Birth control is effecting, and promising to effect, many functions in our social life. By furnishing the means to limit the size of families which would otherwise be excessive it confers the greatest benefit on the family and especially on the mother. By rendering easily possible a selection in parentage and the choice of the right time and circumstances for conception it is again, the chief key to the eugenic improvement of the race. There are many other benefits, as is now generally becoming clear, which will be derived from the rightly applied practice of birth control. To many of us it is not the least of these that birth control effects finally the complete liberation of the spiritual object of marriage.
ABORTION
THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF OBSTETRICS. By Joseph De Lee, M.D....
It is said that there is one abortion to eight labors, but in all probability it is more frequent than this. Almost half of the child-bearing women have had a miscarriage before the thirty-fifth year. Statistics are of questionable value because hospital figures do not represent the conditions of private practice. Further, many occur in first weeks and pass under the diagnosis of delayed or profuse menstruation. Finally, many abortions are deliberately concealed. Page 426.
PRACTICE OF OBSTETRICS. By J. Clifton Edgar, M.D.
Immediate dangers of abortions are: hemorrhage, retention of an adherent placenta, sepsis, tetanus, perforation of the uterus. They also cause: sterility, anemia, malignant diseases, displacements, neurosis, and endometritis. Pages 338–9.
TRUCHTABTREIBUNG UND PRAVENTIVVERKEHR, IN ZUSAMMENHANG MIT DEM GEBURTENRUCKGANG; Eine Medizinische, Juristische und Sozialpolitische Betrachtung von Dr. Max Hirsch. Wurtzburg, Kabitzsch Verlag, 1914.
He who would combat abortion and at the same time assail contraceptive measures may be likened to the person who would fight contagious diseases and forbid disinfection. For contraceptive measures are important weapons in the fight against abortion. The use of contraceptive measures is largely responsible for the fact that the number of abortions does not increase immeasurably. The apprehension is perfectly justified that the prohibition of contraceptive measures would enormously increase the practice of abortion with its dangerous consequences for the life and health of women. P. 131–2.
America has a law since 1873, if I am not mistaken, which prohibits by criminal statute the distribution and regulation of contraceptive measures. It follows therefore, as I have already stated in my introduction, that America stands at the head of all nations in the huge number of abortions. P. 132.
THE DISEASES OF SOCIETY AND DEGENERACY. The Vice and Crime Problem. G. F. Lydston, M.D., Professor of Genito-Urinary Surgery, State University of Illinois; Professor of Criminal Anthropology, Chicago; Kent College of Law; Member of the American Medical Association, etc., etc. The Riverton Press, Chicago, 1912.