Christian views on birth control

"Pressures culminated at the 1930 Lambeth Conference, where bish-ops heard an address by birth-control advocate Helena Wrighton on the advantages of contracep-tion for the poor. On a vote of 193 to 67, the bishops (representing not only Eng-land but also America, Canada, and the other former colonies) approved a resolution stating that: In those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete absti-nence, other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles. This was the first official statement by a major church body in favor of contra-ception. Thus was Christian unity on the question broken. The decision was condemned by many religious and secular bodies, including the editors of the Washington Post. Pope Pius XI responded to it in his encyclical Casti Connubii four months later. The same stress line emerged in America. For example, in the very conservative Lutheran Church/Missouri Synod, the average pastor in 1890 had 6.5 children. The number fell to 3.7 children in 1920, 42 percent below the 1890 number. Other churches saw a similar decline. Here, too, the Protestant clergy had ceased to be models of a fruitful home for their congregations and the broader culture. During the 1930s, the Missouri Synod quietly dropped its campaign against the Birth Control League of America. In the 1940s, one of the church’s leading theologians, Albert Rehwinkel, concluded that Luther had simply been wrong. God’s words in Genesis 1:28—“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”—were not a command; they were merely a blessing, and an optional one at that."

"In 1931, the Committee on Home and Marriage of the old Federal Council of Churches issued a statement defending family limitation and arguing for the repeal of laws prohibiting contraceptive education and sales. Some member churches—notably the Southern Methodists and the Northern Baptists—protested the action, and the Southern Presbyterians even withdrew their membership from the Federal Council for a decade, but they were the minority and even their protests did not last. In only three decades, the Lambeth Conference’s qualified approval would turn into full celebration. At the astonishing and deeply disturbing‘’ 1961 North American Conference on Church and Family’’, sponsored by the National Council of Churches (successor to the Federal Council), population-control advocate Lester Kirkendall argued that America had “entered a sexual economy of abundance” where contraception would allow unrestrained sexual experimentation."

"Rejecting both lifelong celibacy and contraception, classic Protestant theology required family-centered and child-rich pastors. When those clerical leaders, in the privacy of their bedrooms, broke faith with their tradition, when pastors and their wives consciously limited their families, the Protestant opposition to contraception faced a crisis. Typical of a less radical development was the 1981 decision of the Missouri Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations, which argued that although “Be fruitful” is “both a command and a mandate,” “in the absence of Scriptural prohibition” contraception was acceptable “within a marital union which is, as a whole, fruitful.” And if contraception is acceptable, “we will also recognize that sterilization may under some circumstances be an acceptable form of contraception.”"

"The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) itself had in 1971 urged its members to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother. However, reflecting the movement of Evangelicalism as a whole (though not mainline Protestantism), in 2003, the SBC declared that this and the 1974 resolution “accepted unbiblical premises of the abortion rights movement, forfeiting the opportunity to advocate the protection of defenseless women and children” and that “we lament and renounce statements and actions by previous Conventions and previous denominational leadership that offered support to the abortion culture.”"

"Among the most important of man's faculties is the sexual power. Its chief purpose is the generation of new life. This purpose pertains to the social order; it concerns the common good rather than the individual good. 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. The full import of this objective is perceived only by those who admit the eternal destiny of mankind. 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. However, when husband and wife deliberately and positively frustrate the procreative purpose of sexual intercourse, they pervert the order of nature and thus directly oppose the designs of nature's Creator. And since the reproductive function is so vital to the upkeep of the race, and since any exception to this law would be multiplied indefinitely, every act of contraceptive frustration is a gravely immoral act, or, in Catholic terminology, a mortal sin."

