Christianity And Women

"In relation to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised, either by the deliberate and generous decision to raise a numerous family, or by the decision, made for grave motives and with due respect for the moral law, to avoid for the time being, or even for an indeterminate period, a new birth. Responsible parenthood also and above all implies a more profound relationship to the objective moral order established by God, of which a right conscience is the faithful interpreter. The responsible exercise of parenthood implies, therefore, that husband and wife recognize fully their own duties towards God, towards themselves, towards the family and towards society, in a correct hierarchy of values. In the task of transmitting life, therefore, they are not free to proceed completely at will, as if they could determine in a wholly autonomous way the honest path to follow; but they must conform their activity to the creative intention of God, expressed in the very nature of marriage and of its acts, and manifested by the constant teaching of the Church."

"In general it is morally legitimate to use a material agent in order to forward the well-being of a man in his personal relations in society, e.g. wearing glasses or deaf aid. If on moral grounds the unitive object of an act of coitus must be achieved without involving the procreative end, then there is nothing in principle wrong in using a material agent, for that agent is forwarding the personal relational factor essential for marriage, and good marriages are essential for society and the welfare of children."

"Neither the Church nor her doctrine is inconsistent when she considers it lawful for married people to take advantage of the infertile period but condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly prevent conception, even when the reasons given for the later practice may appear to be upright and serious. In reality, these two cases are completely different. In the former the married couple rightly use a faculty provided them by nature. In the later they obstruct the natural development of the generative process. It cannot be denied that in each case the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result. But it is equally true that it is exclusively in the former case that husband and wife are ready to abstain from intercourse during the fertile period as often as for reasonable motives the birth of another child is not desirable. And when the infertile period recurs, they use their married intimacy to express their mutual love and safeguard their fidelity toward one another. In doing this they certainly give proof of a true and authentic love."

"The key figure in elaborating the Protestant family ethic was the former Augustinian monk and priest Martin Luther. In theological terms, however, Luther’s opposition to contraception was actually amplified by his rejection of clerical celibacy. Luther’s critics have seen him as a failed celibate, a man unable to control his lusts. Luther blamed the doctrine of celibacy itself."

"With regard to the question of lawful birth regulation, the ecclesial community at the pre-sent time must take on the task of instilling conviction and offering practical help to those who wish to live out their parenthood in a truly responsible way. "In this matter, while the Church notes with satisfaction the results achieved by scientific research aimed at more precise knowledge of the rhythms of women's fertility, and while it encourages a more decisive and wide-ranging extension of that research, it cannot fail to call with renewed vigor on the responsibility of all—doctors, experts, marriage counselors, teachers and married couples—who can actually help married people to live their love with respect for the structure and finalities of the conjugal act which expresses that love. This implies a broader, more decisive and more systematic effort to make the natural methods of regulating fertility known, respected and applied. A very valuable witness can and should be given by those husbands and wives who, through their joint exercise of periodic continence, have reached a more mature personal responsibility with regard to love and life. As Paul VI wrote: 'To them the Lord entrusts the task of making visible to people the holiness and sweetness of the law which unites the mutual love of husband and wife with their cooperation with the love of God the author of human life."

"The use of contraceptives and other devices for birth control is on the whole strongly discour-aged in the Orthodox Church. Some bishops and theologians altogether condemn the employment of such methods. Others, however, have recently begun to adopt a less strict position, and urge that the question is best left to the discretion of each individual couple, in consultation with the spiritual father."

"Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection. Finally, careful [consideration]] should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authority who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife. Consequently, unless we are willing that the responsibility of procreating life should be left to the arbitrary decision of men, we must accept that there are certain limits, beyond which it is wrong to go, to the power of man over his own body and its natural functions—limits, let it be said, which no one, whether as a private individual or as a public authority, can lawfully exceed. These limits are expressly imposed because of the reverence due to the whole human organism and its natural functions, in the light of the principles We stated earlier, and in accordance with a correct understanding of the "principle of totality" enunciated by Our predecessor Pope Pius XII."

