The modern woman, now liberated, is smoking more and reaping more of the harvest. Breast cancer used to be the biggest killer of American women​—now it is lung cancer. It has skyrocketed 500 percent since 1950; it killed over 38,000 women last year. Heart disease is also catching up with women. Smoking taxes the heart and the circulatory system, and every year 800,000 women have either heart attacks or strokes. Women with chronic bronchitis who smoke have the dubious distinction of now outnumbering men by one million cases. Chemicals in cigarette smoke cause genetic damage that could initiate cancer in pregnant women and in their fetuses.

Learning ability is damaged in children of mothers who smoke. Studies have shown that they read more slowly and in school may lag several months behind the children of nonsmokers. Mothers who smoke give birth to underweight babies twice as often as nonsmoking mothers do.