1
10
2
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret Sanger Microfilm Edition, Collected Documents Series
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Deity
God
Lord
Law
United States Tariff Act, Section 305
Immigration Act of 1917
United States Criminal Code, Section 211
Organization
National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control
International Birth Control Conference, 7th
United States Congress
United States Children's Bureau
Edinburgh University
United State Customs Service
United States House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means
Cambridge University
Roman Catholic Church
American Medical Association
United States Postal Service
United States Census Bureau, Department of Vital Statistics
Walworth Women's Welfare Centre
Johns Hopkins University
United States Government
White House Conference on Child Health and Protection
Oxford University
Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau
Person
McCormack, John William
Crisp, Charles Robert
Stone, Hannah Mayer
Ryan, John Augustine
Meyer, Adolf
Samuel (Biblical)
Jesus Christ
Sarah (Biblical)
Kelly, Howard Atwood
Woodbury, Robert Morse
Stuart, H. C.
Comstock, Anthony
Jacobi, Abraham
Hancock, Clarence
Isaac (Biblical)
Virgin Mary (Biblical)
Esau (Biblical)
John the Baptist (Biblical)
Rebekah (Biblical)
Norton, Mary Hopkins
Joseph (Biblical)
Chase, William Sheafe
Hoover, Herbert
Hannah (Biblical)
Canfield, Harry Clifford
Wesley, John
Caruso, Enrico
Rachel (Biblical)
Jacob (Biblical)
Pusey, William Allen
Butler, Lily C.
Place
Lake Erie
Chicago, IL
England
Scotland
France
London, England
Germany
California
Los Angeles, CA
Israel
United States
New York, NY
Zurich, Switzerland
Mississippi
Italy
Publication
Medical Journal and Record
Bible
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<div>
<h4>STATEMENT OF MRS. MARGARET SANGER, NATIONAL CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL LEGISLATION FOR BIRTH CONTROL</h4>
<p class="dateline">New York City</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, first may I thank you in the name of our committee for your kindness and consideration in giving us so much of your valuable time this morning.</p>
<p>I also wish to assure you that were it not for our deep conviction that the bill we are trying to persuade you to enact into law, means so very much to millions of women in the country, we would not worry or trouble you to give us time at this particular period of mental distress, in the hurry of your own work.</p>
<p>This bill directly affects 25,000,000 married women of child-bearing age in this country. It indirectly affects the health and the future development and the education of 45,000,000 children in this country, of which 10,000,000 are handicapped, mentally or physically, according to the reports given at the White House conference called by President Hoover last year.</p>
<p>More than 1,400 experts reported that those 10,000,000 handicapped children were handicapped because of conditions of poverty, ignorance, or neglect. And yet, Mr. Chairman, no fundamental cure was offered to prevent the coming of 10,000,000 more children who will eventually be handicapped, from causes of ignorance, poverty, and neglect.</p>
<p>Because of the controversial nature of this subject, commonly known as birth control, I wish to tell you something about its general application.</p>
<p>This movement in its modern state began in this country in 1914. I myself, as a mother of 3 children, a member of a large family of 11, and a trained nurse, early came to the conclusion from my own experience in the slum districts of New York City, that this was one of the most vital factors in maternal health and in the health of children.</p>
<p>I found everywhere women who were seeking some means, some knowledge of what they could do to prevent the coming of other children whom they knew, owing to their physical defects, they were unable to bring into the world in a healthy condition; or, owing to their husband's economic circumstances, they would be unable to provide for.</p>
<p>So I began to wonder if we could not do something about this law, which was passed by Congress in 1873, nearly 60 years ago. With all the advance that women have made and with all the advance of our charities and our philanthropies and with all the billions that are spent upon disease and defects, delinquency, and dependency, we still allow-–in fact we almost force married persons who continue in their normal, marital lives, to bring into the world children for whom they themselves could not provide.</p>
<p>So, in order to stir up interest in this question and to get this law changed, it was necessary to organize public sentiment, which has now grown into the birth-control movement.</p>
<p>Birth control is the conscious control of the birth rate by means that prevent the conception of human life. We emphasize “prevent”; not interrupt, not destroy. It does not mean abortion. It does not mean the interruption of life after conception occurs. There is no more an interruption of life or a destruction of life in preventing conception than in remaining single or living in abstinence or celibacy. Physiologically speaking, there is no difference.</p>
<p>We say “control.” When we control, we do not have to limit any more than when you control your furnace you have to put the fire out. We control the furnace according to the heat that we desire to maintain in the home, according to the season, according to the hour of the day or night. You control your motor car, but you do not have to stop the engine.</p>
<p>So, in controlling the size of the family or controlling the birth rate, we control it in accordance with the mother's health, in consideration of the quality of inheritance that we are going to pass on to our children, in consideration of the father's income and his earning capacity.</p>
<p>This law, Mr. Chairman, was put upon the statute books at a time when there was very little recognition of the value of the practice of family limitation, when there was very little knowledge of the technique of contraception.</p>
<p>Birth control or prevention of contraception was classed in the obscenity clause with abortion, pornography, and indecency; and it does not belong there.</p>
<p>There was no exemption for physicians. There was no exemption for hospitals or dispensaries.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, when that law was passed, it practically closed the avenues of knowledge to the medical profession in this country; it closed out knowledge of research that has been going on in other countries.</p>
<p>It has left us, in so far as the control of child bearing is concerned, practically as in the days of barbarism or savagery. Furthermore, to all intents and purposes, the day that law was passed, women were placed into the category of child-bearing machines. Under this law they practically become conscript mothers.</p>
<p>President Hoover in his address before the White House conference said:</p>
<p><span class="HOOHE">“Let no one believe that these are questions which should not stir a nation; that they are below the dignity of statesmen or government. If we could have but one generation of properly born, trained, educated, and healthy children, a thousand other problems of government would vanish. We would assure ourselves of healthier minds in more vigorous bodies to direct the energies of our Nation to yet greater heights of achievement. Moreover, one good community nurse will save a dozen future policemen.”</span></p>
<p>There are altogether seven very definite reasons-–perhaps more--but I shall take up only seven, why we claim that birth control should be practiced.</p>
<p>First. Wherever there is a transmissible disease, either the husband or wife suffering from insanity, feeblemindedness, epilepsy, or any other form of transmissible disease, neither of those persons should consider being a parent.</p>
<p>Second. In conditions where the mother or the woman has a temporary disease, such as tuberculosis or a heart or kidney disease, pelvic deformity, goiter, and various other conditions, pregnancy becomes a great hazard to the woman's life. We claim that mother should be protected by having contraceptive information so that she can regain her health before she takes upon herself the burden of pregnancy.</p>
<p>Third. Where parents though seemingly normal themselves, yet have already given birth to defective children, children with cleft palates, children that are subnormal, that are deaf and dumb, we claim that just for the good of the State those parents should refrain from further child bearing, even in spite of the great desire and hope for a normal child.</p>
<p>Fourth. Every mother should safeguard her health as well as that of her unborn child by spacing the births of children for a period of from two to three years.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, the days are past when it was a very easy matter for women to give birth to children, as it was two or three generations ago. Today it is known that the whole organism of a woman's life, her nervous organism, is quite different from what it was in her grandmother's days, and child bearing is a greater hazard today than it ever was before. In many, many cases, it leaves her not only in a precarious condition at the time, but often in a damaged condition for the future.</p>
<p>We ask that she be able to recuperate from that ordeal, to take the time to enjoy her baby and to take the time to prepare herself physically and mentally and spiritually for the coming of the next child she may wish to have. That means a spacing from two to three years between children.</p>
<p>Doctor Woodbury, of the United States Children's Bureau, published some very interesting data where he clearly shows that too short an interval between childbirths markedly affects the infant death rate. Where the interval between births is three years, the infant death rate is 86.5 (per 1,000 births); when the interval is two years, the rate is 98.6; and when it is only one year, the infant mortality goes up to 146.7. Certainly a very striking increase.</p>
<p>Fifth. There are economic considerations. We believe that it is unfair, that it is not right, for people to have children for whom they cannot provide, and it is just as unfair for a man and a woman to have children that society or the community or their older children have to provide for as it is for one country to spill over the other country's border. It is just the same morally.</p>
<p>We know that in our work we have had women come to us who 10 years ago were unable to provide for 4 or 6 children and who today have 12 or 15 which the community has been providing for and taking care of.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, we found in our records that most of these children have to go out to work, have to compete with their father in the labor market just as soon as they get old enough to get a labor certificate from the community.</p>
<p>We claim that our young people, while they may marry, and it might be advisable for them to marry early, should wait until they are fully complete in their development, through the adolescent period, before they become parents. We believe it would do away with a great many questions of immorality, promiscuity, and various other questions that concern us all today if this were more encouraged on the part of society.</p>
<p>Sixth. The adolescent period must be considered. We are learning a great deal about the adolescent boy and girl. In the old days the Greeks advised their young men not to marry until their twenty-fifth year. There was something very important in that. Perhaps they did not know it scientifically, but today we know that a man does not become really a man until his twenty-fifth year and that the woman does not become a woman, she is a girl, practically, until after the twenty-third year.</p>
