hat seems to me the very negation of that motherhood in whose name this
"right" is enforced. And for what purpose is a child to be brought into the
world under conditions so imperfect? To "fulfil the nature" of its mother;
to complete her experience; to meet her need. Is there any mockery of
motherhood more complete than this sacrifice of the child to the mother?
Why, our physical nature itself is less selfish! When a woman conceives,
her child receives _first_ all the nourishment it needs; whatever it does
not demand, the mother has. A woman herself undernourished can, if the
process has not gone too far, bear a well-nourished and a healthy child,
because she has given all to that child. It is the epitome of motherhood!
And now it is affirmed that a woman, to satisfy her own need, has a right
to bring into the world a child on whom she--its mother--has deliberately
inflicted a grave disadvantage. I do not speak of such lesser disadvantages
as may be involved in illegitimacy. I trust the time is at hand when
we shall cease to brand any child as "illegitimate" or despise one for
another's defect. But though children are never illegitimate, parents may
be so; and none more than the woman who sacrifices her child to herself.

For this disadvantage is not a mere cruelty of society which may be
"civilized" away; it is inherent in the case. A child should have a father
and a mother and a home.

It is no defence to say that the unmarried mother proposes to give her
child a better home than many a child of married parents has. If her
concern is for the child, there are, alas! only too many waifs already in
the world to whom such a home, though imperfect, would be a paradise to
what it has. Real motherhood could and often does rescue such children with
joy. That so few children are adopted in a world of women clamouring for
motherhood proves the essential selfishness of the claim. It is not the
child--it is herself--that the woman who demands motherhood as a "right" is
concerned with. What an irony! For to satisfy herself first is the negation
of motherhood.

We have heard much of late years--and rightly--of the exploitation of
women by men. Let us not celebrate our growing enfranchisement by becoming
ourselves the exploiters; and that, not of men, but of babes.

IV

THE TRUE BASIS OF MORALITY

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alterati