Birth Control

"Marry women who will love their hus­bands and be very prolific, for I want you to be more numerous than any other people."

"It was narrated that: Sa'd said: “The Messenger of Allah disapproved of Uthman bin Maz'un's desire to remain celibate; if he had given him permission, we would have gotten ourselves castrated.” (Sahih)"

"It was narrated from Samurah that: the Messenger of Allah forbade celibacy. Zaid bin Akhzam added: “And Qatadah recited: 'And indeed We sent Messengers before you (O Muhammad ), and made for them wives and offspring.'”(Sahih)"

"It was narrated from Abu Hurairah that: the Messenger of Allah said: “Marry, for I will boast of your great numbers.”(Sahih)"

"Birth-control methods varied widely around the Islamic world, and there are a great number of texts suggesting a variety of techniques, ranging from coitus interruptus to more bizarre solutions such as suppositories containing rennet of rabbit, ‘broth of wall flower and honey’ and ‘leaves of weeping willow in a flock of wool’ (a popular option in early medieval Persia). But birth control was not just the woman’s business: male contraceptive techniques included ‘drinking juice of watermint at coitus’, rubbing the juice of an onion or a solution of rock salt onto the end of the penis, or, more alarmingly, smearing the entire penis with tar. Other mysterious solutions to the problems of Islamic family planning included ‘fumigation with elephant’s dung’ and, stranger still, ‘jumping backwards’."

"When the Companions asked the Holy Prophet (Sallallaho Aliaihe wa sallaml) about coitus interruptus (‘azl), he said: ‘This is like burying a live child.’ And this is the same which has been described in the Quranic verse: ‘And when the girl-child that was buried alive is asked’ (LXXXI) (Vide Muslim Sharif, vol. i, p. 466; Mishkat Sharif, p. 276). In Path al-Mulhim Sharh-e Sahih-e Muslim, Allamah Shabbir Ahmed Usmani quotes that Qazi has written that the Holy Prophet (Sallallaho Aliaihe wa sallam!) has determined coitus interruptus ‘a hidden burial’, that is, to waste the seed which Allah Most High had prepared for procreation is like infanticide and burying the child alive. The result is the same: the only difference is that it is not buried alive openly and hence it has been called hidden. There is a hadith in the Bukhari Sharif to the effect that when the Companions, on account of their zest of engaging in devotions and in order to avoid sins and for remaining aloof from relations, expressed the desire to get themselves castrated, the Holy Prophet (Sallallaho alaihe wa sallam!) did not allow them and adduced the Quranic verse, ‘O ye who believe: Forbid not the good things which Allah hath made lawful for you, and transgress not. Lo! Allah loveth not transgressors’ (V: 87), in proof. Even as the Holy Prophet (Sallallaho Alaihe wa sallam!) has, by this verse, determined castration to be unlawful, it is obvious that the termination of propagation under the family planning scheme will also be included under this order."

"Narrated Ma'qil ibn Yasar: A man came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said: I have found a woman of rank and beauty, but she does not give birth to children. Should I marry her? He said: No. He came again to him, but he prohibited him. He came to him third time, and he (the Prophet) said: Marry women who are loving and very prolific, for I shall outnumber the peoples by you."

"Islam is one of the few religi­ons that allow for birth control."

