it acts as a powerful deterrent from child-bearing, although it is
doubtful whether those who are influenced by this fear would resort to
abortion where contraception had failed.

Speaking of social conditions, some witnesses, under the impression
that the average age at marriage was rising, attribute the increasing
abortion-rate among the unmarried partly to this cause.

The actual fact is that the age at marriage has decreased of late
years, but is still probably higher than would be the case if economic
conditions were more favourable.

It is clear that, whether the motives be worthy or selfish, women of
all classes are demanding the right to decide how many children they
will have. Methods which depend on self-control are ruled out as
impracticable. Contraceptives are largely used, and, judging by the
marked decline in the birth-rate in recent years, are in many cases
successful. In other cases, however, they are not so, and there is then
frequently a resort to abortion.

(5) IGNORANCE OF EFFECTIVE METHODS OF CONTRACEPTION AND OF THE DANGERS
OF ABORTION.

The public as a whole is ignorant of the physiology of reproduction.
This results in attempts being made to prevent conception by methods
which are doomed to failure at the outset. The use of defective methods
owing to their comparative cheapness and the unnecessarily high cost of
effective appliances are undoubtedly among the causes of such failure.

While it is not the function of this Committee to report upon the wider
aspect of contraception, but to deal with it only in relation to the
abortion problem, yet we would point out that the evidence given showed
that, though contraception is widely practised, many of the methods
used are unreliable and not founded upon physiological knowledge, and
that when they fail abortion is resorted to. Abortion is a delayed,
dangerous, and unsatisfactory form of birth-control. It was stressed by
some witnesses that many women have no idea of the risks to life and
health involved in the procuring of abortion, a medical witness
mentioning, among other evils, the tendency to spontaneous abortion
arising from damage to the generative organs sustained at an initial
induced abortion. Other witnesses, on the contrary, maintained that
these risks are well known to the majority of women, but that when
faced with an unwanted pregnancy they are willing to incur any risk.
Fuller reference to these dangers appears in another sectio