It is not necessary to discuss such a grotesque notion seriously.
The desire for children is far too deeply implanted in mankind and
womankind alike ever to be rooted out. If there are to-day many parents
whose lives are rendered wretched by large families and the miseries of
excessive child-bearing, there are an equal number whose lives are
wretched because they have no children at all, and who snatch eagerly
at any straw which offers the smallest promise of relief to this
craving. Certainly there are people who desire marriage, but--some for
very sound and estimable reasons and others for reasons which may less
well bear examination--do not desire any children at all. So far as
these are concerned, contraceptive methods, far from being a social
evil, are a social blessing. For nothing is so certain as that it is an
unmixed evil for a community to possess unwilling, undesirable, or
incompetent parents. Birth control would be an unmixed blessing if it
merely enabled us to exclude such persons from the ranks of parenthood.
We desire no parents who are not both competent and willing parents.
Only such parents are fit to father and to mother a future race worthy
to rule the world.
It is sometimes said that the control of conception, since it is
frequently carried out immediately on marriage, will tend to delay
parenthood until an unduly late age. Birth control has, however, no
necessary result of this kind, and might even act in the reverse
direction.
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