"The ulema declare: If need be, then, as long as the excuse lasts, one can use contraceptive methods, but, frankly speaking, it is sheer ingratitude for divine bounty that one gets oneself deprived of offspring through tubectomy without a legal excuse. The Holy Prophet (pbuh.!) has said: ‘Contract marriage with women who love more and beget more children so that on account of your multitudinousness on the Day of Judgement I may take pride in your number vis-à-vis the other ummahs’ (Mishkat). God is the Provider; He will provide for you as well as your children. The children’s provider is God, not we. He who supplied nourishment in the mother’s womb, He will provide it after birth also. The list of livelihood the offspring bring with them from the mother’s womb and they will receive their quota according to the same. Why should then one entertain such thoughts? The Divine Commandment is: ‘And that ye slay not your children because of penury—We provide for you and for them’ (6:151). At another place it has been said: ‘Slay not your children, fearing a [fall to poverty]; We shall provide for them and for you’ (17:31). It is reported in a hadith that certain Companions, in order to save themselves from sins and wordly worries and to engage themselves in devotions, expressed the wish to get themselves castrated. The Holy Prophet (pbuh.!) did not permit it and recited the Quranic verse: ‘O ye who believe ! Fobid not the good things which Allah hath made lawful for you, and transgress not. Lo! Allah loveth not transgressors’ (V. 87). (Bukh., vol. ii, p.759). It is conclusively proved from this that castration, that is, the discontinuance of procreation artificially is unlawful (haram) according to the explicit verse of the Quran also and is included in transgression from the limits fixed by God. Hence an operation that discontinues procreation is unanimously unlawful (UQ, vol. xx, p. 72)... And the jurisconsults have said: ‘Castration of men is forbidden’ (haram). (DM & S., vol. v, p. 342). And: ‘And that ye slay not your children because of penury—We provide for you and for them.’ (VI: 151). And: ‘Slay not your children, fearing a fall to poverty.We shall provide for them and for you.’ (XVII: 31)."

"It was narrated from Aishah that: the Messenger of Allah said: “Marriage is part of my sunnah, and whoever does not follow my sunnah has nothing to do with me. Get married, for I will boast of your great numbers before the nations. Whoever has that means, let him get married, and whoever does not, then he should fast for it will diminish his desire.” (Hasan)"

"[It is] one of the fundamental tenets of Islam -- namely, to multiply the tribe."

"Birth control should be resorted to only in cases of extreme necessity, such as the wife's ill-health owing to constant births. Imam Abu Hanifa holds it makruh (abominable)."

"Had the monster of 'Birth Control' as an instrument of state policy raised its head in the days of the Holy Prophet, he would surely have declared Jihad against it in the same manner as he waged Jihad against Shirk (polytheism)."

"There is no denying the fact that the political prestige and military strength of a country depends upon the size of its population. (...) In the Islamic context greater population has a double significance because one cannot wage an effective Jihad without an expanding population."

"The Qur'an says that 'Children are an ornament of life' and Hadith literature views with favour larger families for the greater strength of Ummah, and as such birth control / family planning cannot be in any way compatible with the Shari'ah."

"Poverty, illiteracy, religious fanaticism and lack of family planning, etc. are mainly responsible for the growth of EBOM population. Lack of education, child marriage, polygamy, poverty, etc. are making the population issue more complex … the illiterate char-chapori people believe that more children can eradicate their poverty and hence more children is the answer to their poverty. Added to it, religious fanaticism and superstitions are galore—they believe that children are the greatest gifts of Allah and He will also provide food and shelter to them. Human beings have nothing to do—they are just means. Hence they consider birth control exercises as anti-Islamic practices."

"[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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"[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."

"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.""

"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."

"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""

"…[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.’"

"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""

"Men rightly observe that a conjugal act imposed on one's partner without regard to his or her condition or personal and reasonable wishes in the matter, is no true act of love, and therefore offends the moral order in its particular application to the intimate relationship of husband and wife. If they further reflect, they must also recognize that an act of mutual love which impairs the capacity to transmit life which God the Creator, through specific laws, has built into it, frustrates His design which constitutes the norm of marriage, and contradicts the will of the Author of life. Hence to use this divine gift while depriving it, even if only partially, of its meaning and purpose, is equally repugnant to the nature of man and of woman, and is consequently in opposition to the plan of God and His holy will. But to experience the gift of married love while respecting the laws of conception is to acknowledge that one is not the master of the sources of life but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator. Just as man does not have unlimited dominion over his body in general, so also, and with more particular reason, he has no such dominion over his specifically sexual faculties, for these are concerned by their very nature with the generation of life, of which God is the source."

"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."

"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."

"Contraceptives were discriminated from abortifacients in theory. In practice it was difficult to distinguish between abortive and contraceptive effects of some potions, and according to the most authoritative writer, Soranos, this difficulty attended every potion he would recommend. Use off the sterile period, precoital pessaries, postcoital exercise, and gum for the male genitals were all intended to work only contraceptively. All of the latter methods, however, did involve an attack on the sperm; even the sterile period was supposed to be sterile because the menstrual flow would affect the seed. It is also germane to the Christian judgment that almost all the methods used were intended to achieve only temporary sterility. Only a few potions were apparently intended to sterilize permanently. The other potions and all the other means proposed were ways by which pregnancy might be postponed or a given time."

