Abstract
IN the résumé in NATURE of October 13 of the presidential address by Sir William Beveridge to the Economics Section of the British Association, the point which raised so much discussion in Liverpool is indicated by this sentence:—“Increased birth control is not required by anything in the condition of Europe before the War, and is irrelevant to our present troubles.” As this idea has already been hailed by many, may I point out that Sir William entirely ignored the unemployables. Those who are unemployable through organic disease, feeble-mindedness, general debility, and various other characteristics of a “C3” and physiologically inferior population do not appear in the ordinary list of unemployed, but they are, nevertheless, a huge financial burden on the community. Both a financial strain and a physiological danger to the race, they not only breed and reproduce their like if left without birth control; but they are brought into existence in otherwise healthy stocks whenever mothers under hard conditions reproduce too rapidly. Only by means of constructive birth control can women space their children so as to ensure the likelihood of reasonable health to those they bear under the modern and unnaturally hard conditions of slum life.
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STOPES, M. Population and Unemployment. Nature 112, 688 (1923). https://doi.org/10.1038/112688b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/112688b0
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