But I do not advocate letting disease and vice alone. There is a right way as well as a wrong way of dealing with venereal disease. I consider that legislation is needed on this subject. It is unwise to propose to do nothing because legislation has unhappily done wrong. It is out of the question to suppose that in this age, when we justly boast of the progress of hygiene or preventive medicine, so great an evil as the unchecked spread of venereal disease should be allowed to continue. It was the necessity of providing some check to the spread of disease which operated a few years ago, when the unjust and immoral Contagious Diseases Acts were so unhappily introduced into England by those who certainly could not have realized their injustice and immorality. All legislation upon the diseases of vice which can be durable—i.e., which will approve itself to the conscience of a Christian people—must be based upon two fundamental principles—the principles, viz., of equal justice and respect for individual rights. These principles are both overturned in the Contagious Diseases Acts—Acts which are, therefore, sure to be abolished in a country which, however many blunders it makes, is equally distinguished for its love of justice and its love of liberty. Respect for individual rights will not allow compulsory medical examination and treatment. The right of an adult over his or her own body is a natural fundamental right. We should uproot our whole national life, and destroy the characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon race, if we gave up this natural right of sovereignty over our own bodies.
Society, however, has undoubtedly the right to prevent any individual from injuring his neighbour. Interference to prevent such injury is just. The same sacredness which attaches to individual right over one’s own person exists for one’s neighbour over his or her own person. Therefore, no individual suffering from venereal disease has a right to hold sexual intercourse with any other person. In doing so he goes outside his individual right and injures his neighbour. The wise principle on which legislation should act in dealing with venereal disease is therefore perfectly clear. Society has a right to stop any person who is spreading venereal disease; but it has no right to compel such a person to submit to medical treatment. It is of vital importance to recognise the broad distinction between these two fundamental points—viz., the just protection which society must exercise over its members, and the inherent right of self-possession in each of its members.
Accepting, therefore, one essential legislative principle so strongly emphasized by the Contagious Diseases Acts—viz., that the State has a right to interfere with sexual intercourse when its vicious action injures society—what we must strive for is an enlightenment of public opinion which will insist upon a just, practical law upon this subject. The contagious diseases legislation indicates that the time has arrived when the intervention of law is needed to place greater restraint upon the brutal lust which tramples on the plainest social obligations. A law wisely enforced, making the communication of venereal disease by man or woman a legal offence, would place a necessary check on brutal appetite. Such a law would not be the introduction of a new principle into legislation. The principle of considering sexual intercourse for the good of society has always been recognised, and must necessarily be developed with the growth of society. It was reaffirmed, but in an injurious manner, a few years ago.
It is the just and moral application of this principle that must be insisted on, instead of an unjust, immoral, and tyrannical perversion of the principle. The necessary safeguards in the working of such a law, the special inquiry, the protection of innocence, the avoidance of public scandal, etc., must be sought for with care. But the people have a right to require that legislators shall seek for and find the right method of enforcing any law which is just in principle and necessary for the welfare of society. It is not only a duty, it is the greatest privilege of enlightened statesmen to embody the broad common-sense and righteous instinct of a Christian people in the institutions of a nation.
A law which makes it a legal offence for an individual suffering from venereal disease to hold sexual intercourse with another person, and a ground for separation, is positively required in order to establish a true principle of legislation, a principle of just equality and responsibility which will educate the moral sense of the rising generation and protect the innocent. Any temporary inconveniences which might arise before the wisest methods of administering the law had been established by experience, would be as nothing compared with the elevating national influence of substituting a right method of dealing with the diseases of vice for the present unjust and evil method. The first direct means, therefore, for checking venereal disease is to make the spreading of this disease a legal offence.
Secondly, a necessary regulation to be established in combating the spread of this disease is its free treatment in all general dispensaries and hospitals supported by public or charitable funds. Such institutions have hitherto refused to receive persons suffering from disgraceful diseases, or have made quite insufficient provision for them. This refusal or neglect has left venereal diseases more uncared for than ordinary diseases. It was a perception of this neglect which induced the establishment of special institutions for the cure of such disease. But no general hospitals, supported by charitable funds given to cure the sick, have a right to refuse to make adequate provision for any class of curable suffering which is not infectious—i.e., dangerous to the health of the other inmates. The rigid exclusion in the past of venereal diseases from our general medical charities, on the ground of their disgraceful nature, has done great mischief by producing concealment or neglect of disease. This mischief cannot be repaired in the present day by establishing special or so-called Lock hospitals. A strong social stigma will always rest on the inmates of special venereal hospitals, a stigma we ought not to insist upon inflicting, but no such stigma rests on the inmates of a general hospital. These hospitals are established for the purpose of relieving human suffering, and such suffering constitutes a rightful claim to admission not to be set aside.
