A National Problem

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 250, 19 July 1937, Page 11

A National Problem

Sir,. —As we grow older* we look back to the prevailing modes of living in the days of our childhood, and tell our children the highlights of our youthful days, but the present generation openly or silently say we are old fashioned, and they have no further interest in the past. Their attitude is that the present time belongs to them to some extent, and the future certainly does belong to them, and they are in sole control of that issue. Gradually, as we grow older, we realise that the younger generation is going its own way, and that we cannot stem the tide. To-day we arc caught up in the controversies of reproduction and its economic and ethical aspects as it affects British outlook in life. In the United States the American Medical Association, which corresponds to the British Medical Association in England, after two years of actual argument among its members, decided that contraception was now such a prevalent and accepted custom in the United States that it was prudent for the profession to take charge of the nation’s 342 birth control clinics and the one hundred and fifteen million pounds commerce in contraceptives. American medical schools henceforth are to teach the medical students how to space babies to protect the mother’s health and the father’s bank balance. It is obvious that the Americans have given the subject much thought and are now applying their usual practical approach to any national problem. I am not advocating this as the British solution but it will become the usual unofficial method in the next generation.—l am, SOCRATES. July 15.