%0 Book %A Sanger, Margaret, 1879-1966 %G English %G English %T English methods of birth control %U http://hdl.handle.net/10796/CE89D0CC-DE13-4B1A-BC57-43B74644B7C0 %U http://hdl.handle.net/10796/92ECFEF3-51A6-4CB5-952F-28AC825A2D46 %X 1915 1915 1910s 18 pages 4 TWO CLASSES OF SOCIETY. To-day in nearly all countries of the world, most educated people practise some method of limiting their offspring. Educated people are usually able to discuss at leisure the question of contraceptives with the professional men and women of their class, and benefit by the knowledge which science has advanced. The information which this class obtains is usually clean and harmless. In these same countries, however, there is a larger number of people who are kept in ignorance of this knowledge : it is said by physicians who work among these people that as soon as a woman rises out of the lowest stages of ignorance and poverty, her first step is to seek information of some practical means to limit her family. Everywhere the woman of this class seeks for knowledge on this subject. Seldom can she find it, because the medical profession refuses to give it, and because she comes in daily contact with those only who are as ignorant as herself of the subject. The consequence is, she must accept the stray bits of information given by neighbours, relatives, and friends, gathered from sources wholly unreliable and uninformed. She is forced to try everything and take anything, with the result that quackery thrives on her innocence, and ignorance is perpetuated. The proper authority to give advice on preventive methods should be the medical profession ; no class of men and women are so aware of the need of this knowledge among the working class as they — yet they remain silent. So until they awaken from their Rip Van Winkle slumber and take up this question, it is the duty of those who know reliable means and methods of birth control to spread this information among the class who are ignorant of it, yet who desire but cannot obtain it elsewhere. 15X/2/566/51