Searchlights on Health: The Science of EugenicsJefferis, B. G. (Benjamin Grant)
Philosophy
Searchlights on Health: The Science of Eugenics
Jefferis, B. G. (Benjamin Grant)
Eugenics; Hygiene; Marriage; Medicine, Popular; Sexual ethics
7. FEEBLE AND DISEASED PARENTS.--If the parties of a marriage are both
feeble and so adapted to each other that their children are deformed,
insane or idiots, then to beget offspring would be a flagrant wrong;
if the mother's health is in such a condition as to forbid the right
of laying the burden of motherhood upon her, then medical aid may
safely come to her relief.
8. "THE DESIRABILITY AND PRACTICABILITY of limiting offspring," says
Dr. Stockham, are the subject of frequent inquiry. Fewer and better
children are desired by right-minded parents. Many men and women, wise
in other things of the world, permit generation as a chance result
of copulation, without thought of physical or mental conditions to
be transmitted to the child. Coition, the one important act of all
others, carrying with it the most vital results, is usually committed
for selfish gratification. Many a drunkard owes his lifelong appetite
for alcohol to the fact that the inception of his life could be
traced to a night of dissipation on the part of his father. Physical
degeneracy and mental derangements are too often caused by the parents
producing offspring while laboring under great mental strain or bodily
fatigue. Drunkenness and licentiousness are frequently the heritage of
posterity. Future generations demand that such results be averted by
better prenatal influences. The world is groaning under the curse of
chance parenthood. It is due to posterity that procreation be brought
under the control of reason and conscience.
9. "IT HAS BEEN FEARED THAT A KNOWLEDGE of means to control offspring
would, if generally diffused, be abused by women; that they would
to so great an extent escape motherhood as to bring about social
disaster. This fear is not well founded. The maternal instinct is
inherent and sovereign in woman. Even the prenatal influences of a
murderous intent on the part of parents scarcely ever eradicate it.
With this natural desire for children, we believe few woman would
abuse the knowledge of privilege of controlling offspring. Although
women shrink from forced maternity, and from the bearing of children
under the great burden of suffering, as well as other adverse
conditions, it is rare to find a woman who is not greatly disappointed
if she does not, some time in her life, wear the crown of motherhood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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