Birth Control and the State

This essay, originally published in the early twentieth century, argues that birth control should be government policy to prevent the 'unfit' from reproducing. Blacker constructs his case around the premise that civilization requires deliberate control of who does and does not propagate, framing contraception as a tool for 'racial improvement.' The text weaves together arguments about population decline in 'civilized' nations, the perceived threat of immigration, and the supposed reproductive habits of the 'unintelligent' and 'diseased.' It references wartime anxieties and employs the pseudo-scientific racial taxonomy common to eugenics literature of its era. The work stands as a historical document of how once-respectable intellectual frameworks justified systematic devaluation of human life. Reading it requires understanding it as a relic of deeply harmful thinking that contributed to forced sterilization programs, immigration restrictions, and ultimately the ideology behind genocide. The text offers no apology and presents its arguments without apparent irony.