"Concerning contraceptives and other forms of birth control, differing opinions exist within the Orthodox Church. In the past birth control was in general strongly condemned, but today a less strict view is coming to prevail, not only in the west but in traditional Orthodox countries. Many Orthodox theologians and spiritual fathers consider that the responsible use of contraception within marriage is not in itself sinful. In their view, the question of how many children a couple should have, and at what intervals, is best decided by the partners themselves, according to the guidance of their own consciences."

"Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois, developed a rape protocol for Catholic hospitals to assure “that the effect of the intervention would be truly contraceptive, and not abortifacient” (McShane 2009, 131). The emergency room rape protocol allows the administration of LNG-EC if the woman's menstrual history indicates she is preovulatory, her physical exam is compatible with being in the preovulatory phase, she has a negative urinary lutenizing hormone (LH) test, and has a serum progesterone level less than 1.5 ng/ml, which is compatible with being preovulatory. If the LH surge is positive, indicating the woman will ovulate in the next 24–36 hours, or the serum progesterone level is between 1.5 and 5.9 ng/ml, then she is near ovulation and LNG-EC should not be given. If she is postovulatory with a serum progesterone level of 6 ng/ml or greater, the drug can be given because she is already postovulatory and there is no harm in giving the drug. In this case the patient is beyond her fertile window and possible conception, anyway. The w:Saint Francis Peoria ProtocolSaint Francis Peoria Protocol is based on the moral argument that treatment provided under this protocol is intended to prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation, or fertilization. Excluded from this protocol are treatments that would have as their purpose or direct effect the removal, destruction, or interference with the implantation of a fertilized ovum. (McShane 2009, 133)"

"If continuous and growing sexual frustration is a main consequence of marital contraception, this is also because the contraceptive mentality deprives the very strength of the sexual urge of its real meaning and purpose, and then tries to find full sexual experience and satisfaction in what is basically little more than a physical release."

"In our teaching we emphasize that children are a blessing from God and couples should beware of false materialistic standards of measuring the quality of their lives. Forms of birth control that are really methods of inducing a very early abortion must not be used. WELS, however, does not maintain that there is a clear scriptural prohibition against all forms of contraception. Such factors as the mother's health may be a valid concern of couples, which may lead them to consider limiting the number of their children."

"Artificial methods of birth control are forbidden in the Orthodox Church."

"This new state of things gives rise to new questions. Granted the conditions of life today and taking into account the relevance of married love to the harmony and mutual fidelity of husband and wife, would it not be right to review the moral norms in force till now, especially when it is felt that these can be observed only with the gravest difficulty, sometimes only by heroic effort? Moreover, if one were to apply here the so called principle of totality, could it not be accepted that the intention to have a less prolific but more rationally planned family might transform an action which renders natural processes infertile into a licit and provident control of birth? Could it not be admitted, in other words, that procreative finality applies to the totality of married life rather than to each single act? A further question is whether, because people are more conscious today of their responsibilities, the time has not come when the transmission of life should be regulated by their intelligence and will rather than through the specific rhythms of their own bodies."

"It may, however, be helpful to make two points on the language used by the church writers to describe contraceptive behavior, as these points bear on the frequency with which such behavior is encountered, and to add to these points two medieval estimates of the incidence of contraceptive behavior. The common practice of the scholastic writers was to identify artificial contraceptives by the comprehensive but blind phrase “poisons of sterility.” The repetition of this circumlocution of Augustine is not evidence that the theologians using it were not familiar with particular forms of such poisons. The phrase was an easy way of designating contraceptives without imparting detailed information about them and without becoming involved in an appraisal of their efficacy."

"Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life, but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality."

"We affirm the principle of responsible parenthood. The family, in its varying forms, consti-tutes the primary focus of love, acceptance, and nurture, bringing fulfillment to parents and child. Healthful and whole personhood develops as one is loved, responds to love, and in that relationship comes to wholeness as a child of God. Each couple has the right and the duty prayerfully and responsibly to control conception according to their circumstances. They are, in our view, free to use those means of birth control considered medically safe. As developing technologies have moved conception and reproduction more and more out of the category of a chance happening and more closely to the realm of responsible choice, the decision whether or not to give birth to children must include acceptance of the responsibility to provide for their mental, physical, and spiritual growth, as well as consideration of the possible effect on quality of life for family and society."

