STERILISATION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17027, 28 April 1923, Page 9

STERILISATION.

WOMENS’ EMPHATIC VIEWS. (Per Press association.) WELLINGTON, April 28. The following letter signed by the secretary of the New Zealand National Council of Women has been forwarded to tlie chairman of the Ashburton Hospital Board:— “ Dear Sir,—The attention of this council having been called to the reports of your speech at the sitting of your hospital board at which the sterilisation of degenerates was discussed, I am instructed to write you on the subject. My council is profoundly shocked at the statement attributed to you in the report. We feel satisfied that you could not have realised bow harmful to the moral standard of the country such a view of the marriage state must be. Otherwise you would not have expressed yourself in such terms. As women working for the welfare of women and children in this country, we feel it our duty to You our most emphatic protest against this view of marriage. No State can hope to become great which degrades its women in any way. and such a doctrine as the one advocated by you must lower the whole conception of the relation of the sexes and do untold harm to the rising generation.”