Principles and Aims of the American Birth Control League
The complex problems now confronting America as the result of the
practice of reckless procreation are fast threatening to grow beyond
human control.
Everywhere we see poverty and large families going hand in hand.
Those least fit to carry on the race are increasing most rapidly.
People who cannot support their own offspring are encouraged by Church
and State to produce large families. Many of the children thus
begotten are diseased or feeble-minded; many become criminals. The
burden of supporting these unwanted types has to be bourne by the
healthy elements of the nation. Funds that should be used to raise
the standard of our civilization are diverted to the maintenance of
those who should never have been born.
In addition to this grave evil we witness the appalling waste of
women's health and women's lives by too frequent pregnancies. These
unwanted pregnancies often provoke the crime of abortion, or
alternatively multiply the number of child-workers and lower the
standard of living.
To create a race of well born children it is essential that the
function of motherhood should be elevated to a position of dignity,
and this is impossible as long as conception remains a matter of
chance.
We hold that children should be
1. Conceived in love;
2. Born of the mother's conscious desire;
3. And only begotten under conditions which
render possible the heritage of health.
Therefore we hold that every woman must possess the power and freedom
to prevent conception except when these conditions can be satisfied.
Every mother must realize her basic position in human society. She
must be conscious of her responsibility to the race in bringing
children into the world.
Instead of being a blind and haphazard consequence of uncontrolled
instinct, motherhood must be made the responsible and self-directed
means of human expression and regeneration.
These purposes, which are of fundamental importance to the whole of
our nation and to the future of mankind, can only be attained if women
first receive practical scientific education in the means of Birth
Control. That, therefore, is the first object to which the efforts of
this League will be directed.
The American Birth Control League aims to enlighten and educate all
sections of the American public in the various aspects of the dangers
of uncontrolled procreation and the imperative necessity of a world
program of Birth Control.
The League aims to correlate the findings of scientists,
statisticians, investigators, and social agencies in all fields. To
make this possible, it is necessary to organize various departments:
RESEARCH: To collect the findings of scientists, concerning the
relation of reckless breeding to the evils of delinquency, defect and
dependence;
INVESTIGATION: To derive from these scientifically ascertained facts
and figures, conclusions which may aid all public health and social
agencies in the study of problems of maternal and infant mortality,
child-labor, mental and physical defects and delinquence in relation
to the practice of reckless parentage.
HYGIENIC AND PHYSIOLOGICAL instruction by the Medical profession to
mothers and potential mothers in harmless and reliable methods of
Birth Control in answer to their requests for such knowledge.
STERILIZATION of the insane and feebleminded and the encouragement of
this operation upon those afflicted with inherited or transmissible
diseases, with the understanding that sterilization does not deprive
the individual of his or her sex expression, but merely renders him
incapable of producing children.
EDUCATIONAL: The program of education includes: The enlightenment of
the public at large, mainly through the education of leaders of
thought and opinion—teachers, ministers, editors and writers—to the
moral and scientific soundness of the principles of Birth Control and
the imperative necessity of its adoption as the basis of national and
racial progress.
POLITICAL AND LEGISLATIVE: To enlist the support and cooperation of
legal advisers, statesmen and legislators in effecting the removal of
state and federal statutes which encourage dysgenic breeding, increase
the sum total of disease, misery and poverty and prevent the
establishment of a policy of national health and strength.
ORGANIZATION: To send into the various States of the Union field
workers to enlist the support and arouse the interest of the masses,
to the importance of Birth Control so that laws may be changed and the
establishment of clinics made possible in every State.
INTERNATIONAL: This department aims to cooperate with similar
organizations in other countries to study Birth Control in its
relations to the world population problem, food supplies, national and
racial conflicts, and to urge upon all international bodies organized
to promote world peace, the consideration of these aspects of
international amity.
THE AMERICAN BIRTH CONTROL LEAGUE proposes to publish in its official
organ "The Birth Control Review," reports and studies on the
relationship of controlled and uncontrolled populations to national
and world problems.
The American Birth Control League also proposes to hold an annual
Conference to bring together the workers of the various departments so
that each worker may realize the inter-relationship of all the various
phases of the problem to the end that National education will tend to
encourage and develop the powers of self-direction, self-reliance, and
independence in the individuals of the community instead of dependence
for relief upon public or private charities.
