Contraception/Chapter 8

The last book by the famous American writer William Hawley Smith^[1] contained the following statement:—"The science of human reproduction; on a basis of choice rather than chance once discovered, and its practice actually inaugurated, its spread will be assured in due time, all over the whole earth . . . for the advantages to be thus obtained, to all parties concerned, are so many and so great that, once realized, they will be universally adopted."

Yet to-day opponents hinder the spread of the helpful knowledge of contraception: what are their stock arguments?

There are few reasoned objections to contraception, but the very large numbers of prejudiced and biased statements against the idea, are serious. How true are the ​following words! "In my opinion the main present obstacle to the complete success of the [birth control] movement in Britain is not the arguments against it nor the reactionary irrational opposition which confronts every beneficent and simple plan for the amelioration of mankind. It is the notorious false shame of the Anglo-Saxon race. We do not like to talk seriously about the use of contraceptives."^[2] It would be quite impossible to deal with all the prejudices against the subject, but it may not be out of place to take up point by point some of the more prominent statements masquerading as "arguments" and to demonstrate how most of them depend on a false interpretation, or an incomplete knowledge, of essential facts.

Many of these objections to the practice of contraception would, I expect, be classed as "scientific" by those who raise them. They crop up in the most unexpected places and are found tacked on to thesis of great variety. Were I writing a complete historical memoir on the subject, it would be worth while to record the ​curious ideas of earlier ages and discuss carefully all the arguments based on pseudoscientific premises. I propose, however, at present only to deal with a few of the statements made in recent years by persons of standing, or else with ideas which are in such general circulation as to influence public opinion.

The commonest form in which the pseudo-scientific argument is found is some variety of the pernicious generalization involved in the use of the oft-repeated phrase that "birth control methods are harmful."

The double fallacy contained in this phrase depends upon the facts that birth control methods are very numerous, varied in their actions and reactions, and in the procedure they involve (as has been noted in the preceding pages) and that while one method may be harmful to certain people in one respect and another to other types in another respect, there are methods which are not at all harmful to normal people. Nevertheless in the unwholesome atmosphere of prurient concealment which has for so long surrounded sex subjects in this country, the fact that even untrained minds have detected a certain amount of harmfulness in some forms of procedure has lent colour to the ​false generalization that "all birth control methods are harmful."

I have on many occasions heard that generalization uttered with pompous assurance, and I have challenged the one who made it to state which methods and what was the harm, to which reference was being made. Almost without exception the mind of the objector was easily demonstrated to be in a hazy fog, possessing little or no knowledge of the details of actual methods, and a total incapacity to be explicit about the exact nature or the psychological or physiological reactions of any method which I introduced by name into the discussion. Nevertheless such arguments as the incorrect generalization in the opening paragraph have gone forth to the world as the pronouncements of "science" or "medical opinion."

A few other indications of the kind of loose talking and thinking on this subject which masquerade as serious opinion follow.

"In the vast majority of families where no restrictions or unnatural means are used and where mothers nurse their children for eight or nine months, children only come every two years." This statement by Lady ​Barrett, M.D., may be approximately true of middle class women of the type with limited fertility it is ridiculously untrue of the typical working women who really form the "vast majority" of our female population, most of whom have babies annually or are incessantly bringing on abortions. It has even been said by a distinguished authority that abortions and miscarriages are more numerous than live births in some towns.

"I have no doubt that prevention of maternity by artificial methods invariably produces physical, mental and I think moral harm to those who resort to it . . . I am sure it does harm to both if they both agree to it. The act is incomplete; it is not a spontaneous act; and if the act ceases before the proper crisis, as it were, the nervous system suffers enormously if the habit is continued for long. And the result often is that there is a great deal of congestion produced in the woman, at all events." This statement by Amand Routh, M.D., before the Birth Rate Commission in 1914 appears to be a weighty medical opinion against all "artificial" contraceptives. It is unqualified, and if read by those who know less than Dr. Routh about the subject will appear to be an argument "against all birth control methods"; but those who examine it care​fully will perceive that he is evidently speaking of coitus interruptus (see p. 69) though he does not say so. It is clear that the points he scores against coitus interruptus have no validity against, for instance, the occlusive cap (see p. 138).