"[T]here is a difference between birth control and contraception. "Birth control" can be applied to several different practices. It can indicate anything from the observance of continence, to conjugal acts during a woman's infertile period, to the use of contraceptive devices such as condoms or the pill. In certain circumstances the Church permits the regulation of births, yet in every circumstance the Church forbids contraception."

"In the more interesting area of contraception practiced by a willing person or couple, economic motivation is as old as the ‘’paupercula’’ of the penitentials. But not much is said on this motivation by the thirteenth-century canonists and theologians. The decretal ‘’Si aliquis’’ is taken from Burchard, but Burchard’s reference to “the poor little woman” is not picked up-possibly for no better reason than that it occurred in the portion of Burchard devoted to [[confessional] interrogation rather than in the collection of canons where ‘’Si aliquis’’ was embedded. Of the thirteenth-centurywriters I have examined, only Hostiensis makes reference to an economic impulse in contraceptive practice, and he only obliquely touches the subject. Commenting on marriage, he warns against contraception and then adds, “Let the offspring be gratefully received whether it be a boy or a girl; give thanks to the Creator and do not murmur even in the face of exceeding poverty” (‘’The Golden Summa’’ 4, “Marriage,” 19). In the first quarter of the fourteenth century there is the first reference to economic motive by an important theologian. Peter de Palude, a Dominican moralist of standing, notes that the husband’s motive in coitus interruptus may be to avoid having “more children than he can feed” (‘’On the Sentences’’ 4.31.3). His statement is repeated in the fifteenth century by St. Antoninus of Florence, the German Dominican John Nider, and the Franciscan Trovamala. This verbatim repetition is, or course, only evidence that Palude did not seem so farfetched that a later writer had to excise or explain his observation. Independently of Palude, Panormitanus also supposes that “some do this because of poverty” (Commentary 5.12.5). With such authorities making or repeating the assertion that poverty may lead to contraception, it may be concluded that the case was familiar to the theologians; how often it was encountered in fact is a matter for speculation."

"[A]rtificial contraception appears to alter the language of the body."

"Contraception falsifies the inner truth of conjugal love."

"The debate over birth control in the 1930s was thus a conflict between two factions of political progressives who both saw their stance on reproductive issues as a logical extension of their support for social reform and a welfare state. On the one side was an eclectic coalition of Protestant, Jewish and secular progressives who believed that they could use state resources and the power of technology to improve society by reducing the number of unwanted children and hungry mouths to feed, especially impoverished households. Some of these progressives were New Deal administrators who saw the promotion of birth control as an extension of government efforts to reduce poverty and advance human happiness through social reform. On the other side were Catholics who were also avid supporters of the New Deal, but who believed that the attempt to improve society through the artificial limitation of human reproduction signaled a dangerous disregard for human life. Their commitment to poverty relief equaled or exceeded that of many of the birth control promoters and political liberals; indeed, the pope, the National Catholic Welfare Conference, and politically progressive clerics such as Fr. John Ryan had been calling for the recognition of worker's rights and a living wage for years before Franklin D. Roosevelt's election in 1932. They believed that they were advancing the principles of the New Deal by protecting human life. Ryan, for instance, who had been campaigning for a living wage for decades and who served on Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration Appeals Board, was also an outspoken leader in the campaign against contraception. Because the politics of reproduction had not yet become a partisan issue, Catholic opponents of contraception in the 1930s could happily join with birth control advocates in supporting the New Deal, unaware that their disagreement on the politics of reproduction would eventually split apart the liberal coalition."

"To relate in detail the circumstances, for example, that led St. Albert the Great to describe three methods of contraception belongs to the biographer of St. Albert; all the forces that made Pope Sixtus V decree the penalties of murder for contraception are the domain of the social historian of sixteenth-century Rome. No historian describes all the factors, for he does not know them all; of necessity there is choice and emphasis. Here I have tried to catch the most significant pressures and events that affected the doctrine on contraception. There is an advantage to looking at a single set of concepts over two thousand years."

