Congress will do what the people want if the request is made clearly and forcibly enough—Inhibitions are waning—Later generations will not bless birth control workers or Congress if legislation is bungled now—Danger of blundering as Comstock blundered—Those who mean well regarding legislation must do well—Present laws unconstitutional—First class legal opinion deems all “doctors only” laws unconstitutional also—Time to discard governmental distrust of the people. APPENDICES 267 PART ONE WHAT SORT OF LAWS HAVE WE NOW? CHAPTER I THE SITUATION _The actual situation under Federal and State law: Not even parents can lawfully inform their married children about how to space their babies: No doctor can lawfully or adequately study the control of conception: Present provisions of Federal law: Scope of State laws: Clinics under State laws: Access to birth control information not only criminal but classed with obscenity: Control of Conception confused with abortion: Precise meaning of term birth control in modern application: Not a crime to control parenthood, but a crime to find out how: What if that principle were applied to some other scientific knowledge, making automobiles for instance?_ It is a crime under the Federal law for a mother to write to her daughter a letter such as this: DAUGHTER DEAR: It wrings my heart to know that you are so terribly worried. I have felt for a long time, that something was troubling you. You are absolutely right in your determination to know all there is to be known about how to have your babies when you want them and not otherwise. Now that your own doctor has failed to give you practicable advice, I realize more than ever that I should have raised heaven and earth to see to it that you had adequate information when you were first married. Somehow I blindly hoped that you would never have to go through what I did, that you would be sure to find out what I never properly knew in my married life, and that you would be spared the terror of living in fear that the love which brings you and your husband together should bring your babies so rapidly that you can not possibly take care of them. I blame myself that I let my inhibitions stand in the way of finding help for you long ago, so that now you could help yourself. But I will do my best to make up. There must be no more worry and uncertainty for you in this crisis. Now that he has lost his job and his health at the same time, you must be sure that no more babies are started for, say four years. I hope and believe that by that time you may be able to have your fourth child in safety. But until then you and he will need every atom of your vitality to make the little bank balance tide you over to better times.