Birth Control

H >> Halliday G. Sutherland >> Birth Control

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"In the second place, the schedules do not provide us with information
as to when limitation was introduced. We are told, for instance, that
the size of the family was five and that its number was limited. This
may mean _either_ that throughout the duration of the marriage
preventive measures were adopted from time to time, _or_ that _after_
five children had been born fertile intercourse was stopped. In the
absence of detailed information on this point it is plainly impossible
to form an accurate judgment as to the effect of limitation."

There are, therefore, no accurate figures to indicate the extent to which
birth control has contributed to the decline in the birth-rate.

Section 3. AND TO CHARACTER OF OCCUPATION

Moreover the claim of birth controllers, that the decline in the English
birth-rate is mainly due to the use of contraceptives, is rendered highly
improbable by the fact that the Registrar-General [65] has shown that in
1911 the birth-rate in different classes varied according to the occupation
of the fathers. The figures are these:

Births per 1,000 married
Social Class. males aged under 55, including
retired.

1. Unskilled workmen 213
2. Intermediate class 158
3. Skilled workmen 153
4. Intermediate 132
5. Upper and middle class 119

Thus, ascending the social scale, we find, in class upon class, that as the
annual income increases the number of children in the family diminishes,
until we come to the old English nobility of whom, according to Darwin, 19
per cent. are childless. These last have every reason to wish for heirs to
inherit their titles and what land and wealth they possess, and, as their
record in war proves them to be no cowards' breed, it would be a monstrous
indictment to maintain that their childlessness is mostly due to the use
of contraceptives. If _all_ these results arose from the practice of
birth control, it would imply a crescendo of general national selfishness
unparalleled in the history of humanity. No, it is not possible to give
Neo-Malthusians credit, even for all the evil they claim to have achieved.

Section 4. AGGRAVATED DOUBTLESS BY MALTHUSIANISM

Nevertheless, artificial birth control is an evil and too prevalent thing.
My contention is that the primary cause of our falling birth-rate is
over-civilisation; one of the most evil products of this over-civilisation,
whereby simple, natural, and unselfish ideals, based on the assumption that
national security depends on the moral and economic strength of family
life, have been replaced largely by a complicated, artificial, and
luxurious individualism; and that diminished fertility, apart from
the practice of artificial birth control, is a result of luxurious
individualism. Even if it be so, one of the most evil products of
over-civilisation is the use of contraceptives, because this practice, more
than any other factor in social life, hastens, directly and indirectly, the
fall of a declining birth-rate; and artificial birth control, to the extent
to which it is practised, therefore aggravates the consequences of a law of
decline already apparent in our midst. I have already said that restriction
of intercourse, as held lawful by the Catholic Church, is possibly as
efficacious in limiting the size of a family as are artificial methods.
If any man shall say that therefore there is no difference between these
methods, let him read the fuller explanation given in another connection on
p. 153. (See [Reference: Explanation]) The method which reason and morality
alike permit is devoid of all those evils, moral, psychological, and
physiological, that follow the use of contraceptives.

[Footnote 62: _The Small Family System_, pp. 195 and 160, New York, 1917.]

[Footnote 63: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 323.]

[Footnote 64: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 324.]

[Footnote 65: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 9.]

CHAPTER VII

THE EVILS OF ARTIFICIAL BIRTH CONTROL

Section 1. NOT A PHYSICAL BENEFIT

Birth control is alleged to be beneficial for men and women, and these
"benefits" are no less amazing than the fallacies on which this practice
is advocated. At the Obstetric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine
in 1921 the leading physicians on diseases of women condemned the use of
contraceptives. [66]

