to speak of it as a hereditary factor, but it is necessary to discuss
it, because considerable ignorance prevails on the subject, it being
generally confused with poverty. There is a radical difference between
pauperism and poverty. People may be poor for generations and
generations, even very poor, and still not be considered or classed
with paupers. Pauperism generally implies a lack of physical and
mental stamina, loss of _self-respect_ and unconquerable laziness. Of
course we know now that laziness often rests upon a physical basis,
being due to imperfect working of the internal glands. But whatever
the cause of the laziness may be, the fact is that it is one of the
characteristics of the pauper. And while we cannot speak of pauperism
being hereditary, the qualities that go to make up the pauper are
transmissible. No normal woman would marry a pauper, and the woman who
would marry a pauper is not amenable to any advice or to any book
knowledge. But men are sometimes tempted to marry daughters of paupers
if they happen to be pretty. They should consider the matter very
carefully, for some of the ancestral traits may become manifest in the
children.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
BIRTH CONTROL OR THE LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING
Knowledge of Prevention of Conception Essential--Misapprehensions
Concerning Birth-control Propaganda--Modern Contraceptives Not
Injurious to Health--Imperfection of Contraceptive Measures Due
to Secrecy--Prevention of Conception and Abortion Radically
Different--More Marriages Consummated if Birth-control
Information were Legally Obtainable--Demand for Prostitution
Would be Curtailed--Venereal Disease Due to Lack of
Knowledge--Another Phase of the Birth-control Problem--Knowledge
of Contraceptive Methods Where There Was a Taint of Insanity, and
the Happy Results.
No girl, and no man for that matter, should enter the bonds of
matrimony without learning the latest means of preventing conception,
of regulating the number of offspring. With people who consider any
attempt at regulating the number of children a sin, we have nothing to
argue, though we believe that there are very few people except among
the lowest dregs of society who do not use some measures of
regulation. Otherwise we would see most families with ten to twenty
children instead of two or three. Nor do I intend to devote this
chapter to a detailed presentation of the arguments in favor of the
rational regulation of offspring. It would have to be merely a
repetition of the arguments that I have presented elsewhere.[8] But a
few points may well be touched upon here.
In spite of the fact that the subject of birth control is much better
known now than it was when we first started to propagate it, still it
cannot be mentioned too often, for the misapprehensions concerning it
almost keep pace with the propaganda. First, there is a foolish notion
that we would try to regulate the number of children forcibly, that we
would compel people to have a small number of children. Nothing could
apparently be more absurd, and still many people sincerely believe it.
Nothing is further from the truth. On the contrary, much as we are in
favor of birth control, we advise limitation of offspring only to
those who for various reasons, financial, hereditary or hygienic, are
unable to have many children. We emphatically believe that couples who
are in excellent health, who are of untainted heredity, who are fit to
bring up children, and have the means to do so, should have at least
half a dozen children. If they should have one dozen, they would
deserve the thanks of the community. All we claim is that in such an
important matter as bringing children into the world, the parents who
have to carry the full burden of bringing up these children should
have the right to decide. They should have the means of control. They
should be able to say whether they will have two or six or one dozen
children.
=Contraceptive Measures=
And the argument that contraceptives are injurious to the health of
the woman, of the man, or of both, may be curtly dismissed. It is not
true of any of the modern contraceptives. But even if it were true,
the amount of injury that can be done by contraceptives would be like
a drop of water in comparison with the injuries resulting from
excessive pregnancies and childbirths. Some of the contraceptive
measures require some trouble to use, some are unesthetic, but these
are trifles and constitute a small price to pay for the privilege of
being able to regulate the number of one's offspring according to
one's intelligent desires.
The commonest argument now made against contraceptives is that they
are not absolutely safe, that is, absolutely to be relied upon, that
they will not prevent in absolutely every case. This is true; but
there are three answers which render this objection invalid. First,
many of the cases of failure are to be ascribed not to the
contraceptives themselves, but to their improper, careless and
unintelligent use. The best methods in the world will fail if used
improperly. Second, if the measures are efficient in 98 or 99 per
cent, and fail in one or two per cent., then they are a blessing. Some
women would be the happiest women in the world if they could render 98
per cent. of their conjugal relations unfruitful. Third, the
imperfections of our contraceptive measures are due to the secrecy
with which the entire subject must necessarily be surrounded. If the
subject of birth control could be fully discussed in medical books
there is no doubt that in a short time we would have measures that
would be absolutely certain and would leave nothing to be desired. But
even such as they are, the measures are better than none, and as said
in the beginning of this chapter, it is the duty of every young woman
to acquire as one of the items of her sex education the knowledge of
how to avoid too frequent pregnancies. In fact, I consider this the
most important item in a woman's sex education, and if she has learned
nothing else she should learn this. For this information is
_absolutely_ necessary to her future health and happiness.
