Posted on 09/03/2003 1:24:08 PM PDT by Polycarp
The Pill, The Pope and The People: Humanae Vitae at 35
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Exclusive commentary by Judie Brown President and Founder, American Life League
Jul 25, 2003
The term “slippery slope” is used far too frequently, I believe. Unfortunately, it is an all too accurate description of what’s happened to the traditional family over the last three quarters of a century. It's a point worth pondering as the Catholic Church marks the 35th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's landmark encyclical Humanae Vitae. In reflecting on the years that have passed, and in re-reading Paul VI's words today, one simple truth emerges: the pope was right.
The slope first began to veer from a level path in 1930. It was then that the Church of England, during its Lambeth Conference, approved a resolution stating that married couples, employing “morally sound reasoning for avoiding abstinence,” were permitted to use “other methods” besides abstinence to limit or avoid parenthood. This decision shunned the collective teachings of 19 centuries and opened the door for Christianity’s approval of the practice of contraception.
Immediately following the Lambeth announcement of this profound break with Christian principles, Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical On Christian Marriage, proclaiming “any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.”
At the time, some of the most influential secular voices agreed not with the Anglicans but with the Catholics. On, March 22, 1931, the Washington Post editorialized, “It is impossible to reconcile the doctrine of the divine institution of marriage with any modernistic plan for the mechanical regulation of human birth. The church must either reject the plain teaching of the Bible or reject schemes for the 'scientific production' of human souls. Carried to its logical conclusion, the [Lambeth] committee's report if carried into effect would sound the death-knell of marriage as a holy institution, by establishing degrading practices which would encourage indiscriminate immorality. The suggestion that the use of legalized contraceptives would be 'careful and restrained' is preposterous.”
The dam had been cracked. Over the next 35 years a growing sense of frustration inspired organizations, including Planned Parenthood and its allies, to struggle with how, when and where to find that magic bullet that would “relieve” couples of their anxiety so that they could enjoy sexual pleasure without accepting the children that might result. As the pot continued to boil, scientists, funded by large corporations, worked feverishly to develop a pill that would provide the “release” couples were allegedly seeking as they wrestled with the reality that sexual relations could lead to children.
In the mid 1960s, when doctors, social workers and others announced that the pill would make its debut, the Catholic Church was compelled to again address the question. Pope Paul VI faced the question head on in Humanae Vitae. He warned of the sociological impact of birth control on the populace and he invited all men of good will to avoid acts that are “contrary to the nature of both man and woman and of their most intimate relationship.”
The practice of contraception is such an act. As Prof. Donald DeMarco succinctly put it in the July 1983 issue of Homiletic and Pastoral Review, “Contraception is the prevention by mechanical or chemical means of the possible natural and procreative consequence of sexual intercourse, namely, conception. The purpose of contraception is to separate intercourse from procreation so that the contracepting partners can enjoy the pleasures of sex without the discomforting fear that their sexual activity could lead to the procreation of another human being.”
At the occasion of Humanae Vitae’s 35th anniversary, it’s fitting to measure the current state of our culture in light of the pope’s prophetic statements of 1968.
In his encyclical, Pope Paul VI set forth three major concerns.
(1) He asked responsible men to consider how the practice of birth control would open a wide road leading to “conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality.”
(2) He expressed a fear that the male, “growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.”
(3) He asked that man consider that “a dangerous weapon would thus be placed in the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral exigencies.”
On the other side of the coin, birth control proponents told the public that birth control would relieve anxiety, put couples in charge of their sex lives and become the panacea for all society’s woes.
Thirty-five years later, proponents argue that with better birth control there would be less abortion. All the while these individuals fail to point out that the most popular forms of birth control can abort human beings during their first few days of life.
Birth control proponents also play fast and loose with the truth by claiming the pill and other methods using artificial steroids are safe for women. Such chemicals, however, contribute to escalating rates of breast cancer and heart disease, among other effects.
In the early days of the contraceptive movement, there were concerns that the so-called promises of the pill were based on faulty reasoning. In 1972, University of California sociology professor Kingsley Davis said, “The current belief that illegitimacy will be reduced if teenage girls are given effective contraception is an extension of the same reasoning that created the problem in the first place. It reflects an unwillingness to face problems of social control and social discipline, while trusting some technological device to extricate society from its difficulties. The irony is that the illegitimacy rise occurred precisely while contraception was becoming more, rather than less, widespread and respectable.”
Has the pill liberated Americans or enslaved them? Consider these varied statistics on matters of sexual and family health in the United States. These findings are all reported in The Family Portrait, a book published in 2002 by the Family Research Council.
*The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that the United States has the highest rates of sexually transmitted disease in the world.
*Two-thirds of all abortions are performed on never-married women.
*From 1930 to 1934, one in six first births to women age 15-29 was either conceived or born before marriage. From 1990-1994 this figure increased to one in two births.
*The annual divorce rate has doubled since 1960.
