------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | Total Puerperal | | | Mortality. | | Puerperal |------------------- Country. | Septic | Sepsis |Including|Excluding |Abortion.| following | Septic | Septic | |Child-birth.|Abortion.|Abortion. ------------------------+---------+------------+---------+--------- Norway | 0·47 | 0·57 | 2·75 | 2·28 Netherlands | 0·30 | 0·73 | 3·20 | 2·90 New Zealand | 1·73 | 0·70 | 4·85 | 3·12 Switzerland | 0·73 | 0·82 | 4·58 | 3·85 England and Wales | 0·49 | 1·53 | 4·60 | 4·11 Australia | 1·45 | 0·90 | 5·76 | 4·31 Irish Free State | 0·07 | 1·73 | 4·68 | 4·61 Canada | 0·58 | 1·23 | 5·26 | 4·68 United States of America| 1·02 | 1·30 | 5·93 | 4·91 Union of South Africa | 0·67 | 2·03 | 5·99 | 5·32 Scotland | 0·38 | 2·30 | 6·20 | 5·82 Northern Ireland | 0·32 | 1·85 | 6·27 | 5·95 ------------------------------------------------------------------- PART II.--THE UNDERLYING CAUSES OF ABORTION IN NEW ZEALAND. As seen by the Committee, the reasons which lead to a resort to abortion may be set out under the following broad headings:-- (1) Economic and domestic hardship. (2) Fear of labour and its sequelæ. (3) Pregnancy in the unmarried. (4) Changes in social outlook. (5) Ignorance of effective methods of contraception and of the dangers of abortion. (6) Influence of advertising. (1) ECONOMIC AND DOMESTIC HARDSHIP. (_a_) _Poverty._--Cases arise where the parents are on the bread-line and have no means of supporting a child, but the Committee is of opinion that such extreme poverty is rare in New Zealand. More common are the cases in which income is sufficient for a small family but a larger one would constitute hardship, or, alternatively, in which income is sufficient to support several small children but not to provide education, &c., in later life. The view, formerly widely accepted, that membership of a large family is in itself a valuable contribution to education and to the training of responsible citizens, appears to be at a discount, and many parents now consider that advantages which can be _given_ to a child as a result of family limitation outweigh the natural advantages of a large family in which the children develop initiative through companionship.