The birth rate of the
wealthy and upper classes will never appreciably rise. The woman of
these classes is free of her most oppressive bonds. Being free, we
have a right to expect much of her. We expect her to give still
greater expression to her feminine spirit--we expect her to enrich the
intellectual, artistic, moral and spiritual life of the world. We
expect her to demolish old systems of morals, a degenerate prudery,
Dark-Age religious concepts, laws that enslave women by denying them
the knowledge of their bodies, and information as to contraceptives.
These must go to the scrapheap of vicious, cast-off things. Hers is
the power to send them there. Shall we look to her to strike the first
blow which shall wrench her sisters from the grip of the dead hand of
the past?
CHAPTER VI
CRIES OF DESPAIR AND SOCIETY'S PROBLEMS
Before we pass to a further consideration of our subject, shall we not
pause to take a still closer look at the human misery wrought by the
enslavement of women through unwilling motherhood? Would you know the
appalling sum of this misery better than any author, any scientist,
any physician, any social worker can tell you? Hear the story from the
lips of the women themselves.
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