Thus, it would seem that a birth-rate stimulated by unusual circumstances or by deliberate State encouragement, seemingly draws upon it the operation of natural laws which tend to increase its death-rate by War, as well as by an increased number of abortions, and an increased death-rate. It would seem as natural laws operate to bring down the population to normal by war if the other factors do not operate sufficiently rapidly and efficiently.
Havelock Ellis makes the following interesting statement: "If we survey the belligerent nations in the war we may say that those who took the initiative in drawing it on, or at all events were most prepared to welcome it, were Germany, Austria, Serbia, and Russia—all nations with a high birth-rate, and in which the fall of the birth-rate has not yet had time to permeate. On the other hand, of the belligerent peoples of today, all indications point to the French as the people most intolerant, silently but deeply, of the war they are so ably and heroically waging. Yet the France of the present, with the lowest birth-rate, was a century ago the France of a birth-rate higher than that of Germany today, and at that time the most militarist and aggressive of nations, a perpetual menace to Europe."
Finally, let us quote Havelock Ellis once more; he says: "When we realize these facts we are also enabled to realize how futile, how misplaced and how mischievous it is to raise the cry of 'Race Suicide.' It is futile because no outcry can affect a world-wide movement of civilization. It is misplaced because the rise and fall of the population is not a matter of birth-rate alone, but of the birth-rate combined with the death-rate, and while we cannot expect to touch the former we can influence the latter. It is mischievous because by fighting against a tendency which is not only inevitable but altogether beneficial, we blind ourselves to the advance of civilization and risk the misdirection of our energies. How far this blindness may be carried we see in the false patriotism of those who in the decline of the birth-rate, fancy they see the ruin of their own particular country, oblivious of the fact that we are concerned with a phenomenon of world-wide extension. The whole tendency of civilization is to reduce the birth-rate. We may go further, and assert with the distinguished German economist, Roscher, that the chief cause of the superiority of a highly civilized state over lower stages of civilization is precisely a greater degree of forethought and self-control in marriage and child-bearing. Instead of talking about Race Suicide, we should do well to observe at what an appalling rate, even yet, the population is increasing; and we should note that it is everywhere the poorest and most primitive countries, and in every country (as in Germany) the poorest regions, which show the highest birth-rate."
The same authority says: "One last resort the would-be patriotic alarmist seeks when all others fail. He is good enough to admit that a general decline in the birth-rate might be beneficial. But, he points out, it affects social classes unequally. It is initiated, not by the degenerate and unfit, with whom we could well dispense, but by the very best classes in the community, the well-to-do and the educated. One is inclined to remark, at once, that a social change initiated by its best social class is scarcely likely to be pernicious. Where, it may be asked, if not among the most educated classes, is any process of amelioration to be initiated? We cannot make the world topsy-turvy to suit the convenience of topsy-turvy minds. All social movements tend to begin at the top and to permeate downwards. This has been the case with the decline of the birth-rate, but it is already well marked among the working classes, and has only failed to touch the lowest stratum of all, too weak-minded and too reckless to be amenable to ordinary social motives. The rational method of meeting this situation is not a propaganda in favor of procreation—a truly imbecile propaganda, since it is only carried out and only likely to be carried out, by the very class which we wish to sterilize—but rather by a wise policy of regulative eugenics. We have to create the motives, and it is not an impossible task, which will act even upon the weak-minded and reckless lowest social stratum."
LESSON XII
THE ARGUMENT FOR BIRTH CONTROL
Let us now consider the general and special arguments advanced in favor of rational and scientific Birth Control, as stated by the advocates thereof.
General Argument. The general argument in favor of Birth Control may well be begun by the statement that rational and scientific Birth Control is not the fixing upon the race of a new and unfamiliar practice or policy, but is rather the scientific correction of a practice and policy which is now followed by the majority of married persons in civilized countries, though in a bungling, unscientific, and frequently a harmful manner. The modern advocates of scientific methods of Birth Control seek to replace these bungling, unscientific, and frequently harmful methods by sane, scientific, harmless methods, approved of by capable physicians and other experienced and capable authorities, and under the sanction of the law rather than contrary to it.
The advocates of Birth Control seek to place upon a scientific basis, under cover and protection of the law, a subject which heretofore has been but imperfectly known, and more imperfectly practiced in some form by the majority of married couples, and which has heretofore been under condemnation of the law so far as concerned the actual dissemination of information concerning methods of contraception. They hold that it is the veriest hypocrisy to pretend ignorance of the fact that the great majority of married couples in civilized communities know and practice to some extent contraceptive methods—usually imperfectly and bunglingly, it must be added.