Material changes have taken place in the birth-rate of a number of countries during the past fifteen or twenty years which cannot be attributed to purely economic causes. They do not seem to depend on such things as trade, employment and prices; but on the spread of an idea or influence whose tendency must be deplored, that of “birth control,” a phrase much heard in these days.
The fact that a decline in human fertility and a falling birth rate are most noticeable in the relatively prosperous countries is a proof that it does not proceed from economic causes; but is due rather to the spread of the doctrine that it is permissible to restrict or control birth. In such countries as the United States, England and Australasia, where the standards of human comfort and living are notoriously high, the decline in the birth rate has been most noticeable. On the other hand, we find perhaps the greatest decline in the birth rate in France, a country where the general well-being probably reaches a lower depth in the community than in any other part of Europe. A comparison of the birth rates of France and of Ireland, for example, offer a valuable illustration of the point under consideration. In France, more than half the women who have reached the age of nubility are married; in Ireland, generally speaking, less than a third. In both countries the crude birth rate is far below that in other European lands. Yet the fertility of the Irish wife exceeded that of her French compeer by 44 per cent in 1880, and by no less than 84 per cent in 1900. And since that time the prolificity of the Irish mother has so increased that she is now, approximately speaking, inferior only to the Dutch or Finnish mother in this respect.
In general, in any country where we find a diminished prolificity a falling off of childbirth unaccompanied by a decrease in the number of marriages occurring at the reproductive ages, we may attribute this decrease to voluntary restriction of childbearing on the part of the married, or in other words, to the prevalance of “birth control.” This incidentally, is not a theoretical statement, but one supported by the almost unanimous medical opinion in all countries. Everywhere and especially here in our own United States, we find evidence of the extensive employ of “birth control” measures to prevent that normal development of family life which underlies the vigor and racial power of every nation. These preventive measures which arbitrarily control human birth had long been in use in France with results which, especially since the war, have been frequently and publicly deplored in the press, and have led the French Government to offer substantial rewards to encourage the propagation of large families. From France the preventive practises of “birth control” had spread, after 1870, over nearly all the countries of western Europe, to England and to the United States; though they are not as much apparent in those countries where the Roman Church has a strong hold on the people.
As a general thing, the practice of thus unnaturally limiting families—“unnaturally” since the custom of “birth control” derives from no natural, physical law—prevails, in the first instance, among the well-to-do, who should rather be the first to set the example of protest against it by having the families they are so much better able to support and educate than those less favored with the world's goods. If the evil of voluntary control of human birth were restricted to a privileged class, say one of wealth, the harm done would, perhaps, not be so great. But, unfortunately, in the course of time it filters down as a “gospel of comfort”—erroneous term!—to those whose resources are less. They accept and practice this invidious system of prevention and gradually the entire community is more or less affected.
The whole system of “birth control” is opposed to natural, human and religious law. Nature, in none of her manifestations, introduces anything which may tend to prevent her great reason for being—the propagation of the species. Birth as the natural sequence of mating is her solemn and invariable law. It is in birth and rebirth that nature renews herself and all the life of the animal and vegetable world, and her primal aim is to encourage it. Human law recognizes this underlying law of nature by forbidding man to tamper in a preventive way with her hallowed and mysterious processes for perpetuating the human race. Religious law, based on the divine dispensation of the Scriptures, indorses the law of nature and that of the state.
We may take it, then, that “birth control” represents a deliberate and reprehensible attempt to nullify those innate laws of reproduction sanctioned by religion, tradition and man's own ingrained instinct. To say that the human instinct for the perpetuation of his race and family has become atrophied during the flight of time, and that he is therefore justified in denying it, is merely begging the question. The instinct may be denied, just as other higher and nobler instincts are disregarded; but its validity cannot be questioned. Whether those who practice “birth control” are influenced by economic, selfishly personal or other reasons, they are offending in a threefold manner: against the inborn wish and desire which is a priceless possession of even the least of God's creatures, that of living anew in its offspring; against the law of the state, which after all, stands for the crystallization of the best feeling of the community; and against the divine injunction handed down to us in Holy Writ, to “increase and multiply.”
“Birth control” is the foe to the direct end and aim of marriage, which, in the last analysis, is childbirth. As an enemy to the procreation of children it is an enemy of the family and the family group. As an enemy of the family, it is an enemy of the state, the community, a foe to the whole social system. Mankind has been able to attain its comparatively recent state of moral and physical advancement without having recourse to the dangerous principle which “birth control” represents. Surely that wise provision of our existing legal code which makes the printing or dessimation of information regarding the physical facts of “birth control” illegal and punishable as an offense, can only be approved by those who respect the Omnipotent will, and the time-hallowed traditions which date back to the very inception of the race.