Margaret Sanger - The Case for Birth Control

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Transcriber's Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

The Case For Birth Control
A Supplementary Brief and Statement of Facts

PREPARED BY

MARGARET H. SANGER

To Aid the Court in its Consideration of the Statute designed to prevent the dissemination of information for Preventing Conception

PUBLISHED, MAY 1917

JONAH J. GOLDSTEIN

COUNSEL

Copyright by

MARGARET H. SANGER

1917

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY

Introductions to Birth Control by Margaret H. Sanger,

Havelock Ellis, August Forel and G. F. Lydston.

CHAPTER II. THE ORIGIN AND PRACTICE OF BIRTH CONTROL IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES

Genesis of Movement,

England,

Holland,

France,

United States,

Other Countries.

CHAPTER III. POPULATION AND BIRTH RATE

Birth Control, by Havelock Ellis,

Population Facts in United States,

Birth Rate of British Empire,

Birth Rate of Other Countries (With Tables).

CHAPTER IV. INFANT MORTALITY

General Statistics,

Results of Childrens Bureau Survey at Johnstown, Pa., by Emma Duke,

Manchester Report.

CHAPTER V. MATERNAL MORTALITY AND DISEASES AFFECTED BY PREGNANCY

Childrens Bureau Report, by Grace L. Meigs,

Death Rates from Child Birth in Foreign Countries,

A Municipal Birth Control Clinic,

Tuberculosis,

Kidney Diseases,

Eclampsia,

Diabetes,

Pelvic Deformities,

Heart Disease,

Too Frequent Pregnancies,

Pernicious Vomiting.

CHAPTER VI. HARMFUL METHODS PRACTICED TO AVOID LARGE FAMILIES

Coitus Interruptus ,

Continence,

The Objects of Marriage, by Havelock Ellis,

Abortion.

CHAPTER VII. PROSTITUTION, FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS AND VENEREAL DISEASES

The Social Evil,

Feeble-mindedness,

Syphilis,

Gonorrhea.

CHAPTER VIII. OTHER TRANSMISSIBLE DISEASES AND PAUPERISM

Insanity,

Epilepsy,

Alcoholism,

Pauperism,

Child Labor.

CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSION: EMINENT OPINIONS

The Progress of Holland,

Eminent Opinions

GLOSSARY

FOREWORD

The purpose of the Appellant in presenting the various statistics and medical and social facts incorporated in the supplementary brief, entitled THE CASE FOR BIRTH CONTROL, is to give the Court a clear conception of the meaning of birth control. The historical stages through which this question has gone have been reviewed, its status in foreign countries outlined. Finally, the effects upon the commonwealth of the prohibition contained in the Section known as 1142 of the Penal Law have been made clear. Said Section comprises in its prohibition the very points of knowledge most necessary to human liberty, and has resulted in extreme harm to the individual, to the family and to society at large.

The idea of the social and racial value of knowledge to prevent conception is new in the United States, and therefore it has been difficult to get first-hand facts and comprehensive statistics with a local bearing. Consequently, the Appellant has been obliged to lay emphasis upon data from foreign countries where the subject has been exhaustively studied, both theoretically and practically. However, the American case for birth control, as presented in this compilation, is the most complete possible in view of the records available.

MARGARET H. SANGER

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY

The material in this general introduction to the question of the prevention of conception comprises an article by Margaret H. Sanger and extracts from the works of Havelock Ellis, August Forel and G. F. Lydston, M.D. The last three are eminent authorities, whose opinions are selected as being the clearest exposition of the social philosophyBirth Control.

NOTE: All the notations of pages and tables refer to original documents and not to the present volume.

CHAPTER I
THE CASE FOR BIRTH CONTROL

By Margaret H. Sanger

(The following is the case for birth control, as I found it during my fourteen years experience as a trained nurse in New York City and vicinity. It appeared as a special article in Physical Culture, April, 1917, and has been delivered by me as a lecture throughout the United States. It is a brief summary of facts and conditions, as they exist in this country.)

For centuries woman has gone forth with man to till the fields, to feed and clothe the nations. She has sacrificed her life to populate the earth. She has overdone her labors. She now steps forth and demands that women shall cease producing in ignorance. To do this she must have knowledge to control birth. This is the first immediate step she must take toward the goal of her freedom.

Those who are opposed to this are simply those who do not know. Any one who like myself has worked among the people and found on one hand an ever-increasing population with its ever-increasing misery, poverty and ignorance, and on the other hand a stationary or decreasing population with its increasing wealth and higher standards of living, greater freedom, joy and happiness, cannot doubt that birth control is the livest issue of the day and one on which depends the future welfare of the race.

Before I attempt to refute the arguments against birth control, I should like to tell you something of the conditions I met with as a trained nurse and of the experience that convinced me of its necessity and led me to jeopardize my liberty in order to place this information in the hands of the women who need it.

My first clear impression of life was that large families and poverty went hand in hand. I was born and brought up in a glass factory town in the western part of New York State. I was one of eleven childrenso I had some personal experience of the struggles and hardships a large family endures.

When I was seventeen years old my mother died from overwork and the strain of too frequent child bearing. I was left to care for the younger children and share the burdens of all. When I was old enough I entered a hospital to take up the profession of nursing.

In the hospital I found that seventy-five per cent. of the diseases of men and women are the result of ignorance of their sex functions. I found that every department of life was open to investigation and discussion except that shaded valley of sex. The explorer, scientist, inventor, may go forth in their various fields for investigation and return to lay the fruits of their discoveries at the feet of society. But woe to him who dares explore that forbidden realm of sex. No matter how pure the motive, no matter what miseries he sought to remove, slanders, persecutions and jail await him who dares bear the light of knowledge into that cave of darkness.

So great was the ignorance of the women and girls I met concerning their own bodies that I decided to specialize in womans diseases and took up gynecological and obstetrical nursing.

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