<p>This is illustrated by other findings of Doctor Woodbury. In homes, for instance, where the average number of persons per room is less than 1, the infant death rate is 52.1; where it is two or more per room, the death rate is 135.7. Furthermore, in families where the per capita income from the father's earnings was less than $50 the infant mortality rate was 215.9, as compared with a rate of only 60.5 where the per capita amount averaged $400 or over. These figures clearly and strikingly indicate the influence of family over-crowding upon family well being.</p>
<p>Seventh. Adjustment.-– A point on which many may disagree with us. I believe it is very important to our young people's future that they should take at least two or three years after marriage just to get acquainted. Marriage is more today than just a question of providing for children. When there is a fine companionship in marriage between men and women, a spiritual development results. We believe that if two people have a chance to get acquainted, a chance to adjust themselves mentally and spiritually and physically, before they become parents, we shall have happier homes, more permanent marriages, and eventually, when the fear of pregnancy is removed from the home,we shall have larger families. That is our belief, Mr. Chairman. We have seen it come true in the past 16 or 17 years since we have been advocating this idea.</p>
<p>There are three main methods of contraception or birth control.</p>
<p>The first is continence. There are no laws against it. Anyone who wishes to practice continence or to live in celibacy is legally free to do so. No one disagrees with their right to live in this way, if they wish.</p>
<p>The second is sterilization. There are 14 States in the Union today where there are sterilization laws. These provide for sterilization of certain types of persons who are morally irresponsible, who are able to bring into the world only progeny that will be a detriment to society.</p>
<p>The third is chemical or mechanical means of contraception around which most of this controversy is waged.</p>
<p>As you will see from this bill, we want the medical profession to direct the practice of contraception. We want no promiscuous distribution or scattering of knowledge of supplies as there has been in the past and there is today.</p>
<p>We want, for all time, to have this knowledge properly controlled and we believe that this bill provides for that. It places the responsibility of giving such information upon the medical profession. We have further found in the 28,000 cases that we have advised at the Clinical Research Bureau in the city of New York, which operates legally under the laws of the State of New York, which permit a physician to give information for the cure of prevention of disease, that knowledge of anatomy and physiology is necessary to instruct a woman properly according to her individual need. We have had 28,000 women who have come to us and who have been benefited by the advice given them, as their homes will show, as their children will show and as their own health will show.</p>
<p>We have found from these 28,000 cases, that every woman differs. You can no more claim that continence is the one and only method that should be practiced than you can say that every one should be sterilized. Every woman is different physiologically. Family conditions are different in each case and so it takes the trained physician with his knowledge of anatomy and physiology to advise that person, just as it takes a trained oculist to advise as to the proper fitting of eye glasses. We do not send our people to the 10-cent store nor to the corner druggist to get their supplies for contraception over the counter.</p>
<p>We want this thing to be put on a decent basis, to be handled in a scientific way. That is what we are asking.</p>
<p>This bill does not compel anyone to use such information. It does not compel any physician to give information. It simply permits contraceptive information and supplies to be sent to doctors or to hospitals and clinics from other countries and through the United States mails or by common carriers and permits supplies to be sent to druggists for use in their legitimate prescription business.</p>
<p>Many of you may say, “Well, is there not everything in this country that we may wish?” And I wish to say, “No.” There is a great deal of research going on in other countries, in Oxford and Cambridge in England, and in Edinburgh University in Scotland; a great deal of research is going on there which, according to the laws, can not come into this country.</p>
<p>I have here today a letter from the customs official of New York City saying that certain things were sent to me from Germany, two articles, that will be destroyed. I have sent a letter and asked that they be readdressed to the physician who is the medical director of our research bureau in New York City, stating that though they may articles to prevent conception, they also fulfill another function of preventing the spread of disease or protecting health. I asked that they be sent to one of our physicians. The answer was that they could not be sent to anyone and I would like to offer this letter, Mr. Chairman, if I may.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">The Acting Chairman.</span></strong> You may put the letter in the record.</p>
<p>[<em><span class="italics">The correspondence between Margaret Sanger and H. C. Stuart of the United State Customs Service was omitted.</span></em>]</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> The law, section 305 (a) of the tariff act does not allow any article of that kind to come into this country, and we are thus denied the results of research. We are denying our medical profession the benefit of knowledge obtained in various other countries where a great deal has been going on in the way of research, where they are unlimited in their research. There are only two countries in the world that have laws such as ours and they were patterned after our laws, unfortunately. Those countries are France and Italy.</p>
<p>We have in this country nearly 100 clinics, birth-control clinics, that are legally operating in the various States. Forty-seven States allow the physician to protect the woman's health and to give contraceptive advice as he sees fit. At the same time these physicians, while they may give information orally, have to bootleg their supplies from New York or Chicago or some place where they are manufactured in order to do what they should to protect the health of the woman in their own State.</p>
<p>In the State of California, in Los Angeles, under the county medical department 11 birth-control clinics have been established. If I should write and tell a woman in Los Angeles where one of those clinics is, or send her the address or name of the director of those clinics, I subject myself to the possibility of five years' imprisonment and $5,000 fine under section 211; even to write her where she may go to obtain that information.</p>
<p>It is preposterous; it is absurd. This whole situation is preposterous. Our laws are tangled and confused and as long as they remain as they are on the books, the situation will continue to be as it is.</p>
<p>I myself have received over a million letters, a great majority of them from mothers. I am going to conclude by asking you if you will listen patiently to just a few of them, because I want to analyze them, to show you what the real condition is.</p>
<p>Here is one that says:</p>
<p><em><span class="UNK">"I am the mother of 12 children, 6 of which are living. I have had 8 miscarriages in 20 years. I have been married and have a husband that does not support his family like he should. If you can and it is in your power, please tell me something to keep me from getting pregnant. I think I will die if I ever have another baby. So please help me if you can. And may God bless you as long as you live."</span></em></p>
<p>Now, that is a 50 per cent loss. That woman has had 12 children and only 6 of them are living. She has had 8 miscarriages. Think of the wasted time, think of the loss to that woman; think of the loss of the power of motherhood when we make this woman go through such a ghastly ordeal.</p>
<p>Here is another letter:</p>
<p><em><span class="UNK">"I have six children, my youngest 2 months old, and I am just scared to death for fear I will get that way again, for I never can live to go through with it again. I came near dying this time. For three months before my baby was born, I could not get any shoes on my feet and I could hardly get my eyes open to see. I was bloated up so bad. The doctor wanted to take the baby away when I was 8 months, but I said no, I did not care if I lived or died and I did not have the least idea of living, but the Lord spared me probably so I could go through it all again. But I live on the banks of Lake Erie and just as sure as I get in a family way again I will end my troubles and be at rest. Now, if you can tell me of any way, I would bless your name forever."</span></em></p>
<p>That is another one. You can imagine that mother with that fear in her mind, with that sword hanging over her head.</p>
<p>I want to say, Mr. Chairman, that since this law was passed, 1,500,000 mothers have passed out into the great beyond from causes due to child bearing.</p>
<p>There is just one more that I want to read to you, because these are the women who are urging us to pass these laws to give them some relief from the evil condition from which they have been suffering.</p>
<p><em><span class="UNK">"I just passed my 21st birthday August 5th (this year). I am already the mother of five little children, the oldest six years, and the baby three months. My husband has been out of work over a year and a half now. We would have starved to death long ago but for our relatives who, among them, gave us $5 a week. It's awful hard, Mrs. Sanger, to live like this, and my husband got so down and blue when he found I was that way last time, that he wanted to go away and live in another place, but his folks wouldn't let him do that. My children are well, thank God, but I'm awfully weak, only weighing 90 pounds. I do all the work, and if only I could get strong and not have any more babies, I'd take hope and so would my husband. Won't you help me, please? I know that God will bless you if you do."</span></em></p>
<p>One more. This is a classic:</p>
<p><em><span class="UNK">"I am only 34 years old and have given birth to 12 children, only 3 of them living. They die so quickly after they are born, it seems they don't have strength to live long. My husband is a good hard-working man, but the best he ever made was $1.50, and never for long. We're poor people, Mrs. Sanger, and the coffins of the last two are not paid for yet. It's hard on a woman to see them go like that, and I think that if I did not have any for a while I could keep the three I've got and give them better than we had."</span></em></p>
<p>Is there any man in the world that would continue a business that shows a 75 per cent loss? Of course not. And yet these mothers are not only losing live babies, but they are interrupting pregnancies, thereby sapping their health and strength.</p>
<p>One woman is only 34 years old, the other is only 21. Can you see, gentlemen, what it means to look ahead? Can you see that these women have years and years ahead of them of child bearing, of hopelessness, of despair? Why, the very entrance of a smiling, loving husband is a terror to these woman. Is it any wonder that homes are broken up? Some of the speakers will tell you something about the attitude of men. The young husbands have their problems too. They are trapped. They do not know what it is all about. They do not know what to do. They do the best they can, and yet the only thing they can do when they find their wives in a pregnant condition, with their hopelessness for the future, is to abort. In many of our cases we have brought them back again so that we can teach the husband and wife that it is not necessary to continue to bring children into the world that they can not take care of, and we have made many of these homes happier by proper instruction.</p>
