The case for sterilisation / by Leon F. Whitney.

  • Leon F. Whitney
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The case for sterilisation / by Leon F. Whitney. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/240 page IX
    speaking inferior. This has had a certain dysgenic effect. As contraceptive information becomes more widely disseminated, it is probable that the difference of birth rate between the richer and the poorer classes will become less marked, and improved economic and social con ditions may wipe out mental and physical inequalities between the classes. It is possible that modifications in our economic system might bring about a better distri bution of national resources, and so improve the environ ment, and eventually the physical and mental equipment, of many of our poorer stocks. In the meantime the burden of the unfit, unproductive, and even anti-social members of Society is becoming ever more difficult for the rest of Society to carry, and to me it seems urgent that something should be done to limit the burden, by encouraging unfit people to abstain from parenthood, or at any rate to keep the number of their children within limits which shall not impose too great a handicap on their superior fellow-citizens. In general, this end may be attained by contraception, but for stocks which are so unfit that complete childlessness is desirable, sterilisation is the best solution. The author of this book, who is the Director of the American Eugenics Society, has in this volume treated the whole question in a way which, I think, places all the essential information in an attractive form before the reader. In general, I am in substantial agreement with him. I have not hesitated to use an editor's privilege to emphasise some of the points he makes, to add com ments which I think may be helpful, and to mark my dissent where I find myself differing from him. ix a*
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