BIRTH CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 23, 28 January 1928, Page 21

BIRTH CONTROL

"Medical Aspects of Contraception." The report of the Medical Committee appointed by the National Council of Public Morals in connection with the investigations, of the National Birth Bate Commission. London: Martin, Hopkinson, and Co. "Practical Birth Control." By Ettic Hornibrook (Ettie A. Bout). London: William Heinemann (medical books). After an exhaustive inquiry on the subject in which solely medical witnesses gave evidence, the National Council of Public Morals reports: "The amount of scientific knowledge as to the efficiency of contraceptions based on statistical data is very small." Evidence was given by gynaecologists, medical officers of health, biologists, statisticians, and medical officers of birth control clinics. That evidence constitutes the report in review, and much of it is quite unsuitable for general publication, but is intended for those medical men and women upon whom the responsibility lies of advising on the subject of contraception. Ethical considerations of birth control by use of contraceptives or other means. „ The committee draws attention to two sources of error which appear to vitiate much that has been written on the subject, viz., a considerable proportion of marriages are sterile apart from disease or from use of contraceptivoa; and in normal married life the average intervals of child-bearing are much longer than is commonly supposed. The committee, after full consideration of the medical evidence arrived at the following conclusions: — (1) That the prevention of conception is being attempted by a large number of individuals. (2) That this number is probably increasing rapidly. (3) That the reduction in the birth rate is partially, and perhaps chiefly, due to the increasing use of contraceptive methods. (4) That judging from experiments on animals diet may have an influence on fecundity in human beings —although, in view of the variations of fecundity in different communities in which no difference of diet has been detected, this remains to be proved. (5) It is generally stated that contraceptives are producing a diminution in the number of offspring of those best able to bring up a family satisfactorily, but they are not being used to the same extent by people unable to support their families, or by those who, owing to alcoholic tendencies, mental defect, or other inherited disease, are not likely to beget good citizens. The Committee of Inquiry views with anxiety "th undiscriminating publicity now being given by some persons to the subject of birth control. "It holds that knowledge should be given judiciously," but remarks that "some of the current publications on this subject we regard as a public bane, especially to young unmarried people." Mrs. Hornibrook will be remembered in New Zealand as a one-time journalist. Her book on birth control is a revised edition, the first being published in 1922. It goes fully into details, and the preface is written by Sir Arbuthnot Lane.