<p>These are the facts. These are the conditions; and there is just one thing that we must realize: The United States Government has already recognized that there is a population problem, at least as far as the quality is concerned, for you know that the Government has claimed the right to exclude immigrants whose condition is likely to be a serious danger to the well-being and happiness of the country. A very important law was passed, and there are now excluded by the immigration act of February 5, 1917 (39 Stat. 874), regulating immigration of aliens to and residence of aliens in the United States, which reads as follows:</p>
<p><span class="IA1917">Sec. 3. That the following classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission into the United States: All idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons; persons who have had one or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority; persons with chronic alcoholism; paupers; professional beggars; vagrants; persons afflicted with tuberculosis in any form or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons not comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such alien to earn a living; persons who have been convicted of or admit to having committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; polygamists, or persons who practice polygamy or believe in or advocate the practice of polygamy; prostitutes, or persons coming into the United States for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose; persons who directly or indirectly procure or attempt to procure or import prostitutes or persons for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose; persons who are supported by or receive in whole or in part the proceeds of prostitution; persons likely to become a public charge.</span></p>
<p>There are also provisions for the exclusion of illiterates, or of persons 16 years of age, physically capable of reading, but who cannot read English or some other language. All are refused admission into the United States of America.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, I think it is a good law, and all that we are asking is, that if such persons and such types are not good for the country, to come in from the outside, that they also, by birth control, be prevented from coming into the world. If these types are not good for a country, and are a source of danger to our well-being and happiness, then I say, shall we not have the right to have these types of persons in this country excluded from birth?</p>
<p>I thank you.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">The Acting Chairman.</span></strong> Are there any questions?</p>
<p><span class="strong"><strong>Mr. McCormack</strong>.</span> Mrs. Sanger, I was rather interested in your statement that you think a married couple should wait two or three years just to get acquainted after marriage. What did you mean by that--a probationary marriage or trial marriage? I think you ought to explain that.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> No; I mean a permanent marriage. I think marriages would be more permanent if there were a proper adjustment and opportunity for getting acquainted at the beginning.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> Suppose they do not become acquainted?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Of course we are going to give them a better chance to become acquainted; far better than they have today. If I may just digress a moment, what opportunity is there for young people to get acquainted? In the first year after marriage a woman's whole physiological condition is changed. There may be some opportunity for the man--he does not have to have his whole physiological condition changed, but for the woman who comes back from her honeymoon with headaches, morning nausea, and a new nervous strain-–not only is marriage a new condition for her, but the process and the possibility of motherhood entirely changes her whole being.</p>
<p>Now, I say that those young people have not the first chance to get really acquainted. The man never knows his wife as a woman. He only knows her as a girl before marriage, and then he knows her as preparing for motherhood. I say it is unfair to the relationship of marriage. It is unfair to the child that is about to be born, and we know that it makes a great difference, and that marriage can be more permanent if there is the opportunity to become adjusted.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> You made reference to some statements made by President Hoover. Did you intend thereby--I am sure you did not, but I would like to have it in the record one way or the other--did you intend thereby to let the inference be drawn that he was supporting this movement?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Not at all. I simply made a statement that he believes in a healthier childhood, and that children should be given the opportunity to be born well.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> Continence is the exercise of the affirmative mind, is it not?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Not always.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> What was that conference at which President Hoover made that statement?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> The White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, in 1931.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack. </span></strong>Continence is the exercise of the affirmative mind by the individual; that is true, is it not?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Not always the affirmative mind. It may be an exercise of a negative mind.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> But in an affirmative direction?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Not altogether. I think it is negative just as it is affirmative. It is denial.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> Well, denial. It has to be an exercise of an affirmative mind to deny themselves something that their inclination desires, does it not?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Well, it is a denial of a positive function, I should say.</p>
<p><span class="strong"><strong>Mr. McCormack</strong>.</span> Now, as to the chemical means of contraception, what is meant by drugs, or the use of drugs?I notice this bill says:</p>
<p>"Any article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing that may be used for the prevention of conception."</p>
<p>What kind of drugs do you have in mind?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Chinosol, quinine, and various other things that may form a suppository which will kill the spermatozoa.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> What kind of instruments has this bill in mind?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Condoms and pessaries of various kinds.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span> </strong>Of course, the purpose of those is for use prior, with the purpose of preventing conception?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Absolutely; no interference afterwards.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> In other words, it is a means of affording self-satisfaction and preventing the consequences thereof by the use of artificial means?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> If you wish to put it that way.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. Canfield.</span></strong> Mrs. Sanger, in your statement you referred to “this law.” Which law do you refer to?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Sections 211, 245, and 312 of the Criminal Code and section 305 of the tariff law.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. Canfield.</span></strong> Is that the Comstock law which Congressman Hancock referred to?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Yes. They were enacted by Congress at the instigation of Mr. Comstock in 1873.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">The Acting Chairman.</span></strong> We thank you, Mrs. Sanger, for your presence and your contribution to the hearings.</p>
<p>[<span class="italics"><em>The material submitted by Mrs. Sanger was omitted by the editors.</em>]</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p><strong>Further Statement of Mrs. Margaret Sanger</strong></p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I wish it had been possible, without going into the personalities, to take a vote and to have shown the number of children born to and reared by those who appeared for and against this bill. It would be amusing were it not tragic in its significance to see a childless woman who is a Member of Congress appear here against this bill when she herself, were she obeying the laws of nature, would probably be at home attending to her 10 or 12 children.</p>
<p>I have found in the arguments presented here that it as been a case of personal opinion against facts, theories against practical knowledge.</p>
<p>For instance, I can illustrate that with some of the remarks made by Dr. Howard Kelly. When he was asked about contraceptives he mentioned the use of a douche as a contraceptive. Why, everybody knows--everybody who knows anything at all about this subject--that a douche is not a contraceptive but a cleansing agent, used more for hygienic purposes than for contraception. It is an old fogey theory that a douche is a contraceptive. It means simply that Doctor Kelly has not been in school in the last 20 or 30 years, where he might have learned something of the modern technique of contraception.</p>
<p>That is a case illustrative of the point I wish to make, the opponents of this bill do not know the facts. Here is a man like Doctor Kelly who has made his reputation in medicine, through long years of great achievement, coming here and talking not on the merits of the bill, but on a defense of “morals.” That is amusing, particularly when taken in conjunction with the statement of Dr. John Ryan, who is a theologian, a representative of the Catholic Church, who comes to theorize on economics and the population aspect of this question.</p>
<p>That is all very right and proper. They may express their opinions, but, Mr. Chairman, the merits of the bill have not been discussed by the opponents of the bill.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, when you weed out the personal opinions expressed, no one has said that the physician should not have the right to use the United States mails and common carriers. No one has dared to say that the physician has not the right to give contraceptive information where he sees that it is right and where he sees that a woman really needs it.</p>
<p>That is the sum and substance of what this is all about.</p>
<p>Canon Chase made a statement for which I think he owes and apology to the Federal committee, when he said that this is a “<span class="SHEWI">crook's bill</span>.” I am not going to take the time to refute these stupid, senseless, futile, personal accusations. I want to say that he did say one good thing. He said, “<span class="SHEWI">No sensible person can oppose giving the trustworthy physician freedom to do what is necessary to protect the lives of women which would be endangered by another pregnancy if their husbands can not control themselves</span>.”</p>
<p>I thank him for that statement.</p>
