z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-04.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 267
ON MEASURES FOR BIRTH-CONTROL 267
earthly use is such conduct ? We have to take into account the state of things actually existing before our eyes. There are no chances of making any improvement in our condition by mere talk of ideals.”
Dr. K. B. Antrolikar : Sir, all that may be taken as read, because every member has received it.
Mr. P. J. Roham : Sir, I have made it clear that I am not going to read the whole of it. I request my honourable friend Dr. Antrolikar to have patience. Mr. P. J. Roham : She continues :
“If, therefore, they have got the country’s welfare at heart, they ought to try their level best to popularise continence by founding associations for the purpose of carrying on the work systematically, just as the birthcontrollers are doing to popularise contraceptives. If, however, they are either unwilling or unable to do anything in this matter, the hands of the champions of contraception will be strengthened.”
As a doctor has wisely remarked, if men had to bear the pangs which women have to undergo during child-birth none of them would ever consent to bear more than a single child in his life.
It is wrong to hold that because the ideal of large families is before society up to this time nobody wishes to limit his family. Human beings, who earnestly desire to be saddled with large families, are rare. Ordinary persons do want to limit their families and do not even flinch to have recourse to diabolical methods such as abortion, infanticide, etc. Such attempts are witnessed everywhere. From an account published by “The People’s Tribune” in 1934 it is found that in 1933 over 24,000 dead bodies of little infants were picked up in the street of Shanghai alone and the same state prevails throughout most of China. It is bitter and terrible poverty that makes the parents expose their infants. In the light of such instances, it is futile to hope that ordinary persons will be able to avoid progeny merely through self-control. It is, therefore, established that there is no go without recourse to modern contraceptives. To deny the necessity of those remedies is to show one’s preference for abortions, infanticides, etc.
Some people think that they would be losers if the numbers in their particular race, religion, or region are lessened. They are afraid that their adversaries would thereby be enabled to gain ground over them. In the first place, it is necessary to remember in this connection that the rate of increase of a population does not necessarily dwindle down as soon as family limitation is resorted to. That rate is dependent not merely on the birth-rate but chiefly on the survival-rate. The experience of several scientists from different places has proved that the higher the birth-rate, the higher is the death-rate also and no sooner the birth goes down, the death-rate also declines. The result is that not only is the survival-rate not adversely affected but very often it even rises. Dr. Maria Stopes has found from the experience gained in “The Mothers’ Clinic” that the