"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."

"Catholic theologians argued that contraception contravened natural law in several ways. First, it separated sex from its natural purpose of procreation. Second, by attempting to prevent the formation of new human life, it challenged God's authority as the Creator. Finally, it treated human life as something to be prevented rather than valued. Contraception introduced a "deadly...cheapening of human life," the Jesuit magazine America charged in 1924. Those who promoted contraception "would destory the [[law of God and the law of nature by interfering with human life at its inception. For they would teach the custodians of human life how to frustrate life before birth. In the views of Catholics, this was only a short step removed from abortion. "Does artificial prevention of life stand on any higher moral ground than the artificial taking of life?" Edward J. Heffron, executive secretary of the National Council of Catholic Men, asked in 1942."

"With the exception of some Protestant fundamentalists, Catholics stood almost alone in their refusal to countenance artificial birth control and sterilization under any circumstances. While a sizeable minority of Catholics (a minority that included 30 percent of married, white Catholic women of childbearing age, according to a 1955 survey) quietly violated official Catholic teaching by using forbidden means of birth control and then abstaining from communion until they received absolution for their "sin" from a priest, the majority of Catholics continued to follow their church's teaching on this issue, and some launched public efforts to oppose the rapid liberalization of public attitudes toward contraception and sterilization. They believed that birth control was equally wrong for both Catholics and non-Catholics, because the use of contraception not only violated nearly two thousand years of Church teaching but was also an offense against natural law which should have been accessible to anyone-whether or not they were Catholic-by reason alone. In their view, abortion, contraception, and sterilization were violations of the same natural law principles, so they were dismayed when Protestants, who for the most part still opposed abortion, nevertheless rejected natural law arguments against contraception and sterilization, thus jettisoning the philosophical principles on which, for Catholics, opposition to abortion rested. Protestants saw the matter differently of course. Though nineteenth-century Protestants had often conflated contraception and abortion, Protestants of the mid-twentieth century separated the two issues, approving of one as a beneficial social good while condemning the other as the taking of a human life that should be performed only in extreme circumstances. But Catholics were convinced that a compromise on contraception would inevitably lead to an acceptance of abortion, and they became increasingly vocal in their defense of the natural law principles that condemned both practices. Indeed, in their successful campaign against a referendum to legalize birth control in Massachusetts in 1948, they claimed that birth control was "like abortion" and against "God's law.""

"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."

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

"In hindsight, it is possible to see the opportunity that Rock missed. If he had known what we know now and had talked about the Pill not as a contraceptive but as a cancer drug—not as a drug to prevent life but as one that would save life—the church might well have said yes. Hadn’t Pius XII already approved the Pill for therapeutic purposes?"

"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."

"We base Our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when. We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary. Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means. Neither is it valid to argue, as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one, or that such intercourse would merge with procreative acts of past and future to form a single entity, and so be qualified by exactly the same moral goodness as these. Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good," it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it —in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general. Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong. On the other hand, the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever."

"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."

"John Rock’s long battle on behalf of his birth-control pill forced the Church to take notice. In the spring of 1963, just after Rock’s book was published, a meeting was held at the Vatican between high officials of the Catholic Church and Donald B. Straus, the chairman of Planned Parenthood. That summit was followed by another, on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. In the summer of 1964, on the eve of the feast of St. John the Baptist, Pope Paul VI announced that he would ask a committee of church officials to reëxamine the Vatican’s position on contraception. The group met first at the Collegio San Jose, in Rome, and it was clear that a majority of the committee were in favor of approving the Pill. Committee reports leaked to the National Catholic Register confirmed that Rock’s case appeared to be winning. Rock was elated. Newsweek put him on its cover, and ran a picture of the Pope inside. “Not since the Copernicans suggested in the sixteenth century that the sun was the center of the planetary system has the Roman Catholic Church found itself on such a perilous collision course with a new body of knowledge,” the article concluded. Paul VI, however, was unmoved. He stalled, delaying a verdict for months, and then years. Some said he fell under the sway of conservative elements with-in the Vatican. In the interim, theologians began exposing the holes in Rock’s arguments. The rhythm method “‘prevents’ conception by abstinence, that is, by the non-performance of the conjugal act during the fertile period,” the Catholic journal America concluded in a 1964 editorial. “The pill prevents conception by suppressing ovulation and by thus abolishing the fertile period. No amount of word juggling can make abstinence from sex and the suppression of ovulation one and the same thing.”"

