Birth control : its medical and ethical aspects / by a doctor and by a priest.

Date:
1931
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Birth control : its medical and ethical aspects / by a doctor and by a priest. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    course, bad midwifery and meddlesome midwifery may cause invalidism in any previously healthy woman, just as disease in her partner may, but it would be as logical to argue that because some houses are badly built and damp, therefore we must not live in houses, as to say that, because some women suffer from the effects of having children, therefore all women suffer so. Nothing gives one a clearer view of the subject than extensive experience in a very big city where all classes of women of the lower middle and work- ing class, normal and abnormal, in large numbers pass through the physician’s hands. To gain a wide and balanced view in these matters is not easy, and one may easily form biassed opinions if only cases of disease or abnormality are seen. Cases could be instanced—many of them—to prove this thesis, but the cause of truth has suffered much from the type of mind that insists on quoting special cases as pegs on which to hang its own pet theory. SOCIAL CONDITIONS In this work, and at this stage of the controversy we need facts, and not theories. Much hard, detailed and impartial research work has yet to be done. Perhaps it may be of interest to refer to some research work undertaken in a big Maternity and Child Welfare Department recently. Investigation was made into the social, hygienic, and economic conditions under which the poorest of our working class—or, perhaps it would be more correct to say our workless class—was existing in a big city, and for this purpose detailed enquiry was made into the health and social conditions of
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