"Once pregnancy is abolished there is no natural check on the sexual passions or husband or wife." This low-minded statement is made by Halliday Sutherland, M.D., who proceeds to glorify Ireland and Spain as models for us to copy! Such a statement as this is based on a confusion between lust and true love, and can only be made by one who is ignorant of the latter, and who ignores not only physiological laws but also forgets the instincts of human refinement and restraint which characterize love as distinct from lust.

A similar idea was expressed by Professor McIlroy to the Medico-Legal Society when she said, "Intercourse, when premeditated, and where precautionary measures are taken, is no longer a spontaneous act; it is a mere physical union." This is untrue of all high-minded lovers, whether or not they use a contraceptive. It does not apply at all to the use of a contraceptive for racial purposes, and one, moreover, so simply managed as the occlusive cap which can be ​regularly inserted daily, in the afternoon, and taken out next morning. Then, whenever the sex union takes place it is a purely spontaneous act of love; the cap, like the sleeping robe, being an article of frequent wear should have no psychological reactions on the coital act except to free it from fear and thus to elevate it.

Seldom, but nevertheless occasionally, opinions antagonistic to contraception are coupled with some more specific facts which lend an air of authority to the pronouncement. The most notable of these in recent literature was the lecture in 1922 of Professor Arthur Thomson on "Problems involved with Congress of the Sexes in Man." His main theme was one of great general interest, and he championed the view that "the male ejaculate possesses other properties than those directly associated with the male fertilizing element."^[3]

This view I naturally received with something more than ordinary assent, as it is my own view and was published by me in 1918.^[4] Since publishing it I was glad ​to learn that so eminent a surgeon as Sir Arbuthnot Lane held the view that the prostatic secretion is of positive value, and is absorbed by the woman. Professor Thomson in presenting his opinion gave what professed to be complete references to all subsidiary evidence in its favour, but he omitted mention both of Sir Arbuthnot Lane's and of my priority to him for what is true in his view. I had said "It is extremely likely that the highly stimulating secretion of man's seminal fluid can and does penetrate and affect the woman's whole organism"; also "Women absorb from the seminal fluid of the man some substance, 'hormone,' 'vitamine' or stimulant which affects their internal economy in such a way as to benefit and nourish their whole systems."^[5] I consider the vagina is absorptive. Professor A. Thomson's idea that it is the secretory glands of the uterus which do the absorbing, was promptly and effectively answered by Blair Bell^[6] who ​said "In regard to these glands, Professor Thomson wants to know, 'What then, is their function? Are they secreting or absorbent? In truth the views on the subject are very vague' (italics mine). Whose views? I do not think that any gynæcologist has any doubt on the matter, nor do I suppose any physiologist would have much difficulty in deciding between secretion and absorption."

The argument in Professor Thomson's paper which received the most general attention was contained in his concluding paragraph, in which he said of contraceptives that "The employment of such methods [although he does not specify which] while preventing fertilization may also be the means of depriving the female of certain secretions which may exercise a far-reaching influence on her economy."

As the Editor of the British Medical Journal refused to publish any letter from me on the subject, even when requested to do so by Professor Sir William Bayliss, F.R.S., the great physiologist, I sent a short letter to Health.^[7] About Prof. Thomson's article "I have two things to say. The first is my ever-recurrent astonishment that ​persons who have some knowledge of scientific method should nevertheless speak of 'methods of contraception,' and lump their views about them under this one head, as though all the various methods had the same kind of physiological result, and, moreover, should do this in spite of my clear separation of the different types of physiological reactions naturally resulting from the different physiological processes involved in the very great variety of methods in use. It is utterly unscientific, indeed it is absurd, to talk about any general result of 'methods of contraception.' Each method has its own particular reactions and results, and unless they are distinctly specified, any generalization about 'methods' is invalid."

I concluded: "While naturally I approve of the main thesis of Professor Thomson's paper, I think that he weakens his argument by ignoring the proved absorptive property of the vagina, for undoubtedly in unions properly conducted, the woman does absorb through the vagina subtle substances of some nature or another not yet determined, which are certainly beneficial. The particular theory of uterine absorption elaborated by Professor Thomson is one already discussed and disputed in the ​British Medical Journal, about which very much can be said. If his views be true that the 'uterine glands' absorb from the seminal fluid, even that is no argument against the use of quinine and various other methods of contraception, because such methods do not prevent the seminal fluid from penetrating the womb. It is to be hoped, therefore, that Professor Thomson's indiscriminate remarks about contraceptives will not mislead others into generalizing too hastily."

