(b) To lessen any fear of childbirth where this exists, it has been recommended that the public should be informed that New Zealand now has a very low death-rate in actual childbirth and that relief of pain in labour is largely used. At the same time the Committee has advocated that further efforts in the direction of pain relief should be explored.
(c) For dealing with the problem of the unmarried mother, the Committee considers that the attack must be along the lines of more careful education of the young in matters of sex, prohibition of the advertisement and sale of contraceptives to the young, and a more tolerant attitude on the part of society towards these girls and their children.
(d) The Committee believes, however, that the most important cause of all is a change in the outlook of women which expresses itself in a demand of the right to limit—or avoid—the family, coupled with a widespread half-knowledge and use of birth-control methods—often ineffective. These failing, the temptation to abortion follows.
The Committee can see only two directions in which abortion resulting from these tendencies can be controlled:—
(1) By the direction of birth-control knowledge through more responsible channels, where, while the methods would be more reliable, the responsibilities and privileges of motherhood, the advisability of self-discipline in certain directions, and other aspects of the matter would be discussed.
The Committee believes that it is through the agency of well-informed doctors, and, to a certain extent, through clinics associated with our hospitals, that this advice should be given.
It is not, however, considered that this is a matter for the State except to a limited degree.
(2) To appeal to the womanhood of New Zealand, in so far as selfish and unworthy motives have entered into our family life, to consider the grave physical and moral dangers, not to speak of the dangers of race suicide which are involved.
This, it is considered, is a matter for all women's social organizations to take up seriously.
IV. Certain further measures of a more general nature came under the examination of the Committee.