EUGENICS, REPACKAGED AS BIOLOGICAL FREEDOM
In the industrial heart of Kitchener, Ontario, A.R. Kaufman, a wealthy factory owner and staunch capitalist, helped pioneer the birth control movement in Canada. But his motivations were far from progressive. Kaufman’s advocacy for contraception and sterilization was not rooted in a desire to empower women or alleviate poverty. Instead, it stemmed from a fervent belief in eugenics: the idea that society should rid itself of its undesirable elements.
The 1892 Criminal Code criminalized the sale and distribution of contraceptive products and the dissemination of information about them. Despite these barriers, the birth control movement gained momentum. In 1932, Elizabeth Bagshaw, one of Canada’s first female physicians, became the medical director of Canada’s first birth control clinic in Hamilton. It operated illegally but with quiet support from sympathetic doctors. Around the same time, A.R. Kaufman launched his Parents’ Information Bureau (PIB) in Kitchener, Ontario.
The PIB distributed contraceptive materials—including spermicidal jelly, diaphragms and informational pamphlets—by mail and arranged referrals to doctors willing to perform sterilizations. Kaufman’s program quickly expanded, serving tens of thousands of clients annually and playing a significant role in shaping public discourse around birth control in Canada.
Kaufman’s efforts began close to home. When faced with the reality that many of his employees at the Kaufman Rubber Company could not afford to support their families, rather than increase their wages, Kaufman launched a birth control program targeting his workers. Over 1,000 employees were sterilized under this initiative.
Kaufman’s belief in eugenics, coupled with his desire to maintain social control, are on stark display in a letter to American journalist, H.L. Mencken.
“I have said, and still think, we must choose between birth control and revolution…Many of these people are not willing to work but I do not criticize them harshly for their lack of ambition when they are the offspring of people no better than themselves,” Kaufman wrote.
Kaufman made no bones about the lengths to which he was willing to go to rid society of undesirables.
“I agree it might be more merciful and cheaper to ‘have at them [the poor] with machine guns,’ but the law has an inconvenient way of insisting on prolonging people’s agony,” he wrote.
He went on to describe his sterilization efforts as the “next best” solution. His hope, he said, was that public authorities would eventually take over the work.
“If you manage to sterilize a few thousand liabilities the work may eventually get public recognition,” he wrote.
Kaufman’s influence extended far beyond Kitchener. He lobbied governments across Canada to adopt birth control and sterilization programs, particularly targeting Indigenous communities and the working poor. His efforts were part of a broader eugenics movement that gained traction in Canada in the early twentieth century, fueled by fears of overpopulation, economic instability and racial mixing. While many eugenicists distanced themselves from the ideology after World War II, Kaufman remained a vocal proponent, simply rebranding his campaign as “responsible parenthood”.
This strategic shift in language coincided with the lead-up to the 1969 decriminalization of birth control in Canada. By then, Kaufman had positioned himself as a public health advocate, masking his eugenic goals behind the veneer of social responsibility. But the underlying ideology remained unchanged.
As Karen Stote, assistant professor in the Women and Gender Program at Wilfrid Laurier University, notes, Kaufman’s work was never about reproductive freedom—it was about population control. His programs disproportionately targeted Indigenous women, and his legacy continues to echo in ongoing debates about reproductive justice and medical consent.
Kaufman’s capitalist background also played a key role in shaping his views. He was fiercely anti-union and saw birth control as a way to manage labor rather than empower it. Rather than addressing systemic inequality, he sought to eliminate the poor altogether.
“My first reaction when I took an interest in the deplorable state of affairs of some people was ‘to dump them in the lake,’” he wrote. “Since my idea was also impractical from a legal standpoint, I decided to do the next best.”
Kaufman’s influence also reached into the legal realm through his support of Dorothea Palmer, a birth control advocate who was arrested in 1936 during the Eastview birth control trial in Ontario. Palmer was charged under the Criminal Code for distributing birth control information, but Kaufman funded her legal defense, arguing that her actions were in the public interest.
The case became a landmark moment in Canadian reproductive rights history, and Palmer was ultimately acquitted. Kaufman’s backing of Palmer further illustrates his strategic efforts to normalize birth control, even as his motivations remained rooted in eugenics.
For the Waterloo Region community, this legacy is especially poignant. Today, the legacy of A.R. Kaufman is deeply contested. While some credit him with helping to normalize birth control in Canada, others point to the coercive and discriminatory nature of his programs.
His name has been removed from schools, and scholars like Stote continue to uncover the extent of his influence on policies that harmed marginalized communities.
Kaufman’s programs and ideology were not abstract policies but lived realities for local families, many of whom were directly impacted by his sterilization initiatives and anti-union practices. His name, once emblazoned on local institutions, now prompts reflection on how communities remember and reconcile complex histories.
The birth control movement in Canada did eventually lead to greater reproductive autonomy for many women. But its origins are steeped in a history of control, not liberation. Kaufman’s story is a reminder that social progress can emerge from deeply flawed beginnings—and that we must confront those origins honestly if we hope to build a more just future.
Eastview, site of birth control trial in 1936.Kaufman Rubber Factory.
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