"Logic is not a vice of the fundamentalist. He is against birth control. He detests the very words. He shrinks from the thought behind the words. Birth control can hardly be considered without considering sex, and sex should be suppressed and ignored as far as possible. If children are born, let us not dwell on the incidences of their origin; let us presume that God sent them to bless our homes, and leave the matter there. Besides, says the fundamentalist under his breath, what will become of morals if people can sin without fear?...the bigots of both faiths are right; they do well to fear the effect of a widespread knowledge of birth control methods. At present such knowledge is in the hands of the upper classes-through bootleggers-and the effect of it has been to change the habits and morals and economic status of middle-class women, and to modify almost beyond recognition the middle-class home. Some of this knowledge gets through to the poorer classes. But, like bootlegged liquor, it is apt to be poisonous-the more so, the cheaper the bootlegger. So the women of the working class are dying from the effects of drugs and abortions, when they are not dying from the effects of too many children; and a bitter, passionate clamor for fair treatment is beginning to sound through muffling layers of poverty and repression. Not for the sake of the dwindling Nordic, but for their own health and happiness and security and freedom and for their children's future, these women are going to have what they want. If you doubt it, read "Motherhood in Bondage" [by Margaret Sanger (1928)]"
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Editors from the United StatesWomen authors from the United StatesWomen journalists from the United StatesPublishers from the United StatesBarnard College alumni
Original Language: English
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"Out of Bondage" article in The Nation (November 21, 1928) included in The Best of The Nation (2000)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freda_Kirchwey
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Freda Kirchwey
Mary Frederika "Freda" Kirchwey (September 26, 1893 – January 3, 1976) was an American journalist, editor, and publisher strongly committed throughout her career to liberal causes (anti-Fascist, pro-Soviet, anti-anti-communist). From 1933 to 1955, she was editor of The Nation magazine.
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