"There is a consensus in the Catholic Church. The Orthodox churches not in communion with Rome are outside of this consensus: The propositions constituting a condemnation of contraception are, it will be seen, recurrent. Since the first clear mention of contraception by a Christian theologian, when a harsh third-century moralist accused a pope of encouraging it, the articulated judgment has been the same. In the world of the late Empire known to St. Jerome and St. Augustine, in the Ostrogothic Arles of Bishop Caesarius and the Suevian Braga of Bishop Martin, in the Paris of St. Albert and St. Thomas, in the Renaissance Rome of Sixtus V and the Renaissance Milan of St. Charles Borromeo, in the Naples of St. Alphonsus Liguori and Liege of Charles Billuart, in the Philadelphia of Bishop Kenrick, and in the Bombay of Cardinal Gracias, the teachers of the Church have taught without hestitation or variation that certain acts preventing procreation are gravely sinful. No Catholic theologian has ever taught, 'Contraception is a good act.' The teaching on contraception is clear and apparently fixed forever."

"It appears to be true that a significant strand of thought in the early Christian Church did not primarily address abortion in terms of the language of personhood, and the killing of persons. Indeed, in the early Church, there is sometimes no sharp distinction between contraception and sterilization, on the one hand, and abortion on the other. This was neither because the Church wished to downgrade the evil of abortion, nor necessarily to elide the distinction between contraception and murder in the sense in which the fifth commandment prohibits it. Rather, both contraception and early abortion were looked upon as grave contra-life sins. Practically speaking, however, there could have been little profit, as the work of Aristotle and Aquinas inadvertently reveals, in speculation about the nature of the early embryo or even fetus, given the paltry biology at hand."

"The Federation argued that American's willingness to use contraceptives signaled a dangerous disrespect for human life that could compromise the entire Western legal tradition of respect for human destiny. When the American Medical Association endorsed contraception in 1937, Fr. Ignatius Cox viewed the resolution as a setback for a much larger program of human rights. "This action is closely connected with a long denial of a truly living wage and of social justice in our present economic order," he declared. "Those who advocate contraception...have a philosophy which in its cynical disregard of the dignity of human life is equivalent to the philosophy which accounts for the massacred of history." If people began to view the formation of new human life an impediment to societal progress, economic prosperity, and social well-being-something that they should try to prevent if it inconvenience them in any way-then we should not be surprised, Catholics such as Fr. Cox thought, when they had little regard for the rights of workers, the poor, and other people whom they viewed as burdens on society."

"As a scholar specializing in both the history of the Catholic Church and gender studies, I can attest that for almost 2,000 years, the Catholic Church’s stance on contraception has been one of constant change and development. And although Catholic moral theology has consistently condemned contraception, it has not always been the church battleground that it is today."

"When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as 'arbiters' of the divine plan and they 'manipulate' and degrade human sexuality—and with it themselves and their married partner—by altering its value of 'total' self-giving. Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life, but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality."

"A time will come when humankind will be ashamed of how it introduced a false lifestyle, just as today we are ashamed of apartheid, of racial discrimination and of other forms of discrimination. In future times we will be ashamed of something we managed to defend as if it were a truth, a political truth, a truth imposed in Parliament regarding the family, regarding human life, sex, where everything is permitted, where everything is possible."

"The birth control campaigns created a religious divide in American's approach to reproductive issues. After the 1930s, few Protestants outside of fundamentalist circles preached against birth control, and many clerics from more progressive denominations joined campaigns to promote its use. By rejecting Catholic natural law-based arguments against birth control, Protestants made it more difficult to use those arguments against abortion. By the time that abortion policy became a matter of political controversy, most Protestant denominations had no consistent theological position on the subject. Catholics, by contrast, became more vocal in their denunciations of both birth control and abortion after the 1920s. American Catholic priests were preaching against birth control long before Casti Connubii, but the encyclical encouraged their efforts and gave renewed vigor to their campaign. Warnings against the use of contraception appeared in Catholic diocesan papers and Sunday homilies, and premarital counseling sessions for Catholic couples invariably included instruction on the subject. The discussions of birth control in the mid-twentieth century laid the natural law groundwork for later arguments against abortion. Some priests even preached directly about abortion as early as the 1930s."