=A Few Everyday Cases=
In my twenty years' work for the cause of rational birth control I
have come in contact with thousands and thousands of cases which
demonstrate in the most convincing manner possible the tragic results
of forced or undesired motherhood, and of the fear of forced or
undesired motherhood.
Some of the cases were in my own practice, some were related to me by
brother physicians, some were described to me by the victims living in
all parts of this vast country. Were I to collect and report all the
cases that came to my notice during those twenty years, they would
without exaggeration make a volume the size of the latest edition of
the Standard Dictionary, printed in the same small type. Some of them
are positively heartbreaking. They make you sick at the stupidity of
the human race, at the stupidity and brutality of the lawgivers. But I
do not wish to appeal to your emotions. I do not wish to take extreme
and unique cases. I will therefore briefly relate a few everyday
cases, which will demonstrate to you the beneficence of contraceptive
knowledge and the tragedy and misery caused by the lack of such
knowledge.
_Case 1._ This class of case is so common that I almost feel like
apologizing for referring to it. She, whom I will call by the
forbearing name of Mrs. Smith, had been married a little over nine
years, and had given birth to five children. She was an excellent
mother, nursed them herself, took good care of them, and all the five
were living and healthy. But in caring for them and for the household
all alone, for they could not afford a servant or a nurse-girl, all
her vitality had been sapped, all her originally superb energy had
dwindled down to nothing; her nerves were worn to a frazzle and she
became but a shadow of her former self. And the fear of another
pregnancy became an obsession with her. She dreamed of it at night,
and it poisoned her waking hours in the day. She felt that she simply
could not go through another pregnancy, another childbirth, with its
sleepless nights and its weary toilsome days. She asked her doctor who
brought her children into the world to give her some preventive, but
he laughed the matter off. "Just be careful," was all the advice she
got from him. And when in spite of being careful, she, horror of
horrors, became pregnant again, she gathered up courage, went to the
same doctor, and asked him to perform an abortion on her. But he was a
highly respectable physician, a Christian gentleman, and he became
highly indignant at her impudence in coming to him and asking him to
commit "murder." Her tears and pleadings were in vain. He remained
adamant.
Whether he would have remained as adamant if instead of Mrs. Smith,
who could only pay twenty-five dollars for the abortion, the patient
had been one of his society clientele, who could pay two hundred and
fifty dollars, is a question which I will not answer in the
affirmative or negative. I will leave it open. I will merely remark
that in the question of abortion in certain specific cases the moral
indignation of some physicians is in inverse proportion to the size of
the fee expected. A doctor who will become terribly insulted when a
poor woman who can only pay ten or fifteen dollars asks to be relieved
of the fruit of her womb, will usually discover that the woman who can
afford to pay one hundred dollars is badly in need of a curettement.
Oh, no. He does not perform an abortion. He merely curets the uterus.
But to come back to Mrs. Smith. She went away from the indignant
adamant doctor. But she was determined not to give birth to another
child. She confided her trouble to a neighbor, who sent her to a
midwife. The midwife was neither very expert, nor very clean. Mrs.
Smith had to go to her two or three times. After bleeding for about
ten days she developed blood poisoning, from which she died a few days
later, at the early age of twenty-nine, leaving a disconsolate father,
who in time to come will probably find consolation with another woman,
and five motherless children, who will never find consolation. One
may find a substitute for a wife, there is no substitute for a mother.
And such tragedies are of daily occurrence. May the Lord have mercy on
the souls of those who are responsible for them.
Before I proceed further I wish to say that it is the terrible
prevalence of the abortion evil, with its concomitant evils of
infection, ill health, chronic invalidism and death, that more than
any other single factor urges us in our birth control propaganda. And
those who want to forbid the dissemination of any information about
the prevention of conception are playing directly into the hands of
the professional abortionists. They could not act any more zealously
if they were in league with the latter and were paid by them. And
having mentioned the subject of abortion, I wish to utter a note of
warning. In our birth control propaganda, we must be very careful to
keep the question of the prevention of conception and of abortion
separate and apart. The stupid law puts the two in the same paragraph,
some ignorant laymen and equally ignorant physicians treat the two as
if they were the same thing, but we, in our speeches and our writings,
must keep the two separate, we must show the people the essential
difference between prevention and abortion, between refraining from
creating life and destroying life already created; we must show the
viciousness of meting out the same punishment for two things which are
fundamentally different, different not only in degree but in kind--and
it is only by thus keeping the two things apart, by showing that we
stand for one thing--prevention--and not for the other--abortion, that
we can ever gain the general sympathy of the public and the
co-operation of the legislators. I do not say that there are not many
cases in which the induction of abortion is not only justifiable, but
imperative; but that is a different question, and the two issues must
not be confused. And we would and should resent any attempt on the
part of either enemy or friend to so confuse them.
