Even as birth control is the means by which woman attains basic
freedom, so it is the means by which she must and will uproot the evil
she has wrought through her submission. As she has unconsciously and
ignorantly brought about social disaster, so must and will she
consciously and intelligently _undo_ that disaster and create a new
and a better order.

The task is hers. It cannot be avoided by excuses, nor can it be
delegated. It is not enough for woman to point to the self-evident
domination of man. Nor does it avail to plead the guilt of rulers and
the exploiters of labor. It makes no difference that she does not
formulate industrial systems nor that she is an instinctive believer
in social justice. In her submission lies her error and her guilt. By
her failure to withhold the multitudes of children who have made
inevitable the most flagrant of our social evils, she incurred a debt
to society. Regardless of her own wrongs, regardless of her lack of
opportunity and regardless of all other considerations, _she_ must pay
that debt.

She must not think to pay this debt in any superficial way. She cannot
pay it with palliatives--with child-labor laws, prohibition,
regulation of prostitution and agitation against war. Political
nostrums and social panaceas are but incidentally and superficially
useful. They do not touch the source of the social disease.

War, famine, poverty and oppression of the workers will continue while
woman makes life cheap. They will cease only when she limits her
reproductivity and human life is no longer a thing to be wasted.