HEALTH CAMPAIGN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 July 1938, Page 8

HEALTH CAMPAIGN

MRS T. R. BARRER’S ADVOCACY. WOMEN’S DIVISION APPROVES REMITS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. By a very'large majority, the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union supported Mrs T. R. Barrer in two remits which she sponsored, dealing with voluntary sterilisation and birth control. The first remit urged that a vital step in a national health campaign consisted in measures to prevent an increase in the families of the feebleminded, epileptic, and others with hereditary taint by (1) A fuller programme of segregation, as provided for by the Mental Defectives Amendment Act, 1928; (2) a conservative policy of voluntary sterilisation on the lines recommended by the Departmental Committee on sterilisation, presented by the Minister of Health to the British Parliament, 1933. The second motion expressed support for the establishment of responsible birth-control clinics either (a) by medical practitioners; or (b) attached to St. Helens hospitals; or (c) attached to public hospitals. Those who opposed the second half of the first remit put up a spirited opposition, but the conference held that the matter was a national one, and that personal religious convictions should not be allowed to dominate such an issue. Mrs Barrer, who has sought the support of the division in these measures for many years, was paid a tribute for her tenacity and hard work.