"It does not follow from Catholic principles that conjugal inter-course is forbidden whenever conception is naturally impossible, as when a woman is already pregnant or advanced in years. Nature itself includes such conditions in its plan, and so in these circumstances a married pair do nothing against nature, nothing immoral, if they make use of their marital rights, provided they have the power of complete coition. They are not positively frustrating the chief purpose of the sexual act, they are not opposing the designs of nature and of nature's Author. It is important to note that the argument which is being urged against contraception is not based on any such principle as 'It is always sinful to oppose or to check any force of nature.' The misunderstanding of this point has occasioned innumerable objections of the species known as reductio ad absurdum against the Church's denunciation of contraceptive practices. For example: 'The Catholic teaching on birth control would lead to the conclusion that a person commits a sinful act whenever he cuts his hair or trims his nails, since in performing these actions one frustrates nature.' The flaw in this manner of reasoning is the failure to distinguish between the restricting of a natural power and the preventing of the purpose of a natural power. The former by no means necessarily includes the latter. It is within the designs of nature itself that there should be opposition and conflict among the multitudinous forces and agents that operate in the universe, that one creature should restrain and control the tendencies and activities of another and utilize them to its own advantage. The animal violently interrupts the vital functioning of the plant by using it as food, and man does the same to the animal; but there is no frustration of any divinely ordained purpose in this process. On the contrary, there is the fulfillment of the Creator's design that the lower in the scale of perfection should contribute to the sustenance of the higher. Similarly -- to answer the specific objection -- when a person cuts his hair or trims his nails he does indeed curtail the growth of these bodily appendages, but their chief purpose, the utility of the individual himself, is promoted rather than frustrated. Certainly nature does not call for an unchecked augmentation of hair and nails; they must be clipped if they would be beneficial to the whole person, to whom they are subservient as the lesser good to the greater. But it is an utterly different case with contraception, which prevents the very primary purpose of sexual activity and inverts the due order of things by making the social benefit of conjugal intercourse subservient to the benefit of the individuals concerned. This can be illustrated by a development of the parallelism which exists between the faculty of nutrition and that of sex. The primary purpose of the former is to preserve the life of the individual; the primary purpose of the latter is to preserve the life of the human race. To attract human beings to the due use of these faculties, the Creator has annexed to the functioning of each a feeling of pleasure. Sexual gratification is particularly vehement, and in this is manifest the sagacity of divine providence, inducing men and women to undertake the arduous duties of parenthood for the benefit of the human race. But, to continue the analogy, it is possible for a person to enjoy the pleasure accompanying the use of either of these faculties, and at the same time to distort his action in such wise that its chief purpose is rendered unattainable. This is what takes place relative to the sexual faculty when contraception is employed. And the analogous case in the use of the nutritive faculty is the revolting practice of some ancient Roman gourmands, who ate to satiety and then induced regurgitation. In each case the sensual gratification intended by the Creator as an incentive to the use of the respective faculty is sought and enjoyed, while the divinely established main purpose is deliberately and positively obstructed. Is it not strange that many persons who shudder at the very thought of the disgusting custom of the ancient voluptuaries do not hesitate to defend and to practise the equally perverse operation of contraception?"

"If the human race is in existence ten thousand years hence, no matter what changes may have taken place in the social and economic and scientific spheres, the Catholic Church will still be preaching the same doctrine on birth control that it is teaching today."

"[T]he public media tend to identify opposition to unnatural forms of birth regulation with Catholicism. However, as will become clear, Catholic teaching on this matter was formerly held by all Protestant Churches, and some of them still retain it. Secondly, because of the controversy over birth control, the Catholic Church has issued a number of statements to which there is easy access and reference."

"On the surface, Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists might seem unlikely bedfellows in opposing mandated coverage of contraceptives under Obamacare, but observers say it points to ongoing reconsideration of the morality of birth control among the Southern Baptist Convention’s leading thinkers. “Evangelical leaders are tripping over themselves in the rush to stand with Roman Catholic bishops against this perceived governmental overreach,” Jacob Lupfer, a doctoral candidate in political science at Georgetown University, said in a Religion News Service commentary in December. “At the same time, a growing number of white evangelical leaders are attempting to sow seeds of doubt about the morality of birth control itself.” Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., responded that on that point, Lupfer “understates his own case.” “A good many evangelicals hope to do far more than sow seeds of doubt about the morality of birth control,” Mohler replied. “Our concern is to raise an alarm about the entire edifice of modern sexual morality and to acknowledge that millions of evangelicals have unwittingly aided and abetted that moral revolution by an unreflective and unfaithful embrace of the contraceptive revolution.” In a 2012 column for the Christian Post, Mohler said most evangelical Protestants welcomed the development of artificial birth control as a medical advance just as they celebrated the discovery of penicillin. A shift occurred in the 1980s, with the rise of the Religious Right and opposition to abortion on demand."

