Sex & Emotional Shambles

The growing numbers of pregnant, unmarried women who go to physicians for care need understanding and sympathetic treatment "beyond the ordinary call," an Oregon obstetrician told the A.M.A. Often these cases have "impressively happy endings" if decently handled by the physician, said Portland's Dr. Goodrich C. Schauffler. Even out of wedlock, pregnancy and labor "may turn out to be a maturing experience"--far preferable to an abortion.

For all his tenderness toward patients, Dr. Schauffler had harsh words indeed for the apparent increase in U.S. illegitimate births* and for the social attitudes that he believes underlie "the precocious sex activities of ... young people." "There is a greatly increased awareness of sex," he said. "[It is] stimulated and maintained by the sex hysteria which is a calculated instrument of modern journalism and so-called entertainment . . .

There are loose practices, bad examples and lack of supervision in parental and home influences; liquor, narcotics, automobiles, auto courts; and gang influences which . . . tend, in certain groups, almost to enforce premarital sex practices . . .

Young people nowadays are exposed to teachings such as those of Freud and Jung, and to research such as that of Kinsey, without the cooperation of a mature intelligence. The result is an emotional shambles."

* The National Office of Vital Statistics estimated 88,000 illegitimate births in 1938 and 142,000 in 1950. Figures are based on statistics from 33 states that reported illegitimacy, plus educated guesses for the 15 others. Some of the most populous (e.g., New York, California, Massachusetts) now record births to conceal illegitimacy, out of humane concern for the children.

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