This "argument" is incessantly brought forward by shallow thinkers and moralists. It is hardly necessary to point out that in this sense, the whole of civilization is "not natural": that tooth-brushes and eyeglasses, chloroform and telephones are each and all as much a violation of "nature's laws." Sir E. Ray Lankester^[8] pointed out very vividly that "Man is Nature's rebel. Where Nature says 'Die!' Man says 'I will live!'" and that man must face the consequences in his too great numbers. He points out that animal populations do not increase—"'Increase and multiply has never been said by Nature ​to her lower creatures' except for a time and locally, but man 'Nature's Insurgent Son' is the only animal regularly and persistently increasing. 'Man can only deal with this difficulty, created by his own departure from Nature—to which he can never return—by thoroughly investigating the laws of breeding and heredity, and proceeding to apply a control to human multiplication based upon certain and indisputable knowledge" (p. 23).

The political, or national, objection which is often expressed in the newspapers is crudely conveyed by the statement "that birth control leads to 'racial suicide.'" It should be noted in passing that the phrase "race suicide" was first coined by Dr. Alsworth Ross, the famous Professor of Sociology in America, was taken up by President Theodore Roosevelt, and has since become a regular journalistic warcry. Recently, however, Professor Ross has repudiated the current interpretation of the idea, as the conditions are changed, and he now considers the unregulated birth rate the greatest menace^[9] of civilization.

​The dwindling and then dying out of a race which is implied in the phrase "race suicide" does not depend, and, in my opinion, has never been caused by the use of contraceptives. Races are injured by other influences, for instance by the sterilizing and detrimental effects of syphilis and gonorrhœa, which are immensely more potent as race-destroyers than even the worst contraceptive measures used in the worst kind of way could ever be. And similarly abortifacients are immeasurably more detrimental to a race than the worst contraceptives. Nevertheless, arguments against contraception have been based on the assumption that the intelligent control of conception would lead to a smaller production of citizens and the ultimate reduction to extinction point of the race who made use of these scientific measures. Much has recently been made of the sad predicament of France, but it is not generally stated that since 1920 (see p. 361) contraception has been made criminal in France, and what she is suffering from today are abortions, and the sterility induced by venereal diseases and various abnormalities. From a national point of view statistics are of some value as an indication of what is taking place; but of less value than is ​commonly supposed. Before relying on statistics we need to know in much greater detail the procedure of the private individuals from whom the statistics are compiled. Crude statistical evidence alone will not satisfy a mind trained to deep scientific inquiry.

In connection with "race suicide" in particular, statistics dealing solely with the birth-rate are of little or no value as evidence although they are often quoted, and there is generally a newspaper outcry of pleasure when our birth-rate is high and tearful wails when our birth-rate is low. A few moments' thought however will make it apparent that the birth-rate itself is no indication whatever of racial prosperity or success. A high birth-rate, even the highest possible, which is coupled with a high death-rate will not increase population, and as has long been apparent in China for instance (where a very high birth-rate prevails) a population with a high birth-rate may be nearly or absolutely stationary owing to the incidence of early deaths.

An interesting paper by Rubin^[10] brings ​this point into prominence, and he concludes that however great in olden times was the birth-rate, the death-rate kept the peoples from multiplying, but that in recent times the races multiply enormously by reducing the death-rate, and between 1800 and 1900 the population of our quarter of the globe has increased from about 187 millions to about 400 millions.

The birth-rate and the death-rate of infants and young persons must be considered together, for it is evident that even with a low birth-rate if there is a very low death-rate of infants and the immature, the survival rate of adult persons may be so satisfactorily high that the numbers will increase rapidly. As a matter of fact evidence from a number of different countries seems to show that where the birth-rate is very high, early mortality is also generally high, and, therefore, the survival rate is low. Arguments on these lines have been specially developed by the Malthusian League, and details of their position will be found in Drysdale's book^[11] and the old journal, the "Malthusian." Although one cannot accept without ques​tion either all their statistics or their deductions, several of their main arguments are substantially correct. Many others, of course, have dealt with various aspects of this subject, and by a study of the ordinary published statistics it is easy to ascertain that the survival rate is distinct from the birth and death-rates, and nationally is the most important factor.

