Against It?

Sydneydider At Home Base

Are You For It Or

The traditional picture of father nervously pacing the floor ting for the nurse to bring him glad tidings from the labour d might have to be changed if an idea from one Sydney pital catches on.

N a maternity hospital an ounced in June that fathers they wish, be in at the births • children, it gave Sydneysiders ing to chew over in these cold f mid-winter. The arguments d con, have fought for pride ace in letters-to-the-editor s with birth-control pills and mmon Market, of the letters have been pro from men who, while they ot said outright that they en he experience, profess to have it “stimulating”. Others have d how exhilarating it had ;> share with their wives the of the first howl of their off er that it “forged a new bond i them”. Many believe that it elax a woman, especially in ly stages of a confinement, to :r husband with her. arge proportion of the pro are from men—fellows with ily strong paternal instincts em to think that hitherto they sen missing out on something, ost common-sense female ap came from one woman who at if there are already a doctor nurse and several students at i, one husband suitably con aehind mask and gown and somewhere on the sidelines, going to matter one way or er. of the sour “antis” were doc ho said it wouldn’t work; or usbands would have to be logically conditioned to the ex e. The implication was that 1 staffs have enough on their nth mothers without having to n the father as well, this isn’t to say that the in ite majority are for this new ire in fatherhood. To the con nost Australian men probably t be dragged into a labour dth a team of wild brumbies. j fact that it is now a matter n discussion and open choice

is progress of a sort. Even ten years ago the idea would have been dis missed as eccentric, effeminate or as some migrant nonsense. Now the father can do what he wishes and no one cares a hoot.

What’s it add up to? Civilisation, most likely, and not Nature, as some of the protagonists are trying to in sist—the female animal makes sure that her mate is not present at par turition and the instinct is still strong in many women.

But civilised, 1962 man and woman, seeking to get some foothold on the shifting sands of modern life, have invented a whole mystique of marriage and parenthood that would have rocked the Victorians from their top-hats to their bustles. Whether marriages are any happier, or child ren any better, since the days when grandfather found there was to be an addition to the family only by dis covering grandmother knitting tiny garments, is something we can argue about until the end of the century.

The Pill Of even bigger current interest on the domestic front is The Pill, Those who are against oral contraception say it is morally wrong, unnatural and dangerous. That it causes women to grow hair (where they shouldn’t); or induces serious organic disease; causes weight increases, and makes them feel sick; that where a woman forgets to take the pills for a few days, becomes pregnant then, without knowing it, goes on taking the pills, she may produce an hermaphrodite child or a sub-normal one.

Say the experts who are in favour of contraceptive pills: Taken 20 days out of 28 they are 100 per cent effec tive as a contraceptive and, so far as can be ascertained after seven years experimentation and trial, completely safe. (They admit, however, that it will probably be another 15 years be fore it can be absolutely certain that there are no long-term effects.) (Over)

oral contraceptive is based on terone, a hormone produced lly during pregnancy and be to be the factor which, during me, prevents ovulation. It was ;al step from there to produce rmone synthetically and use it to prevent conception, but the the hormone as a treatment ier gynaecological diseases was r well-known before that. In ter case, it is taken in massive and it is the lack of after of this treatment that has en ed researchers to take a able long-term view when the ice is used only as a contra . (Nonetheless, a few women ave had large doses for dis have subsequently produced children with “minor male ;eristics” which can be cured gery; and women with a pre listory of thrombosis of the leg night have a recurrence of the .) >rding to the pro-Pill experts, the amount of progesterone led in 20 oral contraceptive •read over 28 days won’t grow i anyone; won’t produce cysts armal children; will be 100 per afe and yet allow a woman, he wants another child, to con vithout difficulty, the pill is a miracle worker in no doubt, after which, of the play comes back to the aal’s court. It is up to her to whether to believe the experts, ly it is safe; or the theorists, y it may yet prove a monster, illy, The Pill is now accepted ?-room conversation although methods of contraception, i mid-1962, are not. Recently, ien audience of anything up to ion Sydneysiders watched a >n session in which a panel nalists quizzed Dr. G. I. M. consultant endocrinologist in partment of Obstetrics at the ;ity College Hospital, London, jfessor R. P. Shearman, Asso rofessor of Obstetrics at Syd liversity, both of whom were whole in favour of oral con on. acet of The Pill was left un but not even the most re ry fuddy-duddy could have exception to any of it.

Papua-New Guinea Admini has more than 350 trained ians and nearly 1,000 natives I on Territory agricultural i. In 1950-51 the Agricultural nent employed only 73 Aus and 114 untrained natives.