<p>Some people have said here that this bill would infringe upon State rights. That is not true. We included a statement in the proceedings yesterday to show that there are 47 States that give the physician the right to give information on the prevention of conception. About 24 States do not classify the prevention of conception in the obscenity laws at all. That is, there are 24 States where any one could give information. We are trying to direct public opinion so that it shall look to the physician to get such information and we are trying to make it possible for the physician to have the best information to give. There is only one State where there is any doubt about it.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. Canfield</span>.</strong> What State is that?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Mississippi. This bill does not open the mails to promiscuous distributions so that anyone can have information. It simply asks that the physician shall have the right of the United States mails and the common carriers, and that licensed clinics and the hospitals shall have the same right.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, I do not know whether the bill as it has been amended has been offered or not. Mr. Hancock made some changes.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">The Acting Chairman.</span></strong> Those changes are a part of this testimony and as the committee considers this measure they will consider all that has been said with reference to it.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong"> Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> I want to say that the physician will not use the United States mails to advise or prescribe for patients. Let me try to make that clear to you. Every physician who knows his job at all will see the patient, will study the indications. He will advise her as to her personal needs and personal requirements. He will take into consideration not only her health but her whole gynecological formation and condition. He will take into consideration her economic situation, and he will advise her then, and that will come under the State law. But before he can advise he must have information, he must know what is available in the world in this regard. The medical schools of the past have not given this knowledge to him.</p>
<p>Not only shall the doctor advise the patient orally, but he must then give her a prescription by which she can get the articles recommended. That is why he must use the United States mail.</p>
<p>In many cases he himself will give her the article or device and in some cases he will give her a prescription for the drug store.</p>
<p>In my estimation this is the only way that the present promiscuous scattering of information and devices can be corrected. I consider this the sanest way of trying to correct the misuse of knowledge or misinformation that has been and still is so prevalent throughout the country and which both proponents and opponents deplore.</p>
<p>There are 150,000 physicians in the United States who belong to the American Medical Association. There is some difference of opinion among them. The American Medical Association as a whole has never gone on record for or against this measure, but a few years ago the section on obstetrics and gynecology and abdominal surgery did go on record by a resolution to the effect that they recommended “the alteration of existing laws whenever necessary so that physicians my legally give contraceptive information to their patients in the regular course of their practice.” That resolution, Mr. Chairman, was submitted in record yesterday and is printed elsewhere in full.</p>
<p>To give you a brief idea of how the medical profession regards this question, I shall cite from a questionnaire sent out by the <em><span class="journal">Medical Journal and Record</span></em> in 1927. Two hundred and seventy-three doctors replied and out of the 273, 248 were in favor of birth control or proper legislation leading thereto; 19 were against; 2 of them said they were unable to express an opinion. One said that he thought that contraceptive methods would be abused. One said that methods shall be advised only after consultation with a physician, with the sanction of the United States Government, and the <span class="book">Bible</span>; and one thought that this generation knows too much about such things, and that the poor would not avail themselves of this information.</p>
<p>Those in favor represent a pretty large proportion of the number that expressed themselves in this symposium.</p>
<p>Following that up, the <em><span class="journal">Medical Journal and Record</span></em> in 1929 sent out another questionnaire, and 118 doctors replied to that, of which number 99 said that they were in favor and only four said that they were not informed sufficiently to express an opinion. Fifteen were opposed.</p>
<p>I just mention this to show you that there is a division of opinion, but there is a very much larger number of physicians who are for this than are against it.</p>
<p>Evidence was presented yesterday of the large number of county and city medical organizations in favor of this particular legislation and also of many who are in favor of the principles of birth control.</p>
<p>Two ex-presidents of the American Medical Association have made statements in our favor--Dr. Abraham Jacobi and Dr. Allen Pusey.</p>
<p>It has been stated that contraceptive measures or practices left a harmful effect upon the pelvic organs upon the nervous system of those who practiced it.</p>
<p>Again these statements are made by people who have an opinion but who have not the facts. We have the facts. We have been following up cases not only in New York but throughout the country where there are a hundred or more clinics. There have been 28,000 patients in one clinic in New York, the Birth Control Clinic Research Bureau, whose case records reveal facts to the contrary. We have had the patients come back to us, and we have a detailed study and analysis made of the first 10,000 of those cases, a record which is too voluminous to bring here today; but we have the actual facts from which to substantiate our conclusions.</p>
<p>I am going to ask, Mr. Chairman, if I may, to present one case that I took at random as an illustration.</p>
<p>An Italian woman, 29 years old on first visit (married at 15 years). Diagnosed as “high-grade moron” with husband classified as “mental case.” Three children, youngest an infant; two miscarriages, both due to overwork. Five pregnancies in all. Clinical contraceptive advice now successful for four years. This family able to carry on without help from social agency by whom she was referred to us.</p>
<p>It seems to me that that tells something of what the actual practice of contraception can do; how it will relieve the tremendous and growing burdens of charity now resting on society.</p>
<p>Here is a report by Dr. Lily C. Butler, medical officer of the Walworth Woman's Welfare Center, presented before the Seventh International Birth Control Conference held last September in Zurich, which reads as follows:</p>
<p><em>"<span class="BUTLI">So much is stated by opponents of birth control as to contraceptives subsequently producing sterility that the figures we have obtained on going through our cards at Walworth and East London are interesting. We note that 101 patients have wanted another child after periods varying from one to five years, and in 98 of these cases they have become pregnant on discontinuing the use of the contraceptive.</span>"</em></p>
<p>That shows that when proper means are applied to protect the individual woman there is no question that it is helpful to her and that it does not make her sterile.</p>
<p>To answer Mrs. Norton's challenge regarding my statement that 1,500,000 women have died from causes due to childbearing since this Comstock law was passed, I wish to state that this estimate was based on the figures of the United States Census Bureau, Department of Vital Statistics.</p>
<p>I wish to refute directly one other statement made by Mrs. Norton. In a reference to the sale of contraceptives, Mrs. Norton used the words “<span class="NORMA">commercially profitable to their advocates</span>.” Never have I, nor to my knowledge have any members of the committee, of which I am the national chairman, been interested in contraceptives for commercial profit. Mrs. Norton has seen fit to say that several of the statements made by me and other witnesses appearing for this bill were not supported by fact. I wish to say the same regarding her statement which I have quoted.</p>
<p>There is one other phase of this matter that is rather amusing. I think it was briefly stated yesterday that the geniuses, the flower of the family usually came at the end of a long line of children in large families.</p>
<p>I have here a study of over 700 persons of personalities who have come down to us through history.</p>
<p>I will mention these briefly, and then if I may, I will put this list in the record.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Acting Chairman.</span> </strong>You have that permission.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Ninety-six of these were the only child; 204 were the first child; 113 were the second; 64 were the third; 50 were the fourth; 43 were the fifth. This goes right on down until you get to the eighteenth and nineteenth. John Wesley was the fifteenth and Caruso was the eighteenth, but a pitiful number of the other children in these families had died in infancy.</p>
<p>There are only two or three among those men and women who can be classified as “great” who were born late in the family's life, while those that were second or third make up a much larger portion.</p>
<p>Insert Genius Study pdf</p>
<p>The further we look into these things, Mr. Chairman, the more there is to be said for the care and the consideration that parents can give to 1 or 2 children or 3 or 4 children according to their means, according to their health. Further evidence is found in the Bible:</p>
<p>Isaac, in whose seed all the nations were to be blessed, was an only child, born after long years of preparation. Sarah, his mother, was a beautiful, talented woman, whose counsel was highly valued. Isaac's only children were twins-– Jacob, the father of all of Israel, and Esau. Isaac's wife, Rebecca, was also a lovely woman of fine character, whose opinion was sought and valued. Joseph, the child of Rachel, was born late in her life, and she had but one other child. Samuel, who judged Israel for 40 years, was an only child, born after years of prayer and supplication on the part of Hannah. John the Baptist was an only child and his parents were well along in years when he was born.</p>
<p>Jesus was the first born of Joseph and Mary and had no children.</p>
<p>So that even on the question of the place of great men in the family, our position is much stronger than that of our opponents.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, I want to yield the rest of my time to Doctor Meyer, because of the statement that has been made by the opponents with regard to the question of continence. Continence, Mr. Chairman, is something on which there has been recent study by a large group of medical men. They have come to know something about continence and its effects upon the human being and I now ask Dr. Adolf Meyer, professor of psychiatry in Johns Hopkins University, to take up that part of our presentation.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span> Mr. Chairman, if Mrs. Sanger is yielding to Doctor Meyer because of the limitation of time, I ask unanimous consent that she be given an additional five minutes.</p>
<p><span class="strong"> Mrs. Sanger.</span> Thank you, Mr. McCormack, but I think I have finished my statement and I would rather the committee heard Doctor Meyer.</p>
<p><span class="strong">The Acting Chairman.</span> Thank you, Mrs. Sanger, for your statement. We shall be pleased to hear Doctor Meyer.</p>
<p><span class="italics">The statement by Dr. Adolf Meyer was omitted by the MSPP editors.</span></p>
</div>
</div>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
McCormack, John William
Sheafe, William
Margaret Sanger Papers Project
Crisp, Charles Robert
Unknown
Norton, Mary Hopkins
Canfield, Harry Clifford
Immigration Act of 1917
Hoover, Herbert Clark
Butler, Lily C.