*Between 1970 and 1996 the percentage of children living with a single parent increased from 11.9 percent to 25.4 percent.
Other organizations have reported similar findings of cultural concern:
*The United States has the highest adolescent pregnancy, abortion, and birth rates in the developed world, according to the Child Welfare League.
*Since 1960 births to unmarried women have increased more than 400%, according to figures compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, and the Centers for Disease Control. Nearly half of all adolescent pregnancies end in abortion.
*15.3 million STDs are contracted each year in the United States, according to a Project Reality fact sheet. That is 42,000 new cases daily.
*In 1960 Syphilis and Gonorrhea were the only two known sexually transmitted diseases and each was treatable with antibiotics. Today there are over 20 diseases with 12 million newly infected persons each year. It is estimated that 1 in 5 Americans is now infected with a viral STD. (2) This does not include the bacterial diseases such as chlamydia, syphilis, and gonorrhea, which are at very high levels. Tragically, according to the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, 63% of these infections occur in persons under age 25.
*One out of every ten adolescents will attempt suicide before the age of 19, according to figures provided by Life Crisis Services of St. Louis.
So where is the good news in all this? What does the birth control movement have to show for its promises of happier days, complete with fewer worries and fewer children, and freedom of choice? Could it possibly be that Pope Paul VI was right in each of his predictions? Are the purveyors of promiscuity and infidelity witnessing a nation that is reaping the devastating consequences of sexual liberation? Do they care?
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, quoted in the December 1998 issue of First Things, has suggested that our culture is in serious distress. “American society is wracked with sexual identity and behavior dysfunctions, family collapse, and a general coarsening of attitudes toward the sanctity of human life. It’s obvious to almost everyone: We have a problem, and it’s killing us as a people. So what are we going to do about it? What I want to suggest is that if Paul VI was right about so many of the consequences deriving from contraception, it is because hw as right about contraception itself. In seeking to become whole again as persons and as people of faith, we would do well to revisit Humanae Vitae with open hearts. Jesus said the truth would make us free. Humanae Vitae is filled with truth about our sexuality, our purpose as human beings, and the nature of married love. Lived selflessly, it is a source of real joy. We impoverish ourselves and those we love by ignoring it.”
People also didn't used lose half of their income to confiscatory taxes. :o(
The only problem with that is, those who have no coverage at all, and who are unable to pay for care themselves, end up being subsidized either through our taxes or through higher insurance premiums for those who do have coverage. Our system doesn't deny treatment to those who need it. But someone has to pay for it.
I have been considering dropping my HMO coverage for a major medical plan. The way premiums keep rising, I could be further ahead paying out-of-pocket for the little things, as long as I knew I had coverage for any major problems which could arise.
Insurance companies are in business to collect premiums, not to pay claims. They are up pretty high on my personal "loathing list".
Good point. They didn't have myriads of laws to comply with regarding sale of their produce and forms to fill out either.
I do hope you will make a full recovery. It sounds like you have been through a living nightmare. Glad the docs are working on your side.
I'd bet that figure hadn't been revised since the death rates dropped radically.
The citation is from "Moral Theology" by McHugh & Callan, published 1958.
WHO (I know, a lousy source) uses 2.1% as a replacement rate. Even if "3 or 4" is translated as precisely 3.5, that allows for infertility, a large clerical class, and healthy growth.
You are confusing two closely related concepts. 1) The total fertility rate for the whole female population of child-bearing age and 2) the number of children per family.
The famous 2.1 figure is the replacement level of child-bearing and includes an allowance for children to die in childhood, etc.
The distinction is that the first group includes women who will never marry (about 5%), women who get married to late to have children (about 5%), women who are sterile or have sterile partners (about 10-20% of the remainder), and women who never have children, despite being able (unknown to me, but probably less than about 5%).
When you tally all that up, about 25% of women never have biological children.
To make up for that, the remaining 3 of every 4 women who do have children must have 8 children between them.
To allow for a percentage of children who die while growing up or prior to having children of their own, those remaining women should probably have 9 children in total (no fractional children in a small example), so 3 each. That works out to a fertility rate of 2.25.
To allow for population growth, a minimum of 4 each by these 3 women would be needed, since you can't have fractional children, and the needs of society are the equal duty of all. That works out to a fertility rate of 3.0.
Considering the number of families who have just 1 or 2 children each, those of us having more have quite a hurdle to jump to try to push the whole population over the 2.1 marker for total fertility. In essence, with about 2/3 of familes with children having 2, perhaps 10% with 1, and 20% with 3, the remaining 5% is left with the bag. In order to hit the 1.9 mark, where the US is really at, that 5% has to average about 5 children per family, or 5% of families with children are having 15% of the children, and 25% of families with children (roughly the number with 3 and up), are having roughly 50% of the children.
Not four women, three women. Remember, one of them is not having children. Then to account for mortality prior to reproduction, another child needs to be added, so 9 children per 3 women, or 3 women per child.
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