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CHAPTER FIVE

procedure should be noted under the heading of contraceptive measures, because this is the chief method of control advocated by a large number of very religious persons.

Total abstention from the coital act on all occasions when conception is not deliberately desired is advocated by individual so-called reformers, and this, and slight modifications of it, are advocated by the leading Churches. Excellent authoritative statements of the positions of the Anglicans, Roman Catholics and Jews are given in the Report of the National Birth Rate Commission.* Although in an ordinary way the use of the "safe periods" (see p. 86) is permitted, and the Churches unite in their denunciation of "artificial" methods, yet in some circumstances they demand a total abstention, which does not appear to present itself to them as equally artificial in marriage! For instance, discussing the procreation of feeble-minded persons, the Roman Catholic authority replied to the questioning Commissioners ([1]p. 397) "it may be perfectly well counselled to such persons that if the results of their inter-

  1. ↑ The "Declining Birth Rate, its Causes and Effects," Report of Chief Evidence taken by the National Birth Rate Commission. Second edition. Pp. xiv, 450. London, 1917. See particularly pp. 389, 425 and 436.

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