_Case 2._ Mr. A. and Miss B. are in love with each other. But they
cannot get married, for his salary is too small. They might risk
getting married, if the specter of an indefinite number of children
did not stretch out its restraining hand. She comes from a good
family, she was brought up, if not in the lap of luxury, in the lap of
comfort and coziness, and it is the ambition of every good American to
furnish his wife at least as good a home as her father gave her. Her
father, by the way, died prematurely from overwork in trying to give
all possible comforts and advantages to a bevy of six unmarried and
marriageable daughters.
As I said, the fear of children kept them back. Each year the hope
revived that in another year their union in matrimony would be
consummated. But the years passed. Mr. A.'s hair became thin and
grayish, Miss B began to look haggard and pinched--and still the
marriage could not take place. Miss B was very religious and very
proper, and would not do anything that was improper. A was not quite
so proper; he paid occasional visits elsewhere, and as instruction in
venereal prophylaxis was not included in his college course, he
acquired a gonorrhea, which it took him about six months to get rid
of. To shorten the story, A was thirty-nine and Miss B was thirty-five
when the many times postponed marriage was consummated, but Cupid
seemed to be busy elsewhere when the ceremony took place, and there is
very little romance in their married life. The marriage has remained
childless, as I told Mr. A it would be.
I consider this a ruined life--and all for the lack of a little
knowledge.
If the anti-preventionists, those who are opposed to any information
about the prevention of conception, were not so hopelessly stupid,
they would see that from their own point of view it would be better if
such information were legally obtainable. For it would be instrumental
in causing more marriages which otherwise remain unconsummated, and
by favoring early marriages, it would be instrumental in curtailing
the demand for prostitution, in diminishing venereal disease. And as
is well known, venereal disease is one of the great factors in race
suicide.
_Case 3._ A young woman was married to a man who besides being a
brutal drunkard was subject to periodic fits of insanity. Every year
or two he would be taken to the lunatic asylum for a few weeks or
months, and then discharged. And every time on his discharge he would
celebrate his liberty by impregnating his wife. She hated and loathed
him, but could not protect herself against his "embraces." And she had
to see herself giving birth to one abnormal child after another. She
begged her doctor to give her some means of prevention, but that boob
claimed ignorance, and the illegality of the thing. The woman finally
committed suicide, but not before she had given birth to six abnormal
children, who will probably grow up drunkards, criminals or insane.
And because we object to such kind of breeding, we are accused of
being enemies of the human race, of advocating race suicide, of
violating the laws of God and man. Oh, for a mighty Sampson to strike
the imbeciles with the jaw of an ass, for a mental Hercules to loosen
the fontanelles of their petrified skulls and put some sense into
them!
_Case 4._ This observation concerns a couple both of whom had a very
bad heredity. The blood of each was badly tainted. The doctor who had
treated the husband cautioned them and told them that they had no
right to have children. But here the tables were turned. The doctor
wanted to give them the means for prevention, but the husband and
wife, pious Roman Catholics, would not go against their religion and
God (as if God wanted a world full of imbeciles), and refused to
employ any precautions. They have had four children so far. One of
them seems fairly normal, except that he is silly, in which respect he
is merely like his parents; two are deaf and blind in one eye; the
fourth is a cretin, practically an idiot.
This case brings us face to face with another phase of the problem.
What should we do when the parents, stupid and ignorant, refuse to
stop breeding worthless material? Eugenic agitation, education, will
bring about such a strong public opinion that none but idiots, who
will be vasectomized or segregated, will dare to bring into the world
children that are physically and mentally handicapped.
_Case 5._ This couple had been married eight years, and had five
children And the wife said she could not stand it any more. Another
child--no, she preferred death. They practiced coitus interruptus for
a while, with mutual disgust, but when the wife was caught again, she
said: "No more!" And she would not let her husband come near her. He
could do what he pleased--she did not care. After a few months he
began to go elsewhere--contracted syphilis, had to give up his
position, the home was broken up, the wife went out to work, the
children are scattered--in short, a home, which we are told is the
foundation of our society, is broken up, and there is misery and
wretchedness all around--and all for the lack of a little timely
information.
_Case 6._ Mr. A and Miss B, twenty-eight and twenty-five years old
respectively, have known one another for several years, and in spite
of their occupation, which is supposed to make people blasé and
cynical--he being a reporter and she a special story writer--are quite
in love with each other. But their occupation and income are such that
they cannot possibly afford to have and to bring up any children. They
would love to get married, but the specter of a child--or rather of
children--frightens them; and they remain single, to the great
physical and mental injury of both. Accidentally they learn of
appropriate means of regulating conception, get married and live
happily--ever after, that is, until they find themselves in a
position to have children and to bring them up properly.
In what way was society injured by this young couple acquiring
contraceptive information?
