A discussion of the issues surrounding birth control in history.
- Birth Control is Necessary - Irresponsibility is Immoral
- Condom Promotion vs. Harmful Ideology
- The Catholic Church's Eternal and Absolute Truth
1. Birth Control is Necessary - Irresponsibility is Immoral
Few people doubt the severity of the problem that overpopulation presents for this planet. Its consequences are poverty, famine, disease and death, sometimes on very large scales. Birth control and contraception are moral requirements for anyone who considers human suffering, the state of the world, and morbidity rates to be important humane issues. It is inconsistent, for example, to say that contraception or abortion is "murder" whilst ignoring the fact that poverty and overpopulation are far bigger killers. Venereal disease causes unimaginable suffering and can affect the purely innocent. Babies are frequently infected with the diseases of the parents; in this way, the prevention of disease with contraception is vital because once women in a local area are infected with a disease, children will also be infected. In the case of incurable diseases, such as event can lead to insurmountable suffering. Such a terrible state of affairs is prevented by the correct use of contraceptives such as condoms.
Despite the practical necessity of birth control and disease prevention, the moral responsibility we have towards (a) the future of our children and (b) our stewardship of the planet, many religions have opposed birth control for various superstitious reasons. All pioneers of contraception were freethinkers1. The most notable, powerful and active anti-birth-control body is the Roman Catholic Church, which has remained strictly opposed in both theory and practice despite the objections of many of its adherents and priesthood. Thankfully Most Catholics routinely ignore the Church on this issue, giving some hope that when the ridiculously anachronistic and immoral doctrines of the Church interfere with normal moral life, even self-proclaimed Catholic individuals will ignore the Church, and live life responsibly and morally.
“I begin with contraception, because here the influence of superstition is particularly noteworthy. [...] If either of the parents has venereal disease, the child is likely to inherit it. If they already have too many children for the family income, there will be poverty, underfeeding, overcrowding, very likely incest. To please [the anti-contraception religious types] a life of torture is inflicted upon millions of human beings [...] merely because it is supposed that sexual intercourse is wicked unless accompanied by desire for offspring. [...] If they had even the smallest spark of love or pity for children they could not adhere to a moral code involving this fiendish cruelty. [...]
To be killed suddenly and then eaten, which was the fate of the Aztecs' victims, is a far less degree of suffering than is inflicted upon a child born in miserable surroundings and tainted with venereal disease. Yet it is the greater suffering which is deliberately inflicted by bishops and politicians in the name of morality.”
"Why I am not a Christian" by Bertrand Russell (1957)1
Simple contraceptive measures such as condoms can be used to prevent long-term suffering and control population growth, but also endows families with shorter term relief from suffering, and it is for these reasons that Bertand Russell above states that Aztec cannibalism produced less suffering than anti-birth control lobbyists. The availability of methods to control family size is one of the biggest factors in being able to escape poverty.
“In the world as a whole, a stunning 135m people escaped dire poverty between 1999 and 2004. [...] More people, more quickly than at any other time in history. [...] Perhaps the biggest change affecting people's lives has little to do, at least directly, with development policy or public spending. People in poor countries are now able to exert more control over their own fertility, and hence over the size of their families.”The Economist (2008)2
2. Condom Promotion vs. Harmful Ideology
Condoms are scientifically proven to be superior methods of preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and are effective methods of birth control. But, for superstitious reasons, some religions such as the Catholic Church have run long campaigns against their use. Their ideology not only prevents them from using effective anti-disease contraception, but it causes them to also (a) deny its effectiveness (b) emphasize problems with condoms and (c) actively campaign against others' use of it, and even to the extent of sabotaging the distribution of condoms. Catholic agencies in Africa have committed such horrors as instructing all condoms to be stapled (piercing them), and Christian leaders are regularly caught teaching that condoms don't work and recently, that Westerners are distributing HIV-ridden condoms that will give their users AIDS. (HIV is the virus that causes AIDS, but, neither survives outside the body so such stories are misinformed, let alone paranoid).
As Christian superstition hold that God prefers Homo Sapiens to have legal contracts with each other (marriage), conservative Christians often talk about "abstinence-only" education, and in many USA states have conducted battles to stop schools from educating children about safe sex. Instead, they teach, that in order to be responsibleBut, whether or not abstinence-only works can be tested and studied. "Studies have found that abstinence-only sex education programs actually increase the rates of pregnancy and STDs in the teenage population"3. "Kirsten Underhill and her colleagues at the University of Oxford have, over the past few months, been testing it"4. Their studies involved 16000 young people in America and compared Christian abstinence-only education with no (or low key) education.
“Pregnancies were as numerous in both groups. Sexually transmitted diseases were as widespread. The number of sexual partners was equally high and unprotected sex just as common. [...] In contrast to the fears of the protagonists of abstinence-only-education, not one of the trials found that teenagers behaved in a riskier fashion in either the long or the short term after receiving [condom] instruction.”The Economist (2007)4
Abstinence-only education does not work and is as good as nothing; whereas combining it with condom education does indeed reduce reckless sexual behaviour.
