through State aid, no better criticism has been made than that of
Havelock Ellis:

"To the theoretical philanthropist, eager to reform the world on paper,
nothing seems simpler than to cure the present evils of child-rearing
by setting up State nurseries which are at once to relieve mothers of
everything connected with the men of the future beyond the pleasure--if
such it happens to be--of conceiving them, and the trouble of bearing
them, and at the same time to rear them up independently of the home, in
a wholesome, economical and scientific manner. Nothing seems simpler,
but from the fundamental psychological point of view nothing is
falser.... A State which admits that the individuals composing it are
incompetent to perform their most sacred and intimate functions, and
takes it upon itself to perform them itself instead, attempts a task
that would be undesirable, even if it were possible of achievement.(4)"
It may be replied that maternity benefit measures aim merely to aid
mothers more adequately to fulfil their biological and social functions.
But from the point of view of Birth Control, that will never be possible
until the crushing exigencies of overcrowding are removed--overcrowding
of pregnancies as well as of homes. As long as the mother remains the
passive victim of blind instinct, instead of the conscious, responsible
instrument of the life-force, controlling and directing its expression,
there can be no solution to the intricate and complex problems that
confront the whole world to-day. This is, of course, impossible as long
as women are driven into the factories, on night as well as day shifts,
as long as children and girls and young women are driven into industries
to labor that is physically deteriorating as a preparation for the
supreme function of maternity.

The philosophy of Birth Control insists that motherhood, no less