Handbook for speakers / issued by the Joint Committee on Voluntary Sterilization.

Date:
[1934?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Handbook for speakers / issued by the Joint Committee on Voluntary Sterilization. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Binney's pamphlet. The probabilities are that sterilization would not be regarded as illegal provided there were good eugenic rea¬ sons for performing it and provided the necessary consents were obtained. Many surgeons interpret it in such a way that they are willing to take the responsibility of sterilizing their private patients, but not patients in their hospital beds. Public bodies such as General Hospitals cannot afford to run risks of incurring legal proceedings or of alienating Catholic subscribers. The following letter provides an example of how, at present, the legal uncertainties discriminate against the poor. It was published in May, 1932, in a well-known weekly paper. Sir, I was born with a deformity of my hands and feet, by which I have been much handicapped during my Hfe. I was assured by a doctor on marrying that this deformity would not be transmitted to my children. I have had six children of whom the last, born a year ago, has precisely the same affliction as myself. Incidentally my wife nearly died during this last confinement. Having little confidence in birth control methods, and not wishing any more children to be born handicapped like myself, I wrote to the Eugenics Society, asking if it could somehow get me sterilized. I could not afford to pay any fee to a surgeon and could only just raise money enough to pay my railway fare to any place where this operation could be done. The Secretary of the Eugenics Society did all he could to get me taken into a General Hospital, where I could be operated upon, but no hospital would take me in because of the small legal risk which is thought to be involved when a sterilizing operation is performed. Eventually the Eugenics Society raised a small fund for me, and I was successfully operated upon as a paying patient in a hospital. I should say that the operation was painless and had not the slightest effect on my general health or married life; it has relieved both my wife and myself of a terrible anxiety. I would be grateful if you would publish this letter, because I think your readers ought to know that the Eugenics Society in trying to gat voluntary sterilization legalised, is only trying to make available for the poor what is now the privilege of the rich. Yours faithfully, HEREDITARY DEFORMITY. The above case is very effective for quotation in speeches. In the first place it provides a concrete instance which people can easily visualise; this is more telling than theoretical argument. Then it illustrates the following four valuable points:— (1) That there is a demand for eugenic sterilization. (2) That the law as to sterilization at present discriminates against the poor. (3) That certain gross skeletal defects are hereditary. (4) That the operation of sterilization has no effect upon physical, mental or sexual life. It may be useful to draw attention to the fact stressed on page 6, para. 5, of the Brock Report that medical defence organisations agree in 11