For it is never
the intention of such philanthropy to give the poor over-burdened and
often undernourished mother of the slum the opportunity to make the
choice herself, to decide whether she wishes time after to time to bring
children into the world. It merely says "Increase and multiply: We are
prepared to help you do this." Whereas the great majority of mothers
realize the grave responsibility they face in keeping alive and rearing
the children they have already brought into the world, the maternity
center would teach them how to have more. The poor woman is taught how
to have her seventh child, when what she wants to know is how to avoid
bringing into the world her eighth.
Such philanthropy, as Dean Inge has so unanswerably pointed out, is kind
only to be cruel, and unwittingly promotes precisely the results most
deprecated. It encourages the healthier and more normal sections of the
world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity
of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree,
a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to
eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race
and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant.
On the other hand, the program is an indication of a suddenly awakened
public recognition of the shocking conditions surrounding pregnancy,
maternity, and infant welfare prevailing at the very heart of our
boasted civilization.
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