While thus advocating the careful framing of a law to make communication of venereal disease by man or woman a recognised legal offence, and whilst insisting upon the claim of this form of physical suffering to free treatment in all general medical charities, I would most earnestly caution you against the dangerous sophism of attempting to treat women as prostitutes. Never do so. Never fit women for a wicked and dangerous trade—a trade which is utterly demoralizing to both men and women and an insult to every class of women. The time is coming when Christian men and women will see clearly that this hideous traffic in female bodies, this frightful danger of promiscuous intercourse, must be stopped. Men themselves will see that they are bound to put a check upon lust, and forbid the exercise of physical sex to the injury of another individual. Serious consideration will then be given to the ways in which sexual power may be rightfully exercised, and preserve its distinctly human features of affection and mutual responsibility. Whilst social sentiment is growing towards such recognition, it is our duty as women unflinchingly to oppose prostitution—i.e., mercenary indiscriminate sexual intercourse—and to refuse utterly to countenance it. The tenderest compassion may be shown to the poor creature who ceases to be a prostitute; the most beneficent efforts may be exerted, and sympathy for the individual human soul shown in the merciful endeavour to help every woman to leave this vile traffic, but never fit her for it.
Let no one countenance this human trade in any way by assisting to make vice itself attractive and triumphant over our human nature. I therefore earnestly counsel all those engaged in rescue work to keep this rule clearly in mind. Plead earnestly and affectionately with the female prostitute to leave her vile trade. Offer her remunerative occupation—every rescue worker should be able to do this.[12] If she has children whom society may justly remove from her deadly influence, work upon her maternal feeling to induce her to become worthy of the care of the innocent and regain her children; but do nothing to raise the condition of prostitutes as such, any more than you would try to improve the condition of thieves as thieves.
There is, however, another suggestion which I will present to you, because it bears directly upon your way of dealing with the vicious and enforcing law, and I believe that its acceptance is only a question of time. I refer to the introduction of a certain number of superior women into the police organization, to act, amongst other duties, as heads of stations where women offenders are brought. I know the scenes which station-houses witness. I know that policemen themselves often dread more to arrest a half-drunken woman than a man, and that it requires more than one man to overpower the maniac who, with tooth and nail and the fury of drink, fights more like a demon than a human being. I know that such wretched outcasts rage in their cells like wild beasts, filling the air with shrieks and blasphemy that make the blood run cold. Nevertheless, wherever a wretched woman must be brought, there a true woman’s influence should also be brought. When the drink is gone, and only the bruised, disfigured womanhood remains, then the higher influence may exert itself by its respect for the womanhood which still is there.
There are many special advantages to be derived from the introduction of a few superior women into the police-force. I think that the services of a lady like the late Miss Merryweather, for instance, would be invaluable, both for the actual service such a woman would render in the management of female offenders, and also for the higher tone that such appointments would infuse into the police force itself. It is only the appointment of a few superior women that I should recommend, and these must be solely responsible to the highest head of the organization. The introduction of ordinary women corresponding to the common policeman, or in any way subordinate to lower officials, would be out of the question and extremely mischievous. But to secure the insight and influence of superior and proved women in dealing with female offenders, by placing them in positions of authority and responsibility, would be a great step made towards the solution of some of the most difficult problems of society. The problems which grow out of the relations of the sexes have hitherto proved insoluble, the despair of legislation. With the most conscientious endeavour to act wisely, even our ablest statesmen do not know how to deal with them. It is impossible that men alone can solve these sexual problems, because there are two human elements to be considered in such questions, which need the mutual enlightenment which can only result from the intelligent comparison of those two elements. The necessary contribution of wise practical suggestion which is needed from the intelligence of women, can only come through the enlarging experience gained by upright women. The reform now suggested is one of the steps by which this necessary experience may be reached—viz., the placing of some superior women in very responsible positions in the police organization—positions where their actual practical acquaintance with great social difficulties may enlighten as well as stimulate their intelligent devotion in the search for remedies.[13]