In conclusion;
- Condoms excel at preventing sexually transmitted diseases, and, educating people about safe sex and condom use does not lead to increased promiscuity.
- Abstinence-only education does not work.
3. The Catholic Church's Eternal and Absolute Truth
The Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, embody a wide range of opinions and practices on contraception. In the 1920s, most Christian denominations, including both Protestants and Catholics, were against birth control and contraception5. According to a Catholic website, "At its 1930 Lambeth Conference, the Anglican church, swayed by growing social pressure, announced that contraception would be allowed in some circumstances. Soon the Anglican church completely caved in, allowing contraception across the board. Since then, all other Protestant denominations have followed suit"6. In modern times it is the Catholic church that is most famously and strongly against the use of contraceptives, even for the use of disease prevention. But whilst the official doctrine as propounded from the pulpit is strict; condemnations of contraceptive use are widely ignored on the ground. Even in Poland, Europe's most Catholic country, "many are openly defying its rulings on contraceptions and abortion"7. Hindus are free to employ birth control methods as they see fit.
3.1. The Absolute Truth until 1930: All birth control methods are wrong:
The Catholic Church has heavily opposed all forms of birth control for all of known history. The current document is Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae (1968)8, reflecting the opinion of Pope Piux XI in 1930 that the Catholic Church teaches absolute truth as passed down 'uninterruptedly from the beginning'9. Between 1816 and 1916 there were twelve separate condemnations of contraception issued by the Catholic Church's Sacred Penitentiary5. One thing is clear: For much of its history, the Catholic Church has strongly opposed contraception. In particular, it has opposed any method that intentionally prevents childbirth between a married man and woman.
3.2. From 1930: All birth control methods except the safe period method are wrong:
Despite this clear, long-standing and impractical standing, things slightly changed in 1930. The eternal truth passed down and taught by Catholics "from the beginning", slightly changed for the better, and the Casti Connubii allowed, in extreme situations, couples to use the 'safe period' or 'rhythm' method. This inaccurate method hardly works and doesn't stop the spread of disease, but, nonetheless, the position of the Catholic Church changed a little. This change in absolute, eternal doctrine of the infallible Pope (get the sarcasm?) was confirmed twice by Pope John XXIII in 1951.
3.3. Immoral
It is no wonder that Bryan Wilson, in his discussion of how Christian Churches have followed society, but lagged behind (therefore undermining their own claims of doctrinal moral truth), uses the history of birth control as his main example of the changes in society that have led to changes in Church doctrine10.
All of this so far would be merely an academic curiosity, another example of zany religious clerics making odd declarations based on ever odder historical precedents. But The Catholic Church is also a heavy activist, and has caused uncountable numbers of poor people in South America and Africa to become infected with HIV and other STDs, contributed to the dangerous population explosion, and undermined charity organisations that support birth control, such as when the Birmingham Catholic Church boycotted Comic Relief because money raised might go to a family planning clinic that gave access to contraceptions to street children11. The Catholic Church causes very real suffering amongst very poor people as a result of its impractical policies.
Kenya provides an example where the Catholic Church has ran a long-term campaign against condoms, despite very high rates of HIV. Dr Muga, Kenya, said that the government has reduced infection rate from 14% to 10% as a result of sex education and condom contraception, but still, the Catholic Church campaigns against sex education that teaches the value of contraception, and against the use of condoms. Bishop Korir said that only the guilty were afraid and resorted to condoms, and that he wanted "no condom talk"12. In countries where the authorities are weak, science is ill-established and there are mass social problems, it would help a lot if the Catholic Church, with its powerful social networks, joined in with the efforts to stop the decay of society due to disease and overpopulation (two things that go hand-in-hand). But governments in Africa and South America, not to mention the USA and European countries such as Poland, have to fight against the church on such simple measures as birth control and condom use, and this battle often politicizes the operations of charities and welfare groups.
3.4. Catholic Church opposing condoms in Africa, despite HIV threats
The Catholic Church is still strongly opposing the use of condoms in Africa. In Kenya, local Bishops have instead recommended that abstinence, "counseling" and "ethics" are used to prevent the spread of HIV, instead of condoms.
National Secular Society (2003)13
It is ridiculous that "moral" figures such as priests should, in the Catholic Church in the UK, think that being gay means you (for some superstitious reason) cannot be a priest. The Catholic Church, now riddled with paedophilia claims, more than 400 cases, really does need to change. Anyone reading this who is a Catholic should consider breaking contact with their church, and any priest should consider openly declaring dissatisfaction with the Vatican's anti-human and anti-equality policies.
Mother Theresa, one of the other "good guys" who has rabidly opposed condoms, spent millions flying to and fro in Europe and the USA on political campaigns against contraceptives. The Catholic Church, with all its money, could turn itself into a force for good and squarely put the dark ages behind itself, but, riddled with superstition and religious inhibitions, it is still a dangerous and dysfunctional failure, crippled by delusions about the real world.