abortion and things obscene, still stands, but under the decision of
the Court of Appeals, it is the law of New York State that physicians
have the right which they were seemingly denied. Such is probably the
fact, also, in many other states, for the so-called "obscenity" laws
are modelled more or less, after the same pattern.
One of the chief results of the Brownsville clinic was that of
establishing for physicians a right which they neglected to establish
for themselves, but which they are bound, in the very nature of
things, to exercise to an increasing degree. Similar tests by women in
other states would doubtless establish the right elsewhere in America.
We know of some thirty-five arrests of women and men who have dared
entrenched prejudice and the law to further the cause of birth
control. The persistent work in behalf of the movement, attended as it
was by danger of fines and jail sentences, seemed to puzzle the
authorities. Sometimes they dismissed the arrested persons, sometimes
they fined them, sometimes they imprisoned them. But the protests went
on, and through these self-sacrifices, word of the movement went
constantly to more and more people.
Each of these arrests brought added publicity. Each became a center of
local agitation. Each brought a part of the public, at least, face to
face with the issue between the women of America and this barbarous
law.
Many thousands of letters have been answered and thousands of women
have been given personal consultations. Each letter and each
consultation means another center of influence from which the gospel
of voluntary motherhood spreads.
Forced thus to the front, the problems of birth control and the right
of voluntary motherhood have been brought more and more to the
attention of medical students, nurses, midwives, physicians,
scientists and sociologists. A new literature, ranging all the way
from discussion of the means of preventing conception to the social,
political, ethical, moral and spiritual possibilities of birth
control, is coming into being. Woman's cry for liberty is infusing
itself into the thoughts and the consciences and the aspirations of
the intellectual leaders as well as into the idealism of society.
It is but a few years since it was said of The Woman Rebel that it was
"the first un-veiled head raised in America." It is but a few years
since men as well as women trembled at the temerity of a public
discussion in which the subject of sex was mentioned.
But, measured in progress, it is a far cry from those days. The public
has read of birth control on the first page of its newspapers. It has
discussed it in meetings and in clubs. It has been a favorite topic of
discussion at correct teas. The scientist is giving it reverent and
profound attention. Even the minister, seeking to keep abreast of the
times, proclaims it from the pulpit. And everywhere, serious-minded
women and men, those with the vision, with a comprehension of present
and future needs of society, are working to bring this message to
those who have not yet realized its immense and regenerating import.
The American public, in a word, has been permeated with the message of
birth control. Its reaction to that message has been exceedingly
encouraging. People by the thousands have flocked to the meetings.
Only the official mind, serving ancient prejudices under the cloak of
"law and order," has been in opposition.
It is plain that puritanism is in the throes of a lingering death. If
anyone doubts it, let it be remembered that the same people who, a few
years ago, formed the official opinion of puritanism have so far
forsaken puritanism as to flood the country with millions of pamphlets
discussing sex matters and venereal disease. This literature was
distributed by the United States Government, by state governments, by
the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., and by similar organizations. It treated
the physiology of sex far more definitely than has birth-control
literature. This official educational barrage was at once a splendid
salute to the right of women and men to know their own bodies and the
last heavy firing in the main battle against ignorance in the field of
sex. What remains now is but to take advantage of the victories.
What does it all mean? It means that American womanhood is blasting
its way through the débris of crumbling moral and religious systems
toward freedom. It means that the path is all but clear. It means that
woman has but to press on, more courageously, more confidently, with
her face set more firmly toward the goal.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE GOAL
What is the goal of woman's upward struggle? Is it voluntary
motherhood? Is it general freedom? Or is it the birth of a new race?
For freedom is not fruitless, but prolific of higher things. Being the
most sacred aspect of woman's freedom, voluntary motherhood is
motherhood in its highest and holiest form. It is motherhood
unchained--motherhood ready to obey its own urge to remake the world.
Voluntary motherhood implies a new morality--a vigorous, constructive,
liberated morality. That morality will, first of all, prevent the
submergence of womanhood into motherhood. It will set its face against
the conversion of women into mechanical maternity and toward the
creation of a new race.
Woman's rôle has been that of an incubator and little more. She has
given birth to an incubated race. She has given to her children what
little she was permitted to give, but of herself, of her personality,
almost nothing. In the mass, she has brought forth quantity, not
quality. The requirement of a male dominated civilization has been
numbers. She has met that requirement.
It is the essential function of voluntary motherhood to choose its own
mate, to determine the time of childbearing and to regulate strictly
the number of offspring. Natural affection upon her part, instead of
selection dictated by social or economic advantage, will give her a
better fatherhood for her children. The exercise of her right to
decide how many children she will have and when she shall have them
will procure for her the time necessary to the development of other
faculties than that of reproduction. She will give play to her tastes,
her talents and her ambitions. She will become a full-rounded human
being.
Thus and only thus will woman be able to transmit to her offspring
those qualities which make for a greater race.
The importance of developing these qualities in the mothers for
transmission to the children is apparent when we recall certain
well-established principles of biology. In all of the animal species below
the human, motherhood has a clearly discernible superiority over
fatherhood. It is the first pulse of organic life. Fatherhood is the
fertilizing element. Its development, compared to that of the mother
cell, is comparatively new. Likewise, its influence upon the progeny
is comparatively small. There are weighty authorities who assert that
through the female alone comes those modifications of form, capacity
and ability which constitute evolutionary progress. It was the mothers
who first developed cunning in chase, ingenuity in escaping enemies,
skill in obtaining food, and adaptability. It was they also who
attained unfailing discretion in leadership, adaptation to environment
and boldness in attack. When the animal kingdom as a whole is
surveyed, these stand out as distinctly feminine traits. They stand
out also as the characteristics by which the progress of species is
measured.
