Two chief obstacles hinder the discharge of this tremendous
obligation. The first and the lesser is the legal barrier. Dark-Age
laws would still deny to her the knowledge of her reproductive nature.
Such knowledge is indispensable to intelligent motherhood and she must
achieve it, despite absurd statutes and equally absurd moral canons.

The second and more serious barrier is her own ignorance of the extent
and effect of her submission. Until she knows the evil her subjection
has wrought to herself, to her progeny and to the world at large, she
cannot wipe out that evil.

To get rid of these obstacles is to invite attack from the forces of
reaction which are so strongly entrenched in our present-day society.
It means warfare in every phase of her life. Nevertheless, at whatever
cost, she must emerge from her ignorance and assume her
responsibility.

She can do this only when she has awakened to a knowledge of herself
and of the consequences of her ignorance. The first step is birth
control. Through birth control she will attain to voluntary
motherhood. Having attained this, the basic freedom of her sex, she
will cease to enslave herself and the mass of humanity. Then, through
the understanding of the intuitive forward urge within her, she will
not stop at patching up the world; she will remake it.




CHAPTER II