"It is true that we should depend on God's providence; it is also true that married couples are called to be generous in raising their children without arbitrarily limit-ing their family size to one or two children because of a desire to maintain a certain ‘standard of living.' Yet, the Church teaches that the gift of self in conjugal union is a human act, which means that it involves the use of our reason. Paul VI teaches that "the Church is the first to praise and recommend the intervention of intelligence in a function which so closely associates the rational creature with His Creator; but she affirms that this must be done with respect for the order established by God."

"The Church teaches that acts of contraception are always against the plan of God for human sexuality, since God intended that each and every act of spousal intercourse express both the intention to make a complete, unitive gift of one’s self to one’s spouse and the willingness to be a parent with one’s spouse. These meanings of the spousal act are, as Humanae Vitae stated, inseparable."

"The existence of contraceptive methods in the world from which the Christians[[ came is established: by the [[Old Testament, by the Talmud, by Aristotle, by Pliny, by the physicians, and by imperial law. Coitus interruptus, potions, pessaries, spermicide, genital salves, postcoital exercises, the sterile period- a very wide range of possible techniques was known. The extent to which contraception was practiced is far more conjectural. From the prevalence of more brutal forms of population control, from the fragmentary indications of population decline, from the presumed psychology of slaves, from the great interest of imperial law in encouraging members of the more successful classes to raise at least three children-from these circumstantial and comparatively slight data, the inference may be drawn that contraception was a social phenomenon in the Roman empire of which the Christians could not have been ignorant. What judgment did the Christians give upon it?"

"The Church's intense focus on issues of reproduction at a time when the medical community was becoming increasingly open to the idea of birth control forces Catholic doctors to make the difficult choice between the teachings of their Church and the views of their profession. In reaction to this crisis, Brooklyn physician Richard Rendich began to organize guilds of Catholic physicians who chose to remain faithful to Church teachings while carrying out their professional duties. In 1931, he consolidated these local societies into a national organization called the National Federation for Catholic Physician's Guilds, whose chief purpose, according to the organization's Jesuit moderator Fr. Ignatius Cox, was to "form a powerful barrier of both science and Catholicism, against the loose morals and sex liberalism of the day." Nowhere were these "loose morals" more evident than in the areas of birth control, the Federation's leaders believed. The Federation's organizational meeting featured a keynote address against birth control, and the organization's official journal the Linacre Quarterly', devoted much of its space to contraception and sterilization, publishing detailed natural law arguments about why artificial birth control was not only "intrinsically evil" but also a violation of the Fifth Commandment's prohibition against the taking of human life. Conscientious catholic physicians were aghast that their Protestant colleagues-including, as the Jesuit medical ethicist Fr. Gerald Kelly lamented, "even very competent and conscientious doctors, whose general attitude toward the child-bearing function is both wholesome and reverent"-failed to view contraception as an assault on human life, and even gave contraceptive assistance to their patients who requested it."

"At the time, Protestants, like Catholics, opposed contraception, and they saw a connection between abortion and birth control. The anti-obscenity crusader Anthony Comstock lumped birth control, sexual promiscuity, pornography, and abortion under the general category of obscenity, and the laws for which he campaigned in the 1870s attempted to limit all of these supposed vices by making it illegal to send advertisements for contraceptives or abortions through the mail. For fifty years, Comstock's prohibitions remained the law of the land. The first apparent challenge to this consensus came with the birth control campaigns of the 1920s and 1930s. The campaigns were not about abortion per se- they focused on contraception-but Catholics nevertheless viewed them as a dangerous assault on human life that would soon put the societal consensus against abortion in jeopardy. For decades, the two issues had been linked, in both Catholic teaching and public discussion. In addition to the national Comstock laws, there were state laws that restricted the sale or use of birth control devices. Neither Catholic nor Protestant churches approved of contraception; the Anglican Communion issued official condemnations of the practice in 1908 and 1920."

