Page:Contraception; 1st ed. (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.94163).pdf/18

people's expense, are crying upon those derelicts to produce more babies to replace the real nobility of manhood who perished in the war; this is the kind of material with which we are recruiting the next generation.

We have to a large extent abolished a selective death-rate, but as a nation we have made no attempt to establish a selective birth-rate. I have no objection to" large families, always provided that they are healthy and intelligent, and the arrival of the members is so spaced out as not to interfere with the health of the mother or her progeny; and that they become an asset and not a burthen on the State. Those who produce the mentally and physically defectives commit a crime against society, a crime which will be often repeated until the body-politic is roused up to its responsibilities to the race, and then the sexual activities of the derelicts will be curtailed.

Self-styled moralists, often without sexual inclination, but who would have no hesitation in defrauding their neighbours, frequently tell us that if young women knew the use of contraceptives they would lose any morality which they now possess. On the contrary I maintain that feminine