_A Cause of Sterility_

Dr. R.A. Gibbons, Physician to the Grosvenor Hospital for Women, said
that nowadays it was common for a young married woman to ask her
medical man for advice as to the best method of preventing conception.
The test of relative sterility was the rapidity with which conception
takes place. He had made confidential inquiries in 120 marriages. In
100 cases preventive measures had been used at one time or another, and
the number of children was well under 2 per marriage. In Paris some
time ago the birth-rate was 104 per 1,000 in the poorer quarters and
only 34 in a rich quarter of the city; in London comparative figures
had been given as 195 and 63 in poor and in rich quarters. These and
similar figures showed that women living in comfort and luxury did not
want to be bothered with confinements. It had been said that the degree
of sterility could be regarded as an index to the morals of a race.
Congenital sterility was rare, but the number of children born in
England was decreasing. It had been estimated that one-third of the
pregnancies in several great cities abroad aborted. Dr. Gibbons then
quoted figures given by Douglas Wight and Amand Routh to show the high
percentage of abortions and stillbirths. In his opinion it was the duty
of medical men to point out to the public that physiological laws could
not be broken with impunity. It had been observed that if the doe were
withheld from the buck at oestral periods atrophy of the ovary took
place. In this connection Dr. Gibbons recalled a large number of
patients who had used contraceptives in early married life, and
subsequently had longed in vain for a child. This applied also to those
who had decided, after the first baby, to have no more children, and
had subsequently regretted their decision.

_Neuroses_

Professor McIlroy, of the London School of Medicine for Women, deplored
the amount of time spent on attempting to cure sterility when
contraceptives were so largely used. The fact that neuroses were
largely the result of the use of contraceptives should be made widely
known, and also that in women the maternal passion was even stronger,
though it might develop later, than sexual passion, and would
ultimately demand satisfaction.

_Fibroid Tumours_

Dr. Arthur E. Giles, Senior Surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital for Women,
endorsed Dr. Gibbons's remarks as to the great unhappiness resulting
from deliberately childless marriages, and he added that he had always
warned patients of this. He believed that quinine had a permanently bad
effect. Those who waited for a convenient season to have a child often
laid up trouble for themselves. On the question of fibroid tumours he
had come to the conclusion that these were not a cause but in a sense a
consequence of sterility. Women who were subjected to sexual excitement
with no physiological outlet appear to have a tendency to develop
fibroids. He would like the opinion to go forth from the section that
the use of contraceptives was a bad thing.

All these authorities are agreed that the practice of artificial sterility
during early married life is the cause of many women remaining childless,
although later on these women wish in vain for children. To meet this
difficulty one of the advocates of birth control advises all young couples
to make sure of some children before adopting these practices; thus
demanding of young parents, at the very time when it is most irksome, that
very sacrifice of personal comfort and prosperity to prevent which is the
precise object of the vicious practice. Nor is sterility the only penalty.
The disease known as neurasthenia arises both in women _and in men_ in
consequence of these methods. Dr. Mary Sharlieb, [67] after forty years'
experience of diseases of women, writes as follows:

"Now, on the surface of things, it would seem as if a knowledge of how
to prevent the too rapid increase of a family would be a boon to
over-prolific and heavily burdened mothers. There are, however, certain
reasons which probably convert the supposed advantage into a very real
disadvantage. An experience of well over forty years convinces me that
the artificial limitation of the family causes damage to a woman's
nervous system. The damage done is likely to show itself in inability
to conceive when the restriction voluntarily used is abandoned because
the couple desire offspring.

"I have for many years asked women who came to me desiring children
whether they have ever practised prevention, and they very frequently
tell me that they did so during the early days of their married life
because they thought that their means were not adequate to the support
of a family. Subsequently they found that conception, thwarted at the
time that desire was present, fails to occur when it becomes
convenient. In such cases, even although examination of the pelvic
organ shows nothing abnormal, all one's endeavours to secure conception
frequently go unrewarded. Sometimes such a woman is not only sterile,
but nervous, and in generally poor health; but the more common
occurrence is that she remains fairly well until the time of the change
of life, when she frequently suffers more, on the nervous side, than
does the woman who has lived a natural married life."