_Case 7._ Mr. C and Miss D are in love with each other. Unfortunately
there is a strong hereditary taint of insanity on both sides. They are
too high-minded to think of giving birth to children. They might be
all right, but with insanity one does not take any chances. The thing
is too terrible. They are condemned to a life of celibacy, which to
them means a life of loneliness and misery. But like an angel from
heaven comes to them the knowledge that one can live a love-life
without any penalties attached to it. They get married and there is
not a happier couple living.
In what way has society been injured by this couple obtaining the
contraceptive knowledge?
_Case 8._ Mr. and Mrs. E have been married five years. They have a
child four years old which shows unmistakable symptoms of epilepsy.
They are horrified and an investigation discloses the fact that on her
side in the preceding generation there was a good deal of epilepsy. Of
course, the next child may not be epileptic. But then again it may. No
parents with any sense of responsibility would take such chances. They
decide to give up conjugal relations. They keep it up for about
thirteen or fourteen months; then one night an accident happens and
very soon she finds herself pregnant. She declares she would rather
die than to give birth to and have to take care of another epileptic
child. She goes to a friendly physician who performs an abortion on
her, and now the couple, not secure against future accidents, if they
live together, decide to separate, and a tragedy is in sight.
Fortunately they learn that conception can be prevented, and they
continue to live together with benefit to themselves and harm to none.
In what way has society been injured by those people acquiring
contraceptive information?
_Case 9._ Mr. and Mrs. F have been married six years, and in these six
years they have been blessed with four children. When he married he
was getting twenty-two dollars a week, and that is exactly what he is
getting now. In the meantime the cost of living has gone up
twenty-five per cent., and there are four extra mouths to feed and
four extra bodies to clothe. What difference this has made in that
little household can better be imagined than stated. The little mother
has aged sixteen years in those six years, and there is not a trace
left of her girlishness and youthfulness. She loves her children, and
does not want to get rid of them. She would not take a million
dollars for one of them, but she would not give five cents for
another. But this is just what terrifies them; the possibility of
another. And that possibility makes her irritable, makes her repel her
husband's slightest advances, makes her move his bed to another room.
She even tells him to satisfy his sexual desires elsewhere--and at the
same time she is in fear and trembling that he might follow her
advice. In short, a nice young home is about to be disrupted.
Fortunately he reads somewhere an article on the subject of voluntary
limitation of offspring, he begins to investigate; his physician
pleads ignorance, but he is persistent, the physician investigates and
obtains the desired information, which he shares with the patient.
Harmony is restored and a happy home is re-established.
Who was injured by the couple obtaining this information? And if
nobody was injured, and everybody concerned was benefited, then why
should the imparting of such information be considered a felony,
punishable like the most atrocious of crimes?
_Case 10._ Mr. and Mrs. G have been married fifteen years. They were
the parents of seven children, a large enough number for any family.
Those seven children were born during the first eleven years of their
married life. During the past five years, afraid of having any more,
they first abstained and then adopted a method which every modern
sexologist knows is injurious to the nervous system of both the man
and the woman. The man became a wreck; first neurasthenic, then
impotent, cranky and grouchy, unable to get along in the office,
constantly squabbling with his wife, who became just as bad a wreck.
Their economic condition plus too many small children prevented the
parents' separation. They remained living together, but they lived
like a cat and a dog tied in a bag. Each silently prayed to be rid of
the other. But a conversation overheard at a Turkish baths
establishment put him on the right trail, and one year later we find
the couple reconciled, both in good health and living a peaceful and
fairly harmonious life. And those who have benefited most by the
change are the children. In what way was society injured? And still if
the doctor who gave Mr. G the information should have been caught and
convicted, he would have been sent to prison for a year or two or
five. Would he have deserved it? Here we have several plain, simple,
unvarnished and unembellished cases which are typical of millions of
similar cases and which prove conclusively that the law against
imparting information about preventing conception is brutal, vicious,
antisocial. Should not such a law be repealed, wiped off the statute
books?
FOOTNOTES:
[8] The Limitation of Offspring by the Prevention of Conception.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
ADVICE TO GIRLS APPROACHING THE THRESHOLD OF WOMANHOOD
The Irresistible Attraction of the Young Girl for the Male--The
Unprotected Girl's Temptations--Some Men Who Will Pester the
Young Girl--Risk of Venereal Infection--Danger of
Impregnation--Use of Contraceptives by the Unmarried Woman May
Not Always Be Relied Upon--Nature of Men who Seduce
Girls--Exceptions--Illegitimate Motherhood--Difficulties in the
Way of Illegitimate Mother Who Must Earn Her Living--The Child of
the Foundling Asylum--Social Attitude Towards Illegitimacy
Responsible for Abortion Evil--Dangers of Abortion--The Girl Who
Has Lost Her Virginity.