No Healthy Race Without Birth Control

Margaret Sacher’s article raises many questions regarding her advocacy of birth control as a vehicle through which women are to gain their freedom. The most outstanding aspects in this article are assertions that the imbalance between the birth rate of the fit and the unfit are a hindrance to civilization. Further, when the writer outlines that women are faced by the choice of either celibacy or abortion, she limits the numerous alternatives that have been advanced in birth control to only two. Sacher appears to have applied double standards when she categorizes child birth, a natural process as an over breeding process especially among the poor unenlightened women.

By implying that there exist great disparities between the birth of the fit and the unfit, I feel that the writer overlooks the fact that inferiority and poverty among the mothers does not warrant them to be unfit. Although the writer is a birth control advocate, she points out that the root of the problem lies with limiting the over-fertility of the physically and mentally disadvantaged. However, I feel that birth control should be a message that should be preached to all prospective mothers in order for it to be readily embraced. Additionally, when she points out that birth control is the first step a woman needs to take to be man’s equal, her campaign intentions are questioned.

The writer outlines that there is hypocrisy in the society in terms of morality when she criticizes the act of parents sharing sleeping quarters with small children. Sacher’s criticism is one sided as she overlooks the fact that many poor families start small in double roomed apartments at best. Abject poverty does not necessarily result into uncontrolled births. In addition, knowledge of birth control mechanisms has not necessarily brought about greater freedom, happiness and harmony among its proponents. Instead, the practice has been carried out in secret by the wealthy non-working women. Moral decay has taken the form of unsafe abortions as the enlightened women try to maintain their sound healthy bodies. Cases of death at child birth are on the rise through unsafe birth control methods.

It is a careless to state that it is impractical for young couples to bear children in the first years of marriage. The social order dictates that families are started in the first years of marriage. Instead, I feel that there are better measures such as proper spacing in the family among other productive methods. Such proposals are reasonable and are likely to be readily embraced by men and women alike. The assertions that temporary and permanent forms of fatigue on the part of the mother have a direct influence on the child cannot be substantiated.

Healthy and intelligent motherhood is not the ultimate solution to ideal child birth. Young mothers can be empowered socially and economically through establishing nutrition clinics and social welfare clubs. The campaign to stop reproduction where there are no economic means is far-fetched and impractical as a woman has a biblical obligation to bear as many children as possible. While I advocate for the sterilization of the insane and the feeble minded, I cannot argue that these measures are more than the apparent deterrents in the rising number of the unfit. As such, birth control mechanisms do not address the cause of the problem.

Birth control can make a better race to some extent. Case in point is where a family subsisting of a certain wage rate naturally gives better care to a sizeable number of children. However, I maintain that a woman possessing adequate knowledge of her reproductive processes is the best weapon for her to determine when to bring a child into the world. It is the right of any woman to decide how many children to bear regardless of all considerations. I insist that information regarding the use of scientific contraceptives should be made available to all.