H. R. 11082
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Margaret Sanger
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1932-05-19
Description
An account of the resource
<p>The following is an excerpt from the hearings, including only Margaret Sanger's testimony and her direct responses.</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#300444
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm Edition: Collected Documents Series,</span> C15:762.
<span class="testimony">Birth Control: Hearings Before the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives</span> Seventy-Second Congress First Session on H. R. 11082 (Washington, 1932), pp. 6-16, 137-143.
Subject
The topic of the resource
abortion--birth control and
birth control--access to
birth control--distribution of information about
birth control--economic benefits and risks of
birth control--lack of knowledge of
birth control--opposition to
birth control--religion and
birth control laws and legislation--Comstock Act
birth control laws and legislation--Congressional bills--H.R. 11802 (1932)
birth control laws and legislation--doctors-only laws
birth control laws and legislation--Postal Codes
birth control laws and legislation--Tariff Acts
birth control methods
birth control methods--chemical contraceptives
birth control methods--sexual continence
birth control movement--history of
birth order
birth rate
Catholic Church--and birth control
client letters
family size
immigration restriction
mentally diseased or disabled--fertility of
marriage--and birth control
marriage--reforms
mortality rates--infant
physically disabled and diseased--and birth control
poverty--and family size
religion--and birth control
Sanger, Margaret--biographical details
sterilization
United States Congress
women and girls--health of
women and girls--reproductive choices and decisions
Title
A name given to the resource
Testimony Before the United States House of Representatives on H. R. 11082
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Published Testimony
-
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Deity
God
Law
United States Criminal Code, Section 211
United States Tariff Act, Section 305
Organization
Johns Hopkins University
United States Government
Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau
Oxford University
Roman Catholic Church
Cambridge University
American Medical Association
Eugenic Research Association
Walworth Women's Welfare Centre
Bureau of Social Hygiene
White House Conference on Child Health and Protection
Episcopal Church
Church of England.
Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops
Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control
University of Edinburgh
Person
Latimer, Frank
Issac (Biblical)
Samuel (Biblical)
Hannah (Biblical)
William Inge
Butler, Lily C.
Austin, Warren R.
Sarah (Biblical)
Jesus Christ (Biblical)
Joseph (Biblical)
Pusey, William Allen
Hoover, Herbert
John the Baptist (Biblical)
Ryan, John Augustine
Tweed, Harrison
Kelly, Howard Atwood
Jacobi, Abraham
Meyer, Adolf
Morgan, Gerry
Virgin Mary (Biblical)
Jacob (Biblical)
Joseph (patriarch) (Biblical)
Fosdick, Raymond
Chase, William Sheafe
Rachel (Biblical)
Rebekah (Biblical)
Esau (Biblical)
Hatfield, Henry D.
Place
New Orleans, LA
New Jersey
New York, NY
Israel
England,
Scotland
England
Mississippi
Chicago, IL
United States
Wales
New York
Publication
Bible
Medical Journal and Record
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<div class="section">
<h4 class="sub-heading">Statement of Mrs. Margaret Sanger, National Chairman Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control</h4>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, this bill, S. 4436, directly affects the health, the future development and the happiness of 25,000,000 married women of child-bearing age in this country.</p>
<p>It further affects indirectly the health, happiness, and future welfare of 45,000,000 children in this country, of which 10,000,000 are said to be handicapped, according to the reports of 1,400 experts who came to this city at the call of President Hoover at the White House conference about a year ago.</p>
<p>At that conference President Hoover said:</p>
<p><span class="WHC blockquote">"We approach all problems of childhood with affection. Theirs is the province of joy and good humor. They are the most wholesome part of the race, the sweetest, for they are fresher from the hands of God.</span></p>
<p><span class="WHC blockquote">The fundamental purpose of this conference is to set forth an understanding of those safeguards which will assure to them health in mind and body. There are safeguards and services to be childhood which can be provided by the community, the State, or the Nation--all of which are beyond the reach of the individual present"</span></p>
<p><span class="WHC">Let no one believe that these are questions which should not stir a nation; that they are below the dignity of statesmen or governments. If we could have but one generation of properly born, trained, educated, and healthy children, a thousand other problems of government would vanish. We would assure ourselves of healthier minds in more vigorous bodies to direct the energies of our Nation to yet greater heights of achievement. Moreover, one good community nurse will save a dozen future policemen.</span></p>
<p><span class="WHC">Our problem falls into three groups: First, the protection and stimulation of the normal child; second, aid to the physically defective and handicappled child; third, the problems of the delinquent child.</span></p>
<p><span class="WHC">Findings: Of 45,000,000 children in the United States more than 10,000,000 are handicapped thus: </span></p>
<ul>
<li>Improperly nourished: 6,000,000</li>
<li>Defective speech: 1,000,000</li>
<li>Weak or damanged hearts: 1,000,000</li>
<li>Behavior problems: 675,000</li>
<li>Mentally retarded: 450,000</li>
<li>Tubercular: 382,000</li>
<li>Impaired hearing: 342,000</li>
<li>Totally deaf: 18,000</li>
<li>Crippled: 300,000</li>
<li>Partially blind: 50,000</li>
<li>Wholly blind: 14,000</li>
<li>Delinquent: 200,000</li>
<li>Dependent: 500,000</li>
</ul>
<p><span class="WHC">And so on, to a total of at least 10,000,000 of deficients, more than 80 per cent of whom are not receiving necessary attention, though our knowledge and experience show that these deficiencies can be prevented and remedied to a high degree.</span></p>
<p><span class="WHC">But that we be not discouraged, let us bear in mind that there are 35,000,000 reasonably normal, cheerful human electrons radiating joy and mischief and hope and faith.</span></p>
<p><span class="WHC">And also, on the bright side, your reports show that we have 1,500,000 specially gifted children. There lies the future leadership of the Nation if we devote ourselves to their guidance.</span></p>
<p><span class="WHC">It is not the delinquent child that is at the bar of judgement, but society itself. Industry must not rob our children of their rightful heritage. Any labor which stunts growth, either physical or mental, that limits education, that deprives children of the right of comradeship, of joy and play, is sapping the next generation.</span></p>
<p><span class="WHC">Human progress marches only when children excel their parents.</span></p>
<p>Now, Mr. Chairman, you might say how does this bill affect handicapped children. It directly affects the handicapped children because as some of our experts here today will show the mothers of these handicapped children are needed for the care of these children.</p>
<p>Furthermore, according to these reports, it is stated that a large percentage of these children were handicapped from causes due to ignorance, poverty, and neglect.</p>
<p>Even the most optimistic of us will not claim that we are going to do away with poverty, ignorance, and neglect in the next few years, and yet these 1,400 experts did not emphasize that the parents of these 10,000,000 children should have the knowledge and means and instruction to prevent the coming of 10,000,000 more children, who may be handicapped from the same causes of poverty, ignorance, and neglect.</p>
<p>To me it is just a simple piece of common sense that people who can not take care of children to-day, because they are ignorant, or because they are too poor, or because they neglect them, certainly should not be encouraged to have more children.</p>
<p>In my own experience, both as the mother of three children, and as a trained nurse for many years in New York City, I came in contact with all kinds of people, representing the poor of all races, all creeds, and all religions.</p>
<p>I found that there are a certain number of people, perhaps we can say 20 per cent of our population today, who in spite of these laws have availed themselves of some kind of knowledge by which they have controlled the size of their families. Of the other 80 per cent, I found that about half are struggling to find something to control the size of their families, while the other half are those generally classed as unfit, mentally and physically, and include morons and mental defectives who usually come upon our social vista as permanent unemployable and dependants. It is for this other 40 per cent, you might say, or half of the 80 per cent, that we are talking to-day. It is these people that this bill will directly affect.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, you asked Senator Hatfield a few questions that I wonder if I may cover. These parents, if they can afford to go to a private physician, if they have a family doctor, may get some kind of information as to the means of controlling the size of their families. It may not be the best advice, but nevertheless it is something, and it has enabled a certain percentage of our population to control the size of their families. Is it better than nothing, but the majority of women, those who are too poor to have a family physician, have to go to the hospitals and public institutions. They have to go to the dispensaries and to public wards to get their medical care and it is right here that this law operates. While a physician may in his private office do and say as he wishes; he may give some device and no one can ask him where he gets it; as soon as he is connected with an institution the situation is entirely changed. In the first place the hospital would have to order and pay for contraceptive supplies which he might prescribe. In the second place he would be accountable to the laws of the country for his action in that institution, and he can not thus jeopardize his own license nor the charter of the institution which operate legally under the State laws.</p>
<p>There is where this law operates, because the law, section 211, definitely forbids the transportation of articles or of information through the United States mails or common carriers. Unless every hospital has a manufacturing plant associated with it, or in the city where it is located, you will see that they must get their articles either from New York or Chicago or some large city where the articles are manufactured.</p>
<p>The tariff act, section 305, affects such articles coming in from other countries.</p>
<p>Many physicians do not know that there is a great deal of research going on in this particular field in England, in Oxford, and Cambridge, also the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. A great deal is being accomplished there because they are unhampered by restrictive laws and are free to do research, while we in this country are years behind in medical research in this particular field.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> You do not happen to have a copy of that section 211?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> I have, Mr. Chairman.</p>
<p><span class="strong"><strong>Senator Hastings</strong>:</span> Were you going to put any part of that in the record?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> I would like all of it to go in the record, with your permission, Mr. Chairman.</p>