The late Dr. F.W. Taylor, President of the British Gynaecological Society,
wrote as follows in 1904:

"Artificial prevention is an evil and a disgrace. The immorality of it,
the degradation of succeeding generations by it, their domination or
subjection by strangers who are stronger because they have not given
way to it, the curses that must assuredly follow the parents of
decadence who started it,--all of this needs to be brought home to the
minds of those who have thoughtlessly or ignorantly accepted it, for it
is to this undoubtedly that we have to attribute not only the
diminishing birth-rate, but the diminishing value of our population.

"It would be strange indeed if so unnatural a practice, one so
destructive of the best life of the nation, should bring no danger or
disease in its wake, and I am convinced, after many years of
observation, that both sudden danger and chronic disease may be
produced by the methods of prevention very generally employed.... The
natural deduction is that the artificial production of modern times,
the relatively sterile marriage, is an evil thing, even to the
individuals primarily concerned, injurious not only to the race, but to
those who accept it."

That was the opinion of a distinguished gynaecologist, who also happened
to be a Christian. The reader may protest that the latter fact is entirely
irrelevant to my argument, and that the value of a man's observations
concerning disease is to be judged by his skill and experience as a
physician, and not by his religious beliefs. A most reasonable statement.
Unhappily, the Neo-Malthusians think otherwise. They would have us believe
that because this man was a Christian his opinion, as a gynaecologist, is
worthless. C.V. Drysdale, O.B.E., D. Sc., after quoting Dr. Taylor's views,
adds the following foot-note:

"I have since learnt that Dr. Taylor was a very earnest Christian, and
the author of several sacred hymns and of a pious work, _The Coming of
the Saints_." [68]

Furthermore, in 1905, the South-Western Branch of the British Medical
Association passed the following resolution:

"That this Branch is of opinion that the growing use of contraceptives
and ecbolics is fraught with great danger both to the individual and to
the race. That this Branch is of opinion that the advertisements and
sale of such appliances and substances, as well as the publication and
dissemination of literature relating thereto, should be made a penal
offence." [69]

Section 2. A SCANDALOUS SUGGESTION

The foregoing opinions are very distasteful to Neo-Malthusians, and these
people, being unable apparently to give a reasoned answer, do not hesitate
to suggest that medical opposition, when not due to religious bias, is
certainly due to mercenary motives.

"As the Church has a vested interest in souls, so the medical
profession has a vested interest in bodies. Birth is a source of
revenue, direct and indirect. It means maternity fees first; it
generally presupposes preliminary medical treatment of the expectant
mother; and it provides a new human being to be a patient to some
member of the profession, humanly certain to have its share of
infantile diseases, and likely, if it survives them, to produce
children of its own before the final death-bed attendance is
reached." [70]

That scandalous suggestion has recently been repeated by the President of
the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress under the
following circumstances. On October 31, 1921, the _Sussex Daily News_
published the following paragraph from its London correspondent.

"BIRTH CONTROL

"Reverberations of Lord Dawson's recent sensational address to the
Church Congress on birth control are still being felt as well in
medical as in clerical circles. Indeed, the subject has been discussed
by the lawyers at Gray's Inn. The London Association of the Medical
Women's Federation had so animated a discussion on it that it was
decided to continue it at the next meeting. It is quite evident that
Lord Dawson did not speak for a united medical profession. Indeed,
quite a number of doctors of all creeds are attacking the new Birth
Control Society. A London physician has a pamphlet on the subject in
the Press, and the controversy rages fiercely in the neighbourhood of
'birth-control' clinics. Much is likely to be made of the example of
France, where the revolt against the practices advocated is now in full
swing, and strong legal measures have been taken and are in
contemplation. French medical opinion is said to be very pronounced on
the subject, and it has, of course, a great deal of clinical experience
to back it."