"In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 2 closely held for-profit corporations asserted claims under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) 3 to ex-"

"Ever more clearly there emerges the strict connection which, at the level of mentality, exists between the practice of contraception and that of abortion. This is demonstrated in an alarming way also by the development of chemical preparations, intrauterine devices and injections which, distributed with the same ease as contraceptives, in reality act as abortifacients in the initial stages of development of the new human being""

"…[F]rom the moral point of view contraception and abortion are specifically different evils the former Paul contradicts the full truth of the sexual act as the proper expression of conjugal love, while the latter destroys the life of a human being; the former is opposed to the virtue of chastity in marriage, the latter is opposed to the virtue of justice and directly violated the divine commandment ‘You shall not kill.’"

"The work of educating in the service of life involves the training of married couples in responsible procreation. In its true meaning, responsible procreation requires couples to be obedient to the Lord's call and to act as faithful interpreters of his plan. This happens when the family is generously open to new lives, and when couples maintain an attitude of openness and service to life, even if, for serious reasons and in respect for the moral law, they choose to avoid a new birth for the time being or indefinitely. The moral law obliges them in every case to control the impulse of instinct and passion, and to respect the biological laws inscribed in their person. It is precisely this respect which makes legitimate, at the service of responsible procreation, the use of natural methods of regulating fertility""

"By any measure the presence of sexual concerns in the penitentials is prominent. The variety of sexual behavior touched on in the more ample handbooks is striking, running the gamut from heterosexual delicts through homosexual infractions, bestiality to autoerotic acts. The number of canons dealing with sex as a percentage of the total is disproportionately large in comparison to those dealing with other types of offence. Finally, there is a clear continuity of such concern for sexual behavior during the centuries that the penitentials flourished. That much is undeniable. So penitentials would appear to be excellent sources for the study of sex in early medieval Europe. Indeed, they have been so recognized and used in accounts of contraception, the regulation of marital sexual relations, and the variety of sexual offences. These accounts are usually presented as pieces of serial history in which penitentials are listed in what is thought to be chronological order, accompanied by their sexual contents."

"Until the 1930s, the Catholic Church was not alone in its opposition to contraceptives. In the Christian tradition, birth control had long been associated with promiscuity and adultery, and resolutely condemned. However, after the Anglican Church passed a resolution in favor of birth control at its 1930 Lambeth Conference, other Protestant denominations began to relax their prohibitions as well. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church held fast to its opposition. The Vatican's stand against contraception was centuries old. For much of that time, however, birth control had remained a dormant issue. Since most birth control consisted of folk remedies and homemade cervical caps, there was little cause for the Church to respond. It was the mass production and availability of rubber condoms and diaphragms in the 1920s and 1930s, made possible by the 1839 invention of vulcanized rubber, which eventually forced the Church to take a public position on specific contraceptives. On New Year's Eve 1930, the Roman Catholic Church officially banned any "artificial" means of birth control. Condoms, diaphragms and cervical caps were defined as artificial, since they blocked the natural journey of sperm during intercourse. Douche, suppositories and spermicides all killed or impeded sperm, and were banned as well. According to Church doctrine, tampering with the "male seed" was tantamount to murder. A common admonition on the subject at the time was "so many conceptions prevented, so many homicides.""

"[N]o reason, however grave, may be put forward by anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose, sin against nature, and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious. Small wonder, therefore, if Holy Writ bears witness that the Divine Majesty regards with greatest detestation this horrible crime, and at times has punished it with death."

"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."

"Every attempt of either husband or wife in the performance of the conjugal act or in the development of its natural consequences which aims at depriving it of its inherent force and hinders the procreation of new life is immoral."

"Regular access to effective contraception, as in the developed world, is the best way to reduce unplanned pregnancies and the need for abortion. Unfortunately, current U.S. policies restrict family planning assistance to foreign non-governmental clinics and agencies that per-form or even discuss abortion or advocate liberalizing abortion laws. The result has been a loss of family planning services and less access to condoms in many developing countries — services that would help reduce the need for abortion."