"The commission on Research and Social Action has authorized official use of a statement which reads in part: “4. To enable them the more thankfully to receive God’s blessing and reward, a married couple may so plan and govern their sexual relations that any child born to their union will be desired both for itself and in relation to the time of its birth. “5. In God’s providence, and as a result of the power He gave men to subdue the earth and have dominion over it (Gen. 1:28), man has developed various means by which a married couple may control the number and the spacing of the births of their children. The means which the married pair uses to determine the number and the spacing of the births of their children are a matter for them to decide with their own consciences, on the basis of competent medical advice, and in a sense of accountability to God. “6. So long as it causes no harm to those involved, either immediately or over an extended period, none of the methods for controlling the number and spacing of the births of children has any special moral merit or demerit. It is the spirit in which the means is used, rather than whether it is ‘natural’ or ‘artificial’, which defines its ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’. ‘What ever you do, do all to the glory of God’ (1 Cor 10:31) is a principle pertinent to the use of the God-given reproductive power."

"We assure you that we remain close to you, above all in these recent days when you have taken the good step of publishing the encyclical Humanae Vitae. We are in total agreement with you, and wish you all God's help to continue your mission in the world."

"Intercourse even with one's legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the conception of the off-spring is prevented. Onan, the son of Judah, did this and the Lord killed him for it."

"You [Manicheans] make your auditors adulterers of their wives when they take care lest the women with whom they copulate conceive. They take wives according to the laws of matrimony by tablets announcing that the marriage is contracted to procreate children; and then, fearing because of your [religious] law [against childbearing] . . . they copulate in a shameful union only to satisfy lust for their wives. They are unwilling to have children, on whose account alone marriages are made. How is it, then, that you are not those prohibiting marriage, as the apostle predicted of you so long ago [1 Tim. 4:1-4], when you try to take from marriage what marriage is? When this is taken away, husbands are shameful lovers, wives are harlots, bridal chambers are brothels, fathers-in-law are pimps."

"For thus the eternal law, that is, the will of God creator of all creatures, taking counsel for the conservation of natural order, not to serve lust, but to see to the preservation of the race, permits the delight of mortal flesh to be released from the control of reason in copulation only to propagate progeny."

"For necessary sexual intercourse for begetting [children] is alone worthy of marriage. But that which goes beyond this necessity no longer follows reason but lust. And yet it pertains to the character of marriage . . . to yield it to the partner lest by fornication the other sin damnably [through adultery].... [T]hey [must] not turn away from them the mercy of God . . . by changing the natural use into that which is against nature, which is more damnable when it is done in the case of husband or wife. For, whereas that natural use, when it pass beyond the compact of marriage, that is, beyond the necessity of begetting [children], is pardonable in the case of a wife, damnable in the case of a harlot; that which is against nature is execrable when done in the case of a harlot, but more execrable in the case of a wife. Of so great power is the ordinance of the Creator, and the order of creation, that . . . when the man shall wish to use a body part of the wife not allowed for this purpose [orally or anally consummated sex], the wife is more shameful, if she suffer it to take place in her own case, than if in the case of another woman."

"This proves that you [Manicheans] approve of having a wife, not for the procreation of children, but for the gratification of passion. In marriage, as the marriage law declares, the man and woman come together for the procreation of children. Therefore, whoever makes the procreation of children a greater sin than copulation, forbids marriage and makes the woman not a wife but a mistress, who for some gifts presented to her is joined to the man to gratify his passion."

"I am supposing, then, although you are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility [oral contraceptives] . . . Assuredly if both husband and wife are like this, they are not married, and if they were like this from the beginning they come together not joined in matrimony but in seduction. If both are not like this, I dare to say that either the wife is in a fashion the harlot of her husband or he is an adulterer with his own wife."