On November 8, a second paragraph appeared:

"BIRTH CONTROL

"My remark recently that 'a number of doctors of all creeds are
attacking the new Birth-Control Society' has been challenged by the
hon. secretary of the body in question, who observes that I am
misinformed. I must adhere to my statement, which was a record of
personal observation. Many doctors have spoken to me on the subject,
and their opinions on the ethics of birth control differ widely; but I
can only remember one who did not attack this particular society. The
secretary suggests that I am confusing what his society advocates with
something else. As a matter of fact, the whole question of birth
control has been discussed more than once by medical bodies. A doctor
who attended one such discussion shortly after the opening of the
clinic in Holloway told me that, while there was division of opinion on
the general subject, the feeling of the meeting was overwhelming
against the particular teaching given at the clinic, as undesirable and
actively mischievous. The subject is controversial, and I profess to do
no more than record such opinions as are current."

On November 17 the _Sussex Daily News_ published the following letter:

"CONSTRUCTIVE BIRTH CONTROL

"Sir,--Your recent paragraph of 'opinions' about the Mothers' Clinic
and the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress is
not only extremely unrepresentative, but grossly misleading. Your
writer says that he can only remember one doctor who did not attack
this particular society. This implies that the medical profession is
against it, which is absolutely untrue, as is quite evident from the
fact that we have three of the most distinguished medical men in Great
Britain on our list of Vice-Presidents; four others, also very
distinguished, on our Research Committee; and that Dr. E.B. Turner, in
a Press interview after the recent Church Congress, singled out
Constructive Birth Control as the only 'Control' which was not
mischievous.

"_That there may be medical men who do not approve of birth control is
natural, when one remembers that a doctor has to make his living, and
can do so more easily when women are ailing with incessant pregnancies
than when they maintain themselves in good health by only having
children when fitted to do so. Opinions of medicals, therefore, must be
sifted. The best doctors are with us; the self-seeking and the biassed
may be against us_.

"Details about the society, including the manifesto signed by a series
of the most distinguished persons, can be obtained on application to
the Honorary Secretary, at ... London, N.19.--Yours, etc.

"MARIE C. STOPES,
"President Society for Constructive and Racial Progress."

The italics are mine, and they draw attention to a disgraceful statement
concerning the medical profession. As the reader is aware, certain members
of our profession approve of artificial birth control. What, I ask, would
be the opinion of the general public, and of my friends, if I were so
distraught as to suggest that these men approved of birth control because
they had a financial interest in the sale of contraceptives? That
suggestion would be as reckless and as wicked as the statement made by Dr.
Marie C. Stopes. In the _British Medical Journal_ of November 26 I quoted,
without comment, the above italicised paragraph as her opinion of the
medical profession, and on December 10 the following reply from the lady
appeared:

"Your two correspondents, Dr. Halliday Sutherland and Dr. Binnie
Dunlop, by quoting paragraphs without their full context, appear to
lend support to views which by implication are, to some extent,
detrimental to my own. This method of controversy has never appealed to
me, but in the interests of the society with which I am associated, I
must be allowed to answer the implications. The paragraph quoted by Dr.
Sutherland is not, as would appear from his letter, a simple opinion of
mine on the medical profession, but was written in reply to a rather
scurrilous paragraph so worded as to lead the public to believe that
the medical profession as a whole was against the Society for
Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress. My answer, which
appeared not only in the papers quoted but in others, contained the
following statement: 'We have three of the most distinguished medical
men in Great Britain on our list of Vice-Presidents; four others, also
very distinguished, on our Research Committee.' Reading these words
before the paragraph your correspondent quotes, and taking all in
conjunction with an attack implying that the entire medical profession
was against us, it is obvious that the position is rather different
from what readers of Dr. Sutherland's letter in your issue of November
26 might suppose."

It will be noted that Dr. Stopes does not withdraw but attempts to justify
her scandalous suggestion by stating, firstly, that the full context of her
letter was not quoted by me, and secondly, that her original letter was
written "in reply to a rather scurrilous paragraph."

