THE BIRTH CONTROL REVOLUTION
Gruening, Senator Ernest
he Birth Control Revolution by SENATOR ERNEST GRUENING %V7"e are experiencing a peaceful rev-olution which a decade ago was undreamed of in the United States and even two years ago was not...
...This heavy burden of children puts an enormous load on the economy of these nations struggling to emerge into the modern, urban-industrial world...
...One child in every twenty-five receives welfare aid, and the number may double in the next ten years...
...The bill was introduced on April 1, 1965...
...The bill is simple and moderate...
...The breakthrough on birth control has made this possible and presages an increase in human welfare, health, and happiness...
...A double standard would be disastrous...
...This is a firm prediction, barring major disaster, because the children who will be moving into early adulthood by 1980 are already born...
...He has called for the giving of information and services in our own country...
...The revolution has occurred because of the discovery of new methods and because the public is far ahead of its elected politicians...
...It is gratifying news that the Vatican Council is moving...
...Representative Morris Udall of Arizona put in the companion bill and Representative Paul Todd of Michigan dropped a similar bill into the hopper...
...Most responded by saying they believed the legislation was long overdue...
...SENATOR ERNEST GRUENING, Alaska Democrat, has served as a doctor during his long and distinguished career as well as a journalist, editor, governor of Alaska, and adviser to government agencies...
...And why not...
...Surely we have the ability to phrase the questions sensibly and at the same time help families...
...Even more significant than the actual increase in world population, most of the additions are coming in the less-developed regions—those regions least prepared to feed [their populations...
...To help advance the population dialogue and to encourage government action, the Subcommittee, as of July, 1966, had held twenty-eight public hearings on the bill and received oral testimony from ninety-eight distinguished men and women of international repute, from every profession and of a broad religious representation...
...if what it was doing was right that it should do it boldly and openly and without concealment...
...There is no single answer to the problem of providing jobs, adequate incomes, and decent homes for every American...
...The responses, many in detail, may be found in the appendix to the 1965 hearings...
...James McCracken, (1965) executive director, Church World Service: "Church World Service has touched upon the lives of some seven million of the world's needy with food, clothing, and medicine...
...Four college students have made this suggestion : a nationwide, televised, family planning examination along the lines of the national drivers test that has been given to a vast television audience...
...Ambassador to India: "The most immediate threat posed by the rapid growth of population is not mass starvation but rather the complete impossibility of achieving an adequate growth in general living standards...
...Their contributions to the population dialogue emphasized the relationship that overpopulation has to hunger, health, crime, poverty, depletion of natural resources, lack of privacy, welfare, employment, education, political instability, economic disequilibrium, the drain on limited capital resources, happiness, housing, freedom, opportunity, and the hope of worldwide peace...
...They asked why I was climbing into such a "politically taboo arena" when the public was not ready...
...What policy the government had was not being disseminated...
...The growth rate is such that the world's population, if it continues at plus two per cent per year, will double by the turn of the century...
...in the United States, thirty...
...He has made clear this nation's readiness to share its knowledge, skill, and financial resources with the developing nations requesting family planning assistance...
...I announced that the Subcommittee had written to the governors of the fifty states and of the territories to request information concerning what was being done at the state and territorial level to deal with population matters...
...It is this new aim or purpose which makes it possible to reach an accord . . . it should be emphatically stated that, in any program such as the one I foresee, the government may not indicate a preference for any particular method...
...and in less developed countries between forty and forty-five per cent...
...Alberto Lleras Camargo, former President of Colombia: "Latin America is breeding misery, revolutionary pressures, famine, and many other potentially disastrous problems in proportions that exceed our imagination even in the age of thermonuclear war...
...In June, 1966, Representative J. Arthur Younger of California, a Republican, added bipartisan support in the House...
...Representative Morris Udall: ". . . everywhere there is the population revolution, diluting the effects of economic progress, creating new problems of housing, food, welfare, education, and employment...
...Many people may not know of Margaret Sanger's untiring efforts half a century ago to "raise the question of birth control out of the gutter of obscenity . . . and get it into the light of intelligence and human understanding...
...He has called for expanded research in human reproduction and population dynamics...
...That prospect of 7.2 billion people on earth in 2,000 A.D...
...Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman: ". . . more and more it appears that the task of feeding the rapidly growing populations of the less-developed regions of the earth will be man's Number One challenge over the remaining three decades of this century...
...Some individuals had slight changes to suggest...
...Father Dexter L. Hanley S. J., Director of the Institute of Law, Human Rights, and Social Values, Georgetown University, Washington, D. C: ". . . while firmly maintaining my basic moral position as a Catholic, I believe that I can support a government program which in its legitimate concern about education, health, and welfare in a rapidly expanding population, permits each citizen a fully free moral choice in matters of family planning, and aids him in implementing this choice . . . Responsible parenthood has social dimensions far beyond any which were thought of at the time the battle lines were first drawn concerning public support for family planning...
