The Birth control is not a modern phenomenon.
The Birth control is not a modern
phenomenon. Although just recently it has been more freely discussed than ever
before, which ,has made some people think that it is a modern notion, doctors a
Scientists fell us that there are
evidences of a conscious effort to prevent the conception of Children even at
the time of the Romans and various documentary proofs of it are
available in almost every age. It is also a well-known fact that in every
country of the world, in villages as well as in towns, where the people are
literate as well as where they are illiterate, there is evidence that secretly
a few primitive secrets of birth control are known.
We are therefore driven to the
conclusion that in spite of many arguments that may be levelled against it
human beings do try to control the numbers in their families. If you ask a
doctor what the arguments are for and against birth control, you will find that
in perhaps more than 90% of cases the doctor will favor it. Some woman, due to
physical disability or weakness cannot risk having another baby without grave
danger to the lives and no conscientious doctor will in that can refuse the
necessary knowledge. If a woman has two or three babies in quick
succession and quick coming of yet another baby threatens to waken her
unduly or cause the new child to be an ailing one, there was a medical
reason why the Knowledge of birth control should not be withheld.
The human argument and the economic
argument: Man is rational being, and likes to think that it is by this power
of rationality of thinking, or judging, of acting, in the way that he wills,
that he distinguished from the lower animals. It is only natural therefore that
rational man and wife should consider that they prefer to have Limited number
of babies, whom they are able to bring up and educate
in the way they desire, rather than
a large number of babies who arrive whether they wish it or not. A desire for
birth control does not mean that there is a dislike of children, or that they
are regarded a
burdens, Birth control does not mean
"no babies." It just means "better babies," it does not
mean "no motherhood," but it means "conscious, deliberate,
willing motherhood instead. It should be every woman's birthright to have
healthy babies, when and how she wants them; no
woman should be just a machine for
producing babies. The tragedy of
frequent childbirth is to be seen
very often in Indo-Pak subcontinent
with its companions of early old
age, ailing women, high infantile mortality and the like .
Economically speaking, the arguments
for birth control are decisive. In bygone ages, and to a certain extent even
today in
countries such as present day India,
Pakistan, China and Africa, there
were certain "checks"
which kept down the increase in population, such as famine, diseases, epidemics
etc. With the progress of science, these checks became scarcer, doctors teach
who to combat disease, to prevent the spread of epidemics. Concerted action is
taken from the central government to control the ravages of famine. So the
population freed from these checks is apt to increase too rapidly, and then the
result is a population problem such as that of present day.
Italy and Japan, which is so
insistent that the result in both cases is an imperialist 'war of
expansion." If the alternative to birth control is the wholesale slaughter
of men as mere "cannon fodder," there must be few people who would
chose the latter alternative. In these days of economic stress and
unemployment, it is also only sane to advocate birth control rather than burden
a young family with a number of
children for whom they are unable to
provide. There is a proverb every mouth brings with it a pair of hands, but it
must be remembered that although in the long run this may come true, it
must be many weary years of hardship before a young baby can be expected
to add to the family budget.
The religious argument against it
and its answer: It must the admitted that there are many people with a
religious objection to birth control, who say that it is not morally right to
prevent the coming of young life. If and when both husband and wife hold this
view, and when they find that self-control is a possibility for both, then it
is only right that their feedings in the matter should be respected. But people
who think like this should not imagine that it is at all possible for most
young people to observe this strict rule, and there are also many cases where
one partner is willing to observe it and the other cannot. There are certain
"great souls who may maintain these ideas. But the majority of healthy,
happy normal human beings will find that physically, mentally, and nervously
they are bound to suffer under a life of unnatural restraint. In that case the
husband must decide which the greater sin to prevent is scientifically the
further conception of children or to see his young wife and a large family of
children suffering from continued ill health.
Some objections and their reply:
Many of those who speak against birth control put forward the argument that on
grounds it is inadvisable because it creates sterility in the women .the
best answer to this argument is the official report of the British Control
Clinics, which deny on overwhelming evidence that the contraceptives causes
sterility. Others say that propaganda in favor of birth control and the opening
of clinic for it encourages immorality might well be retorted that for those
who desire it, the knowledge
Always available, those who wish to
put the knowledge to bad use is find ways and means all the world over. But
this should not stand in the way of those who are too poor to help
themselves......it is for the
sake of the poor and the illiterate
that propaganda for birth control should be carried on.
A plea for birth control denies
another argument against birth control is that it is the rich and educated
families who limit the number of their children and not the poor ones and that
to advocate birth control means that the proportion of poor and weak met the
population will increase. But surely this is only a another argument for
the encouragement of birth control propaganda, If, under the present
"hush-hush" system, it is the rich who take advantage of the system,
then means should be devised so that the masses can learn its secrets and so
better their lot. The people who can really benefit by birth control are the
poorest peasants and workmen in the whose condition of life is the most
miserable, and for them it is necessary information and free appliances when
they are in real need of them the foundation of birth control clinics is
therefore essential in any comparing to better the health of nation.
More than this, countries such as
India and Pakistan where there is a great deal of opposition on the ground of
ignorance, women should be trained who can go round from house to house,
particularly among the villages, to teach and preach to the women this new aid
which has come to them through medical science.