<p>I have not only the statutes in question, but I have some of the legal opinions that have recently been given by the courts, both on the tariff act and also on section 211 as it affects the transportation of the articles in the mails, if you will permit these to go in.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span> As a matter of fact I was in error when I suggested to Senator Hatfield that this affected only the importation of articles. The most important thing is the modification of Section 211 of the Criminal Code.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Absolutely. This is the important thing, Mr. Chairman.</p>
<p>May I offer these?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> We will put these in at the end of your remarks.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> All right.</p>
<p>May I say again that the Federal law, section 211, makes no exception for physicians. It makes no exception for hospitals to get such supplies. It makes no exception for anyone. Any one convicted under this law is subjected to five years in prison and $5,000 fine.</p>
<p>In this country the laws of 47 States allow a physician to give contraceptive information in his practice. Some of them are limited.</p>
<p>In New York State he can only give information “for the cure and prevention of disease.” In New Jersey he can give it “for a just cause.” In 24 States the subject of contraception is not mentioned in their laws at all.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> This law does not help there, does it?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> It does by allowing them to transport the articles through the mails, also common carriers.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> Yes; but of course these State laws remain in effect.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Absolutely; but there is only one State in the Union where giving of advice would be doubtful, and that is Mississippi. All the other States give a physician the right to give such information in his private practice provided he can get the things from the manufacturer. That is what our amendment provides for.</p>
<p>When this law was passed in 1873 there was very little known concerning the whole subject; certainly there was no real information concerning the medical and sociological importance of the practice of contraception. The subject of birth control or contraception was wrongly classed with indecency, obscenity, and abortion. The passage of this law in 1873 really closed the avenues of proper scientific information and research by the medical profession, medical schools, and medical universities in this country.</p>
<p>It has done untold harm to classify contraception in that category. It Is an insult to every decent married woman in the country who wants to bring up her family intelligently; it prevents her from applying the benefits of science to the cultivation of her children and the bringing up of her family; and, furthermore, to all intents and purposes it classifies every married woman in this country as a “child bearing conscript.” Unless a woman has some means of preventing conception and spacing her children, she is forced to bear children like an animal, and in fact animals are not allowed to breed in sickness and with diseased bodies as the women of this country are made to do to-day, as I will show you a little later on.</p>
<p>This bill is simple; it is conservative; it is constructive, because it simply allows the physician at a hospital, or licensed clinic, to receive such supplies and to give such information.</p>
<p>The passage of this bill would be the first attempt on the part of the Congress to place the responsibility of giving contraceptive instruction in the hands of the medical profession, where it rightly belongs.</p>
<p>It would be the first attempt on the part of Congress to give the medical profession the control of such knowledge, which we know is very promiscuously scattered about to-day. It would let physicians regulate the kind of devices used, and thus wipe out the present traffic in wrong and harmful devices. The poor mothers, the people who should have the information, are uninformed and are denied the proper kind of devices suitable to their own individual requirements.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> If you do not mind me interrupting you--</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> No.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> It occurs to me paragraph numbered 3 might be a little uncertain “by any druggist in his legitimate prescription business.”</p>
<p>What is intended by that?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> That the physician would prescribe certain devices, tested by research and experience in our clinics. The druggist should be able to supply these devices. We have found that contraceptives, to be properly safe and harmless, should be prescribed according to the individual requirements. just as eyeglasses must be individually fitted by oculists.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> What I was interested in was whether it was intended that a person might apply to the druggist without going to the physician at all.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> No. According to that I would understand that a person must have a physician's prescription.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> I am anxious to find out what is your intent.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> That is our intent, that it should be by prescription.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> By prescription only?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span> </strong>Yes.</p>
<p>I do not wish to go into great detail concerning different methods and devices for contraception. However, there are certain articles, which are commonly used as contraceptives, but which may also be used for the cure and prevention of disease. These articles, according to a recent court decision may be legally transmitted through the United States mails. However, there are certain other articles which are used only for the prevention of conception, which are now excluded from the mails. These articles must be prescribed by a physician, and only after a thorough physical examination, so that the prescription varies with the individual. It is like any other medical advice, highly individual and adapted to the particular requirements of the patient. It is to such articles that we refer, and it is for these that the law must be changed.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> There would be no objection to changing that to read “by any druggist upon a written prescription of a licensed physician”?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> There would be no objection whatever.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> I wanted to get your thought, so that after all what you are seeking here is all limited to physicians or medical colleges, which are really controlled by physicians.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Yes; they are already controlled by physicians. In many States the medical colleges are free to instruct their young graduates and physicians in this particular art, as they are instructed in other departments, but this has not generally been done up to the present time. There are comparatively few medical colleges that include a course in contraception in their regular curriculum.</p>
<p>I want to say in passing that where the laws allow a physician within the State to give information, some clinics have been established. Some of the social agencies and some of the forward-looking physicians are to-day struggling to solve their immediate problems, not only health problems, but social problems as well. The problem of unemployment, the whole question of congestion, is coming before them as never before. Birth control helps to solve some of these problems, but even where clinics are already in operation, it is difficult to obtain either the best information or supplies, under the present law. The proposed amendment would release the physician and make this information available, also, in public institutions such as clinics and hospitals.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, if I may digress for a moment, I want to go into an even broader aspect of the question.</p>
<p>Birth control is not a new idea. It is as old as nature itself. In fact, even in the period of savagery there was some means, some knowledge of controlling the numbrs in the tribes. It is only the methods that have changed.</p>
<p>Instead of infanticide and killing off the old and sick as has been done at various stages in the development of civilization, the only means of controlling the size of her family which is left to woman is abortion.</p>
<p>The number of abortions in this country is colossal, and we are convinced that only through a proper knowledge of contraception shall we do away with this abortion practice, one which is extremely detrimental to the health and happiness of women.</p>
<p>Let us now consider the two groups of people, those who practice birth control and those who do not. If you will look into every community, and every city and every town, you will see on the one hand small groups who have controlled the size of their families and on the other hand you will see a larger group who have not even been able to avail themselves of any information whatever. In the first group, we have the educated, cultured, well-to-do citizens; professors, doctors, lawyers, ministers, scientists, artisans, and skilled laborers. Here we find the spacing of children an adopted rule, the mother's health being the first consideration and the earning power of the father a close second. From this group come almost all of our social movements. Civilization is directly benefited and advanced through this low birth rate group. In the other large family group we have overcrowding, illiteracy, ignorance, slums, infant and maternal mortality, and child labor. Almost all our social problems are entrenched in this group and these conditions and their problems are perpetuated from generation to generation.</p>
<p>I, myself, have found that the mothers in both groups are equally desirous of bringing into the world only the number of children they can properly care for. I find that even women of the very lowest grade of intelligence are willing to avail themselves of information to prevent conception at any cost and at any trouble to themselves. I have, during the past several years, received over a million letters, the great majority of these letters coming from mothers and from women, especially in this second group. I should like to read a few of these letters which are rather typical of the conditions that prevail throughout the country--conditions that the passage of this bill would help:</p>
<p>Twenty nine years old, mother of nine children: "<span class="UNK">I am a Catholic 29 years old. I was married at 17 years of age and the first baby was born after 9 months 1 day. I have now been married 12 years have had 9 children. 6 are living and 3 are dead. I have had children every year since 1925. My husband is out of work now, so you see how hard it is to keep going and to pay one's debts and expenses for hospitals and doctors."</span></p>
<p>Seventeen children at 35: <span class="UNK blockquote">"I am 35 and the mother of 17 children, the last one not yet 2 months old, and I am in great hopes you can help me some way. Our net income during the winter has been $28 a month and out of that we have had to pay all our groceries, fuel, and clothes."</span></p>