"Moreover, he [Moses] has rightly detested the weasel [Lev. 11 :29]. For he means, 'Thou shalt not be like to those whom we hear of as committing wickedness with the mouth with the body through uncleanness [orally consummated sex]; nor shalt thou be joined to those impure women who commit iniquity with the mouth with the body through uncleanness"'"

"Adding to their passionate opposition to the rule that employees of religiously affiliated institutions must receive insurance coverage for birth control, Roman Catholic bishops and some evangelical groups have asserted that it also requires coverage of some forms of abortion. They contend that methods of contraception including morning-after pills and IUDs can be considered “abortifacients” because, these advocates say, they can act to prevent pregnancy after a man’s sperm has fertilized a woman’s egg. “We object to the use of drugs and procedures used to take the lives of unborn children,” the Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison, president of the Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod, said Thursday at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Their reasoning is that life begins the moment an egg is fertilized, and that if a contraceptive has the potential to prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, it is aborting a life. “They can and do prevent implantation or can cause ejection even after implantation,” said Richard Land, the head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, referring to morning-after pills and citing medical advisers to his group. “IUDs emphatically do allow conception and do not allow implantation,” he added. Several scientists and doctors said in interviews that this view did not reflect the way the birth control methods actually work. “There’s so much evidence for how these things work prior to fertilization,” said Diana L. Blithe, director of contraceptive development for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. “And there’s no evidence that they work beyond fertilization.”"

"Christian ideas about contraception come from church teachings rather than scripture, as the Bible has little to say about the subject. As a result, their teachings on birth control are often based on different Christian interpretations of the meaning of marriage, sex and the family. Christian acceptance of contraception is relatively new; all churches disapproved of artificial contraception until the start of the 20th century. In modern times different Christian churches hold different views about the rightness and wrongness of using birth control."

"For most of the last 2000 years all Christian churches have been against artificial birth control. In the first centuries of Christianity, contraception (and abortion) were regarded as wrong because they were associated with paganism or with heretics such as the Gnostics, the Manichees and, in the middle ages, the Cathars. Protestant attitudes to birth control began to change in the 19th century as theologians became more willing to accept that morality should come from the conscience of each individual rather than from outside teachings."

"[A]s late as 1908 the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Church stated that birth control "cannot be spoken of without repugnance," and denounced it as "demoralising to character and hostile to national welfare." But the Anglicans were the first church to issue a statement in favour of contraception, which they did at the Lambeth Conference in 1930 by a majority of 193 to 67. A group of American Protestants followed in 1931."

"Pope John Paul II has been fighting passionately against contraception and abortion since he was elected 25 years ago this week. A campaign to uphold an ideal of love, motherhood and the value of life, yet his opponents say these same teachings have cause distress and suffering. In countries where Catholic belief counts, the Vatican's teaching can still be a matter of life and death."

"The Church’s teaching on contraception can only be rightly understood in the context of its wider teaching on the nature and goods of marriage. But the norm itself against contraceptive acts, taught and defended since the early Church, binds universally — in the language of moral theology, ‘’semper et pro semper’’, without exception. It singles out a particular type of freely chosen behavior, namely, deliberate acts intended to render sexual intercourse infertile. Sexual intercourse, the tradition holds, is legitimate and good (and, for Christians, grace-imparting) when and only when it is marital. Marriage is a one-flesh communion of persons with two defining goods: the unity and perfection of the spouses and the procreation and education of children. Intercourse that is marital will always respect the full one-flesh significance of the marital relationship by retaining a unitive and procreative character."

"[W]henever a man or woman, married or unmarried, engaging in sexual intercourse, believe they will or might bring into existence a new human life, and consequently adopt any action — before, during, or after intercourse — specifically intended as an end or means to prevent procreation, they violate the procreative significance of sexual intercourse. They contracept. And contraceptive acts in Catholic tradition have always been judged to be intrinsically evil. (The method adopted to render sex sterile is incidental to the application of the norm.) If contraceptive acts were wrong for married persons, but legitimate for unmarried persons, they would not be wrong per se, would not be intrinsically evil, but circumstantially evil. Although some Catholics hold this, the view seems clearly to be inconsistent with both the Church’s theological and doctrinal traditions."

