Mrs. Margaret Sanger, President of the League in the U. S., declared that her country was going ''on a biological joyride"; that the Government might better
expend the millions now paid out for charities in bonuses to morons, criminals and imbeciles who refrain from bearing offspring.
Dr. C. V. Drysdale of the University of London, President of the Conference, hailed Mrs. Sanger as “the Joan of Arc and the Florence Nightingale of the birth-control movement.”
A message from G. B. Shaw said: “As the amoeba does not understand birth control, it cannot abuse it and therefore its state may be the more gracious ; but it is also true that, as the amoeba cannot write, it cannot commit forgery; yet we teach everybody to write unhesitatingly, knowing that if we refuse to teach anything that could be abused, we should never teach anything at all.”
Other scientists and sociologists spoke, some cautiously, some daringly.
A British doctor went so far as to advocate, and predict, not only the general adoption of contraceptive practices, but even the killing of defective babies at birth. An insurance statistician, Dr. Louis I. Dublin of Manhattan, was invited to present opposite views. He did so. declaring the population rise of the U. S. was no menace; indeed, the birth rate of the native population was steadily decreasing. He suggested that U. S. birth controllers bend their energies toward encouraging larger families among the well-to-do.
“Today birth-control argument centres about the proposals that women should be taught to avoid pregnancy and
that abortion should be legalized.” Points usually made are: Pro:
- There would be no unwanted children.
- Weak and diseased women would have relief.
- Timely children are likely to be more healthy than untimely.
- Limiting the number of children among the poor safeguards not only the family’s, but the children’s opportunity in the world.
- Overpopulation would be prevented, thus avoiding high death rates, starvation, poverty, war.
Con:
- Immorality would be encouraged.
- It would be virtually murder; at the least, immoral interference with natural processes.
- It could not prevent overpopulation because: a) By its nature it could never be made compulsory; b) aside from those refusing to adopt it for religious and moral reasons, the mentally incompetent would not appreciate its necessity.
- It would tend to reduce the intelligent portion of society while the unintelligent portion, refusing to practise it, would continue to multiply.
- Without population pressure, the natural selection of the fit and the elimination of the unfit would cease.
An English representative to the Manhattan conference stated that, in England, organized opposition to birth control had ceased entirely except for the activity of the Roman Catholic Church. Full Story from Apr. 6, 1925
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