Page 95 - Encyclopedia Of World History

contraception and birth control 445

1931 in India revealed a sharp rise in
population.This data was used promote
a Malthusian argument for birth control
as a remedy for controlling spiraling
demographic growth. Nationalist advo-
cates of birth control were also quick to
draw a connection between national
poverty and size of the nation’s popula-
tion. None of the early advocates of birth
control called for resource redistribution
to alleviate national poverty, however.
Interestingly enough, Mohandas Gandhi,
who strongly opposed the use of any
chemical and mechanical contraceptive
device, appears to have been one of the
first to call for resource redistribution as
a solution to India’s growing population
problem. He was strongly opposed to
birth control on moral and philosophical
grounds, and debated with Sanger on
the subject in 1936.
Indian feminists such as Kamala-
devi Chattopadhyay joined Sanger and
Stopes in making a case for birth control
as a means of improving women’s mater-
nal health. Lower maternal and infant
mortality figures, it was argued, were
important indicators of national well-
being. Birth control activists also argued
An advertisement from the 1921 World Almanac for
that lower fertility figures were a sign of
Margaret Sanger’s Woman and the New Race in which
modernity, especially for non-Western
she advocates birth control.
nations, which were seen to have higher
fertility figures than Western nations such
as France and Canada. Fertility figures in France and had something concrete to offer in terms of contraceptive
Canada had been declining from the late nineteenth technology. However, on a closer examination it seems
century onwards, which led to a strong opposition to that the international birth control movement was long
birth control in those countries. on rhetoric but short on technology, especially before the
invention and testing of the contraceptive pill in 1960.
Tension between Rhetoric In the period between 1930 and 1950 birth control
and Technology activists greatly differed among themselves about the
Examining the writings of the various advocates of birth most appropriate contraceptive technology. Sanger and
control would leave one with the impression that they Lydia DeVilbiss were promoting a spermicidal douche