"[W]hen John Paul II teaches in Familiaris Consortio (FC) that the “language” of contraceptive acts between married persons objectively contradicts the language of marital self-giving, he intends to single out the objective harm that these acts do within marriage and to spouses. But since he taught later in Veritatis Splendor that contraceptive acts are intrinsically evil, semper et pro semper, we know he did not intend his teaching in FC to specifically settle the wider question of whether contraceptive acts are legitimate for non-married persons. If however doubt still lingers as to the scope of the authoritative Catholic teaching on contraception, an appeal to older formulations should dispel it. A penitential manual in the 10th century written by the Benedictine monk, Regino of Prüm, includes all persons, married and unmarried, within the scope of the negative norm: “If anyone (si aliquis) for the sake of satisfying sexual desire or in deliberate hatred does something to a man or to a woman so that no children may be born of him or her, or gives something to drink so that he cannot generate or she conceive, let it be held as homicide” [1]. This text was incorporated into canon law in the 13th century in the form of the decretal ‘’Si aliquis’’. The collection of moral norms in which this is found remained part of Western Catholic canon law up to the twentieth century (nearly 700 years!)."

"When Thomas Aquinas formulates his argument against contraceptive-type acts, he singles out every deliberate attempt to render a male ejaculatory act (“emission of semen”) incapable of generating. In fact, his discussion of contraceptive acts is in the context of a discussion of why intercourse be-tween non-married persons is wrong [2]. For Aquinas, this type of act is contra naturam (against nature). Aquinas’ contra naturam argument against contraceptive acts dominates Catholic theological literature on the question up until the middle of the 20th century. Since texts of canon law going back 700 years, papal encyclicals in the 20th century and the most influential theological arguments in Catholic history formulate the norm against contraceptive-type acts as universal, applied to every act by every person intended to render sexual acts sterile, the view that the Church’s condemnation only applies within marriage — and therefore does not apply to (i.e., the acts can be legitimate and even obligatory for) fornicators, adulterers and prostitutes — ought to be set aside as inconstant with Catholic traditional teaching."

"Who is he who cannot warn that no woman may take a potion [an oral contraceptive or an abortifacient] so that she is unable to conceive or condemns in herself the nature which God willed to be fecund? As often as she could have con-ceived or given birth, of that many homicides she will be held guilty, and, unless she undergoes suitable penance, she will be damned by eternal death in hell. If a woman does not wish to have children, let her enter into a religious agreement with her husband; for chastity is the sole sterility of a Christian woman."

"Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted."

"To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature."

"[W]hen the area of public controversy widens and the problems raised become more acute because of new chemical and biological discoveries, it will be useful to outline the history of the Christian Churches’ teachings on contraception. For centuries the Christian doctrine regarding deliberate family limitation was clear-cut and unambiguous. The primary (some Fathers of the Church claimed the ‘’only’’) aim of sexual intercourse in marriage was the procreation of children. Secondary aims such as mutual help between husband and wife or the alleviation of concupiscence were much less important in the marriage relationship. Any artificial interference with the natural processes of coitus and conception was contrary to the laws of god, and must be condemned as gravely sinful. St. Augustine of Hippo wrote: “Sexual intercourse even with a lawful wife is unlawful and shameful, if the offspring of children is prevented. This is what Onan, the son of Juda, did, and on that account God put him to death”. For priests of laymen to query these eternal and immutable laws as laid down by St. Augustine in the fourth, and elaborated by St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century, was not merely presumptuous but possibly heretical. Even the coming of the Reformation and all it represented in the way of challenge to the dogmas of the medieval Catholic Church had no apparent influence on Christian doctrine concerning birth control. Protestant divines were as much in agreement on this point as they were in disagreement about others."

"Of recent years many have entertained doubts about the validity of arguments proposed to forbid any positive intervention which would prevent the transmission of human life. As a result there have arisen opinions and practices contrary to traditional moral theology. Because of this many had been expecting official confirmation of their views. This helps to explain the negative reaction the encyclical received in many quarters. Many Catholics face a grave problem of conscience."

"Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil: 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. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality."

"Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law."

"POPE PAUL VI DECLARED THE USE OF MODERN CONTRACEPTIVE METHODS DOCTRINALLY IMPERMISSIBLE WITH THE 1968 ENCYCLICAL HUMANA EVITAE. HOWEVER, THE ISSUE IS FAR FROM RESOLVED—CHURCH OFFICIALS, NOTED THEOLOGIANS AND CATHOLIC LAY PEOPLE DISSENT FROM THE TEACHING IN WORD AND IN DEED.CATHOLICS USE CONTRACEPTION, CATHOLIC LEGISLATORS SUPPORT FAMILY PLANNING AND 72% OF CATHOLICS BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN BEA GOOD CATHOLIC WITHOUT OBEYING THE CHURCH HIERARCHY’S TEACHING ON BIRTH CONTROL (NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER POLL, 1999)."