In spite of the "decline in our birth-rate" our total number of births is steadily increasing as the size of the population grows. Speaking before the Eugenics Education Society a year or two ago I gave a very simple illustration to show that the birth of each child sends up the birth-rate for one year and sends it down for approximately twenty years! This point is generally overlooked, but should be borne in mind, so I will repeat the illustration:—

A healthy young couple are cast away on a comfortable uninhabited island yielding food and shelter in plenty. Total population 2. A child is born to them: birth-rate 50 per cent. Total population 3. A second child is born, but this time the birth-rate is not 50 per cent. of the total population, but only 33½ per cent. Total population 4. Another child ​is born, and this time the birth-rate is 25 per cent. and so on for the twenty years or so while the original couple are fertile and before the new generation gets paired off and starts reproducing. Here you see the steady decline of the birth-rate as a result of the steady increase of the population.

If, contrariwise, every one of these infants had died at or within a year of birth the birth-rate would have remained high, at 50 per cent. of the total population but the total population, of the island would have remained stationary. Birth-rates, therefore, must always not only be "corrected" but also presented in correlation with death-rates and survival rates of young people up to at least 20 years of age. Moreover, as the death-rate of old people is postponed, and the old live longer, so also is the apparent birth-rate in proportion to the total population sent down. Consideration of vital statistics and their interpretation is not an integral part of the main theme of this book, so these few illustrative examples should suffice to show the fallacy of the "race suicide" argument which bases its outcry on a low birth-rate alone. Among the many writers. who have dealt with the birth-rate aspect ​of the subject, reference should be made to the useful survey by Millard^[12] and an invaluable analysis of the Australian census by Knibbs.^[13]

A further national consideration involved in the use of contraception hinges on the quality of the offspring produced. It is maintained by those who are in favour of contraception that by its sound and proper use detrimental births (that is births which will either injure the mother or lead to unsatisfactory offspring) can be avoided in the cheapest and most wholesome way. This is a two-fold national advantage, both preventing the wastage of the mother's vitality and the outlay involved in the production of delicate, diseased or unwholesome infants which are unlikely to live, and are therefore a great source of expense and waste. For lack of such control we are in real danger of a race suicide not yet properly realized. Because the decline in the birth-rate appears to be much greater in "those sections of every class in which ​there is most prudence, foresight and self-control^[14] than among the population at large." A vivid illustration of, the racial danger of wrong and uncontrolled breeding is given by a dignitary of the Church of England who quoted Professor Karl Pearson in his argument favouring contraception.^[15] "A blind woman had two daughters blind at 40. Of her five grandchildren only one escaped; the other four were blind by 30. Of her fifteen great-grandchildren thirteen had cataract. Of the forty-six great-great-grandchildren who can be traced, twenty were of feeble sight at 7, and some lost the sight of both eyes. Forty defective individuals in a stock still multiplying, which nature, left to herself, would have cut off at its very inception!"

Leaving aside tainted stock, the value of the spacing of births as a purely hygienic measure is of great national importance. Statistics have been prepared from carefully selected families showing the mortality of young children according to their place in the family and the spacing measured in ​length of time between fraternal births, to which reference has already been made (see p. 45). Expressed in a few words the main result of these inquiries was to show that where less than two years intervened between successive births from the same mother, the chances of life of the infant were almost halved in comparison with those spaced at two-year intervals or more. Consequently the argument is obvious that spacing by control so that the natural hasty succession of births is avoided is a measure of national benefit, as producing more economically than in any other way a larger proportion of healthy potential citizens. This is also well shown in a general way by the middle classes who on the whole have spaced children, and who lose far fewer in infancy than do the classes ignorant of means of control.

That the knowledge of contraceptives is used in this way to produce families in the interests of the State is interestingly demonstrated by the results of the questionnaire sent out by the Bureau of Social Hygiene in America,^[16] which showed that the average number of pregnancies was ​higher among those intellectuals who used contraceptive measures than it was among those who did not!

