Birth Control - Halliday G. Sutherland (summer reading list .TXT) 📗

round the late Dr. Trall, who was a Christian. Her letter was answered by Dr. Binnie Dunlop as follows:

 

“Dr. Marie C. Stopes, whose valuable books I constantly recommend,

protests (page 872) against the statement that the birth control

movement in England dated from the trial of Charles Bradlaugh in

1877—for re-publishing Dr. Knowlton’s pamphlet, _The Fruits of

Philosophy_ because the Government had interdicted it. She must admit,

however, that there was no organised movement anywhere until

Bradlaugh and the Doctors Drysdale, immediately after the trial,

founded the Malthusian League, and that the decline of Europe’s

birthrate began in that year. It may now seem unfortunate that the

pioneers of the contraceptives idea, from 1818 onwards (James Mill,

Francis Place, Richard Carlile, Robert Dale Owen, John Stuart Mill, Dr.

Knowlton, Dr. George Drysdale, Dr. C.R. Drysdale, and Charles

Bradlaugh), were all Free-thinkers; and Dr. Stopes harps on the

religious and praiseworthy Dr. Trall, an American, who published

Sexual Physiology in 1866. But Dr. Trall was not at all a strong

advocate of contraceptive methods. After a brief but helpful reference

to the idea of placing a mechanical obstruction, such as a sponge,

against the os uteri, he said:

 

“Let it be distinctly understood that I do not approve any method for

preventing pregnancy except that of abstinence, nor any means for

producing abortion, on the ground that it is or can be in any sense

physiological. It is only the least of two evils. When people will live

physiologically there will be no need of preventive measures, nor will

there be any need for works of this kind.” [109]

That is a most informative letter. In simple language Dr. Binnie Dunlop tells the remarkable story of how in 1876 three Atheists, merely by forming a little Society in London, were able to cause an immediate fall in the birthrate of Europe. When you come to think of it, that was a stupendous thing for any three men to have achieved. I am very glad that Dr. Binnie Dunlop has defended the Atheists and has painted the late Dr. Trail, despite that “brief but helpful reference,” in his true colours as a Christian. Nevertheless, Dr. Stopes had the last word:

 

“As regards Dr. Dunlop, he now shifts the Atheists’ position by adding

the word ‘organised.’ The Atheists never tire of repeating certain

definite misstatements, examples of which are: ‘If it were not for the

fact that the despised Atheists, Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant,

faced imprisonment, misrepresentation, insult, and ostracism for this

cause forty-four years ago, she [Dr. Stopes] would not be able to

conduct her campaign to-day’ (_Literary Guide_, November, 1921); and

‘Before the Knowlton trial, neither rich nor poor knew anything worth

counting about contraceptive devices’ (_Malthusian_, November 15,

1921). Variations of these statements have been incessantly made, and I

dealt with their contentions in the presidential address for the C.B.C.

Meanwhile to them I reply that: ‘There has never been in this country

any law against the dissemination of properly presented birth control

information, and before, during, and after the Bradlaugh trial

properly presented information on birth control was extending its range

with full liberty.’ My address is now in the press, and when published

will make public not only new matter from manuscript letters of very

early date in my possession, but other overlooked historical facts. I

have already told Dr. Dunlop I refuse to be drawn into a discussion on

facts an account of which is still in the press.” [110]

The lady, by her dissertation on the Laws of England, makes a clumsy effort to evade the point at issue, which is quite simple, namely, whether it was Atheists or Christians who initiated the Neo-Malthusian movement, organised or unorganised. Dr. Binnie Dunlop has here proved his case. I also do maintain that in this matter all credit must be given to the Atheists; and that it would be truly contemptible to deny this fact merely in order to pander to a popular prejudice against Atheism. Nor am I shaken in this opinion when Dr. Stopes points out that there was a Neo-Malthusian movement prior to 1876. Of course there was a movement, but it was always an atheistic movement. In the past no Christian doctor, and indeed no Christian man or woman, advocated artificial birth control. Let us give the Neo-Malthusian his due.

Until recently both the Church of England and the medical profession presented practically a united front against Neo-Malthusian teaching; and, as late as 1914, the Malthusian League did not hesitate to make use of the following calumnies, very mean, very spiteful, very imbecile:

 

“Take the clergy. They are the officers of a Church that has made

marriage a source of revenue and of social control; they preach from a

sacred book that bids the chosen people of God ‘multiply and replenish

the earth’; they know that large families generally tend to preserve

clerical influence and authority; and they claim that every baby is a

new soul presented to God and, therefore, for His honour and glory, the

greatest possible number of souls should be produced.” [111]

That feeble attempt to poison the atmosphere was naturally ignored by intelligent people; and more than once Lambeth has ruled that artificial birth control is sin. Unfortunately, within the Church of England, in spite of the Lambeth ruling, there is still discussion as to whether artificial birth control is or is not sin, the Bishops, as a whole, making a loyal effort to uphold Christian teaching against a campaign waged by Malthusians in order to obtain religious sanction for their evil propaganda. Although many Malthusians are rationalists, they are well aware that without some religious sanction their policy could never emerge from the dim underworld of unmentioned and unrespected things, and could never be advocated openly in the light of day. To this end birth control is camouflaged by pseudo-poetic and pseudo-religious phraseology, and the Anglican Church is asked to alter her teaching. Birth controllers realise that it is useless to ask this of the Catholic Church, a Rock in their path, but “as regards the Church of England, which makes no claim to infallibility, the case is different, and discussion is possible.” [112]

