Part 9 (2/2)
Writers of Teutonic sympathies have a.s.serted that the aggressive att.i.tude of Germany at the beginning of the Great War was to be legitimately explained and apologized for on the ground that the War was the inevitable expansive outcome of the abnormally high birth-rate of Germany in recent times. Dr. Dernburg, the German statesman, said not very long ago: ”The expansion of the German nation has been so extraordinary during the past twenty-five years that the conditions existing before the war had become insupportable.” Another writer has said: ”Of later years there has arisen a movement among German women for bringing abortion into honor and repute, so that it may be carried out openly and with the aid of the best physicians. This movement has been supported by lawyers and social reformers of high position.”
Thus, it would seem that a birth-rate stimulated by unusual circ.u.mstances or by deliberate State encouragement, seemingly draws upon it the operation of natural laws which tend to increase its death-rate by War, as well as by an increased number of abortions, and an increased death-rate. It would seem as natural laws operate to bring down the population to normal by war if the other factors do not operate sufficiently rapidly and efficiently.
Havelock Ellis makes the following interesting statement: ”If we survey the belligerent nations in the war we may say that those who took the initiative in drawing it on, or at all events were most prepared to welcome it, were Germany, Austria, Serbia, and Russia--all nations with a high birth-rate, and in which the fall of the birth-rate has not yet had time to permeate. On the other hand, of the belligerent peoples of today, all indications point to the French as the people most intolerant, silently but deeply, of the war they are so ably and heroically waging. Yet the France of the present, with the lowest birth-rate, was a century ago the France of a birth-rate higher than that of Germany today, and at that time the most militarist and aggressive of nations, a perpetual menace to Europe.”
Finally, let us quote Havelock Ellis once more; he says: ”When we realize these facts we are also enabled to realize how futile, how misplaced and how mischievous it is to raise the cry of 'Race Suicide.'
It is futile because no outcry can affect a world-wide movement of civilization. It is misplaced because the rise and fall of the population is not a matter of birth-rate alone, but of the birth-rate combined with the death-rate, and while we cannot expect to touch the former we can influence the latter. It is mischievous because by fighting against a tendency which is not only inevitable but altogether beneficial, we blind ourselves to the advance of civilization and risk the misdirection of our energies. How far this blindness may be carried we see in the false patriotism of those who in the decline of the birth-rate, fancy they see the ruin of their own particular country, oblivious of the fact that we are concerned with a phenomenon of world-wide extension. The whole tendency of civilization is to reduce the birth-rate. We may go further, and a.s.sert with the distinguished German economist, Roscher, that the chief cause of the superiority of a highly civilized state over lower stages of civilization is precisely a greater degree of forethought and self-control in marriage and child-bearing. Instead of talking about Race Suicide, we should do well to observe at what an appalling rate, even yet, the population is increasing; and we should note that it is everywhere the poorest and most primitive countries, and in every country (as in Germany) the poorest regions, which show the highest birth-rate.”
The same authority says: ”One last resort the would-be patriotic alarmist seeks when all others fail. He is good enough to admit that a general decline in the birth-rate might be beneficial. But, he points out, it affects social cla.s.ses unequally. It is initiated, not by the degenerate and unfit, with whom we could well dispense, but by the very best cla.s.ses in the community, the well-to-do and the educated. One is inclined to remark, at once, that a social change initiated by its best social cla.s.s is scarcely likely to be pernicious. Where, it may be asked, if not among the most educated cla.s.ses, is any process of amelioration to be initiated? We cannot make the world topsy-turvy to suit the convenience of topsy-turvy minds. All social movements tend to begin at the top and to permeate downwards. This has been the case with the decline of the birth-rate, but it is already well marked among the working cla.s.ses, and has only failed to touch the lowest stratum of all, too weak-minded and too reckless to be amenable to ordinary social motives. The rational method of meeting this situation is not a propaganda in favor of procreation--a truly imbecile propaganda, since it is only carried out and only likely to be carried out, by the very cla.s.s which we wish to sterilize--but rather by a wise policy of regulative eugenics. We have to create the motives, and it is not an impossible task, which will act even upon the weak-minded and reckless lowest social stratum.”
