SOCIAL EVILS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22777, 10 July 1937, Page 26

SOCIAL EVILS

DECLINE IN MORALITY CONDITIONS IN DOMINION An appeal to women to make some effort to remedy the effects of some social evils existing in New Zealand was made by Dr. A. B. O'Brien, of Chris tchurch, in an address to representatives of all Auckland women's organisations in tlio Catholic Women's lx>ague rooms last night. The president of the Catholic Women's league, Mrs. W. Pilling, presided. "Tho people of New Zealand have become so far degenerate that the.v are definitely stopping their babies, a fact which lias been shown in the recent report of the commission of inquiry set up by the Government to report on . abortion in Now Zealand," Dr. O'Brien. said. This fact was also born out by statistics, which showed that from 1931 to 1935, 145 women had died from septic abortion. Of this number 112 were married women. "We have to bo made a warn of another insidious canker in our midst, birth control, which is .masquerading as 'tho people's friend,' " tho speaker continued. "The sale of contraceptives has opened up a largo commercial industry and almost anywhere you like to go in the city you will find these articles for sale." While tho Government was deploring the low population of New Zealand it allowed into the Dominion, through tho Customs Department each year, thousands of pounds worth of goods brought hero for tho sole purpose of preventing children from being born. " Wo are a degenerating people, a condition we have got into because of moral decline, and birth control is one of the systems in the grand march to oblivion," Dr. O'Brien said. He stated that the Jlornau Catholic Church was the only body which was putting up any united front against tho decline in morality. Although others wero doing so individually, theirs was not a united effort.