"Family Planning is the mother of abortion. A generation had to be indoctrinated in the ideal of planning children around personal convenience before abortion could become popular."

"[T]he efforts now being made to secure for licensed physicians, hospitals and medical clinics, freedom to convey such infor-mation [on birth control] as is in accord with the highest principles of eugenics and a more wholesome family life wherein parenthood may be undertaken with due respect for the health of the mother and the welfare of the child."

"(The following statement was adopted by the Lutheran Churches of the Reformation) God is the Creator of all human life (Gen. 30:2; 1 Sam. 2:5f; 2 Kgs. 5:7; Acts 17:25,28) and desires to create spiritual life in all sinful human beings, that everyone come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved (1 Tim. 2:4). Married couples should reproduce in observance of the following Biblical principles: 1. The command of God to be "fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:28; 9:1,17; 35:11; 1 Tim. 5:10,14; AC XXIII, #5 & 8, Triglot p. 612; AP XXIII, #7-8, Trigl. p. 365-73; LC 6th Comm., # 207, Trigl., p. 6394). 2. Children are a blessing from the Lord (Gen. 1:28; 15:2-5; 17:5f.; 24:60; 33:5; 48:9; 49:25; Lev. 26:9; Deut. 28:4; Josh. 24:3; Ruth 4:11f.; Psalm 107:38; 127:3-5; 128:3-6; 147:13; Prov. 5:18; 17:6; LC 4th Comm., # 105, Trigl. p. 6115). 3. It is God who opens or closes the womb (Gen 16:1-2; 17:15-19; 20:18; 21:1-2; 25:21; 29:31; 30:2-6, 23f; Deut. 32:18; Lev. 20:20f; Judg. 13:3; Ruth 4:13; 1 Sam. l:19f; 2:21; Job 10:8-12; Psalm 22:9-10; 113:9; 139:13-16; Eccles. 11:5; Isa. 8:18; 43:1,7; 44:2,24; 49:1,5; 66:9; Jer. 1:5; Lk. 1:36f, 57f; Heb. 11:11). 4. Having children is a good work for Christians (1 Tim. 2:15; AP XXIII, #32, Trigl. p. 3736). 5. Christians are to be mindful that they are not only to be fruitful and populate the earth, but they are to bring up their children as Christians and thus populate heaven (Prov. 3:21f.; 4:3f., 20-22; Mk. 10:13-16; Acts 2:38f.; Eph. 6:1,4; Heb. 2:10). 6. In Scripture barrenness is regarded as an affliction (Gen. 11:30; 15:2; 16:2; 18:11f.; 25:21; 30:1,22f.; 1 Sam. 1:2,5-7, l0f.; Prov. 30:15f; Luke 1:7,24f.,58). 7. There are many examples in Scripture of fruitful parents among the godly (Gen. 3:20; 4:1,25; 5:4; 24:60; 30:1-24; Judg. 13:2f; Job 1:2; 42:13-16). 8. The Word of God prohibits us to "put asunder" marriage (Matt. 19:4-6), including its purposes (1 Cor. 7:2,5; Gen. 2:24). 9. The Bible exhibits the wrath of God upon those who defy His will (Gen. 38:8-10; Exod. 21:22; Rom. 1:18). 10. God desires that we put our trust in Him in all matters, also in His will and ability to provide for the children that He gives us (Exod. 23:20,26; Psalm 30:7; 37:25f.; Phil 4:13; 1 Pet. 5:7). Pastors should counsel families both publicly and privately to observe these principles. The churches and ministers should not take it upon themselves to investigate the private practices of their members (Eighth Commandment). Refusal to reproduce should be treated first by patient instruction and counsel. Nevertheless, when a situation becomes a public scandal then evangelical discipline is in order (Matt. 18:17). While we allow for exegetical differences and exceptional cases (casuistry), we must also maintain and teach the principles relating to this issue (Matt. 28:20; Acts 20:27). Such was the united teaching of Dr. Martin Luther and the "Old Missouri" fathers (C.F.W. Walther, F. Pieper, A.L. Graebner, C.M. Zorn, W.H.T. Dau, J.T. Mueller, W. Dallman, F. Bente, E.W.A. Koehler, L. Fuerbringer, T. Engelder, Th. Laetsch, G. Luecke, W.A. Maier, M.J. Naumann, et al.) and LCR leaders such as P.E. Kretzmann and W.H. McLaughlin. The reasons given to justify the prevention of conception are often based upon myths, selfishness, materialism, hedonism (love of pleasure), convenience, usurpation of God's prerogative, or humanistic reasoning and generally indicate a distrust of the Almighty God and His Word."