As I have now quoted in full her original letter, excepting the address
of her society, and the two paragraphs from the _Sussex Daily News_, my
readers may form their own judgment on the following points: Is it possible
to maintain that the whole context of her original letter puts a different
complexion on her remarks concerning the medical profession? Can either
of the paragraphs from the _Sussex Daily News_ be truthfully described
as "rather scurrilous," or are they fair comment on a matter of public
interest? Moreover, even if a daily paper _had_ published a misleading
paragraph about this society, surely that is not a valid reason why its
President should make a malignant attack, not on journalists, but on the
medical profession?

Section 3. A CAUSE OF UNHAPPINESS IN MARRIAGE

Nor does birth control lead to happiness in marriage. On the contrary,
experience shows that the practice is injurious not only to the bodies
but also to the minds of men and women. As no method of contraception is
infallible, the wife who allows or adopts it may find herself in the truly
horrible position of being secretly or openly suspected of infidelity.
Again, when a family has been limited to one or two children and these die,
the parents may find themselves solitary and childless in old age; and
mothers thus bereaved are often the victims of profound and lasting
melancholy. The mother of a large family has her worries, many of them not
due to her children, but to the social evils of our time: and yet she is
less to be pitied than the woman who is losing her beauty after a fevered
life of, vanity and self-indulgence, and who has no one to love her, not
even a child.

Moreover, these practices have an influence on the relation between husband
and wife, on their emotions towards each other and towards the whole sexual
nisus. Mr. Bernard Shaw recently stated [71] that when people adopt methods
of birth control they are engaging, not in sexual intercourse, but in
reciprocal masturbation.

That is the plain truth of the matter. Or, from another point of view, it
may be said that the man who adopts these practices is simply using his
wife as he would use a prostitute, as indeed was said long ago by St.
Thomas Aquinas. [72] The excuse offered for illicit sexual intercourse is
not usually pleasure, but that the sex impulse is irresistible: and the
same argument is used for conjugal union with prevention. In both cases the
natural result of union is not desired, and positive means are taken to
prevent it.

And what of the results on the mutual love, if an old-fashioned word be
not now out of place, and on the self-respect of two people so associated?
Birth control cannot make for happiness, because it means that mutual love
is at the mercy of an animal instinct, neither satisfied nor denied. It is
an old truth that those who seek happiness for itself never find it. And
yet the advocates of birth control have the temerity to claim that these
practices lead to happiness. I presume that of the bliss following marriage
with contraceptives the crowded lists of our divorce courts are an index.
The marriage bond is weakened when a common lasting interest in the care
of children is replaced by transient sexual excitement. Once pregnancy is
abolished there is no natural check on the sexual passions of husband or
wife, for they have learnt how sexual desire may be gratified without the
pain, publicity, and responsibility of having children. In the experience
of the world marriages based merely on passion are seldom happy, and
artificial birth control means passion uncontrolled by nature. These
methods are not practised by nations such as Ireland and Spain, who accept
the moral rule of the natural law expressed in God's commandments and
sanctioned by His judgments; and no man who has ever lived in these
countries could truthfully maintain that the people there, on whom the
burdens of marriage press as elsewhere, are in reality anxious to obtain
facilities for divorce. On the other hand, there are many who allege that
the people of England are shouting out for greater facilities for divorce
than they now possess. At any rate, it is obvious enough that there are
those amongst us who are straining every nerve to force such facilities
upon them.

Section 4. AN INSULT TO TRUE WOMANHOOD

It has been said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel; and
apparently chivalry is the last refuge of a fool. Some of the advocates of
birth control who have never thought the matter out, either passionately or
dispassionately, claim to speak on behalf of women. They protest that "many
women of the educated classes revolt against the drudgery, anxieties,
inconveniences, disease, and disfigurements which attend the yearly
child-bearing advocated by the moralist." [73]

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