Birth control laws : $b shall we keep them, change them, or abolish themDennett, Mary Ware
History
Birth control laws : $b shall we keep them, change them, or abolish them
Dennett, Mary Ware
Birth control; Birth control -- Law and legislation -- United States
9. Unless there is some genius who can now frame a law that is
adequate to provide for point _b_ and which at the same time is
free from the serious legal sins noted above, is it not the part of
wisdom for all who are working in the birth control movement, to
join in approving legislation to achieve point _a_ and then work in
their many various ways to achieve point _b_ by a vigorous publicity
campaign, that will be so wide-spread and effective that all America
will shortly know that the best way to get contraceptive instruction
is to consult the best medical and biological authorities?
10. People can be successfully advised and guided along paths that no
laws can _compel_ them to take.
11. The _result_ is what every one wants, that is _education_. Then
why not concentrate on education straight, instead of trying to
secure it by laws? _And why not depend on legislation for the simple
purpose of removing the barriers to education?_
12. The obligation resting upon those who undertake to frame
legislation is serious. They must see to it that the enthusiasm
of the large groups interested in birth control is not wrongly
capitalized. Most of these people are not innately law-makers,
and, legally speaking, they think very superficially. They do not
differentiate between enthusiasm for a humanitarian project and
providing the legal processes that clear the road for the achievement
of the project.
13. Knowing as we all do, that large numbers of people will endorse
any sort of proposed birth control laws out of sheer enthusiasm for
the big cause, it behooves the few who devise legislative procedure,
to hand to the legislators and to the public, propositions that are
thoroughly sound, just and efficacious. We must carefully safeguard
our country, at least so far as our movement is concerned, against
the addition of any more laws that are superfluous, spurious or
ineffective.
14. We shall do well to bear in mind, that education is the great
thing, but that it needs an open road in order to progress rapidly,
which the repeal embodied in the Cummins-Vaile Bill would accomplish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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