUSE OF UNHAPPINESS IN MARRIAGE
Section 4. AN INSULT TO TRUE WOMANHOOD
Section 5. A DEGRADATION OF THE FEMALE SEX
Section 6. SPECIALLY HURTFUL TO THE POOR
(a) Affecting the Young
(b) Exposing the Poor to Experiment
(c) Tending towards the Servile State
Section 7. A MENACE TO THE NATION
(a) There is a Limit to lowering the Death-rate
(b) Birth Control tends to extinguish the Birthrate
(c) A Danger to the Empire
(d) The Dangers of Small Families
Section 8. THE PLOT AGAINST CHRISTENDOM
* CHAPTER VIII
THE RELIGIOUS ARGUMENT AGAINST BIRTH CONTROL
Section 1. AN OFFENCE AGAINST THE LAW OF NATURE
Section 2. REFLECTED IN THE NORMAL CONSCIENCE
Section 3. EXPRESSED IN THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS
Section 4. BIRTH CONTROL CONDEMNED BY PROTESTANT CHURCHES
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII
A NEO-MALTHUSIAN ATTACK ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
* CHAPTER IX
THE TEACHING OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON BIRTH CONTROL
Section 1. A FALSE VIEW OF HER DOCTRINE
Section 2. THE ESSENCE AND PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE
Section 3. ARTIFICIAL STERILITY WHOLLY CONDEMNED
Section 4. THE ONLY LAWFUL METHOD OF BIRTH CONTROL
Section 5. CONCLUSION
* BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIRTH CONTROL
THE ESSENTIAL FALLACIES OF MALTHUSIAN TEACHING
Section 1. MALTHUS AND THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS
Birth control, in the sense of the prevention of pregnancy by chemical, mechanical, or other artificial means, is being widely advocated as a sure method of lessening poverty and of increasing the physical and mental health of the nation. It is, therefore, advisable to examine these claims and the grounds on which they are based. The following investigation will prove that the propaganda throughout Western Europe and America in favour of artificial birth control is based on a mere assumption, bolstered up by economic and statistical fallacies; that Malthusian teaching is contrary to reason and to fact; that Neo-Malthusian practices are disastrous alike to nations and to individuals; and that those practices are in themselves an offence against the Law of Nature, whereby the Divine Will is expressed in creation.
(a) Malthus
The Rev. Thomas Malthus, M.A., in 1798 published his Essay on the Principle of Population. His pamphlet was an answer to Condorcet and Godwin, who held that vice and poverty were the result of human institutions and could be remedied by an even distribution of property. Malthus, on the other hand, believed that population increased more rapidly than the means of subsistence, and consequently that vice and poverty were always due to overpopulation and not to any particular form of society or of government. He stated that owing to the relatively slow rate at which the food supply of countries was increased, a high birthrate [1] inevitably led to all the evils of poverty, war, and high death-rates. In an infamous passage he wrote that there was no vacant place for the superfluous child at Nature’s mighty feast; that Nature told the child to be gone; and that she quickly executed her own order. This passage was modified in the second, and deleted from the third edition of the Essay. In later editions he maintained that vice and misery had checked population, that the progress of society might have diminished rather than increased the “evils resulting from the principle of population,” and that by “moral restraint” overpopulation could be prevented. As Cannan has pointed out, [2] this last suggestion destroyed the force of the argument against Godwin, who could have replied that in order to make “moral restraint” universal a socialist State was necessary. In order to avoid the evils of overpopulation, Malthus advised people not to marry, or, if they did, to marry late in life and to limit the number of their children by the exercise of self-restraint. He reprobated all artificial and unnatural methods of birth control as immoral, and as removing the necessary stimulus to industry; but he failed to grasp the whole truth that an increase of population is necessary as a stimulus not only to industry, but also as essential to man’s moral and intellectual progress.
(b) The Neo-Malthusians
The Malthusian League accept the theory of their revered teacher, but, curiously enough, they reject his advice “as being impracticable and productive of the greatest possible evils to health and morality.” [3] On the contrary, they advise universal early marriage, combined with artificial birth control. Although their policy is thus in flat contradiction to the policy of Malthus, there are two things common to both. Each is based on the same fallacy, and the aim of both is wide of the mark. Indeed, the Neo-Malthusian, like Malthus, has “a mist of speculation over his facts, and a vapour of fact over his ideas.” [4] Moreover, as will be shown here, the path of the Malthusian League, although at first glance an easy way out of many human difficulties, is in reality the broad road along which a man or a nation travels to destruction; and as guides the Neo-Malthusians are utterly unsafe, since they argue from (a) false premises to (b) false deductions. We shall deal with the former in this chapter.
Section 2. TEACHING BASED ON FALSE PREMISES
The theory of Malthus is based on three errors, namely (a) that the population increases in geometrical progression, a progression of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and so on upwards; (b) that the food supply increases in arithmetical progression, a progression of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on upwards; and (c) that overpopulation is the cause of poverty and disease. If we show that de facto there is no overpopulation it obviously cannot be a cause of anything, nor be itself caused by the joint operation of the first two causes. However, each of the errors can be severally refuted.
(a) In the first place, it is true that a population might increase in geometrical progression, and that a woman might bear thirty children in her lifetime; but it is wrong to assume that because a thing might happen, it therefore does happen. The population, as a matter of fact, does not increase in geometrical progression, because Nature [5] places her own checks on the birthrate, and no woman bears all the children she might theoretically bear, apart altogether from artificial birth control.
(b) Secondly, the food supply does not of necessity increase in arithmetical progression, because food is produced by human hands, and is therefore increased in proportion to the increase of workers, unless the food supply of a country or of the world has reached its limit. The food supply of the world might reach a limit beyond which it could not be increased; but as yet this event has not happened, and there is no indication whatsoever that it is likely to happen.
Human life is immediately sustained by food, clothing, shelter, and fuel. Food and clothing are principally derived from fish, fowl, sheep, cattle, and grain, all of which tend, more so than man, to increase in geometrical ratio, although actually their increase in this progression is checked by man or by Nature. As regards shelter there can be no increase at all, either arithmetical or geometrical, apart from the work of human hands. Again, the stock of fuel in or on the earth cannot increase of itself, and is gradually becoming exhausted. On the other hand, within living memory, new sources of fuel, such as petroleum, have been made available, and old varieties of fuel have been used to better advantage, as witness the internal-combustion engine driven by smoke from sawdust. Moreover, in the ocean tides is a vast energy that one day may take the place of fuel.
(c) Thirdly, before anyone can reasonably maintain that overpopulation is
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