Let us consider, firstly, the teaching of the Church of England on this matter. At the Lambeth Conference of 1908 the Bishops affirmed “that deliberate tampering with nascent life is repugnant to Christian morality.” In 1914 a Committee of Bishops issued a Memorandum [113] in which artificial birth control is condemned as “dangerous, demoralising, and sinful.” The memorandum was approved by a large majority of the Diocesan Bishops, although in the opinion of Dean Inge “this is emphatically a matter in which every man and woman must judge for themselves, and must refrain from judging others.” [114] The Bishops also held that in some marriages it may be desirable, on grounds of prudence or of health, to limit the number of children. In these circumstances they advised the practice of self-restraint; and, as regards a limited use of marriage, they added the following statement:

 

“It seems to most of us only a legitimate application of such

self-restraint that in certain cases (which only the parties’ own

judgment and conscience can settle) intercourse should be restricted by

consent to certain times at which it is less likely to lead to

conception. This is only to use natural conditions; it is approved by

good medical authority; it means self-denial and not self-indulgence.

And we believe it to be quite legitimate, or at least not to be

condemned.”

A small minority of Bishops held that prolonged or even perpetual abstinence from intercourse is the only legitimate method of limiting a family. Finally, in Resolution 68 of the Lambeth Conference in 1920, the Bishops stated that:

 

“We utter an emphatic warning against the use of unnatural means for

the avoidance of conception, together with the grave

dangers—physical, moral, and religious—thereby incurred, and against

the evils with which the extension of such use threatens the race. In

opposition to the teaching which, under the name of science and

religion, encourages married people in the deliberate cultivation of

sexual union as an end in itself, we steadfastly uphold what must

always be regarded as the governing consideration of Christian

marriage. One is the primary purpose for which marriage

exists—namely, the continuation of the race through the gift and

heritage of children; the other is the paramount importance in married

life of deliberate and thoughtful self-control.” [115]

And the Committee on “Problems of Marriage and Sexual Morality” felt called upon “to utter an earnest warning against the use of any unnatural means by which conception is frustrated.” [116]

If Resolution 68 be read in conjunction with the Memorandum of 1914, the teaching of the Church of England is plain to any sane man or woman; it is one with the teaching of the Church Catholic. Artificial birth control is condemned as sin, but, under certain circumstances, the limitation of a family by continence or by restricted intercourse is permitted. As this teaching forbids Neo-Malthusian practices, birth controllers have tried to make the Church alter her teaching to suit their opinions. Although their methods in controversy against the Church must be condemned by everyone who values intellectual honesty, the reader, of his charity, should remember that Malthusians are unable to defend their policy, either on logical or on moral grounds. Without attempting to prove that the teaching of the Church is wrong, birth controllers began the attack by a complete misrepresentation of what that teaching actually is. This unenviable task was undertaken by Lord Dawson of Penn, at the Birmingham Church Congress of

1921.

 

After quoting Resolution 68, Lord Dawson said:

 

“Now the plain meaning of this statement is that sexual union should

take place for the sole purpose of procreation, that sexual union as

an end in itself—not, mind you, the only end—(there we should all

agree), but sexual union as an end in itself is to be condemned.

 

“That means that sexual intercourse should rightly take place only

for the purpose of procreation.

 

“Quite a large family could easily result from quite a few sexual

unions. For the rest the couple should be celibate. Any intercourse not

having procreation as its intention is ‘sexual union as an end in

itself,’ and therefore by inference condemned by the Lambeth

Conference.

 

“Think of the facts of life. Let us recall our own love—our marriage,

our honeymoon. Has not sexual union over and over again been the

physical expression of our love without thought or intention of

procreation? Have we all been wrong? Or is it that the Church lacks

that vital contact with the realities of life which accounts for the

gulf between her and the people?

 

“The love envisaged by the Lambeth Conference is an invertebrate,

joyless thing—not worth the having. Fortunately it is in contrast to

the real thing as practised by clergy and laity.

 

“Fancy an ardent lover (and what respect have you for a lover who is

not ardent?)—the type you would like your daughter to marry—virile,

ambitious, chivalrous—a man who means to work hard and love hard.

Fancy putting before these lovers—eager and expectant of the joys

before them—the Lambeth picture of marriage. Do you expect to gain

their confidence?” [117]

That sort of appeal is not very effective, even as rhetoric; but it is very easy to give an exact parallel. Fancy a fond father (and what respect have you for a father who is not fond?) being told by his daughter’s suitor that he, his prospective son-in-law, looked forward to the physical joys of marriage, but intended to insist on his wife using contraceptives. Would any father regard such a one as the type he would like his daughter to marry?

There is, unfortunately, another answer to Lord Dawson,