"The claimants in Hobby Lobby challenged a law requiring employers to provide their employees health insurance that covered contraceptives the claimants deemed “abortifacients.” The law, they argued, forced them to “provid[e] insurance coverage for items that risk killing an embryo [and thereby] makes them complicit in abortion.” The concept of complicity has a richly elaborated theological basis in Catholicism. But evangelical Christians, such as the Greens, who own Hobby Lobby, also assert that their beliefs preclude them from engaging in conduct that would make them complicit in sin. As Justice Alito explained in Hobby Lobby, the claimants believe “it is immoral and sinful for [them] to intentionally participate in, pay for, facilitate, or otherwise support these drugs.”"

"Religious conservatives opposed to practices that separate sex from procreation may object not only to same-sex marriage and abortion, but also to contraception. While Hobby Lobby featured an objection to contraceptives the claimants viewed as “abortifacients,” many religious claimants object to contraception generally. There are Catholics and evangelical Protestants who object to a “contraceptive mentality” that separates sex from procreation. The plaintiffs in Hobby Lobby were supported by amici who opposed contraception and advised the Court that contraception harms women. And in other litigation over the ACA, claimants have expressed objections to coverage of any FDA-approved contraceptives."

"I have described the contraceptive means known to different eras, and what can be inferred as to their diffusion and employment. The data here set forth, gathered from the canon law, the manuals for confessors, the commentaries of theologians and canonists, and medieval medical books and herbals, substantially alter the picture formerly drawn of contraceptive practice. In particular, the period between 400 and 1600 will be seen to be marked by a possession and use of contraceptive means which previous accounts have not suggested. It was in the face of this contraceptive practice that the doctrine upon it was promulgated in western Europe."

"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."

"The judgments made by Christians on contraception in the first four centuries can be understood only if the existence, effect, and use of contraceptive technique in the Roman Empire are appraised. The existence of contraceptive technique in the pre-Christian Mediterranean world is well established. The oldest surviving documents are from Egypt."

"In 1958, Pope Pius XII approved The Pill for Catholics, so long as its contraceptive effects were “indirect”—that is, so long as it was intended only as a remedy for conditions like painful menses or “a disease of the uterus.” That ruling emboldened Rock still further. Short-term use of The Pill, he knew, could regulate the cycle of women whose periods had previously been unpredictable. Since a regular menstrual cycle was necessary for the successful use of the rhythm method—and since the rhythm method was sanctioned by the Church—shouldn’t it be permissible for women with an irregular menstrual cycle to use the Pill in order to facilitate the use of rhythm? And if that was true why not take the logic one step further? As the federal judge John T. Noonan writes in “Contraception,” his history of the Catholic position on birth control: If it was lawful to suppress ovulation to achieve a regularity necessary for successfully sterile intercourse, why was it not lawful to suppress ovulation without appeal to rhythm? If pregnancy could be prevented by pill plus rhythm, why not by pill alone? In each case suppression of ovulation was used as a means. How was a moral difference made by the addition of rhythm? These arguments, as arcane as they may seem, were central to the development of oral contraception. It was John Rock and Gregory Pincus who decided that the Pill ought to be taken over a four-week cycle—a woman would spend three weeks on the Pill and the fourth week off the drug (or on a placebo), to allow for menstruation. There was and is no medical reason for this."

"All methods involve some unnatural element intruding into the course of marital union. What is natural about imprisoning “couples in a casuistry of methods, and forc[ing] them to discover tricks in order to dodge and escape the letter of the official doctrine”? Isn’t it obvious that the distinction between “natural” and “artificial” almost disappears, becoming very imprecise and blurred? “The act that becomes ‘safe’ by means of a computation of days or by mastery of the will is in every instance not natural, unless one plays with words.” Therefore, both practitioners of “natural family planning” and users of contraception are engaged in “planned procedures to avoid pregnancy that require communication between husband and wife.”"