Stopes v. Sutherland, 1923
In 1923, Stopes v Sutherland opened in the High Court in London. Why did Marie Stopes sue Dr Halliday Sutherland for libel? What part did tuberculosis and eugenics play in the trial? This short video gives the background to the so-called “Birth Control Libel Trial” of 1923.
Stopes’ eugenic agenda
For many years the “accepted history” of the trial was that Dr Halliday Sutherland, a Roman Catholic, attacked Dr Marie Stopes’ work in family planning because it didn’t accord with Catholic teaching. This explanation, promulgated by Stopes herself, excludes the true nature of her work: it was a eugenic project to reduce the number of “undesirables” in Britain.
Compulsory sterilization of “undesirables”
While Stopes gave her “Prorace” and “Racial” brand contraceptives to the women who wanted them, she campaigned for the compulsory sterilization of the women (and men) who didn’t. While Stopes’ biographers say that Marie Stopes gave women reproductive choice for the first time, the fact is that, had the laws for compulsory sterilization that Stopes lobbied for been enacted, that choice would have been made by the State.
“Exterminating Poverty”
The title of the book is taken from a letter from Sir James Barr, ex-president of the British Medical Association, to Dr Marie Stopes to congratulate her on opening the Mothers’ Clinic in Holloway on 17 March 1921:
“You and your husband have inaugurated a great movement which I hope will eventually get rid of our C3 population and exterminate poverty. The only way to raise an A1 population is to breed them.”