s problem, has been set up, and the
presentation of their report will doubtless clarify the position in the
minds of the medical profession.

(3) The practice of contraception by married women who, in the
opinion of their medical attendant, should have temporary or
permanent freedom from the fact or fear of pregnancy.

Not only are there cases in which severe illness exists making further
pregnancies dangerous, but there is also a heterogenous group including
all gradations of health and economic reasons.

Here we have the mother with health undermined and reserve vitality
reduced to a minimum by the strain of bearing and rearing a large
family. She approaches the menopausal stresses with anxiety and
apprehension, having done her duty to family and race, often having
lived an exemplary self-sacrificing life, the intolerable contemplation
of a late pregnancy drives her to desperate measures often for the
first time in her life.

Again, there is the relatively young, tired, anaemic, debilitated
mother, with a number of young children born at very close intervals,
often denied even a half-holiday, let alone an adequate one, unable to
afford suitable domestic assistance, often with poor housing or
domestic arrangements, and completely exhausted with the incessant
round of cleaning, cooking, and the strain of the inevitable
fretfulness of a number of young children.

The Committee is of the opinion that it is the State's duty to ensure
that mothers within this group should obtain the respite that the
health of themselves and their present and future families demands.

The economic aspects of these problems are dealt with in our general
recommendations, but we also recommend that departments should be
established, preferably in conjunction with the out-patients'
departments of our public hospitals, whither medical practitioners
could refer for instruction and equipment with contraceptive appliances
mothers who in their opinion should be assured of temporary or
permanent freedom from child-bearing.

It might be desirable that the certifying doctor's recommendation
should be endorsed by the officer in charge of the department before
admission, but that is a practical point which could be discussed at a
later date with members of the Obstetrical Society and medical
profession.

Though the Committee discounts the exaggerated statements that have
been made at intervals about the sale of contraceptives to juve