Chapter I. The Problem To-day.
II. Theoretical Desiderata—Satisfactory Contraceptives. III. Indications for Contraception. IV. Contraceptives in Use, Classified. V. Contraceptives in Use, Described and Discussed. VI. Contraceptives in Use, Described and Discussed. (cont.) VII. Contraceptives for Special Cases. VIII. Some Objections to Contraception Answered. IX. Early History of Family Limitation. X. Contraception in the Nineteenth Century. XI. Contraception in the Twentieth Century. XII. Contraception and the Law in England, France and America. XIII. Instruction in Medical Schools XIV. Birth Control Clinics.
Index.
Description of Plates.
Plates I to IV.
Sir William Bayliss says:
“It cannot fail to be a real service.”
Dr. Rolleston says:
“I predict a great success for the work, and I wish to record my thanks to the author for her pioneer work in preventive medicine.”
_This Book Is the First Manual on the Subject and Is Packed with Both Helpful and Interesting Matter, and Much That Is New and Noteworthy._
Order from your Bookseller or direct from the Publishers:
* * * * *
Just so long as our laws remain as they are, just so long will they induce and encourage an atmosphere of hectic unwholesome excitement about a subject that should be merely a part of the general fund of hygienic knowledge which humanity utilizes for its welfare. And just so long will that unwholesome atmosphere be reflected in vulgar advertisements, which can not be properly antidoted by dignified decent advertisements of the proper sources for contraceptive information and means.
Our government not only blinks at the numerous infringements of the laws which ban birth control information, but the government itself breaks the law. Government officials themselves are guilty of flagrant violations, but no one puts them in jail. There are some very striking instances.
The Library of the Surgeon General in Washington, which is open to the public, has received and is loaning to readers the November issue of the American Journal of —— and —— published by the —— Company of ——. It contains a report by Dr. —— on methods of controlling conception. To mail the magazine from —— where it was published, and to receive and loan it in Washington, are criminal acts under the law.
The Congressional Library has received from England and has loaned to readers the volume entitled —— by Dr. ——, published —— London. It is the previously mentioned manual for the medical and legal professions and is considered one of the best and most comprehensive works on the subject in the world. To pass the book through the customs, to transport it to Washington, to list it in the Library catalogue and to lend it to readers are all criminal acts under the law. This same volume has been borrowed by several members of the Judiciary Committee,—again a criminal act. But not a single government employee has been apprehended for these “crimes,” although the offenses were clean cut infringements of the law. Dutiful and full enforcement would mean the jailing for a five-year term of a score or so of the government employees who are involved.
A still more significant fact is that members of Congress who have vehemently opposed the Cummins-Vaile Bill (to remove the words “preventing conception” from the obscenity laws) have actually had the presumption to ask the writer of this book (while working for that measure) to get for them copies of “some of this forbidden literature.” One of them added, “I’ll see that you are not prosecuted.” An instantaneous refusal brought a rather shame-faced expression to his countenance. He was a member of the Judiciary Committee, to which the bill had been referred. It would be interesting to know whether this member, who has flatly said he would vote against the bill, would be willing to confess before the Committee that he was quite willing to break the law, but unwilling to change it, and equally unwilling to insist on its enforcement.
Enforcement is all too evidently a farce, and will never be anything else so long as the present laws are retained. A legal house-cleaning seems the only hope for putting the country on either a self-respecting or a democratic basis, so far as this subject is concerned. An editorial in the Washington Post has said what needs to be said on how to have laws respected:
“_The enforcement of all law is necessary to the existence of the States and the United States. The alternative is anarchy. But all law must be constitutional, in accordance with the people’s expressed will. The first duty of all citizens and of Congress is to ascertain the will of the people. The second is to enforce and obey it._”
PART TWO
WHAT CHANGES IN THE LAW HAVE BEEN PROPOSED?