"Across the country, a disturbing trend is emerging that, if unchecked, will deny women access to legal, doctor-prescribed birth control. Women are being confronted with “pro-life pharmacists” who say they will not dispense birth control and/or emergency contraception because it violates their religious beliefs. Some even refuse to transfer prescriptions to another pharmacy or ask a pharmacist in their own store to serve the customer. Several women have reported that the pharmacist would not return the written prescription, forcing them to return to their doctor for another prescription. The refusing pharmacists claim they are acting because of their convictions that birth control pills are tantamount to abortion, a notion that is disputed by every major w:Medical association medical association and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. These unethical refusals jeopardize women’s health and safety by placing them at risk for unintended pregnancy."

"Father Francis J. Connell, who wrote "Birth Control: The Case for the Catholic," doesn't neces-sarily discount the public health argument. Rather, he basically ignores it, appealing only to religious reasoning. He begins his argument with a disclosure: "The discussion of this subject as I intend to present it will be fully appreciated only by those who admit that there is a Supreme Being, whom men are obliged to serve and to obey." His argument: Each organ has its proper purpose, each faculty its proper function... A human being can direct his faculties of soul and of body to the purposes intended by the Creator, or he can distort them to other ends. And on the way he chooses to employ them depends the morality of his actions... When husband and wife perform their marital functions in the natural manner, they are concurring in the designs of God toward the preservation and the propagation of the human race...To them parenthood means, not merely the procreation of another member of society, but primarily coöperation with the Almighty in the creation of an immortal soul that is destined to be happy with God forever. Father Connell's argument suffers from racial bias as well. He claims that "birth control as it is now practised in the United States is bound to bring about a notable decline in our white population in the near future." He then goes on to cite "a prominent member of the American Eugenics Society." As for a solution to unrestrained childbirth, Connell believes couples can, through the church, learn restraint if they cannot afford a child. But as Wharton points out, that restraint may not be realistic. As he cites one woman as saying, "'I'm for any way that will keep me from having another child,' the mother pleaded. 'Any way so long as I can keep from losing that man I got.'" This is the dichotomy that split us in the 1930s. And they are essentially the same issues that divide us now, despite legal and cultural acceptance of birth control. In the eyes of many religious Americans, contraception still appears to promote sin and interfere with the divine plan. To those who want contraception to be widely available, the religious opposition seems entirely irrelevant, especially in light of practical concerns about disease and poverty. The two positions remain entirely irreconcilable. Hence, 73 years later, we're still having this conversation."

"In the early 1920s, Margaret Sanger and her American Birth Control League (which later became Planned Parenthood) challenged this taboo and quickly won widespread acceptance among middle-class Protestants for the use of contraceptive devices. The Anglican Communion reversed course in 1930 and declared that Christian married couples had a right to use artificial birth control, and other Protestant church bodies quickly followed suit. The Federal Council of Churches' on Marriage and the Home issued a report endorsing contraception in in 1931. By the late 1930, national committees of the American Episcopal, United Methodist, United Presbyterian, and Congregational Christian Churches had officially endorsed birth control. Several Jewish organizations, including the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the National Council of Jewish Women, did the same. Though many Protestant fundamentalists continued to oppose contraception for several decades, liberal Protestants and Jews embraces it as a progressive humanitarian measure. By 1946, 3,200 ministers were members of Planned Parenthood's Clergyman's Council."