Report of the : for the year ending November 14, 1871.

  • Ladies' National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the : for the year ending November 14, 1871. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    sequence of licentious indulgence. The issuing of a Royal Com- mission proceeds on this fatal assumption, and we therefore urge our friends everywhere, emphatically to protest against it, as they would against the shameful Acts themselves. Immediately on the appearance of the Report of the Royal Commission, in July, 1871, a second protest was issued by your Committee as follows :— Once more, in a grave crisis of the agitation in which we are engaged, we feel called upon to reiterate the declaration of our fundamental principles and to call on our friends for earnest and effective support. The Government which showed its estimation of the personal rights and constitutional liberties of women by passing, and extend- ing to women only, the Contagious Diseases Acts, met the demand for repeal by the issue of a Royal Commission to inquire into and report on their administration and operation. We, the Ladies' National Association, have from the first regarded this Commission as an ingenious device for evading the real point at issue, and as a deadly engine for fastening the yoke of this hateful legislation on the womanhood of the whole country. The Commission was, we believe, appointed in the interests of the upholders of the Acts, to support a foregone conclusion. Although this legislation applies to women only, no woman was asked to take part in the investigation. It is hoped indeed that no woman would, by consenting to serve on the Commission, have admitted that the administration and operation of Acts utterly corrupt in principle, could be a fit subject for inquiry. But the course taken by the government in excluding women from the Commission is a standing proof of the partial and one sided character of the tribunal to which was delegated the task of recommending legislation for their sex, and would of itself be a sufficient reason why Englishwomen should refuse to submit to its decision. The Royal Commission has now concluded its labours, and its Report amply justifies the opinion which we have from the first entertained as to its character and the scope of its investigations. We were told indeed that the Commissioners would take into con- sideration the moral bearing of the Acts. But the supporters do not venture to affirm that one vicious man has ever been reclaimed by them, nor is there in the Report any attempt made to controvert the assertion in the original Protest of our Association, that the path of evil is made more easy to men by the removal of a moral restraint through the State sanction and provision for facilities for vice. The inquiries of the Commission have not been directed to the moral effects of the Acts in promoting chastity among men. The recommendations of the Report are what might have been expected