Marie Stopes - Birth Control On Trial

Birth Control On Trial

In 1922 a book was published called Birth Control by a Roman Catholic doctor, Halliday Gibson Sutherland. The book attacked Stopes over her advocacy of the cervical cap, describing the cap as "the most harmful method of which I have had experience" associating her birth control campaign with a writer convicted of obscenity for publishing on birth control 45 years earlier. Sutherland did not respond to a challenge to debate the issue, so a writ for libel was issued against him. The court case began on 21 February 1923; it was highly acrimonious; and the jury found in favor of Stopes, answering the judge's four questions:

1. Were the words complained of defamatory of the plaintiff? Answer: Yes.
2. Were they true in substance and in fact? Answer: Yes.
3. Were they fair comment? Answer: No.
4. Damages, if any? Answer: £100.

However the judge ignored the general tenor of the jury's response and found in favor of Sutherland, based on the response to #2. It was a moral victory for Stopes, as the press saw it and she appealed. On 20 July the Court of Appeal reversed the previous decision, awarding the £100 to Stopes, but this victory was short-lived. The Catholic community was now mobilized to provide Sutherland support for a final appeal to the House of Lords, which was heard on 21 November 1924. The decision, irrevocable, was in Sutherland's favor. The cost for Stopes was vast. However, the publicity and book sales partially compensated her losses. The trial had made birth control a public topic and the numbers of clients visiting the clinic doubled.

Stopes was even remembered in a playground rhyme:

Jeanie, Jeanie, full of hopes,
Read a book by Marie Stopes,
But, to judge from her condition,
She must have read the wrong edition.

Persistence and hard work had always served her well. She had gained remarkable results as a scientist. She had two runaway best sellers. She had her clinic and had an organization behind her to maintain it. Humphrey Roe, the co-founder of the clinic, was demoted to "husband of Dr. Stopes". In 1924 the 43-year-old Marie Stopes gave birth to her only son, Harry.