An excellent and readable essay on the national aspects of this subject has recently appeared from the pen of Col. G. T. K. Maurice;^[17] and to this reference should be made for a balanced discussion of the greater national problems which are outside the scope of my present work.

As I pointed out in 1921 in Chapter XIX of "Radiant Motherhood," the loss to the community measured in potential work undone owing to ill-health of the mother or child, coupled with the wasted work done by doctors and nurses in attending to illnesses which ought never to have taken place, is a very great national loss quite apart from the expense and wasted work involved in the making of a. large number of infants' coffins.

Such wasteful births, taking place as they do mostly in the families of the poor, tend not only to increase their misery and general C3 condition, but also to add to their bickerings and dissatisfaction with present conditions. Such births also augment the charges on the rates and taxes ​because some form of relief and maintenance for unemployables and defectives is almost always given. It is undoubtedly in the national interest that such wasteful births should no longer be allowed to originate haphazard. "Race Suicide" to-day consists in permitting unchecked the growth of a parasitic degenerate population to suck the life-blood from the healthy and responsible sections of the community.

Another argument often brought forward in a general way is the statement that birth control must be bad for the race because the first-born are inferior." This is one of the stock phrases of the opponents of controlled conception, and when tracked to its lair is disposed of by Cobb who pointed out clearly that Hansen's original statement "The inferior quality of the first-born children," Eugenics Review, (1913) was based on serious errors of data and inaccuracies in the methods of corrections of the statistics employed which were consequently inaccurate and misleading.^[18] Nevertheless, it takes much to kill an "argument" which lends support to fixed prejudices, and the statement still has a currency it does not deserve. The fact that Prof. Karl ​Pearson, the well-known statistician also published "proofs" of the "inferiority" of the first- and second-born, gives a weight and authority to this mistake, which is most unfortunate, and few in England seem to know the refutation of his views, and exposure of his fallacies in this connection, made by Prof. Macaulay, the Ex-President of the Actuarial Society of America.^[19] Also in this country Greenwood and Yule^[20] demonstrated some of the objections to accepting Prof. Pearson's conclusions. The subject frequently comes up for partial discussion, as in the Correspondence columns of the Lancet and elsewhere, and references to the theme are too numerous to be considered here.

Some very interesting data were collected by Ansell long ago,^[21] who showed that the ​number of still-births, and also the mortality in the first week of life, were greater in the first-born; then, however, for a number of years, of those who survived, the vitality of the first-born was greater than of the other children.

In considering the "inferiority" ог "superiority" of an individual however, it is crude to forget their potential parenthood; and a careful study of Ewart's^[22] very interesting paper will reveal not only the complexities of the necessary considerations, but also that "some credence can be given to the belief that those born during the declining years of life" . . . have a "low survival value of their offspring."

A fallacy which has wide currency in certain "reform" circles (particularly in working men's clubs where social reform is treated from the point of view of a material improvement in the position of the proletariat), is indicated in the cliché "all infants are born healthy." This is often used in argument against birth control, and generally has tacked on to it some such corollary as, that "therefore all would grow up ​healthy if they were given good environmental condition, better housing," &c., and "the State needs every child born." This series of fallacies is best demolished at its foundation by demonstrating the utter falsity of the idea that "all infants are born healthy." Very much evidence can be adduced, but I will quote one record only. The live births at the Baudelocque Clinic (where cleanliness and "housing conditions" at any rate may be accepted as satisfactory) in 1920 numbered 3,021. Of these 103 died in the first ten days, the causes of death being "especially congenital debility due to premature birth and hereditary disease."^[23] The obvious prophylaxis for such cases is to prevent conception in all women as are likely to yield births of unsatisfactory type. Furthermore, one has only to mention syphilis to be reminded of the myriads of infants who were born already rotted by disease which "environment" could never make normal.

Æsthetic Objections are often raised by those who have not themselves experienced the agony of rapidly repeated and uncontrolled pregnancy. By such people 'All contraceptives are so sordid and unæsthetic ​that they shock the sense of delicacy in the users' is an oft repeated theme. This idea was discussed by Forel, by myself and many others, and Havelock Ellis^[24] well summed up the answer to this objection as follows:—(p. 73) "Eye-glasses are equally unæsthetic, yet they are devices, based on nature, wherewith to supplement the deficiencies of nature. However in themselves unæsthetic, for those who need them they make the æsthetic possible. Eye-glasses and contraceptives alike are a portal to the spiritual world for many who, without them, would find that world largely a closed book."