"A murder before birth."

"[I]n truth, all men know that they who are under the power of this disease [the sin of covetousness] are wearied even of their father's old age [wishing him to die so they can inherit]; and that which is sweet, and universally desirable, the having of children, they esteem grievous and unwelcome. Many at least with this view have even paid money to be childless, and have mutilated nature, not only killing the newborn, but even acting to prevent their beginning to live sterilization""

"[T]he man who has mutilated sterilized himself, in fact, is subject even to a curse, as Paul says, 'I would that they who trouble you would cut the whole thing off' [Gal. 5 :12]. And very reasonably, for such a person is venturing on the deeds of murderers, and giving occasion to them that slander God's creation, and opens the mouths of the Manicheans, and is guilty of the same unlawful acts as they that mutilate themselves among the Greeks. For to cut off our members has been from the beginning a work of demonical agency, and satanic device, that they may bring up a bad report upon the works of God, that they may mar this living creature, that imputing all not to the choice, but to the nature of our members, the more part of them may sin in security as being irresponsible, and doubly harm this living creature, both by mutilating the members and be impeding the forwardness of the free choice in behalf of good deeds."

"Observe how bitterly he [Paul] speaks against their deceivers . . . 'I would that they which trouble you would cut the whole thing off' [Gal. 5:12] .... On this account he curses them, and his meaning is as follows: 'For them I have no concern, "A man that is heretical after the first and second admonition." If they will, let them not only be circumcised but mutilated' [Titus 3:10]. Where then are those who dare to mutilate sterilize themselves, seeing that they drawn down the apostolic curse, and accuse the workmanship of God, and take part with the Manichees?"

"Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit, where there are medicines of sterility [oral contraceptives], where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well.... Indeed, it is something worse than murder, and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gift of God and fight with his [natural] laws? . . . Yet such turpitude . . . the matter still seems indifferent to many men—even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks."

"Men who are avaricious and desirous to avoid children as a burden "mutilate nature, not only killing the newborn, but even acting to prevent their beginning to live."

"The Church of England does not regard contraception as a sin or a contravention of God's purpose. It is interesting to see how the thinking of the Church on this subject developed through the 20th century. In 1908 the Bishops of the Anglican Communion meeting at the Lambeth Conference declared that:- 'the Conference records with alarm the growing practice of the artificial restriction of the family and earnestly calls upon all Christian people to discountenance the use of all artificial means of restriction as demoralising to character and hostile to national welfare.' Some of the Church oppo-sition at this time reflected a national concern about falling birth rates. By the 1920s, certain sections of the Church were beginning to develop a richer understanding of sexuality. Sexual love can be seen as good not just because it enabled the human race to reproduce itself. Sexual love was good in itself, and it provided an essential way for a husband and wife to express and strengthen their love for each other. In the Garden of Eden God had said, 'It is not good that the man (Adam) should be alone' (Genesis 2:18). It was also argued that people were limiting their families in order to give children a better chance of success. The debate makes fascinating reading and went on through the 1920s until the Lambeth Conference (meeting of all Bishops of the Anglican Communion - the Anglican Church worldwide - which takes place every ten years) of 1930. The 1930 resolution was greeted with mixed reactions and reads as follows: 'Where there is a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, complete abstinence is the primary and obvious method.' but if there was morally sound reasoning for avoiding abstinence 'the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of Christian principles.' By the 1958 Lambeth Conference, contraception was a way of life among most Anglicans, and a resolution was passed to the effect that the responsibility for deciding upon the number and frequency of children was laid by God upon the consciences of parents 'in such ways as are acceptable to husband and wife'. In 1968, the Lambeth Conference considered the Papal Encyclical Humanae Vitae and while recording their appreciation of the Pope's deep concern for the institution of marriage and family life, the Bishops disagreed with his idea that methods of contraception other than abstinence and the rhythm method are contrary to the will of God."

"The fact that man in his freedom stands above nature and is therefore at liberty to interpret sex in terms of personality and relation and to use it for personal and relational ends, leads to the conclusion that contraception is morally right in certain circumstances."

