Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

MARRIAGEmore reliable method of attaining that end has receivedan increased degree of favor: the method of sterilization.Bythis method all risks are eliminated. It can now beeffected, simply and harmlessly, without removal of thesexual glands, by vasectomy in men and ligature and sectionof the Fallopian tubes in women. As a method oftreating any psychic condition its value is dubious, andin itsifperformed compulsorily it may be perniciousmental effects; but, adopted voluntarily, as a method ofpreventing conception, its advantages seem to be great,while it abolishes the need for those preventive precautionswhich most people, quite legitimately, regard withdisfavor.* It is scarcely necessary to add that sterilization,being a permanent contraceptive measure, should not beadopted without due consideration.It is sometimes imagined, even by medical men, thatsterilization is at present illegal. There is no sound groundfor this belief. The Eugenics Society has in Englandattempted to put forward a Parliamentary Bill to furthersterilization, not, however (assome have supposed) tomake it legal (for it is already carried out) but to bring,its benefits within the reach of defectives and among thepoorer class. The benefits have sometimes been questioned,even, it must be said with regret, in the medicalprofession.But there can be no reasonable doubt that,whatever the exact proportionof defective children bornof defective parents,sterilization would here be personsonally,socially, and eugenically helpful, althoughit could* In one of the earliest cases known to me, an American p&ysician, ingood health and with a family of several children which he had nowish to increase, submitted to vasectomy in order to avoid the .routineof preventive precautions which was repugnant to himself and his wife.The pain and discomfort of the operation were not sufficient to interferewith his ordinary office work, and the result proved entirely satisfactoryto both partners. It remained so several years later,when lastheard of. There was no loss of potency or of desire. This case maynow be regarded as fairly typical.