In this country there are none, as there are not and never have been laws against contraception in Great Britain. Such laws have existed in America since the seventies, and in France since 1920. Their scope is given in detail in Chapter XII, p. 336. Yet, in this country, one sometimes comes across the false statement that contraception is illegal. It is not.

The practice of medicine is, of course in no way involved in any particular ​religious attitude and is bound up with no particular religious creed. Nevertheless, as individuals, medical men and women are apt to a certain extent to be swayed by a religious attitude, and even if they are not, a considerable number of their patients most certainly will be. In connection with Birth Control the religious aspect consciously or unconsciously is of vastly more importance than it would be at present in connection with operative surgery^[25] or with the treatment of a straightforward disease like influenza or mumps, for instance, or indeed in almost any other health problem.

In almost all matters appertaining to sex, religion has been involved since time immemorial, because in the olden days the priests, whatever the religion, were the lawgivers in sex hygiene. This, coupled with the mysterious nature of sex, and the intensity of religious emotion aroused by its perversion and thwarting, has maintained to this day a very strong religious atmosphere around the subject of contraception which is in other respects a purely medical and scientific theme. Therefore, it will not be out of place, indeed it is almost necessary, to touch upon some of the religious aspects of ​the subject in a work which is designed to be useful to the ordinary practitioner, for he will certainly meet a number of patients who will be guided by their religious feeling in this matter and obey their "consciences" rather than their medical adviser, unless he can overcome their prejudices.

Forel says^[26] "It seems almost incredible that in some countries (including England) medical men who are not ashamed to throw young men into the arms of prostitution, blush when mention is made of anticonceptional methods. This false modesty, created by custom and prejudice, waxes indignant at innocent things while it encourages the greatest infamies."

Owing to a variety of circumstances, some of which will become apparent in the historical chapters, the present generation in this country is apt to look upon contraception as a materialistic or atheistic solution of what they well know to be one of life's greatest difficulties, namely, the excessive child-bearing of many married women. The circumstances which have led up to this public attitude in our country are dealt with later on; they do not in any sense necessarily reflect a universal or international ​attitude towards the subject, but arise from the limited knowledge of their own history among English speaking peoples. For the purpose of the present chapter one may take it that in spite of my recent efforts in this direction^[27] there still remains a very strong misapprehension that scientific and medically advisable methods of birth control are in some ways displeasing to whichever Deity the individual believes in, and are counter to the teachings of Christianity. In fact there are some who go so far as to say that contraception is "against God's Law."

Yet there are Churchmen who see clearly the mistakenness of such an attitude and the Dean of St. Paul's, as Chairman of the first Birth-rate Commission of the National Council of Public Morals, said, "Within the last century the death-rate has been reduced from the mediæval level (45) to 14, and if the birth-rate were maintained at anything like its natural level, about 40, all over the world, the population of the globe, which now is 1,700 millions, would in 120 years have reached 27,000 millions, ​or about ten times as great a number as the earth could probably support. That, it seems to me, is the fundamental fact we have to recognize, and one which makes a drastic limitation of the birth-rate an absolute necessity."^[28]

But the Dean is rather an exception among Churchmen, and the subject of contraception has been particularly misunderstood by the Churches as a whole, because they have held an ascetic ideal and therefore the mentality of those dominating the Churches has seldom been sufficiently normal even to apprehend the problems involved, or to place consideration of the Race before their individualistic and ascetic ideals.

