Catalogue Number
NMLH.1993.33.4
Object Name
Pamphlet
Title
'A letter to working mothers on how to have healthy children and avoid weakening pregnancies by Marie Carmichael Stopes. Doctor of Science, Doctor of Philosophy. Published by the Mother's Clinic for Constructive Birth Control 1925.'
Place
London
People
Marie Stopes, Mother's Clinic for Constructive Birth Control, Marie Stopes International, MSI Reproductive Choices
Description
A green book titled 'A letter to working mothers on how to have healthy children and avoid weakening pregnancies' by Marie Carmichael Stopes. Her qualifications and other publications are listed below her name, and the publisher is listed at the bottom as 'the Mother's Clinic for Constructive Birth Control. 1925.'
Reproductive rights and family planning has long been a major issue for the women's rights movement. While hormonal contraception to prevent pregnancy was not available until the mid 20th century, before this, women's rights activists campaigned to educate women about other ways they could choose to plan if or when to have children, how to avoid becoming pregnant while being sexually active, and in some cases how to access abortion to end an unplanned pregnancy. Stopes founded clinics for providing birth control and family planning advice, like the Mother's Clinic for Constructive Birth Control that published this book - she founded the clinic in Holloway London with her husband in 1921, and it operated continuously on the same site until 1975. Marie Stopes International, renamed MSI Reproductive Choices in 2020, is a charity providing contraception and abortion services in 37 countries to this day.
Pregnancy is an important women's health issue, as the impacts of pregnancy and childbirth can take a substantial toll on a person's body, and can in some cases lead to death from complications associated with pregnancy. Choosing the number of children a woman had, and when, allowed women to access employment which often had a pregnancy bar - until the late 20th century, becoming pregnant was an automatic end to careers in medicine or education. It also allowed families better control of their finances by not feeling forced to continue a pregnancy if their circumstances meant they could not afford to raise a child. However, reproductive rights proponents including Stopes also often engaged in eugenics - a belief system which discouraged different types of people from having any children if they were deemed to be socially undesirable, including advocating for poor people and disabled people to be sterilised and prevented from choosing to have children. The change in name by Marie Stopes
International reflected their desire to distance themselves from Stopes' eugenicist views.
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