San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-04-15
About This Thing Called
Birth Control.
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
AMERICAS WOMEN"
Bv KATHLEEN NORRIS

why don't you ever express your
self about birth control?' a CORES
pendent writes reproachfully.
You've written fifteen books and
something like a hundred articles
closely touching the things that inter
est and concern women; you've talked
from platforms about much less vital
subjects.
This is the most important issue
of them all Are you afraid of it?'
After a few seconds in which ! in
dignantly repudiated the suggestion of
fear. l decided humbly that yes, /
really was afraid of it.
1t is a ticklish matter TO put down
in harsh black and white; it is rather
a subject for the morning room, where
mothers and daughters talk together.
One Of my fears, l realize now. was
that of an article read generally by
all sorts and kinds of persons. there
was even a certain improperly in
selecting the question of birth control.
But upon second thought, great
deal is being written and said about
IL already. and there is at elast pos
sibility that the little high school girl
/ am instinctively protecting may be
discussing it freely with her group
and finding plenty of printed matter
TO support whatever attitude she
takes about it.
Tampering With Nature.
One more article can make no spe-
cial impression in the heavily running
tide. and mine might even present, to
little Sixteen. slightly different-a
new. point of view.
Firstly, then, of course | am for
birth control. and man and woman
and child control. and school and
church control, and alcohol and food
control. and trust control. and all the
other manifold controls that make for
a sane commonwealth and a sane pep
pie.
But that does not mean that ]. or
any other reasonable and conscien-
tious person. need be for tamperins
with what is equally natural for the
body and the soul.
To use the word control for what
is really deliberate license remcdied
BY unnatural means is a stupid mis-
use of terms.
We do not speak of the old Romans,
who gorged themselves stupid and
then habitually used emetics, as con
trolled." On the contrary, We use
them as an example of utter and I'M
bridled gluttony and self-indulgencc.
Self Control VS.. Birth Control.
Control. after all, is only another
word for choice" And choice is one
of the great privileges of q freed,
educated. highly civilized people.
To choose our laws, our lawmakers,
our husbands, our homes, our books,
to choose our friends-is this not to
be free in the highest and finest
sense? What characteristic more in
dicative of intelligence may man or
woman have than that he or she
chooses" his or her words?
So that when a woman points out
to me a slovenly, incorporate home,
a complaining filthy woman. a stupid,
unreliable man, and a crowd of chill
dren. and asks, ''Now can you tell
me that they don't need birth control
bere?" / can answer honestly:
MY dear woman. of course they
uO lHtN uttu
foremost, and all the time, They
need money control, and dirt control,
and health control.
But what you propose to give them
is less, and not more, responsibility.
'.They are not held to account for
what they eat or say, what they spend
or waste, what they think or wear
economically, they are a cipher. And
now you suggest that in the most
vital. the most fundamental of their
functions they shall be made sterile,
too"
Where Logic Fails.
Surely, this is the very apothesis Of
perversity,
If you say to me. Can decent men
and women spring from such homes
as you describe? Are not such chill