Conception Control and Its Effects on the Individual and the Nation | Page 3

a spirit
and doth not live by bread alone."
To many the introduction of this aspect of the question may seem
beside the mark. For them the practical question in a world of sense is
how to avoid having children when for any reason they are not wanted,
and yet leave unimpaired facilities for married life. It is true the
problem is not always stated so bluntly. The uses of contraceptives are
explained, together with a recommendation for moderation in physical
intercourse; but as will be shewn below, if such moderation is really
practised, it is possible to live a natural married life such as renders
unnecessary the use of artificial contraceptives with all their attendant
evils and yet limit the size of the family.
But it is necessary to consider more carefully the claim made to-day
that contraceptives are both necessary and harmless, and that public

propaganda on the subject is desirable.
There are several different groups for whom relief is claimed:--
1. Women who are suffering from chronic or from temporary ill-health
are frequently not in a condition to bear the strain of child-bearing, and
indeed it may become a real danger to their future health, either mental
or physical.
2. There are cases of inherited disease, mental or physical, which ought
to prohibit child-bearing.
3. There are over-worked women whose daily work, added to
child-bearing, destroys their health and vitality. These people are found
not only among the so-called working classes; the same conditions with
somewhat different types of strain are found in wives of professional
men with very slender incomes.
4. Some parents wish to "space" their children, that greater attention
may be given to each, or they wish to limit the number of their family
on account of financial and other difficulties.
With these and other considerations in view, the widespread teaching of
methods of preventing conception is advocated because it is claimed:--
(a) That except for general propaganda, the greatest sufferers, viz., poor
women with constantly recurring pregnancies, would otherwise never
learn of any method of relief.
(b) That many young people who for various reasons, such as housing
or financial difficulties or inherited disease, feel themselves unable to
have a family, would if such knowledge were available marry much
earlier, and their natural desires would be satisfied, while apart from
marriage they might resort to promiscuous intercourse.
(c) That homes where the growing difficulties and strain of a
continually increasing family are leading to estrangement between
husband and wife, are restored to happiness when saved from the

difficult choice between continence, which they have never trained
themselves to practice, or many children with which they cannot cope.
There are, however, serious fallacies in these contentions.
The propagandists of conception control appear to take it for granted
that after preventive measures in early youth, children may be
conceived at will whenever they are desired; and, moreover, it is
assumed that apart from such precautions every woman will conceive
annually and will continue to do so until 10-12 children have been
born.
Neither of these suppositions is supported by facts. On the contrary,
there are large numbers of married couples who would give anything to
have children, but have postponed it until circumstances should seem
quite desirable, and then, to their grief, no children are given to them. It
is very unfair to teach people that they may safely postpone the natural
tendency to bear children in youth and rely upon having them later in
life. Probably gynæcologists are consulted more often by women who
desire children but do not have them, than by those who wish to avoid
having them--the truth being that the tendency among people in
comfortable surroundings is towards relative sterility rather than
towards excessive fertility.
Those who are interested in this aspect of the question will find the
facts admirably set forth in Mr. Pell's book on The Law of Births and
Deaths, being a study of the variation in the degree of animal fertility
under the influence of environment.
He finds that the all-important factor which determines fertility is the
amount of nervous energy of the organism, and that nervous energy is
produced or modified by three specially influential factors, viz., Food,
both quantity and quality; Climate, hot or cold--moist or dry; and, lastly,
all those varied conditions which make for greater or lesser mental and
physical activity.
Fertility, broadly speaking, varies in inverse proportion to the degree of
nervous energy or what we may call vitality.

Conditions, therefore, which lower the general vitality below the
normal produce abnormal fertility. This excessive child-bearing under
present conditions still further lowers the standard of life and the health
of the mother, hence a vicious circle is set up, the only escape from
which will come by such consideration of the laws of health relating