By strictly labelling birth control as immoral after the oral contraceptive was released, the Vatican triggered shock and disapproval among the population and some religious officials, which eventually led to loss of power and disloyal believers. Interestingly, Allyn (2001) explains that The Old Testament of the bible does not at all mention contraception, even in the sections about sexuality, and therefore, nowhere is it officially stated that birth control is immoral (p. 31). Contraception is also not included in The New Testament, hinting that Christians developed the idea that birth control is immoral from an outside source. The church’s position on birth control was first established when St. Augustine restricted “sex to procreation” and then reinforced contraception as unacceptable to avoid his own lustful desires (Allyn, 2001, p. 31). Therefore, Catholic believers seek to obey their God by avoiding contraception; however, what they do not know is that they are obeying a rule enforced by a man who could not control his own sexuality. The Church argued that their opposition to birth control pill was still valid in the 1960’s because “the chance of becoming pregnant has always kept a girl on the right path,” and since the pill erased this fear, young girls will become promiscuous and therefore make immoral decisions (Asbell, 1995, p. 173). The pope also argued that the pill is merely a new form of abortion, which is also strictly forbidden among Christians, even though most believed that the pill was not a form of abortion, but would definitely reduce abortion rates since unwanted pregnancy would become less frequent (Cafe, 2011, para. 9; Asbell, 1995, p. 202). Although other religions were critical about contraception, especi...
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...ot murder an unborn child whatsoever. Many women merely decided to take birth control despite their religious beliefs, and many lied to acquire the medication (Asbell, 1995, pp. 171-172). Single women who could not readily obtain contraception often faked menstrual disorders that required treatment by the pill, threatening the taboo of premarital sex among Catholicism as well. Statistics demonstrate that about 53% of Catholic couples were practicing contraception on a regular basis whether it was considered immoral or not. Additionally, Benagiano, Bastianelli, and Farris (2007) explain that “Catholic countries are among those with the lowest birth rate” (p. 8). Thus, there was a sharp decrease in Catholic devotion after the church reinforced rules created from petty superstition and attempted to control their believers (Allyn, 2001, p. 111; Asbell, 1995, p. 297).
Sanger continues backing her statement with the examples in education, labor, and that the church had caused women to be looked down upon. Sanger spoke on principles of Birth Control, they include: “it should be available to every adult, that every user should be taught how to use it correctly, that women should have the right to control their bodies and whether to have children.” (Jenson, 166). If Wardell would have included some specifics from Sanger’s speeches, the argument would have been made
There are many different beliefs floating around Christian as well as secular circles as to what it means to be “pro-life”. Some claim that this view equates all forms of contraception to abortion while others claim that to be “pro-life” one must only be against abortion. In his book The Pro-Life/Choice Debate, Mark Herring summarizes the Humanae Vitae, a document released by Pope Paul VI in the late 1960s, saying “it warns against using contraceptives and engaging in sexual relations for their own sake…” The stance that will be taken in this paper will be that to be “pro-life” is to be against abortion and not contraception. Equating all forms of contraception to that of abortion is an ill-founded and uneducated claim that does more to hurt the perception and potential power of the pro-life movement than it does to help it. It allows the discussion to veer far off the path, as can be seen in Christina Page’s book How the Pro-Choice Movemen...
Subsequently, the provided documents on the birth control movement did show the push and pull factors of the complicated and multifaceted debate. Americas push towards industrial growth, and technology demanded that the subsequent progressive reforms were needed for a society ushering in a new era. At the same time, fear and reluctance to abandon tradition and religious custom acted as the pulling factor. The birth control debate was a complicated and heavily charged debate teemed in religious, social, political, and racial rhetoric. Historical documents help shed new light on the things taken for granted today, even the most seemingly innocuous things like birth control were fought for, so that men and women today could be in charge of their own destinies.
Margaret Sanger’s first order of business in her attempt to claim women’s rights to sexual freedom was to alter the church’s thoughts and ideals regarding the use of contraception. In 1916, when she began her revolutionary crusade, contraception was not only condemned by the Catholic Church, but by many sects of Christianity. After much effort, the year 1930 brought success to Margaret Sanger and her cohorts. It was at this point that the Church of England accepted the use of contraception in certain circumstances, and only between married couples (Contraception History). This victory by Sanger and her organization, Planned Parenthood, was followed by a wave of acceptance among many denominations for contraceptive use among married couples, and then among single adults. The aftermath of Sanger’s efforts influenced much of the world to changing i...
When legally introduced to society in 1960, the Pill stirred up a long period of controversy. The availability of the Pill had great impact on women’s health, social life, laws, religion, family, relationships, morality and sexuality. Initially conceived to be highly effective and safe, the Pill left many women with side effects – few which led to several fatalities. Before the Pill was created, many women postponed sex due to the social norm and fear of becoming pregnant before marriage. Families grew large and it was typical for a woman to have multiple children caused by the lack of birth control. Due to regulations, such as the Comstock laws, many people supported the prohibition of the Pill and other family planning practices. However, many women believed in the right to control their own body when it came to procreation. Despite the controversies, the Pill left lasting impacts, such as by opening society to the sexual revolution and...