...Robert Cook, president of the Population Reference Bureau: "The population problem is further compounded by the fact that with persisting high birth rates and declining death rates, the age structure of the population in the countries caught in the demographic crisis has changed drastically in the last generation...
...On June 22, 1965, the Senate Subcommittee on Foreign Aid Expenditures on which I serve as chairman was ready to open the first Congressional hearing on S. 1676 and the population crisis...
...Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall: "It may be that, in the long run, overpopulation in this country will threaten the most important freedom we enjoy—the freedom each person must have to maintain his own integrity, to discover his natural self and to be true to it...
...They would be the focal points for Federal government policy and programs in the United States, and overseas, in the important area of family planning...
...Senator Hart is a Catholic who believes that private morality and public policy can coexist compatibly...
...Senator Joseph Tydings : "I think it is essential that we give all segments of our society the opportunity to exercise birth control...
...To her has been accorded that rare privilege of watching her countrymen and citizens of other lands publicly discuss the dilemma she recognized half a century earlier...
...For better understanding, each letter receives an individual answer and the writer is sent information about the proposal because one of the purposes of S. 1676 is to encourage the widest possible dialogue on birth control...
...The Subcommittee had also received an important letter from Dwight Eisenhower in which he reversed the statement he had made a decade earlier when, as President, he had said that he did not believe it was the function of the Federal government to interfere in the social structures of other nations by using, except through private institutions, American resources to assist them in a partial stabilization of their numbers...
...The designation of a high level official in the Department of State to let other nations know what the United States would and could do in response to requests for family planning assistance, as well as to learn what other nations were doing, seemed sensible...
...I believe we would like to leave the world better than we found it...
...My response was that if it was political suicide to introduce a bill to make it possible for men and women to be better informed, so that they could make a choice of birth control information which was in keeping with their individual beliefs, then so be it...
...This very large proportion of children has another alarming aspect: in the enormous fertility potential which this age distribution represents . . . between 1965 and 1980 the number of young women at the height of their fertility will approximately double...
...We who are alive today have a commitment to the future...
...But they are around if we look and query...
...During the course of the hearings it became apparent that Congressional interest was growing and that concern over the population explosion is not confined to the Democratic Party...
...He wrote "The Public Pays...
...I had attempted, many times, to find out what the policy was, and the responses I received were uniformly negative...
...Earlier, I had directed members of my staff to send draft copies of the bill to nearly 1,000 interested men and women, requesting comments and suggestions as to how it could be improved...
...I cannot think of a quicker way to reach millions of concerned men and women...
...Surely public policy and private morality can coexist...
...One of them was Dr...
...he Birth Control Revolution by SENATOR ERNEST GRUENING %V7"e are experiencing a peaceful rev-olution which a decade ago was undreamed of in the United States and even two years ago was not expected...
...I cannot recall a single letter in opposition...
...Representative John Conyers : Poverty-stricken Negro families often find it impossible to stay together when there are more children than the parents can properly support and supervise...
...Part of the motivation for the hearings, I said at the outset, had come from President Johnson, who pledged in his 1965 State of the Union Message to Congress to "seek new ways to use our knowledge to help deal with the explosion in world population and the growing scarcity in world resources...
...The chances for any individual or any nation to get help when seeking assistance in family planning were slight...
...Some excerpts from their testimony best show their concern: Senator Frank Moss: "I am concerned, as I have been for a number of years, about the legacy we deed to our children, our grandchildren, and their children...
...Senator Ralph Yarborough : "Unchecked population growth in the less developed countries has related problems to which we give too little attention, such as creating political instability, social discord, personal restlessness, economic disequilibrium, starvation...
...And it is clear that in one segment, among the poor and the ill-educated, we are not providing this opportunity...
...In that same year, in the same countries where we had our programs, the growth of population surpassed twenty-eight million persons . . . Human need outgrew all of our program assistance in sheer statistics...
...But as part of this overall effort, it seems to me, we should insure that couples can make their own personal decisions regarding the sizes of their families by making available to them the very much needed, necessary information...
...Our time is not unlimited...
...In Europe, twenty per cent of the population is under fifteen years of age...
...Sanger called "the greatest issue" and we can seek acceptable solutions...
...The final decision of the Roman Catholic Church will, of course, be made by the Pope...
...These youngsters, because of family poverty and lack of education and lack of love, have little chance of rising above the culture of despair...
...Thus, I believe that all aspects of contraception control information should be studied, and that all available forms of family planning be made available in any clinic...
...In my introductory statement I said it was imperative that the Congress let the executive branch of the government, and all persons concerned with the population explosion, know that the problem is serious, "that we too are serious and do intend to explore the problem, and that we do hope and intend to learn what is and what is not being done to solve the population problem here and abroad...
...The response was unexpected and heartening...
...As a result we have tragic statistics which reveal that more than half of all Negro children have not lived with both parents continuously up to the age of eighteen...
...Further, now is the time to try to make certain that individual choice is both respected and possible...
...Dr...
