RELIGION AND BIRTH CONTROL 
NTAGONISM of the Roman Cath- 
olic church toward the “birth 
control” movement is well known. 
This antagonism is based on theo- 
logical grounds, but it has frequently 
bee on pointed out that the result, whether 
the church has the fact in mind or not, 
will be to give the church a slowly 
increasing preponderance in numbers, 
in any community where the popula- 
tion is made up in part of Catholics 
and in part of Protestants. 
The Church of Latter-Day Saints of 
Jesus Christ, popularly known as the 
Mormon church, has taken a similarly 
antagonistic stand on birth control. 
Theological objections are raised against 
it; but in this case what may be called 
the eugenic aspect, the problem of 
altering the relative proportions of 
different classes in a population, is 
clearly seen and acknowledged. 
In the July issue of the Relief Society 
Magazine, an official publication issued 
at Salt Lake City, five of the twelve 
elders who make up the supreme council 
of the organization state their views on 
birth control. Elder Rudger Clawson 
says that it is sinful to restrict the num- 
ber of children in a family, continuing: 
“Woman is so constituted that, 
ordinarily, she is capable of bearing, 
during the years of her greatest strength 
and physical vigor, from eight to ten 
children, and in exceptional cases a 
larger number than that. The law of 
her nature so ordered it, and God’s 
command, while it did not specify the 
exact number of children allotted to 
woman, simply implied that she should 
exercise the sacred power of procreation 
to its utmost limit.”’ 
Elder George F. Richards writes: 
“My wife has borne to me fifteen chil- 
dren. Anything short of this would 
have been less than her duty and 
privilege.” : 
The eugenic view of the subject is 
most clearly seen by elder Joseph F. 
Smith, Jr., who points out: 
‘The first great commandment given 
450 
both to man and beast by the Creator 
was to be fruitful and multiply and 
replenish the earth; and I have not 
learned that this commandment was 
ever repealed. Those who attempt to 
pervert the ways of the Lord, and to 
prevent their offspring from coming into 
the world in obedience to this great 
command, are guilty of one of the most 
heinous crimes in the category. There 
is no promise of eternal salvation and 
exaltation for such as they, for by their 
acts they prove their unworthiness for 
exaltation and unfitness for a kingdom 
where the crowning glory is the con- 
tinuation of the family union and eternal 
increase which have been promiscd to 
all those who obey the law of the Lord. 
It is just as much murder to destroy life 
before as it is after birth, although man- 
made laws may not so consider it; but 
there is One who does take notice and 
his justice and judgment is sure. 
“T feel only the greatest contempt 
for those who, because of a little 
worldly learning or a feeling of their 
own superiority over others, advocate 
and endeavor to control the so-called 
‘lower classes’ from what they are 
pleased to call ‘indiscriminate breeding.’ 
“The old Colonial stock that one or 
two centuries ago laid the foundation of 
our great nation, is rapidly being re- 
placed by another people, due to the 
practice of this erroneous doctrine of 
‘small families.’ According to statistics 
gathered by a leading magazine pub- 
lished i in New York, a year or two ago, 
the average number of children to a 
family among the descendants of the 
old American stock in the New Eng- 
land States, was only two and a frac- 
tion, while among the immigrants from 
Zuropean shores who are now coming 
into our land, the average family was 
composed of more than six. 
“Thus the old stock is surely being 
replaced by the ‘lower classes’ of a 
sturdier and more worthy race. Worth- 
ier because they have not learned, in 
these modern times, to disregard the 