Since the sixteenth century, one of the most important roles of mothers, or women in general, was to have children. Although most women accepted this role and believed it was their duty to have children, not every woman was pleased with this seemingly confining role. Within the confines of this role there were also many misconceptions. At the time, most people believed that although male involvement was necessary for the conception of children, women controlled many aspects of the child, including the sex of the child. While it was a common belief that women controlled certain aspects of pregnancy, women really had no control over when and if they got pregnant. Prior to the eighteenth century there was really no indication of widespread use of birth control methods. Without reliable birth control, women would often become a mother within their first year of marriage and continue to have children every couple of years until menopause. Although women during this time period experienced high birth rates, they often did not end up raising nearly as many children as they gave birth to, since the infant mortality rate and death rate were very high. With such a high death rate, birth control was not as necessary as it would be in a more modern...
During the whole of the 21st century, the subject of birth control has become a trending topic throughout various news reports. The debate on whether or not birth control should be required and distributed by all health plans has caused much controversy throughout the population. However, there was a time in our history when contraceptives, much less birth control, was available for the public. It was through the perseverance and determination of Margaret Sanger to make birth control legal for all women that it is accessible worldwide today. She was the leader of the birth control movement, which was conceived during the Progressive era of United States history.
In this mind baffling speech by Margaret Sanger, she explains the importance of attaining birth control as a female. She believes that “birth control should be available to every adult man and woman” (The Morality of Birth Control). In her opinion, every person over 18 should at least obtain knowledge of it, and try to practice it as much as possible. “Not only will birth control reduce the rate of disease and famine, it will also help heighten the standards of civilization towards teen pregnancy and child abortion” (Population Growth and Resource Depletion). Only then will people attain real morality.
Imagine in today in America’s hyper-sexualized society, not being provided with any knowledge about contraception or sex education. Before Margaret Sanger’s activism, most women were in this position of oblivion about their own bodies. In “Morality of Birth Control”, Sanger argues effectively for the legalization and acceptance of both birth control and sex education using ethos, pathos, and logos to strengthen her argument.
In the early Middle Ages and long before this time, contraception and birth control were easily discussable and were common conversations among people until the mid-fourteenth century (McFarlane & Meier). So why did this information disappear and why is it so difficult to talk about this today? Right about the time that the witch trials began, many birth control methods were lost. It is said to be that most midwives (a person who delivers babies), were killed as witches in the trials, therefore losing information about old contraception methods (McFarlane & Meier). It is then easy to see why birth control and contraception methods were no longer talked about, as they were associated with witches. But in today’s world, about 99% of women
Contraception is it right or wrong and are you to young to decide for yourself? Recently we have been hearing a lot about Contraception ad if it is right or wrong and who gets to decide. The name of the Scholarly article that I chose to write about is, (Simonds & Ellertson, 2004, p. 1285-1297) Emergency Contraception and Morality reflections of health care workers and clients. In the United States our government goes back and forth between trying to be conservative and trying to separate personal feelings from what people are trying to push them to do. Our government has been taking steps to over haul health care in the United States and my doing so they have been talking about Contraception and if it’s right or wrong and what guide lines you have to follow to be eligible to receive it. Unplanned pregnancies or ‘surprises” as we call them happen all too often. At some point in our lives we are all affected by them. (Planned parent hood ad, New York Times p. 27 August, 15 2000) in the article the author was trying to prove that Contraception is neither wrong nor right because different cultures and religions have different beliefs. In this article it starts off giving statistics on pregnancy and the methods of contraception. On one end of the Contraception Spectrum there are condoms, abstinence, and birth control pills. During the 20th century contraception was often confused with abortion (Juker 1996) between 1873 and 1965 it was illegal to send information or materials pertaining to contraception or abortion in the mail. Legally and ideology, contraception and abortion share similar history and both are associated with the taboo subject of women’s sexuality (Hawkes 1995) in 1960 the birth control pill ushered in a revolution in c...
The first form of birth control came in the form a pill and was approved by the FDA in 1960(qtd in Gladwell ) The pill was said to be the safest form of birth control because it was safe and said to be a natural form of birth control. John Rock was a well know man around the community. Loretta McLaughlin writes, "It was his name and his reputation that gave ultimate validity to the claims that the pill would protect women against unwanted pregnancy.”(qdt in Gladwell) Even back then, with all the research that they set out to do the pill was still know to cause cancer in young women, not only cancer but the miscarrying of children shortly after taking the pill.
The female birth control pill became available to the public in 1961. During that time period the acceptance of women sexuality was becoming more common; however, critics felt that the pill promoted unnecessary female sexual behavior. The fact that a woman could partake in casual sex without worrying about becoming pregnant was an issue amongst many people in society. Although premarital sex was not completely shunned as it was a couple decades previous to that time, many still felt as if a woman should not enjoy multiple sexual relationships. Women were expected to only act or feel sexually toward one man who she was in a serious relationship with. With that being said, the grounds for accepting the use of female contraceptive...
One thing the church and science can agree on: life starts at the moment of conception. The Catholic Church has always been adamantly against any form of unnatural birth control, anything that is not considered “natural family planning” as expressed by Pope Paul VI on 1968 in his papal encyclical Humanae Vitae. “Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive met...
As we see in the world today many teens are becoming mothers before they finish high school or before they turn 18. Although some teens are on birth control already many are not because they are afraid to tell their parents which may lead to their parents thinking they are sexually active. Moreover, teens usually find themselves in a professional clinic trying to seek different options of birth control but they are derailed by having parental consent or notification. Many clinics have a policy were teen needs to have parental consent to receive birth control. Many parents feel that teens should be able to make the choice by themselves if they are having sex or just being careful. But the one question many parents are unable to agree upon is should teens be allowed to receive birth control without parental consent.