Birth Control - Halliday G. Sutherland (summer reading list .TXT) 📗
- Author: Halliday G. Sutherland
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Now comes a most extraordinary fact. Dr. Major Greenwood, [64] a statistician whose methods are beyond question, discovered that there was no real mathematical difference between the number of children in the “limited” families and the number in the unlimited families. In both groups of families the number of children was smaller than the average family in the general population, and in both groups there were fewer children than in the families of the preceding generation to which the parents belonged. Dr. Greenwood states that this is prima facie evidence that deliberate birth control has produced little effect, and that the lowered fertility is the expression of a natural change. Nevertheless, he holds that the latter explanation cannot be accepted as wholly proved on the evidence, owing to certain defects in the data on which his calculations were based.
“I am of opinion that we should hesitate before adopting that
interpretation in view of the cogent indirect evidence afforded by
other data that the fall of the birthrate is differential, and that
the differentiation is largely economic. There are at least two
considerations which must be borne in mind in connection with these
schedules. The first is, that all the marriages described as unlimited
may not have been so. I do not suggest that the answers are
intentionally false, but it is possible that many may have considered
that limitation implied the use of mechanical means; that marriages in
which the parties merely abstained from, or limited the occasions of,
sexual intercourse may have frequently entered as of unrestricted
fertility.”
The above italics are mine, because, if that surmise be correct, it goes to prove that the restriction of intercourse to certain periods, which restriction the married may lawfully practise, is as efficacious in limiting the size of a family as are those artificial methods of birth control contrary both to natural and to Christian morality. Dr. Major Greenwood continues as follows:
“In the second place, the schedules do not provide us with information
as to when limitation was introduced. We are told, for instance, that
the size of the family was five and that its number was limited. This
may mean either that throughout the duration of the marriage
preventive measures were adopted from time to time, or that after
five children had been born fertile intercourse was stopped. In the
absence of detailed information on this point it is plainly impossible
to form an accurate judgment as to the effect of limitation.”
There are, therefore, no accurate figures to indicate the extent to which birth control has contributed to the decline in the birthrate.
Section 3. AND TO CHARACTER OF OCCUPATION
Moreover the claim of birth controllers, that the decline in the English birthrate is mainly due to the use of contraceptives, is rendered highly improbable by the fact that the Registrar-General [65] has shown that in 1911 the birthrate in different classes varied according to the occupation of the fathers. The figures are these:
Births per 1,000 married
Social Class. males aged under 55, including
retired.
1. Unskilled workmen 213
2. Intermediate class 158
3. Skilled workmen 153
4. Intermediate 132
5. Upper and middle class 119
Thus, ascending the social scale, we find, in class upon class, that as the annual income increases the number of children in the family diminishes, until we come to the old English nobility of whom, according to Darwin, 19 per cent. are childless. These last have every reason to wish for heirs to inherit their titles and what land and wealth they possess, and, as their record in war proves them to be no cowards’ breed, it would be a monstrous indictment to maintain that their childlessness is mostly due to the use of contraceptives. If all these results arose from the practice of birth control, it would imply a crescendo of general national selfishness unparalleled in the history of humanity. No, it is not possible to give Neo-Malthusians credit, even for all the evil they claim to have achieved.
Section 4. AGGRAVATED DOUBTLESS BY MALTHUSIANISM
Nevertheless, artificial birth control is an evil and too prevalent thing. My contention is that the primary cause of our falling birthrate is over-civilisation; one of the most evil products of this over-civilisation, whereby simple, natural, and unselfish ideals, based on the assumption that national security depends on the moral and economic strength of family life, have been replaced largely by a complicated, artificial, and luxurious individualism; and that diminished fertility, apart from the practice of artificial birth control, is a result of luxurious individualism. Even if it be so, one of the most evil products of over-civilisation is the use of contraceptives, because this practice, more than any other factor in social life, hastens, directly and indirectly, the fall of a declining birthrate; and artificial birth control, to the extent to which it is practised, therefore aggravates the consequences of a law of decline already apparent in our midst. I have already said that restriction of intercourse, as held lawful by the Catholic Church, is possibly as efficacious in limiting the size of a family as are artificial methods. If any man shall say that therefore there is no difference between these methods, let him read the fuller explanation given in another connection on p. 153. (See [Reference: Explanation]) The method which reason and morality alike permit is devoid of all those evils, moral, psychological, and physiological, that follow the use of contraceptives.
[Footnote 62: The Small Family System, pp. 195 and 160, New York, 1917.]
