This morning I received a letter which says in part, "I am a young school teacher and do not know lots I should, but will come to you for advice. Now I am engaged to the dearest boy in the world. I will do my best to be a good wife and do my duty. But my health is not so very good and I want to put off motherhood for awhile. Will you kindly tell me some remedy that will keep me from becoming pregnant? I have long wanted to ask someone but always was afraid. Mother never tells me anything."

This is the type of question that is asked every physician many times. Those who do not ask, wish to—and blame physicians for not telling the things they want to know. What is my answer to such a question? Just this:

There is in effect a federal statute making it a felony punishable by $5,000 fine and five years at hard labor to impart any information whatever relating to the preventing of conception. The information may concern a thing, an instrument, or it need not be any material substance at all—only a "method." I obey that law as I am not foolhardy enough to walk into absolute danger.

Every day we see examples of heart-breaking misery caused by lack of knowledge of the proper means of prevention. The limitation of the number of offspring has become an important problem to be considered. There are thousands of families that would be perfectly happy if the number of offspring could be limited. There are thousands of young men who would be glad to get married but are afraid to do so for fear of having a family larger than they could supply with the necessities of life. These same young men, because they are not married, frequent questionable houses and often contract one or more of the venereal diseases.

There are thousands of women who have become semi-invalids because of a too prolific offspring. The babies came so fast the mother had no opportunity to regain her health and strength. There are other thousands of women who are made invalids because of attempts at abortion, or have been driven into early graves by these attempts, while some have actually killed themselves.

There are thousands of children half starved because their parents are unable to supply them the necessities of life. There are other thousands of children below par mentally and physically because of the fact that the mother was weak from too frequent child-bearing. There are other thousands of children born of syphilitic, tubercular or epileptic parents who never should have been born at all because they came into life so handicapped and had to fight against such severe odds that they, after a brief struggle, met an early death. There are children brought into this world amidst cursing who never hear much else.

We find it necessary to regulate the parentage of our domestic animals in order to insure a good race. But children can come by chance. The most degraded of men is allowed to beget children of his kind. There is small chance for race improvement under such conditions. The same laws hold true as to the future generation of humans as are true of animals or plants.

Human beings are not mere animals and they should be allowed to decide how many children they should have. Furthermore, the present laws do not attain their object. We all pretend to obey the laws but everyone knows that in every city there are many women, and men also, who make an excellent income from performing abortions. I would venture to say that in Chicago alone there is at least one abortion performed every hour—and Chicago is not so very different from other parts of the country in this respect. The ways and means to prevent pregnancy are sold and are bringing a rich reward to their manufacturers. But the advertisements are so carefully worded that the law is not violated. But the interested understand. If the manufacturer or his agent were accused of selling anything to prevent pregnancy, he would simulate great surprise and possible indignation. He doing such a thing! Impossible! Why, he is selling a simple hygienic device or drug used in the treatment of certain diseases.

If we have laws, let us obey them; but if we do not intend to obey them, let us stop being hypocrites and remove them from the statutes. If the law remains let us make it far-reaching enough to include those who now are so flagrantly violating it. But if means for the prevention of pregnancy are necessary to the health and happiness of the human race, let us change the laws so we can have the best of these preventives and allow reputable physicians to give whatever information they can to prevent this wholesale misuse of a law by the unscrupulous,—the law-breakers.

A recent investigation carried on by one magazine proved that the knowledge of how to prevent conception would not mean race suicide, as some fear. As reported in this magazine, the college girls and professional women who no doubt had given these subjects careful consideration, desired children more than did those whose experience had been a poor home and a large family. The average number of children desired by the well-informed woman was four. That would not mean race-suicide! It would mean that children were given a fair start in life by being desired and planned for before their conception. Every true woman desires a home and children but she does not wish to be driven into motherhood. Every true man desires a family but he does not feel justified in bringing children into the world to be half starved and with no advantages of education.

What is the solution of the problem?