A discussion of the causes and reactions of this abnormal mentality in high places would lead us too far, but reference should be made to my Evidence before the Birth Rate Commission^[29] and I may quote a couple of paragraphs from a valuable little ​paper published by the Medico-Legal Society of New York:^[30] "In every community there are persons of privileged social and educational status, whose psycho-sexual attitudes and life have never attained real psychologic maturity. . . . Such persons all have painful moments of emotional conflict over their own sexual impulses, or over their methods of sexual self-expression. . . . such persons tend to find a compensation for the painful and shameful aspects of their lives by exalting their own unfortunate defects, or the mask which conceals them, to the rank of a social virtue, or of a religious 'duty' to God. To insure to themselves this much-needed exaltation, they cannot bear to have the intellectualization of their idealized perversions frankly pointed out, or bluntly repudiated. In order to neutralize their own feelings of inferiority and of shame, they must therefore denounce the more healthy-minded ones as immoral, and must seek to coerce them to live according to the morbid ideal. . . . The morbid vehemence of these few insures imitation, or at least acquiescence, ​on the part of many of the more healthyminded ones, because the latter have not a sufficiently conscious attitude concerning the meaning and value of their own greater wholesomeness." "In the blurred and excited vision of such psycho-erotic morbidity, it was natural enough that no difference could be discovered between murder, abortion, and a physiologically and socially useful prevention of conception."

Have any Divine Laws been given in the past and incorporated by the Churches in their teaching which condemn scientific control of conception ? Clearly none. As scientific consideration of the problems involved clears the issues, it points the way to the use of reason in this, as in all other important social problems.

The Bishop of Birmingham, as Chairman of the second Birth Rate Commission, made several pronouncements in favour of a reasoned restraint on the procreation of children, particularly by parents unable to give the necessary health or environment to their offspring. In his excellent Preface to the volume of essays on all sides of this subject^[31] he said of a wedded couple that ​"Not merely to bring children into the world, but to have fit children whom they can rightly train must be their determination."

The position of the Church of Rome, far from being "unchanging" and always, right as it loudly maintains, has greatly altered from time to time on the subject. To-day it most loudly denounces all scientific methods which it calls "artificial" and Cardinal Bourne is reported to have definitely encouraged Roman Catholic medical practitioners to give circulation to "medical" arguments against contraception.^[32] The Church however has already yielded the principle of the use of contraceptive means as is well demonstrated in the following brief account from Havelock Ellis:^[33] "The question was definitely brought up for Papal judgment, in 1842, by Bishop Bouvier of Le Mans, who stated the matter very clearly, representing to the Pope (Gregory XVI) that the prevention of conception was becoming very common, and that to ​treat it as a deadly sin merely resulted in driving the penitent away from confession. After mature consideration, the Curia Sacra Poenitentiaria replied by pointing out, as regards the common method of withdrawal before emission, that since it was due to the wrong act of the man, the woman who has been forced by her husband to consent to it, has committed no sin. Further, the Bishop was reminded of the wise dictum of Liguori, 'the most learned and experienced man in these matters,' that the confessor is not usually called upon to make inquiry upon so delicate a matter as the debitum conjugale, and, if his opinion is not asked, he should be silent (Bouvier, Dissertatio in sextum Decalogi praeceptum; supplementum ad Tractatum de Matrimonio, 1849, pp. 179-182; quoted by Hans Ferdy, Sexual-Probleme, Aug. 1908, p. 498). We see therefore, that among Catholic as well as among non-Catholic populations, the adoption of preventive methods of conception follows progress and civilization, and that the general practice of such methods by Roman Catholics (with the tacit consent of the Church) is merely a matter of time."

Already, by 1917 (or earlier) the Romish Church completely capitulated over the principle of birth control, and in his Evi​dence before the Birth Rate Commission, Monsignor Brown said "Where all other deterrents fail, married couples may be allowed to limit intercourse to the intermenstrual period, sometimes called tempus ageneseos."^[34] This most unnatural method has already been discussed (see p. 84 ante), and having yielded this I see no possible logical standpoint on which to maintain disapproval of the better and more wholesome methods.

The attitude of most Religions is so mystical, particularly-in all their considerations of sex, that various sects have arrived at the most amazing conclusions: to say nothing of the fact that they often contradict each other, they frequently contradict the patent facts of life. An illuminating illustration of the extremes to which theological rule will go is seen in Hindu customs. In Webb's most interesting Pathologia Indica:^[35] we read "I find it enjoined in the Hindu Shastras, that females should be ​given in marriage before their first menstrual discharge, and that should marriage not take place until after this event, the marriage is regarded in a sinful light." In short "Atri and Kasyapa (Hindu sages) state, that if an unmarried girl discharges the menstrual fluid at her father's house, the father incurs a guilt similar to that of destroying a fœtus, and the daughter becomes . . . . degraded in rank."