"I have always felt that it was only after the child was born and had life separate from its mother that it became an individual person."

"Ninety percent of [the theologians on the papal birth control commission] concluded that birth control was not intrinsically evil and that the teaching against contraception could be changed."

"The Hebrew Scriptures contain no law condemning contraception, but the emphasis on Israel as god’s people, the descendants of Arbaham and Sarah, emphasized the need for procreation and fertility. Thus Israel was generally negative toward contraception. Onan merited God’s punishment by spilling his seed and by failing to provide his brother’s widow with offspring (Gn 3810). Onan’s wrongdoing did not involve contraception as such but the refusal of family responsibilities, although some later Jewish writing used Onan’s punishment to vindicate the wrongness of coitus interruptus. The later Jewish authorities recognized some limit on procreation and in certain cases even approved a woman’s using root potions as a contraceptive. The Christian approach to contraception developed in this milieu and also in the context in which contraception was associated with prostitution and extramarital sexuality, which Christians strongly opposed. In addition, the potions used for contraception could not clearly be differentiated from [w:Abortifacient|[abortifacients]]. The Christian condemnation of contraception followed from its understanding of human sexuality. Clement of Alexandria (d. 215?) and following him the Christian tradition, adopted the Stoic rule that marriage and sexuality exist for the purpose of procreation-proposed as a middle position between the Gnostic right, opposing all use of sex in imitation of Jesus, and the Gnostic left, celebrating the freedom to use sexuality in any manner. The influential St. Augustine of Hippo (d. 430), in opposition to his earlier acceptance of Manicheanism that excluded procreation but accepted sexual intercourse and contraception, strongly asserted the procreative rule condemning contraception. Augustine’s negative view of sexuality (common to many in the early church and perhaps even stronger in others such as Jerome) strengthened his support of the Stoic procreative rule. According to Augustine, sexual intercourse transmits original sin since concupiscence as the disordered inclination to sexual pleasure always accompanies sexual relations. Medieval theologians (e.g., Thomas Aquinas) and their successors maintained that procreation did not constitute the exclusive lawful purpose for marital sexuality. The church, for example, accepted the marital sexuality of the sterile and those no longer able to procreate. The procreation of offspring also included the well-being and education of the children. However, the condemnation of contraception remained, with emphasis on its violation of the order of nature calling for the depositing of male seed in the vagina of the female. This rationale based on nature also served as the basis for the condemnation of sodomy, oral and anal intercourse, and masturbation. The split between Eastern and Western Christianity in the eleventh century and the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century did not change the universal Christian condemnation of contraception within marriage. This teaching continued well into the twentieth century."

"As a destroyer of life, Satan is definitely not into encouraging childbearing. Every child that is born has the potential to thwart his purposes by receiving God’s grace and becoming a subject of the kingdom of God. So anything that hinders or discourages women from fulfilling their God-given calling to be bearers and nurturers of life furthers Satan’s efforts."

"For some evangelicals, furthermore, birth control is synonymous not just with the sexual revolution but with feminism more generally. In 2001’s Lies Women Believe, a popular evangelical book by Christian radio host Nancy Leigh DeMoss, treats contraception as indicative of a much more insidious feminist mindset, coding it as a diabolical celebration of female selfishness that leads "to the legitimization and promotion of such practices as contraception, sterilization, and family planning. As a result, unwittingly, millions of Christian women and couples have helped further Satan’s attempts to limit human reproduction and thereby destroy life.”"

"Pope Benedict XVI has said that condom use can be justified in some cases to help stop the spread of AIDS, the Vatican’s first exception to a long-held policy banning contraceptives. The pope made the statement in interviews on a host of contentious issues with a German journalist, part of an unusual effort to address some of the harshest criticisms of his turbulent papacy. The pope’s statement on condoms was extremely lim-ited: he did not approve their use or suggest that the Roman Catholic Church was beginning to back away from its prohibition of birth control. In fact, the one example he cited as a possibly appropriate use was by male prostitutes. Still, the statement was something of a milestone for the church and a significant change for Benedict, who faced intense criticism last year when, en route to AIDS-plagued Africa, he said condom use did not help prevent the spread of AIDS, only abstinence and fidelity did."

"Contraception is not intrinsically evil."