The Case for Birth Control
first published in the Woman Citizen, Vol. 8, February 23, 1924, pages
17-18.
Courtesy Library of Congress
-- by Margaret Sanger
Everywhere we look, we see poverty and large families going hand in
hand. We see hordes of children whose parents cannot feed, clothe, or
educate even one half of the number born to them. We see sick, harassed,
broken mothers whose health and nerves cannot bear the strain of further
child-bearing. We see fathers growing despondent and desperate, because
their labor cannot bring the necessary wage to keep their growing
families. We see that those parents who are least fit to reproduce the
race are having the largest number of children; while people of wealth,
leisure, and education are having small families.
It is generally conceded by sociologists and scientists that a nation
cannot go on indefinitely multiplying without eventually reaching the
point when population presses upon means of subsistence. While in this
country there is perhaps no need for immediate alarm on this account,
there are many other reasons for demanding birth control. At present,
for the poor mother, there is only one alternative to the necessity of
bearing children year after year, regardless of her health, of the
welfare of the children she already has, and of the income of the
family. This alternative is abortion, which is so common as to be almost
universal, especially where there are rigid laws against imparting
information for the prevention of conception. It has been estimated that
there are about one million abortions in the United States each year.
To force poor mothers to resort to this dangerous and
healthdestroying method of curtailing their families is cruel, wicked,
and heartless, and it is often the mothers who care most about the
welfare of their children who are willing to undergo any pain or risk to
prevent the coming of infants for whom they cannot properly care.
There are definite reasons when and why parents should not have
children, which will be conceded by most thoughtful people.
First -- Children should not be born when either parent has an
inheritable disease, such as insanity, feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, or
syphilis.
Second -- When the mother is suffering from tuberculosis, kidney
disease, heart disease, or pelvic deformity.
Third -- When either parent has gonorrhea. This disease in the mother
is the cause of 90 percent of blindness in newborn babies.
Fourth -- When children already born are not normal, even though both
parents are in good physical and mental condition.
Fifth -- Not until the woman is twenty-three years old and the man
twenty-five.
Sixth -- Not until the previous baby is at least three years old.
This gives a year to recover from the physical ordeal of the birth of
the baby, a year to rest, be normal and enjoy her motherhood, and
another year to prepare for the coming of the next.
We want mothers to be fit. We want them to conceive in joy and
gladness. We want them to carry their babies during the nine months in a
sound and healthy body and with a happy, joyous, hopeful mind. It is
almost impossible to imagine the suffering caused to women, the mental
agony they endure, when their days and nights are haunted by the fear of
undesired pregnancy.
Seventh -- Children should not be born to parents whose economic
circumstances do not guarantee enough to provide the children with the
necessities of life.
A couple who can take care of two children and bring them up decently
in health and comfort, give them an education and start them fairly in
life, do more for their country and for mankind than the couple who
recklessly reproduce ten or twelve children, some of them to die in
infancy, others to survive but to enter the mill or factory at an early
age, and all to sink to that level of degradation where charity, either
state or private, is necessary to keep them alive. The man who cannot
support three children should not have ten, notwithstanding all pleas of
the militarists for numbers.
Eighth -- A woman should not bear children when exhausted from labor.
This especially applies to women who marry after spending several years
in industrial or commercial life. Conception should not take place until
she is in good health and has overcome her fatigue.
Ninth -- Not for two years after marriage should a couple undertake
the great responsibility of becoming parents. Thousands of young people
enter marriage without the faintest idea of what marriage involves. They
do not know its spiritual responsibilities. If children are born quickly
and plentifully, people consider that the marriage is justified. I claim
that this is barbaric and wrong. It is wrong for the wife, for the man,
for the children.
It is impossible for two young people to really know each other until
they have lived together in marriage. After the closeness and intimacy
of that relation there often comes to the woman a rude awakening; the
devoted lover becomes careless and dissatisfied. If she becomes pregnant
immediately, she becomes physically disturbed, nervous, and irritable.
The girl has changed, and the boy who knew her as a happy smiling
sweetheart finds her disagreeable and disgruntled. Of course thousands
of people learn to adjust themselves. Nevertheless, I maintain that
young people should marry early and wait at least two years to adjust
their own lives, to play and read together and to build up a cultural
and spiritual friendship. Then will come the intense desire to call into
being a little child to share their love and happiness. When children
are conceived in love and born into an atmosphere of happiness, then
will parenthood be a glorious privilege, and the children will grow to
resemble gods. This can only be obtained through the knowledge and
practice of Birth Control.
P.S. -- The American Birth Control League desires that the
instruction in birth control should be given by the medical profession.
Only through individual care and treatment can a woman be given the best
and safest means of controlling her offspring. We do not favor the
indiscriminate diffusion of unreliable and unsafe birth control advice.
-- Margaret Sanger
first published in the Woman Citizen, Vol. 8,
February 23, 1924, pages 17-18.
Biographical Sketch:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/secure/aboutms/index.html
Articles and Speeches:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/secure/documents/documents_mspp.html |