LESSON XII
THE ARGUMENT FOR BIRTH CONTROL
Let us now consider the general and special arguments advanced in favor of rational and scientific Birth Control, as stated by the advocates thereof.
GENERAL ARGUMENT. The general argument in favor of Birth Control may well be begun by the statement that rational and scientific Birth Control is not the fixing upon the race of a new and unfamiliar practice or policy, but is rather the scientific correction of a practice and policy which is now followed by the majority of married persons in civilized countries, though in a bungling, unscientific, and frequently a harmful manner. The modern advocates of scientific methods of Birth Control seek to replace these bungling, unscientific, and frequently harmful methods by sane, scientific, harmless methods, approved of by capable physicians and other experienced and capable authorities, and under the sanction of the law rather than contrary to it.
The advocates of Birth Control seek to place upon a scientific basis, under cover and protection of the law, a subject which heretofore has been but imperfectly known, and more imperfectly practiced in some form by the majority of married couples, and which has heretofore been under condemnation of the law so far as concerned the actual dissemination of information concerning methods of contraception. They hold that it is the veriest hypocrisy to pretend ignorance of the fact that the great majority of married couples in civilized communities know and practice to some extent contraceptive methods--usually imperfectly and bunglingly, it must be added.
One has but to consider the families of married couples, and to count their children, to become aware that at least some form of contraception has been known and practiced in many cases. This is particularly true of the more intelligent and cultured members of civilized society, among whom we find large families of children to be the exception, and small families to be the general rule. Among the less intelligent and uncultured cla.s.ses the reverse of this condition is found.
It is hypocritical folly to a.s.sert that these small families to be found among the more intelligent cla.s.ses of society are due to the fact that the husbands and wives are physically incapable of procreating off-spring--the mere suggestion produces an incredulous smile from the reader. No one who is acquainted with the habits and customs of married people would in good faith offer such an explanation. Rather is it tacitly acknowledged by all thinking persons that such married couples practice some form of Birth Control, or else commit the crime of abortion. All physicians, particularly those who practice in the large cities, are fully informed as to the appalling facts concerning the prevalence of abortion among the women of the ”respectable” cla.s.ses, and are likewise fully informed as to the terrible consequences so frequently arising from this criminal course.
The question, then, to many intelligent persons is not so much that of ”Should contraception be employed in order to avoid excessively large families?” as that of ”Should not contraception be employed to obviate the crime of abortion with its terrible train of consequences?” And the Birth Control propaganda which is so vigorously underway in all civilized countries may be stated to be designed for the following purposes: (1) to replace abortion, and other harmful methods of restricting the size of families, with rational and scientific methods of contraception; and (2) to supply to married persons the best scientific knowledge concerning the regulation of the size of families, and the methods of producing the best kind of children, under the best conditions, and at the times best adapted for their proper care and well-being. These advocates of the Betterment of the Race face the facts of human nature and married life fearlessly, instead of trying to cover them over with pretty words and sentimental generalities. They take ”things as they are,” and not as certain persons insist that ”they should be”--they live in a world of facts and try to better things as they find them, instead of trying to live in a fool's paradise and contenting themselves with denying the existence of the facts which they consider ”ugly.”
Dr. William J. Robinson, one of the leading American workers in the field of Birth Control, ably presents the main contention of the Birth Control advocates as follows:
”We believe that under any conditions, and particularly under our present economic conditions, human beings should be able to control the number of our offspring. THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO DECIDE HOW MANY CHILDREN THEY WANT TO HAVE, AND WHEN THEY WANT TO HAVE THEM. And to accomplish this result we demand that the knowledge of controlling the number of offspring, in other and plainer words, the knowledge of preventing undesirable conception, should not be considered criminal knowledge, that its dissemination should not be considered a criminal offense punishable by hard labor in Federal prisons, but that it should be considered knowledge useful and necessary to the welfare of the race and of the individual; and that its dissemination should be permissible and as respectable as is the dissemination of any hygienic, sanitary or eugenic knowledge.