<p><span class="UNK blockquote">"I had the fond hope of becoming a teacher, but all I could do was six grades in public school, then out to work, fitted for nothing, so all I could do was housework at $1 a week. So I married, hoping to resume my studies at night school, but almost at once there was a pregnancy. Is it necessary to have my children grow up with no more hope or vision for their future than I've had? So many babies, never a time between them; why, one year I had one baby in January and twins the next December."</span></p>
<p><span class="UNK blockquote">"I am pleading with you to help me some way."</span></p>
<p>Seven children at 30: <span class="UNK blockquote">"Will you please tell me about birth control? Our doctor refuses to tell us. I am 30 years old and have been married 11 years. My oldest child is 10 years old and I have 7 children and expect another baby next month. I had my last baby born dead last October. She was crippled and deformed. We are poor people trying to get along at $90 a month. Please help me."</span></p>
<p>Thirty-four years old; 12 pregnancies: <span class="UNK blockquote">"I am only 34 years old and have given birth to 12 children, only 3 of them living. They die so quickly after they are born, it seems they don't have strength to live long. My husband is a good hard-working man, but the best he ever made was $1.50, and never for long. We're poor people, Mrs. Sanger, and the coffins of the last two are not paid for yet. It's hard on a woman to see them go like that and I think if I did not have any for a while I could keep the three I've got and give them better than we ever had. Please help me. I'll be watching the postman, waiting for your answer. Please don't fail me."</span></p>
<p>Eight years in pregnancy for three children. Cruelty beyond belief! Nine little coffins. The United States Government would help her rear and breed pigs, cows, chickens, but makes laws to deprive mothers of knowledge to perfect and develop the human race.</p>
<p>A 75 per cent loss; sordid; a business man would shut up his shop. We are paying to-day for these laws of nearly 60 years ago. We are paying for them by the multiplication of the unfit, the diseased, the feeble-minded. We are paying for them in our high maternal mortality, in the hordes of death-doomed infants who never see their first birthday, in the widespread practice of abortions, in child labor, in the waste of mother power and creative energy. We are paying the cost in increasing billions and piling up huge debts for unborn generations to pay.</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h4 class="sub-heading">STATEMENT OF MRS. MARGARET SANGER--Continued</h4>
<p class="dateline">FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1932, Washington, D.C.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Mr Chairman, and gentlemen of the committee, in consideration of the time of the committee and their generosity in allowing us so much time to bring this discussion and subject before you, I will forego the impulse to answer and refute many of the personal accusations and charges that were made by the opposition in their testimony yesterday.</p>
<p>I just want to make this remark, that this committee, the persons in this work, and their character, their integrity, and their standing in the communities throughout the city, need no defense; and so I am going to continue this morning just on the merits and on the facts of the subject, as we have found them.</p>
<p>You will notice, Mr. Chairman, that while those who appeared against this bill gave some very representative opinions, they were mostly personal. They were not backed up by facts, and they were theories rather than practice.</p>
<p>For instance, Doctor Kelly, a noted physician, who has won a world-wide reputation in the field of medicine, appeared before you, not to talk about the merits of the bill, nor to give any evidence from a medical point of view at all, but to defend public morals; while Dr. John Ryan, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, came to theorize on economics and the population aspect of the whole question.</p>
<p>All of these opinions are interesting, and the discussions of the wider aspects of this bill are all right and good, but you will note there was no constructive policy offered in substitution for this bill. There was nothing constructive suggested as a means to do away with the various conditions to which they object that they claim are so prevalent in this country. As a matter of fact, the facts that were presented by the proponents of this bill were not refuted in any of the arguments or testimony, and when you sum it all up and weed out the personal opinions, you will find there was really no objection whatsoever made on the actual merits of this bill.</p>
<p>Not one person, in opposing the bill, claimed that a physician should not have the right to instruct patients as he saw fit; in fact, Canon Chase stated that no sensible person could oppose giving to trustworthy physicians freedom to do what is necessary to protect the life of a woman which would be endangered by another pregnancy, if her husband can not control himself.</p>
<p>I will take up some of the objections and try to answer them briefly. In the first place, our opponents claim that this bill will throw the mails wide open to the free and illicit distribution of contraceptive information. Their claim is ridiculous. The bill simply asks that a physician shall have the right to send and receive contraceptive information and supplies by the United States mails and common carriers, and also that such supplies and information may be sent to hospitals and licensed clinics.</p>
<p>We know that physicians do not prescribe by mail. Any physician that knows his business at all must have the patient before him, and must examine the patient to give her the best and most suitable contraceptive instruction and means for her individual case.</p>
<p>However, to do that he must first have up-to-date information himself, which we know in many cases is sadly lacking, because there has been no instruction in medical schools on the technique of contraception. Furthermore, information and advice alone are not sufficient. The physician must give some chemical or mechanical means to prevent conception, in order to protect the woman properly.</p>
<p>We know that physicians differ in their opinions regarding the subject. They differ because to a great extent they have not been taught in their medical schools. This is especially true of the older physicians, many of whom in the past have been taught much more on the technique of therapeutic abortions; they were not taught contraception at all, and you will find that it is these men who oppose our bill, because they simply are ignorant of the whole technique of contraception.</p>
<p>It was brought out that the American Medical Association had repudiated this bill. That is untrue. The American Medical Association at its annual convention in New Orleans last week, took no action on any bill. One must remember that the American Medical Association is composed of about 150,000 doctors, of which only about 9,000 would be really directly concerned with this question. These are the gynecologists and obstetricians, and that very group of gynecologists and obstetricians went on record a few years ago and gave the opinion that there should be no legislation curtailing the freedom of the physician in his lawful practice. Their resolution was offered as testimony in the early part of our proceedings.</p>
<p>I have here just an indication of what the medical profession feels. Here is a symposium, printed in the <span class="journal">Medical Journal and Record</span> in 1927. Two hundred and seventy-three doctors replied to the symposium, and of this number 248 were in favor of birth control, and proper legislation. Nineteen were against it. Two of them were unable to express an opinion. One thought contraceptive methods would bring abuses. One said that methods should be advised only after consultation with physicians and with the sanction of the United States Government and the <span class="book">Bible</span>. One thought that this generation knows too much about such things, and the poor would not avail themselves of this information.</p>
<p>Another symposium appeared later in 1929, in the same Journal and Record. One hundred and eighteen doctors replied to the questionnaire. Of this number 99 said they were in favor of contraception. Four said they were not informed sufficiently to express an opinion. Fifteen were opposed.</p>
<p>I think that to a certain degree gives a brief indication, not a summary, but a cross section, of the general opinion of the medical profession.</p>
<p>I have also included in the record a list of medical societies and medical groups, a large number of which have indorsed this particular bill, the rest having indorsed the principles of contraception.</p>
<p>Dr. Gerry Morgan, as past president of the American Medical Association did not testify before you as a physician to discuss the merits of the bill but stated that he was here to speak on the “natural” laws of the universe.</p>
<p>One ex-president of the American Medical Association opposes this legislation while two others have fully supported it. The late Dr. Abraham Jacobi, former president of the American Medical Association, made a very excellent pronouncement on the whole subject some years ago, and was really the first one to bring this subject to the attention of the medical profession. A few years ago, Dr. William Allen Pusey in his statement accepting the presidency of the American Medical Association also held out squarely on the proper dissemination and regulation of contraceptive information by the medical profession.</p>
<p>Our opponents made the statement that the use of any contraceptive invariably had effect upon the pelvic organs and nervous system. That statement is an indication of the ignorance of some of the members of the medical profession.</p>
<p>We have in one clinic in New York City cared for and instructed over 28,000 women, whose records we have. A follow-up is made of these women. Social workers go into the homes. We have these actual facts, and within a very short period– we could present the data now, although it would be voluminous--a detailed report covering the first 10,000 of these cases is to be published.</p>
<p>We know it to be true that the great majority of these women have greatly benefited by this information, or rather by the rest they have had from pregnancy. Their health has improved. Their family conditions have improved. The whole happiness of the family has been increased. The children have been better cared for. In a very few cases, of course, there have been failures. These constitute, however, a very small percentage of the total, and in a very few instances women have resorted to abortions.</p>
<p>I would like, if I may, to offer for the record brief summaries of some of these cases to show you what their conditions are, the number of living children, and the number of dead children. Let me just read one.</p>
<p>An Italian woman, 29 years old on first visit (married at 15 years). She was diagnosed as a high-grade moron, with husband classified as mental case. Three children, youngest, an infant, two miscarriages, both due to overwork--five pregnancies in all. Clinical contraceptive advice has now been successful for four years. This family is able to carry on without help from social agencies because of the limitation of offspring.</p>
<p>We have a number of cases like this, Mr. Chairman, but I only read one for your information.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> Do you want it put in the record?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> I would like to if I may.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> The committee will look at it to determine whether or not it should go in the record.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> I think those papers may go in the record.</p>
<p>(The papers referred to are as follows)</p>
<div class="section">
<h4 class="sub-heading">Case Histories from the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, 17 West Sixteenth Street, New York City</h4>
