sion,
to bear children, irrespective of weakened physical condition or
economic inability to rear a large family. Prevention, even by
scientifically determined safe methods, is absolutely prohibited;
nay, the very mention of the subject is considered criminal.

Thanks to this Puritanic tyranny, the majority of women soon find
themselves at the ebb of their physical resources. Ill and worn,
they are utterly unable to give their children even elementary care.
That, added to economic pressure, forces many women to risk utmost
danger rather than continue to bring forth life. The custom of
procuring abortions has reached such vast proportions in America as
to be almost beyond belief. According to recent investigations along
this line, seventeen abortions are committed in every hundred
pregnancies. This fearful percentage represents only cases which
come to the knowledge of physicians. Considering the secrecy in
which this practice is necessarily shrouded, and the consequent
professional inefficiency and neglect, Puritanism continuously exacts
thousands of victims to its own stupidity and hypocrisy.

Prostitution, although hounded, imprisoned, and chained, is
nevertheless the greatest triumph of Puritanism. It is its most
cherished child, all hypocritical sanctimoniousness notwithstanding.
The prostitute is the fury of our century, sweeping across the
"civilized" countries like a hurricane, and leaving a trail of
disease and disaster. The only remedy Puritanism offers for this
ill-begotten child is greater repression and more merciless
persecution. The latest outrage is represented by the Page Law,
which imposes upon New York the terrible failure and crime of Europe;
namely, registration and segregation of the unfortunate victims of
Puritanism. In equally stupid manner purism seeks to check the
terrible scourge of its own creation--venereal diseases. Most
disheartening it is that this spirit of obtuse narrow-mindedness has
poisoned even our so-called liberals, and has blinded them into
joining the crusade against the very things born of the hypocrisy of
Puritanism--prostitution and its results. In wilful blindness
Puritanism refuses to see that the true method of prevention is the
one which makes it clear to all that "venereal diseases are not a
mysterious or terrible thing, the penalty of the sin of the flesh, a
sort of shameful evil branded by purist malediction, but an ordinary
disease which may be treated