Birth control and the state

by C. P. Blacker

3. There is an ‘economic’ argument against Birth Control, which itself takes two forms.

In the first place it is felt, in under-populated countries like New Zealand, Australia, and perhaps to a less extent the United States, that since it is desirable in the general interests that the population should increase, it is to be preferred that this increase be effected from native-born stock rather than through the process of accretion by often undesirable aliens. Hence in most under-populated countries, Birth Control is opposed.

In the second place it is probably felt (though probably not admitted) by the Governments of those capitalistic countries confronted with a labour problem, which are at the same time desirous of limiting immigration, that the unrestricted multiplication of their working classes, by causing a competition for wages, will create a cheap labour market. It is highly unlikely that this view has much weight here, though it may easily be otherwise in the United States, where the labour problem is acute and where it is universally desired to limit coloured immigration and immigration from South-Eastern Europe.

4. There is an argument against Birth Control, which has special reference to the position of this country as the original founder of a great Empire. Since most of the Dominions are still under-populated and wish their numbers to increase, and since the increase of native stock, even though fully encouraged, is unable to supply the demand for labour, it is contended that Great Britain should always be able to turn out a numerical surplus to send to the Dominions each year, which in addition to satisfying a need for better-class immigrants would serve to consolidate the racial and cultural bonds that keep the Empire together.

B. The above arguments concern the race. The remainder which follow refer primarily to the individual.

5. A ‘medical’ argument has been heard to the effect that the actual practice of Birth Control or, more precisely, the use of contraceptives, is inimical to health, being capable of causing both local disease and more general constitutional disorders. Emotional instability and various neuroses have been quoted as such products. No woman making use of a contraceptive for the first time can escape a feeling of revulsion at such a callous interference with a process that above all others should be spontaneous and instinctive. No woman can then fail to experience a sense of aversion from such a deliberate thwarting of Nature’s most fundamental purpose.

6. Very potent also, is a ‘conventional’ objection which in practice is often associated with the religious argument next to be considered, though in reality it is distinguishable from it. On these grounds it is felt that all that pertains to the province of sex is indecent, disgusting, and unfit for discussion. The topic of Birth Control is thus stigmatized as ‘immoral’ by many people of no deep religious conviction.

7. The ‘religious’ objection nowadays finds its chief exponents among the Japanese and Roman Catholics, though it is also strongly upheld by many Anglicans and others. By the Japanese, Birth Control is condemned on grounds that seem to be, partly at any rate, nationalistic. The Japanese religion, intimately connected as it is with Ancestor Cult, holds that it is the duty of every man to marry young, and to produce the largest possible number of children, especially males, who may carry on the tradition of the family and at the same time grow up into soldiers capable of fighting for the Mikado in war. By the Japanese, the Mikado is believed to be a Deity incarnate, not in the symbolical sense in which some people have thought of the divine right of kings, but in a real and vital sense, as ‘the occupant of a sacred throne which was established at the time when the heavens and the earth became separated.’ To die for him in war is the most supreme, the most glorious duty. The objection to Birth Control here would thus seem closely allied to the ‘military’ objection first advanced.

By Roman Catholics it is held to be a mortal sin to employ any chemical or mechanical means to prevent conception, the only permissible form of control being voluntary abstinence from each other on the part of both parents. The abstinence of one parent against the will of the other is also considered a mortal sin on the part of the refractory parent. An exception to this rule is now made which permits parents not desiring children to make use of a moment in the periodic life of the mother during which conception is less likely to take place than at other times—the so-called ‘safe’ period. It is, however, generally agreed nowadays that the ‘safety’ pertaining to this period is in many cases quite illusory and devoid of serious physiological or medical basis. Opponents of the Roman Catholic Church have represented its insistence on this prohibition as dictated by a desire to extend her spiritual empire throughout the world, since obedience to it must bring about a greater relative increase of believing Roman Catholics than of adherents to other religious denominations tolerating Birth Control. But its attitude would further appear to express a conviction (manifested elsewhere in the insistence upon celibacy among Catholic priests and in its systems of penances and abstinences) that sexual indulgence is somehow incompatible with devotion to a purely spiritual life, and when excessive produces a demoralizing effect upon human nature, tending to make it weak, lazy, selfish and often vicious. Probably the Catholic Church feels that the use of devices to prevent conception would abolish the necessity for salutary self-restraint, and would promote promiscuous and excessive indulgence. The effect of this prohibition is that most Catholics who are conscientious about not using contraceptives have large families. There are some, however, particularly in France, who do not take the prohibition very seriously.