Birth Control Must Accompany Civilization's Further Advance

The following article on the benefits of birth control to civilized society and the principal grounds for opposition to it was written by E. M. East, Professor of Biology at Harvard. The article is reprinted by special permission from the current number of "The Forum."

A very unsatanic friend, who nevertheless resembled Job's tempter in that he had done much going to and fro upon the earth, once described to me an extraordinary scene witnessed while he was sojourning in a distant wilderness. A hungry native, coming by chance upon a bowl of plantains or beetle larvae or some such delicacy, had thanked his tutelar deity for the good fortune and had dined with gusto. But his gastronomic joy was short-lived. A few hours later, a horror stricken fellow tribesman informed him that he had violated tabu, that he had eaten of the dish destined for the alimentation of his holiness the king. The news struck he poor victim like a charge of the Four Horsemen. He turned pale. His knees shook. He seemed visibly to wither away. Shortly he sank to the ground, spasm after spasm of pain shaking him from head to foot. Before sunset he was dead, snuffed out by sheer fright.

I always think of this gruesome tale whenever I read the returns of a battle between Progress and Superstition, whether it be one of the old historic duels of Feudalism and Enlightened Democracy or one of the more recent tilts between Biology and Fundamentalism. What a tyrannical ruler is custom! When it comes to changing a folkway, Timbuktu, and New York react in exactly the same manner.

Birth Control Long Tabued.

Today the best example is birth control, though tomorrow it will be something else. At first the very mention of birth control was tabu. It violated the convention of secrecy shrouding all matters of sex and reproduction since time immemorial. I don't know that any one died from the shock; but emotional disturbance was common enough, and quite real. Most of us have passed beyond this stage today. In Massachusetts recently a candidate was defeated because the opposition called him a sexagenarian; but this, I take it, is exceptional. The idea of children by choice instead of chance has made so much headway that its antagonists are now on the defensive, as one may judge from their reactions. Instead of fainting spells and partial paralysis, the term causes the adrenals to work overtime; people rage and imagine vain things.

The central thesis of Malthus, that population tends naturally to increase faster than the means of subsistence, is accepted by every scholar and is easily demonstrable to all who grant the soundness of the elementary theorems of arithmetic. We can raise the saturation point of the earth in terms of population by new discoveries, as heat raises the saturation point of water in terms of various salts. But since we can neither enlarge our universe nor emigrate from it, we can never abrogate the law of population by such means, if prolific Nature is allowed full sway. We are trapped by our reproductive efficiency, and can escape only by reducing it or by living lives that are short and by no means merry.

U. S. is Blindly Optimistic.

And so go all population arguments based upon the data of economics and of vital statistics. In part we of the States are apathetic to the difficulties of the population problem because inordinate stores of natural resources, available at a time when scientific discovery promoted rapid exploitation, have made us what one might call a hopelessly optimistic nation. No evil day can possibly dawn upon us; we are too clever. Secretary Hoover may say, "Increasing population will force the United States to advance in scientific discovery or to lower its standard of living." No matter. We will meet all obstacles and surmount them. Knibbs and Pearl, speaking as sociologists, may point out that the pitifully short lives full of hunger and misery endured by the peoples of China and India, and the economic disturbances of Western Europe, are due in large measure to high population density. What of it! It can never happen to us!

Discussions of the moral aspects of birth control have brought forth some odd contentions. It is maintained that birth control would cause racial deterioration; in the first place because the opportunity of producing genius is restricted, and in the second place because the opportunity of producing genius is restricted, and in the third place because there is an association between fine minds and feeble bodies. It is the type of argument that impresses the layman, being made so dogmatically that he feels that it must have some basis of fact. The first point becomes absurd when once one realizes where its logic leads. One of the greatest minds of all time was Leonardo da Vinci, and Leonardo was born out of wedlock. It is moreover, no guarantee of greatness in a nation that its people spawn promiscuously in order to provide greater opportunity for high-grade germ cells' meeting.

The fundamental requisite for genius is a good heritage. This no one denies. But a benevolent environment is a factor of no less importance. I have not the slightest doubt but that America today is teeming with potential greatness, a goodly proportion of which will never come to fruition because of lack of opportunity. One of the soundest arguments of the Neo-Malthusians is that wide-spread opportunity can only be offered to developing manhood and womanhood in a nation unharassed by population difficulties. The second contention is simply false. It was disposed of by Havelock Ellis in a series of brilliant essays quite some time ago. And just recently Terman has shown that the thousand most intelligent children of California are above the average in bodily health and strength.

These arguments are typical. They are endeavors to rationalize irrational prejudices. And they mask the real issues. Down deep in their hearts the antagonists of birth control are merely oppressed with fear for their miserable souls.