[Footnote 63: The Declining Birthrate, p. 323.]
[Footnote 64: The Declining Birthrate, p. 324.]
[Footnote 65: The Declining Birthrate, p. 9.]
THE EVILS OF ARTIFICIAL BIRTH CONTROL
Section 1. NOT A PHYSICAL BENEFIT
Birth control is alleged to be beneficial for men and women, and these “benefits” are no less amazing than the fallacies on which this practice is advocated. At the Obstetric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1921 the leading physicians on diseases of women condemned the use of contraceptives. [66]
A Cause of Sterility
Dr. R.A. Gibbons, Physician to the Grosvenor Hospital for Women, said
that nowadays it was common for a young married woman to ask her
medical man for advice as to the best method of preventing conception.
The test of relative sterility was the rapidity with which conception
takes place. He had made confidential inquiries in 120 marriages. In
100 cases preventive measures had been used at one time or another, and
the number of children was well under 2 per marriage. In Paris some
time ago the birthrate was 104 per 1,000 in the poorer quarters and
only 34 in a rich quarter of the city; in London comparative figures
had been given as 195 and 63 in poor and in rich quarters. These and
similar figures showed that women living in comfort and luxury did not
want to be bothered with confinements. It had been said that the degree
of sterility could be regarded as an index to the morals of a race.
Congenital sterility was rare, but the number of children born in
England was decreasing. It had been estimated that one-third of the
pregnancies in several great cities abroad aborted. Dr. Gibbons then
quoted figures given by Douglas Wight and Amand Routh to show the high
percentage of abortions and stillbirths. In his opinion it was the duty
of medical men to point out to the public that physiological laws could
not be broken with impunity. It had been observed that if the doe were
withheld from the buck at oestral periods atrophy of the ovary took
place. In this connection Dr. Gibbons recalled a large number of
patients who had used contraceptives in early married life, and
subsequently had longed in vain for a child. This applied also to those
who had decided, after the first baby, to have no more children, and
had subsequently regretted their decision.
Neuroses
Professor McIlroy, of the London School of Medicine for Women, deplored
the amount of time spent on attempting to cure sterility when
contraceptives were so largely used. The fact that neuroses were
largely the result of the use of contraceptives should be made widely
known, and also that in women the maternal passion was even stronger,
though it might develop later, than sexual passion, and would
ultimately demand satisfaction.
Fibroid Tumours
Dr. Arthur E. Giles, Senior Surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital for Women,
endorsed Dr. Gibbons’s remarks as to the great unhappiness resulting
from deliberately childless marriages, and he added that he had always
warned patients of this. He believed that quinine had a permanently bad
effect. Those who waited for a convenient season to have a child often
laid up trouble for themselves. On the question of fibroid tumours he
had come to the conclusion that these were not a cause but in a sense a
consequence of sterility. Women who were subjected to sexual excitement
with no physiological outlet appear to have a tendency to develop
fibroids. He would like the opinion to go forth from the section that
the use of contraceptives was a bad thing.
All these authorities are agreed that the practice of artificial sterility during early married life is the cause of many women remaining childless, although later on these women wish in vain for children. To meet this difficulty one of the advocates of birth control advises all young couples to make sure of some children before adopting these practices; thus demanding of young parents, at the very time when it is most irksome, that very sacrifice of personal comfort and prosperity to prevent which is the precise object of the vicious practice. Nor is sterility the only penalty. The disease known as neurasthenia arises both in women and in men in consequence of these methods. Dr. Mary Sharlieb, [67] after forty years’ experience of diseases of women, writes as follows:
“Now, on the surface of things, it would seem as if a knowledge of how
to prevent the too rapid increase of a family would be a boon to
over-prolific and heavily burdened mothers. There are, however, certain
reasons which probably convert the supposed advantage into a very real
disadvantage. An experience of well over forty years convinces me that
the artificial limitation of the family causes damage to a woman’s
nervous system. The damage done is likely to show itself in inability
to conceive when the restriction voluntarily used is abandoned because
the couple desire offspring.
“I have for many years asked women who came to me desiring children
whether they have ever practised prevention, and they very frequently
tell me that they did so during the early days of their married life
because they thought that their means were not adequate to the support
of a family. Subsequently they found that conception, thwarted at the
time that desire was present, fails to occur when it becomes
convenient. In such cases, even although examination of the pelvic
organ shows nothing abnormal, all one’s endeavours to secure conception
frequently go unrewarded. Sometimes such a woman is not only sterile,
but nervous, and in generally poor health;
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