Birth control and the state

by C. P. Blacker

Consideration of the arguments bearing upon the individual, it is submitted, points to the desirability of (1) the Ministry of Health giving the subject recognition and sanction, and (2) limiting the publicity that now attaches to it.

(b) The Race. Turning now from the individual to the race, we enter on a more difficult part of the subject. Adhering to our original conception of the question we find that the solution (if it is to be accepted as such) of the quantitative difficulty, and of the qualitative problem described as ‘economic’ in nature, are one and the same. The remedy for that aspect of the qualitative problem distinguished as ‘dysgenic’ is different and must be considered separately.

The quantitative difficulty reduces itself to this. Admitting the greater fertility to-day of those whose occupations are manual, or who have no occupation at all (in other words, of the less select type) and admitting that at the present moment the country is overpopulated, how are we to be certain that we are not within sight of more prosperous times when unemployment will disappear? And how are we to feel assured that the dissemination of knowledge of Birth Control will not, in the long run, lead to a disastrous decline in the birth rate, producing an irretrievable diminution in our numbers?

The practical difficulty is here to prophesy what will be the optimum population (i.e., that at which average return of labour per individual would be greatest) for a given country fourteen years ahead—at the time, that is, when the children born to-day would enter the labour market. And here we are in the realm of almost pure guesswork, and probably no economist could be found who would venture upon more than a tentative speculation. What the optimum is at the moment remains even a disputed question. There is reason to suppose that unemployment returns are not necessarily a trustworthy guide to the figure. A consensus of opinion however exists (including that of Mr. Baldwin) that at the moment our numbers are above their optimum, though expectations vary almost infinitely as to what the optimum will be in a few years. Those who hope for a boom in trade are satisfied with the present condition. Others who do not anticipate such an event, would more willingly see an alteration brought about. In the absence of any definite knowledge, the best we can do is not to try to look too far ahead but to consider the solution of our problems as we find them to-day. At the moment the indisputable facts of the problem in this country are that we are over-populated, that contraception is practised too much by the upper and middle classes—perhaps even by the skilled working classes—and not enough by the improvident unskilled masses at the bottom of the social edifice.

The outstanding question is whether, as a result of a reduction of our numbers to a point somewhere in the neighbourhood of the economic optimum for this country—by which reduction the existing burden of taxation, an increasing element of which is now devoted to charity and relief, will be correspondingly diminished—our upper and middle classes would be enabled to produce more children, and to continue to produce enough to maintain our numbers in the neighbourhood of their optimum.

The answer to this question depends on a further question. To what extent is the relative sterility of the professional and skilled working classes attributable to the heavy taxation now imposed on them, and to the rise in the cost of living due to the war, and to what extent is it the result of a preference shown by many people for a more or less luxurious life, with few or no children, to a simpler life with several children? In other words, to what extent is it attributable to an economic factor and to what extent to motives of selfishness?

To what extent does that quality of self-interest play a part which prompts a woman to refuse to breastfeed her baby because she is afraid of the effects thereof upon her figure, which causes her to abstain from having children because she dislikes the discomfort and deformity preliminary to, and the actual pains of, childbirth, or which makes her value amusements and expensive forms of pleasure and recreation more highly than the experience of maternity? To what extent is the relative infertility of the upper and middle classes accounted for by the kind of egotism which induces the husband to go in for entertaining, for a motor, and a house with several servants, and generally to live in comparative affluence rather than do without his superfluities and bring up a family of children? This attitude nowadays certainly plays a part. Dissatisfaction with the elementary pleasures of life, the craving after artificial stimuli and new sensations, have always been, and probably will always remain, the surest way to decadence in a race, and as such should be combated. It is more in the interest of the race that the professional and artisan classes should produce plenty of good children than that the families of the very poor should be restricted. The argument is sometimes advanced by complacent and wealthy individuals that the working classes should be encouraged to reproduce freely in order to keep up the country’s numbers. The dirty work is thrown, so to speak, on the shoulders of those least qualified to discharge it. It must appeal to the sense of justice of everyone that if the maintenance of numbers of the race is to be conceived as a burden (which of course it should not), the burden should be borne equally by all classes.

The writer, who has had occasion to witness the results of over-multiplication among the very poor, feels that it is only in fairness to them that they should be equipped with every possible means of improving their lot. At present one of the most important of such means is the creation of facilities by the Ministry of Health for the giving of information to those mothers who need it about how they may limit their families and space their children. The immediate social results of such a measure would unquestionably be good. The remote results are more open to doubt. And it is this doubt which renders it of the utmost importance to add that every form of pressure and persuasion be brought to bear on the other classes, to make them realize that it is morally incumbent on them, in the interests of the country and of the race, to have as many children as they can possibly afford, even at the expense of the minor luxuries of life.

Up till now no such pressure has been exerted, and most people regard it as a matter of moral indifference, whether, when married, they have children or not. The problem as to whether the general public, once it has been educated to realize the national importance of the question of having children, would act upon it and thereby avert the threat of a dwindling population is again one of great difficulty. Admittedly, the example set us by France is not encouraging. What is the likelihood of our following in her footsteps? It is a delicate and important question. The writer is of the opinion that our national character differs from that of the French in a way that would make us more responsive to such an appeal for children than the French have shown themselves to be. But again we are in the realm of conjecture, and each person is entitled to his opinion.