Techniques “A Disgrace”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30536, 3 September 1964, Page 2

Techniques “A Disgrace”

(N.Z.P.A .-R«uter— CopyriaM) SOUTHAMPTON A British biologist today described modern birth control techniques before the discovery of the contraceptive pili as “archaic in principle and a disgrace to science in an age of spectacular technical progress.” He was Professor Alan Parkes of the Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge, speaking at a public lecture in Southampton under the auspices of the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. “This unhappy situation,” Professor Parkes said, “arose from the taboos which have long surrounded the subject and which not only drove it underground but also inhibited scientific work in the field." That situation had now changed, largely as a result of the pill.

Professor Parkes continued: “The advent of the pill—the dream of family planners has naturally raised serious questions about the possible long-term effects of such medication.”

The possible hazards of using contraception must be balanced against the possible or even certain hazards of not doing so—apprehension, oppressive pregnancies, abortions, unwanted children and over-population. “The pill is the most effective and acceptable form of fertility control so far available,” he said. “In addition, the intensive research now in progress will almost certainly produce equally or even more effective and acceptable methods in the not too far distant future so that alteration of methods will make it possible to avoid possible hazards arising from the long-term use of any particular one.

“We shall thus have the means to control the growth of population.”

Professor Parkes said motivation toward families of two or three would be difficult in areas of a traditionally high birth rate, such as the East In the West large families were now rare, but were not unheard of. This raised the question of whether the rights of man could, under modern conditions, include the right to unlimited reproduction. “Even a modest family size of four would be catastrophic if it became general,” he said. Emigration to other planets was not likely to be a practical solution and mass reduction of fertility would be possible only under a rigid dictatorship. “Possibly economic pressures and inducements will have to be employed,” Professor Parkes said. “Certainly by some means the parental urge will have to be further diverted from quantity to quality with all that quality Implies.”