WOMEN’S DIVISION

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 230, 27 August 1938, Page 13

WOMEN’S DIVISION

REPLY TO CRITICISM. Per Press Association. WANGANUI, Aug. 26. “The Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union has done everything possible to encourage the mothers of this Dominion to bear and rear children,” said Mrs Jessie C. Wickham, Dominion president, when interviewed regarding the statement issued by the Roman Catholic bishops of New Zealand concerning birth control. “Each year hundreds of pounds are spent in sending help to country mothers' to make things easier for them in their child-bearing,” said Mrs Wickham. “A maternity case is always of first importance, and it is our proud boast that we have never turned down a case of a mother requiring help. Mothers of largest families are always the first to be considered, and at a previous conference when we discovered that one of our members was the mother of 14 children she was brought on to the stage and presented with a bouquet. That is typical of our attitude to the mothers of large families. “Because we are a welfare organisation and vitally interested in the morals and welfare of our young people, we have endeavoured to have legislation passed to control the sale of contraceptives to irresponsible nersons,” said Mrs Wickham, “That the great work we are doing should be so unjustly criticised is hard to bear, and I feel sure that it is only because there is misunderstanding as to what wo have done. '

“No one can doubt the harm that is being done by the indiscriminate sale of contraceptives to the young. The women’s division is not advocating birth control, but control of the sale and use of contraceptives and abortifncients, and it is difficult to believe that we can be considered wrong in doing so.”