<p>[<em>The project editors omitted brief descriptions of 23 case histories from the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, a summary of a "Study of Geniuses," and "A Study of Position in Family Sequence." Also omitted was short statement by Dean William Inge of the Church of England.</em>]</p>
<div class="section">
<h4 class="sub-heading">Statement of Mrs. Sanger</h4>
<p>The inference is often made by our opponents that the genius is born at the end of a large family, usually the eleventh or twelfth, or perhaps the fifteenth child. The Bible tells us that some of the most remarkable characters were the first children, and often the only child as well.</p>
<p>For instance: <span class=" blockquote">"Issac, in whose seed all the nations were to be blessed, was an only child, born after long years of preparation. Sarah, his mother, was a beautiful, talented woman, whose counsel was highly valued. Isaac's only children were twins--Jacob, the father of all Israel, and Esau. Isaac's wife, Rebecca, was also a lovely woman of fine character, whose opinion was sought and valued. Joseph, the son of Rachel, was born late in her life, and she had but one other child. Samuel, who judged Israel for 40 years, was an only child, born after years and prayer and supplication on the part of Hannah. John the Baptist was an only child, and his parents were well along in years when he was born."</span><span class=" blockquote">"Jesus was the first born of Joseph and Mary and had no children.</span><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span> As for the other statement along the same line, that there is harm to women, there is a report here by Dr. Lily Butler, medical officer of the Walworth Women's Welfare Center, an English group, which has made a careful follow up for this particular reason, to see what effect the use of contraceptives have upon the health of women and to see if it caused sterility:</p>
<p><span class="BUTLI">We note that 101 patients have wanted another child after periods varying from one to five years, and in 98 of these cases they have become pregnant on discontinuing the use of the contraceptives.</span></p>
<p>This is a simple statement of one of the clinics where they have followed this up. I mention this to show that we are after facts. We are trying to study this question, and we have had a long enough period now, nearly 10 years, on which to base our judgement of what this is going to do, what it is doing, and what it has done.</p>
<p>One statement has been made many times by our opponents, and although it is beside the question, I would like to cover it. I think it was one of the doctors who stated that leaders of the world would have come from large families and that not infrequently the last child born had been "the flower of the flock.”</p>
<p>I have already put into the record some data relative to that, which I would ask the committee to read. Reference made to the page number for the genius study</p>
<p>The opponents to this bill offer continence as a means for limiting the family, and for doing what we claim birth control will do. We know the population of countries where this is advocated, and we also know that this population does not practice continence. When they say self-control, I would like to ask what they mean by self-control.</p>
<p>As I stated before to the committee, there are three methods of birth-control; one is continence, one is sterilization, and the other is chemical or mechanical means of contraception. We refuse to say-–in fact, we can not say-–that any one method is suitable for all the population. There may be many people for whom continence may be the very best method to be prescribed.</p>
<p>We have with us today a specialist who will dwell more upon this phase of the subject, but I would like to say this: It is intimated that self-control refers to a safe period, or a period in a woman's life where she is immune from pregnancy. I think the gynecologists and most of the experts in this field of medicine will say that there is only a very small percentage of women–-I have heard it stated that it is not even 1 per cent–-who could be said to have a safe period, when they are safe from pregnancy.</p>
<p>Moreover, if they mean abstinence, that is entirely out of order, for then they are claiming that there should be no relations whatsoever except when children are desired.</p>
<p>We know that sexual desire is very seldom accompanied by a desire for children. Very seldom. It precedes the desire for children, and I am not going to take this up, because Dr. Adolf Meyer, professor at Johns Hopkins University, will discuss this subject and will explain it more clearly than I can.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that there can be no objection to this bill as it has been drawn, and I want to say further that the original bill presented before the subcommittee of the judiciary last year was drafted by two distinguished lawyers, Mr. Raymond Fosdick and Mr. Harrison Tweed, of New York, men who have given a great deal of study to social legislation.</p>
<p>In order to conform with some of those who disagreed with that bill, we tried to get together and see if we could not agree upon one bill, in order to save the lives of thousands of women, and to settle this question.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, I want to say that we cut out from our original bill many points so as to agree with the very people who appeared here yesterday against us, and as I say, they have not objected to the merits of this bill.</p>
<p>This bill is conservative; it is constructive; it is going to do something more definitely constructive than anything that has yet been offered.</p>
<p>Our opponents claim there is promiscuous distribution of supplies, articles, and information in the country. Of course there is; not because there are no laws, but because there are laws. As soon as this responsibility is given to the proper class of persons--to disseminate the information to the proper people-–I believe there will be a gradual elimination of this promiscuous scattering of devices, and of information, which is mostly misinformation.</p>
<p>That, Mr. Chairman, is my contention.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> Mrs. Sanger, I do not think the opponents of this bill make any claim that they have offered any solution. I do not remember that they did, certainly no legislative solution.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> No.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span> </strong>Did you read that report of some conference, I think, held in England, by the Episcopal Church?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Yes.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span></strong> What have you to say with respect to that opposition?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> It was not opposition, Mr. Chairman. That was the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops. I think we offered that in evidence the other day; resolution 15, carried by 193 votes to 67. Some of the resolutions stated that continence would be the advisable thing, and an ideal solution to birth control. There was a further discussion of birth control, however, and the conference agreed that where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete continence, other methods may be used, provided this is done in the light of the same Christian principles. That was the statement.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span> I got the impression from the extract read, they condemned the whole idea of contraception.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span> No; they did not, Mr. Chairman. If you will read it again-–I read it this morning–-they preferred continuance and moral suasion, but in resolution 15, they bring out very clearly that, under certain conditions, other methods may be sanctioned.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Senator Hastings:</span> Have you somebody else?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span> Yes. I would like this short paper to go in the record, which reads:</p>
<p>It is important to recognize that a knowledge of contraceptive methods is used by American families chiefly to control the size of the family, rather than to avoid childbearing altogether.</p>
<p>The data collected from a representative group of American women, over two-thirds of whom were college graduates, by the Bureau of Social Hygiene have recently been analyzed with special reference to factors affecting size of family by Dr. Frank Latimer of the Eugenic Research Association. The results of this analysis have not yet been published. Seventy per cent of the women over 40 years of age reported the use of some means of controlling childbearing. In the case of women reporting four children or more over 90 per cent reported the use of some sort of contraceptive method. But in the case of childless women, less than 40 per cent had ever used contraceptive measures at all and in cases in which contraception was practiced temporarily because of ill health or special circumstances it is found that only 25 per cent of all childless couples in this sample are voluntarily without children, or only 5 per cent of the whole group.</p>
<p>This result is in line with the extensive study of fertility in England and Wales published by the registrar-general's office, in which it was found that during the 50-year period in which birth-control measures were being introduced extensively in England although large families gradually disappeared there was practically no increase in the proportion of childless couples--except in the case of women marrying at an advanced age when health considerations become a serious item.</p>
<p>I would like to introduce Dr. Adolf Meyer, of Johns Hopkins University.</p>
<p>[<em>The editors have omitted the statement of Adolf Meyer</em>]</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Hastings, Daniel
Austin, Warren R.
Butler, Lily
Unknown
White House Conference on Child Health and Protection
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Margaret Sanger
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1932-05-12
Description
An account of the resource
<p>This excerpt from the complete hearings includes only Margaret Sanger's testimony and questions asked of her. <br /><br />For continued testimony on this bill, see Testimony before the United States Senate on bill S. 4436 June 24 and 30, 1932.<br /><br />For additional comments made by Sanger, see Comments at Senate Testimony for S. 4436, May 12, 1932.</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#300446
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="testimony">Birth Control: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Seventy-second Congress, First Session on S. 4436. A Bill to Amend Section 305 (A) of the Tariff Act of 1930 and Sections 211,245, and 312 of the Criminal Code, as Amended</span> May 12, 19, and 20, 1932, pp. 6-11, and 135-43
<span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Microfilm Edition, Collected Documents Series,</span> C15:797
Subject
The topic of the resource
abortion--birth control and
birth control--rights associated with
birth control clinics and leagues--and physicians
birth control laws and legislation--Comstock Laws
birth control laws and legislation--MS on
birth control laws and legislation--Tariff Acts
birth control methods--research
birth control movement--MS on
conferences--White House Conference on Child Health and Protection--1930
marriage--and birth control
mentally diseased or disabled
New Jersey--birth control in
New York--birth control in
physically diseased or disabled
physicians--and birth control
politicians--and birth control
United States Congress
Title
A name given to the resource
Testimony Before the United States Senate on Senate Bill 4436
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Published testimony