Handbook for speakers / issued by the Joint Committee on Voluntary Sterilization.

Date:
[1934?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Handbook for speakers / issued by the Joint Committee on Voluntary Sterilization. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/40 (page 1)
    I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. The basis of the Policy of the Joint Committee on Voluntary Sterilization is the Report of the Departmental Com¬ mittee on Sterilization (Brock Report) Cmd. 4485, published in January, 1934, and obtainable, price 2/-, from H.M. Stationery Office, Adastral House, Kingsway, London, W.C.2. Speakers for the Committee should obtain and carefully read this report. The following notes are to be regarded as supplementary to the report, which will be frequently referred to. Copies of the report, minus the appendices, are obtainable (price 6d.) from the Secretary, Joint Committee, 69, Eccleston Square, S.W.I. References to pages and paragraphs in what follows refer to the full Report. METHOD OF USING HANDBOOK.—The type of lec¬ ture which should be given on the subject of Eugenic Steriliza¬ tion will vary with the type of the audience. Certain general arguments can safely be brought into lectures for all audiences, but particular aspects may need to be stressed in special circum¬ stances. Thus if the audience contains people of a scientific and. sceptical turn of mind, questions are likely to be asked about the precise degree to which the various conditions for which sterilization is proposed are inherited, and what eugenic results, we can expect from the legalising of voluntary measures. If the audience contains many medical men, questions are likely to be asked about the technique of the sterilizing operations; why X-Rays are not used instead of surgical methods, etc. In any case, lecturers will have to be prepared to answer questions from any member of the audience. It is therefore necessary that they should have a grasp of certain details of the subject which need not be brought into the actual substance of a lecture. In the following notes the subject will be dealt with under certain general headings and there will follow a list of arguments and statements which it is wise to avoid, followed by some sugges¬ tions as to how suitable lectures can be drawn up. General arguments which should be brought into every lecture will be printed in this bold type. Arguments of a less essential character will be printed thus. Considerations which need not be brought into lectures, but which may arise in questions, will be printed, in this small type. II. HISTORY OF STERILIZATION. It is often useful to begin a lecture with a brief historical outline. It should be pointed out that interest in eugenic sterili¬ zation throughout the world has, for reasons which will be explained later, been focussed primarily upon its application to^ mental defectives and that the history of eugenic sterilization in this country is closely bound up with scientific investigations into I