BIRTH CONTROL

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22050, 25 March 1937, Page 20

BIRTH CONTROL

TO THE EDITOR OT THE PRESS. Sir,—lf the letter in this morning's paper had not been signed "Materfamilias" I should have thought it written by a man. I cannot imagine a woman being so concerned as to who will rule the worid in the future and being willing to bring families into the world knowing they will be the future cannon fodder of the natiops. I doubt if it is altogether selfishness; it may be, and quite likely is, that the one experience of birth under modern conditions is enough to last them all their lives, and they will not repeat it. I was reading quite recently of the great number of women made invalids for life after child-birth, and I have heard of the number of operations in later life on women owing to neglect during child-birth, or rather forced birth. Nature takes her time, but doctors and nurses are in a hurry, so child and mother suffer; but who cares? The mother and child are helpless, and the menfolk have other things to think about—cricket, football, races, etc. There are homes for child-birth, and that is the end of it. If the women come through it, well and good; if not, well, it is not their fault.

The letter goes on, "Mothers have a hard and weary time, but they have a rich reward in their old age." Can one blame her if she does not want a hard ans weary time while she is young, so that she can have the rich reward in old age, which is doubtful. Often it is a case of heartbreak and weariness that only the cover. Children's troubles become their parents* and often they are many miles away and economic conditions keep them apart. How often sons or daughters, dearly loved, leave home and mother at an early age and they never see one another again in this life. And* how difficult it is to get help in the home, even if one can afford it—the mother ill, the children neglected, and no one to help—what misery for all! Under modern conditions women are wise not to have children. If there are mothers who are willing to bring children into the world to become cannon fodder, let them, but I pity the children of such a motherland she needs no sympathy if they are destroyed. As for Dr. O'Brien's address on.birth control, let him talk to the moneyed people who can afford to have the children; they then can do the fighting to protect the wealth they hold; the woman

whose husband is on a wage has had enough.—Yours, etc., A MOTHER. .

March 24, 1937