...It authorizes creation of offices for population problems in the Department of State and in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, each to be headed by an assistant secretary...
...Seven Senators asked to be co-sponsors: Joseph Tydings of Maryland, Ross Bass of Tennessee, E. L. (Bob) Bartlett, my colleague from Alaska, Paul Douglas of Illinois, Frank (Ted) Moss of Utah, Ralph Yar-borough of Texas and Stephen Young of Ohio, all Democrats...
...By March, 1965, the bill was in final draft form and a copy of it and individual letters were sent to each of my Senate colleagues inviting them to be co-sponsors...
...Population Crisis, hearing on S. 1676, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C...
...is appalling in view of the fact that even now far too many of the world's inhabitants are hungry, poorly clothed, illiterate, and unable to care properly for their families...
...Quantity in numbers does not insure quality in life, and being a parent does not automatically mean being responsible...
...Individuals who disagree do so principally for religious reasons, and I have found they often are misinformed about my bill...
...Other Congressmen who have introduced similar or identical proposed legislation are Charles Diggs of Michigan, John Moss of California, John Con-yers of Michigan, James Mackay of Georgia, George Brown of California, Benjamin Rosenthal of New York, Clarence Long of Maryland, and O. C. Fisher of Texas—all Democrats...
...Early in 1965, in the first session of the Eighty-ninth Congress, when I was preparing to introduce a bill to coordinate and disseminate birth control information upon request, many of my Senatorial colleagues, and individuals outside of government, said I was committing political suicide...
...To dp so would be to make a judgment beyond its own capacity and to infringe upon the freedom of its citizens...
...Mail from throughout the country and some from other nations began to pour into my office, more than ninety per cent of it favorable...
...Happily for mankind, today we can discuss openly what Mrs...
...Inaction or do-nothingness of this generation might well force future generations to live and respond as animals caught in a labyrinth of too many numbers in too little space with too few resources to sustain life with dignity...
...John Rock, the Massachusetts doctor who helped develop the "anovu-lent" we know today as "Enovid," or more generally as "The Pill...
...To postpone action in this vital area of human procreation is to invite—indeed, to even push—disaster onto the shoulders of those who follow us...
...I said there was no reason why the Administration should proceed cautiously and unobtrusively...
...What have witnesses told the Subcommittee...
...With a continuing increase of eleven million people annually, it will be well nigh impossible for India to produce enough housing and clothing or to train enough teachers and doctors to meet her minimum needs...
...Chester Bowles, U.S...
...In June, Pope Paul VI received the final report of his commission to study family planning, a study which required nearly three years and which was made by outstanding, well-qualified laymen and clergymen...
...Arthur M. Watkins, housing and building construction specialist: ". . . more and more people are going to be left in the cold . . . crowded in cramped or rundown, or deteriorated, or substandard housing, and very likely in spreading slums . . . housing costs are so high now that roughly half of the population is priced out of the market for new housing . . . Because of the growing housing crisis in the United States and also in other parts of the world, there is an increasingly urgent and special need for ways to curb population growth . . ." During the hearings, I repeatedly made it clear that the bill simply offers an exercise in freedom of choice...
...He seeks new ideas and our Senate Subcommittee will continue to do all it can to help...
...Likewise, on the domestic front, identical measures were desirable to let other countries know we were ready to do at home what we planned to help them do overseas...
...Senators Simpson and Dominick are Republicans...
...Senator Milward Simpson: "It is important that the American people be fully informed on the subject matter of birth control . . . The cost of maintaining children of the poor has climbed to more than a billion dollars a year in welfare funds...
...Dr...
...When hearings started, two-thirds of the 3.6 billion people in the world were hungry...
...In his letter to my Subcommittee, dated June 18, 1965, the former President said, in part: ". . . If we now ignore the plight of those unborn generations which because of our unreadiness to take corrective action in controlling population growth, will be denied any expectations beyond abject poverty and suffering, then history will rightly condemn us...
...New ideas are scarce...
...That ratio of support has persisted...
...Two Democratic members of the House introduced an identical or similar bill the same day...
...The bill I had drafted also authorized the President to call a White House Conference on Population in 1967, preceded, where desired, by state conferences on population...
...President Johnson, to his everlasting credit, has publicly commented on the population dilemma not fewer than twenty-three times...
...Additional Senators asked to be co-sponsors: Senators Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Peter Dominick of Colorado, Philip Hart of Michigan, Milward Simpson of Wyoming, and George Mc-Govern of South Dakota...
...The only way to solve these problems is through population control...
...Such coordination was urgently needed...
...I devoutly hope that necessary measures will be enacted into law to authorize the Federal government, as well as appropriate private and semi-public organizations, so to cooperate among themselves that the necessary human and material resources can be promptly mobilized and employed to cope effectively with the great need of slowing down and finally stabilizing the growth in the world's population...
...This revolution concerns the freedom to choose the birth control method of one's choice and the inherent right of the individual to the knowledge that such a choice is possible...
Vol. 30 • September 1966 • No. 9