Personally I am not perturbed over the losses of such souls or concerned about infractions of irrational religious dogma; but having a lively intellectual curiosity, I am interested as to why the idea of birth control should be deemed unchristian and unethical in various quarters.

The arguments of the ghostly advisors of the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, are four. Two are puerile; two show a woeful ignorance of the one text-book their profession requires. They say that birth control is "unnatural". Of course it is, like clothing and houses, like cooked food, like medicines, like all arts and sciences, like everything which distinguishes man from the lower animals, like marriage itself. More frequently still they quote the in- junction to Noah, "Be fruitful and multiply," given, according to tradition, when the people of the earth were eight in number. It is difficult to see how a thoughtful priest can justify the continued quotation of these words under present conditions of world population or can reconcile it with the practice of religious celibacy.

Moreover the Book of Ecclesiasticus, which many persons accept as orthodox, bids us "desire not a multitude of unprofitable children". Equally frequent are the appeals of the Biblical story of Onan and to the teachings of St. Paul on the purpose of marriage, and neither of these references supports the contentions made. Onan was slain because he did not obey the Levirate Law commanding him to raise up seed to his brother. The purpose given by Paul in Chapter VII of the First Book of Corinthians for the institution of Christian marriage is to avoid promiscuity. Nothing whatever is said about procreation, therefore it certainly cannot be said to be the sole purpose of marriage. In fact, this conclusion is tacitly agreed upon by all sects of the Church when they bless marriages between people who are beyond the reproductive age.

Ethical propositions are usually less involved than those of theology. If a practice has a good purpose and if it is reasonably certain that its practical consequences will be generally valuable, then it ought to be adopted as a principle of conduct. From this standpoint, what can be said of birth control?

Neo-Malthusian leaders give six reasons to justify the doctrine. I will give as briefly as possible an argument or two under each heading, relying chiefly upon quotations from eminent authorities.

1. The Health of Mother and Child

Many people should remain childless because of hereditary predisposition to disease or abnormality. Healthy mothers should space their children properly for their own good and that of their offspring. On this point we may listen to Dr. W. A. Pusey, President of the American Medical Association: "It is women that bear the penalties in injury, disease, and death, and mental torture that are involved in unlimited child-bearing. They have a right to know how they can intelligently,--not crudely and dangerously,--control their sexual lives. And they are justified by the highest considerations in fighting vigorously and persistently until they have this right granted to them."

2. The Happiness of Married Life

It is said that birth control will bring peace, harmony, and love to the home by freeing parents from the haunting fear of having children which they are unprepared for physically and economically. By encouraging early marriage, it will lessen prostitution and promote morality.

3. The Relief of Overpopulation

"It is certain," says Dr. O. E. Baker, the distinguished economist of the United States Department of Agriculture, "that if the population of the United States continues to increase for more than another century as it has during the past century, there is no means by which the present standard of living can be maintained, except by importation of foodstuffs from other lands,--which will need their foodstuffs even more than we. And looking forward 200 or 300 years, which is a shorter span of time than that elapsed since the settlements of Jamestown and Plymouth, it seems necessary to recognize not only a stationary population in this country, but also throughout the world. Whether this stationary state will be one of misery for the majority of the people, is in China and India to day, or one of well-being and happiness, will depend largely upon voluntary restriction of population."

4. The Improvement of the Race

It is quite the fashion for ignoramuses to make fun of eugenics. Unfortunately their witty observations do not change the situation. Feeblemindedness, epilepsy, certain types of insanity and numerous physical abnormalities are hereditary. Every country is afflicted with more than a sufficient percentage of these undesirables. An increasing proportion means racial deterioration. And the birth rate of those of low mentality everywhere is greater than the birth rate of those of high mentality.

5. The Prevention of Poverty

The Marxian remedy for poverty is a more equable distribution of the world's goods. But, the Neo-Malthusian replies, the least capable have the largest families. It is practicable, or even desirable, that under these conditions the capable should be penalized to support them? Let us give them measures by which they themselves can tend to relieve their poverty. The experience of our clinics shows that this is possible even with high grade morons. The feebleminded of lower grades we must care for; but let us see that as few as possible of such incompetents are born. They are expensive. Let us try to cut down this expenditure and use the money to promote advisable economic reforms.

6. The Progress of Civilization

The means used by uncivilized peoples to relieve overpopulation,--the natural means, one might say,--are abortion, infanticide, war, starvation, disease. They are not due solely to overpopulation and cannot be wholly abolished by birth control; but overpopulation is their chief cause, and birth control will do more toward eliminating them than any other one thing.

These arguments, brief as they are, ought, it seems to me, to show that conscious regulation of the birth rate is a highly ethical proposal. I shall say no more. If civilization advances, it will come. The forces on the other side are the forces of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition. They are the same forces that caused the poor savage of the Polynesian wilds to die of fright because he ate the king's food unwittingly. Are we to be ruled forever by tabu