"DANGEROUS PRINCIPLE"

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 174, 25 July 1928, Page 8

"DANGEROUS PRINCIPLE"

MENTAL DEFECTIVES BILL.

CATHOLIC CHURCH VIEW. STERILISATION NOT PERMISSIBLE. (By Tele^rniih.--Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Archbishop Redwood, head of the Roman Cnthoiie Church in New Zealand, made a statement to-day in regard to two of the provisions in the Mental Defectives Amendment Bill, now before Parliament. The Catholic Church does not blame any reasonable efforts to improve the race, he said, provided such efforts be on the right lines. The spirit of the Church, however, is aimed rather at extending than curtailing the freedom of the individual and the Catholic conscience strenuously guards against the State being unduly exalted at the expense of the family. "Consequently, we Catholics regard with no small misgiving the bill now before Parliament, in so far as it limits the right of certain people to marry and proposes the sterilisation of those who may be classed as degenerates. It introduces, in our opinion, a very dangerous principle, and is likely to interfere seriously with individual rights. "Irv dealing with racial poisons and social evils, the Church has her age-long remedies. They are radical and based on moral law, and it must be borne in mind that she knows human nature through and through. She has had experience well-nigh two thousand years old. and in every age and country, in civilised times and barbarous ones, so these problems are not new to her. The root difference between the Catholic teaching and modern eugenics is that the Church makes bodily and mental culture subservient to moralitv. while modern eugenics makes morality subservient to bodily and mental culture." The Archbishop asks who are to judge as to the degeneracy and the prevention of marriage, then says: "We confess we have no confidence at all in the competency or fitness of board® set up by tTj f " State to decide in matters so intimately connected with morality and individual liberty." With regard to sterilisation, he said Catholic experience was that operation was no remedy against inordinate sexual desire. On the contrary, it might easilv open the door to immoral practice* which would constitute a worse evil than the one to he avoided. The operation also misht readily encourage the abuse of matrimonial relations. "Vi 7" hold that the operation is not permissible, even with the patient's con""' 1 except as a neeesasrr mans of health."