”There is no element of force in our teachings; that is, we would not force any family to limit the number of children against their will, though we would endeavor to create a public opinion which would consider it a disgrace for any family to have more children than they can bring up and educate properly. We would consider it a disgrace, an anti-social act, for any family to bring children into the world which they must send out at an early age into the mills, shops, and streets to earn a living, or must fall back upon public charity to save them from starvation.
”Public opinion is stronger than any laws, and in time people would be as much ashamed of having children whom they could not bring up properly in every sense of the word, as they are now ashamed of having their children turn out criminals. Now, no disgrace can attach to any poor family, no matter how many children they have, because they have not got the knowledge, because society prevents them from having the knowledge of how to limit the number of children. But if that knowledge became easily accessible, and people still refused to avail themselves of it, then they would properly be considered as anti-social, as criminal members of society. As far as couples are concerned who are well-to-do, who love children, and who are well capable of taking care of a large number, we, that is, we American limitationists, would put no limit. On the contrary, we would say: 'G.o.d bless you, have as many children as you want to; there is plenty of room yet for all of you.'”
Another writer, a celebrated English thinker along these lines, has said of the general argument in favor of Birth Control:
”It used to be thought that small families were immoral. We now begin to see that it was the large families of old which were immoral. The excessive birth-rate of the early industrial period was directly stimulated by selfishness. There were no laws against child-labor; children were produced that they might be sent out, when little more than babies, to the factories and the mines to increase their parents'
incomes. The diminished birth-rate has accomplished higher moral transformation. It has introduced a finer economy into life, diminished death, disease, and misery. It is indirectly, and even directly, improving the quality of the race. The very fact that children are born at longer intervals is not only beneficial to the mother's health, and therefore to the children's general welfare, but it has been proved to have a marked and prolonged influence on the physical development of children.
”Social progress, and a higher civilization, we thus see, involve A REDUCED BIRTH-RATE AND A REDUCED DEATH-RATE. The fewer the children born, the fewer the risks of death, disease, and misery to the children that are born. The fact that civilization involves small families is clearly shown by the tendency of the educated and upper social cla.s.ses to have small families. As the proletariat cla.s.s becomes educated and elevated, disciplined to refinement and to foresight--as it were aristocratised--it also has small families. Civilizational progress is here on a line with biological progress. The lower organisms sp.a.w.n their progeny in thousands, the higher mammals produce but one or two at a time. The higher the race, the fewer the offspring.
”Thus diminution in quant.i.ty is throughout a.s.sociated with augmentation in quality. Quality rather than quant.i.ty is the racial ideal now set before us, and it is an ideal which, as we are beginning to learn, it is possible to cultivate, both individually and socially. That is why the new science of eugenics or racial hygiene is acquiring so immense an importance. In the past, racial selection has been carried out crudely by the destructive, wasteful, and expensive method of elimination, through death. In the future, it will be carried out far more effectively by conscious and deliberate selection, exercised not merely before birth, but before conception and even before mating. Galton, who recognized the futility of mere legislation to elevate the race, believed that the hope of the future lay in eugenics becoming a part of religion. The good of the race lies, not in the production of a super-man, but of a super-humanity. This can only be attained through personal individual development, the increase of knowledge, the sense of responsibility toward the race, enabling men to act in accordance with responsibility. THE LEADERs.h.i.+P IN CIVILIZATION BELONGS NOT TO THE NATION WITH THE HIGHEST BIRTH-RATE, BUT TO THE NATION WHICH HAS THUS LEARNT TO PRODUCE THE FINEST MEN AND WOMEN.”
Let us now proceed to a consideration of the special arguments in favor of rational and scientific Birth Control as advanced by its leading advocates.
The advocates of rational and scientific Birth Control have presented the strongest points of their case in their replies to those opposing the general idea, and without positively taking the stand that the burden of the proof in the argument concerning Birth Control rested upon those opposing the idea, have practically a.s.sumed that position. They claim that the right to Birth Control is so self-evident, and its application so generally recognized (though usually sought to be smothered with silence) that the case in favor of Birth Control is really quite apparent to anyone seriously considering the same without prejudice. The opposing side of the question is held by them to be represented princ.i.p.ally by statements based on prejudice and disingenuous statements, which are capable of being turned against those advancing them.
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