Why is all this true of the lower species yet not true of human
beings? The secret is revealed by one significant fact--the female's
functions in these animal species are not limited to motherhood alone.
Every organ and faculty is fully employed and perfected. Through the
development of the individual mother, better and higher types of
animals are produced and carried forward. In a word, natural law makes
the female the expression and the conveyor of racial efficiency.
Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law,
is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of
weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of
those who will become defectives. So, in compliance with nature's
working plan, we must permit womanhood its full development before we
can expect of it efficient motherhood. If we are to make racial
progress, this development of womanhood must precede motherhood in
every individual woman. Then and then only can the mother cease to be
an incubator and be a mother indeed. Then only can she transmit to her
sons and daughters the qualities which make strong individuals and,
collectively, a strong race.
Voluntary motherhood also implies the right of marriage without
maternity. Two utterly different functions are developed in the two
relationships. In order to give the mate relationship its full and
free play, it is necessary that no woman should be a mother against
her will. There are other reasons, of course--reasons more frequently
emphasized--but the reason just mentioned should never be overlooked.
It is as important to the race as to the woman, for through it is
developed that high love impulse which, conveyed to the child, attunes
and perfects its being.
Marriage, quite aside from parentage, also gives two people invaluable
experience. When parentage follows in its proper time, it is a better
parentage because of the mutual adjustment and development--because of
the knowledge thus gained. Few couples are fitted to understand the
sacred mystery of child life until they have solved some of the
problems arising out of their own love lives.
Maternal love, which usually follows upon a happy, satisfying mate
love, becomes a strong and urgent craving. It then exists for two
powerful, creative functions. First, for its own sake, and then for
the sake of further enriching the conjugal relationship. It is from
such soil that the new life should spring. It is the inherent right of
the new life to have its inception in such physical ground, in such
spiritual atmosphere. The child thus born is indeed a flower of love
and tremendous joy. It has within it the seeds of courage and of
power. This child will have the greatest strength to surmount
hardships, to withstand tyrannies, to set still higher the mark of
human achievement.
Shall we pause here to speak again of the rights of womanhood, in
itself and of itself, to be absolutely free? We have talked of this
right so much in these pages, only to learn that in the end, a free
womanhood turns of its own desire to a free and happy motherhood, a
motherhood which does not submerge the woman, but which is enriched
because she is unsubmerged. When we voice, then, the necessity of
setting the feminine spirit utterly and absolutely free, thought turns
naturally not to rights of the woman, nor indeed of the mother, but to
the rights of the child--of all children in the world. For this is the
miracle of free womanhood, that in its freedom it becomes the race
mother and opens its heart in fruitful affection for humanity.
How narrow, how pitifully puny has become motherhood in its chains!
The modern motherhood enfolds one or two adoring children of its own
blood, and cherishes, protects and loves them. It does not reach out
to all children. When motherhood is a high privilege, not a sordid,
slavish requirement, it will encircle all. Its deep, passionate
intensity will overflow the limits of blood relationship. Its beauty
will shine upon all, for its beauty is of the soul, whose power of
enfoldment is unbounded.
When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result
of ignorance or accident, its children will become the foundation of a
new race. There will be no killing of babies in the womb by abortion,
nor through neglect in foundling homes, nor will there be infanticide.
Neither will children die by inches in mills and factories. No man
will dare to break a child's life upon the wheel of toil.
Voluntary motherhood will not be passive, resigned, or weak. Out of
its craving will come forth a fierceness of love for its fruits that
will make such men as remain unawakened stand aghast at its fury when
offended. The tigress is less terrible in defense of her offspring
than will be the human mother. The daughters of such women will not be
given over to injustice and to prostitution; the sons will not perish
in industry nor upon the battle field. Nor could they meet these all
too common fates if an undaunted motherhood were there to defend.
Childhood and youth will be too valuable in the eyes of society to
waste them in the murderous mills of blind greed and hate.
This is the dawn. Womanhood shakes off its bondage. It asserts its
right to be free. In its freedom, its thoughts turn to the race. Like
begets like. We gather perfect fruit from perfect trees. The race is
but the amplification of its mother body, the multiplication of flesh
habitations--beautified and perfected for souls akin to the mother
soul.
The relentless efforts of reactionary authority to suppress the
message of birth control and of voluntary motherhood are futile. The
powers of reaction cannot now prevent the feminine spirit from
breaking its bonds. When the last fetter falls the evils that have
resulted from the suppression of woman's will to freedom will pass.
Child slavery, prostitution, feeblemindedness, physical deterioration,
hunger, oppression and war will disappear from the earth.
In their subjection women have not been brave enough, strong enough,
pure enough to bring forth great sons and daughters. Abused soil
brings forth stunted growths. An abused motherhood has brought forth a
low order of humanity. Great beings come forth at the call of high
desire. Fearless motherhood goes out in love and passion for justice
to all mankind. It brings forth fruits after its own kind. When the
womb becomes fruitful through the desire of an aspiring love, another
Newton will come forth to unlock further the secrets of the earth and
the stars. There will come a Plato who will be understood, a Socrates
who will drink no hemlock, and a Jesus who will not die upon the
cross. These and the race that is to be in America await upon a
motherhood that is to be sacred because it is free.
End of Project Gutenberg's Woman and the New Race, by Margaret Sanger