BIRTH CONTROL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20432, 12 June 1928, Page 6

BIRTH CONTROL.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —A correspondent signing himself “ Thinking of the Children ” is right in most of his assertions concerning birth control, but surely he must admit that the well-to-do classes are quite correct in having a very limited family, and are acting in a wise manner for their own sake and their children’s sake. As regards a certain operation that is mentioned, surely he does not suggest that is the only check the well-to-do apply to avoid the burden of too large families. As he mentions, many children in a large family may be sickly, as in the case of a family of his acquaintance (10 of whom are “weeds,” I suppose), and the first six very healthy. In my opinion, those 10 children should really belong to eight different women, and under proper normal conditions they ought to bo all sound and healthy, and bring happiness to their mothers, as it is a natural law that every woman should have children if she is to attain to the best as regards her physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, and have the natural desire of motherhood that is latent within her gratified to the full. Tour correspondent asks: “Why do our ministers not advocate birth control? ” The answer is that they would probably lose their positions, and the very people whom they were trying to help may be the first to stone them. The same would apply to doctors, health inspectors, and all goodintontioned social workers who know these things. As the writer of these lines does not happen to have a position to lose, he does not bother, and believes in birth control and advocates it, if only on the grounds of common decency.—l am, etc., Arthur Pickard. Dunedin, June 10.