BIRTH CONTROL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21126, 27 August 1938, Page 5

BIRTH CONTROL

ADVOCACY DENIED BY WOMEN’S DIVISION By Telegraph - Pres* Association WANGANUI, August 26. “The Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union has done everything possible to encourage the mothers o£ this Dominion to bear and rear children,” said Mrs Jessie C. Wickham, Dominion President of the Division, 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 childbearing,” said Mrs Wickham. “A maternity case is always of first importance and it is our proud boast that we have never turned down the case of' a mother requiring help. The mothers of the largest families are always first to be considered, and at the 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 persons,” 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 a misunderstanding as to what we 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 abortificients, and it is difficult to believe that we can be considered wrong in doing so.”