Now here is an absolutely logical position, indeed the only logical position opposed to scientific contraception. The Roman and Anglican Churches,^[36] with their weak shilly-shallying round the subject, both take utterly illogical positions which are indefensible in the face of keen argument.

Nevertheless, although the Hindu sages pushed their attitude to its logical conclusion and organized society on that basis, such logic leads to some very contradictory results in practice, and infant murder became so common, particularly that of ​female infants, that there were not enough girls left alive for men each to marry a wife of his own! Webb says in 1848: "It is now getting common (under pressure of our Government) for a respectable man to have a wife of his own instead of sharing her with half a dozen brothers, or a dozen fellow villagers." This position having arisen from the parental preference to destroy the entire female child rather than risk the guilt of destroying the ovum in her first menstruation in case they failed to marry her off!

Theological controversies on this and cognate themes are now raging both within the Church of Rome and the Church of England, but this is not the place to consider them in detail; both Churches have yielded the principle of control, and only jib at the use of the best methods, and are still actively obstructive to the entrance of scientific method and reasoning into the vital concern of the procreation of the Race.

Yet surely, as Saleeby^[37] said, "The imposition of motherhood upon a married woman in absolute despite of her health and of the interests of the children is none ​the less an iniquity because it has at present the approval of Church and State."

To meet the ever intenser feeling of the public that the ordinances of the Churches are against God's law when they denounce all scientific (or as they call it "artificial") birth control, most sects having compromised as regards the principle of voluntary procreation, now permit some method or other to effect clumsily, harmfully or insecurely that control of conception which can be easily, harmlessly and reliably secured by the use of the best methods. And having yielded on the principle the Churches betray mere childish perversity in preferring bad methods to good ones. The claims made by the Churches that the methods they recommend (such as "abstention" and "the safe period") are "lawful" and "natural," are in actual fact false claims and are due to an ignorance of physiological fact: these very methods break profound physiological laws and are much more unnatural than the use of a simple rubber cap which permits fully completed natural coitus at the times of natural excitation.

In this connection it is illuminating to recall the attitude of departed clerics and some doctors towards earlier reforms: In ​our own country inoculation against smallpox was denounced as being "indefensible on religious as well as medical grounds" . . . "a diabolical operation" . . . "a discovery sent into the world by the powers of evil." Then clergy preached against vaccination and described it as a "daring and profane violation of our holy religion." Dr. Rowley preached against it, saying—"The law of God prohibits the practice: the law of man and the law of nature loudly exclaim against it." Yet where, today, is the cleric who would dare to preach thus to an educated congregation? Later the great Sir James Simpson had a tremendous fight on behalf of the use of chloroform to relieve the pains of child-birth, which was denounced as irreligious because it is "unnatural." Sir James Simpson, in his vivid way, pointed out that those who objected to chloroform which really alleviated the parturient woman's pains, permitted warm baths, compresses and manual manipulations partly to do the same. He added^[38] "By these means they succeeded partially, in times past, in mitigating the ​sufferings and effects of parturition, and thought they committed no sin. But a means is discovered by which the sufferings of the mother may be relieved far more effectually and then they immediately denounce this higher amount of relief as a high sin. Gaining your end, according to their religious views, imperfectly was no sin—gaining your end more fully and perfectly, is, they argue, an undiluted and unmitigated piece of iniquity."

The extraordinary parallel between the language and kind of argument used by those who objected to vaccination and chloroform with that used by those who to-day oppose contraception on "religious" grounds is so remarkable that there is little doubt that in another twenty years or less those same "arguments" will be used and those same objurgations hurled at some other advance of scientific alleviation of human suffering, and that no priest or cleric will dare to inveigh against birth control then, just as to-day none dares to repeat the sermons of his predecessors. against chloroform.

A final answer to all such "religious" "arguments" was given by Sir James Simpson himself in words which I cannot better, and so will quote:—

​"I am sure you deeply regret and grieve with me that the interests of genuine religion should ever and anon be endangered and damaged by weak but well-meaning men believing and urging that this or that new improvement in medical knowledge, or in general science, is against the words or spirit of Scripture. We may always rest fully and perfectly assured that whatever is true in point of fact, or humane and merciful in point of practice, will find no condemnation in the Word of God."