'The pill' at 50: Despite spiritual dangers, numerous health risks, costs to society, and now even potential harm to the environment [see 4/29/10 headline "Pro-lifers to hold conference addressing the 'devastating' environmental effects of hormonal contraceptives; Group says the 'powerful, steroid-based hormones are not metabolized but are excreted into the water supply'..."], it's unfortunately no surprise in our day to see an assortment of articles applauding the half-century old drug which has "made a prophet" out of Pope Paul VI who, decades ago, warned that...
"Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based, if they care to reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificial birth control. Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that men - especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point - have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion. Let it be considered also that a dangerous weapon would thus be placed in the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral exigencies. Who could blame a government for applying to the solution of the problems of the community those means acknowledged to be licit for married couples in the solution of a family problem? Who will stop rulers from favoring, from even imposing upon their peoples, if they were to consider it necessary, the method of contraception which they judge to be most efficacious? In such a way men, wishing to avoid individual, family, or social difficulties encountered in the observance of the divine law, would reach the point of placing at the mercy of the intervention of public authorities the most personal and most reserved sector of conjugal intimacy." (Pope Paul VI, 1968)
One recent article (laughably) claims the contraceptive pill has made "motherhood better for 50 years", another article bears an ironic "birth day" of the pill headline, while yet another article claims "Despite Catholic teachings, women religiously take the pill" (they "religiously" commit grave sin?). Not surprisingly, lacking were headlines discussing the thousands of unborn children who die as a result of their mothers' taking the drug ('the pill' is abortifacent - "More children are killed by chemical abortifacents than by surgical abortions each year"), or of the many women who die or otherwise suffer physical harm from the drug (which "affect[s] all vital organs...to one degree or another"), or of the harm it has caused to society (e.g. promiscuity, STDs, harm to marriages & families, etc.), or of the physical harm it may cause to children born of women who have previously taken it, or to its role in devaluing women's fertility (which may now be treated as a "disease" rather than a blessing), etc. And most probably furthest from their minds was the fact that use of this drug is gravely sinful and an offense against almighty God - Scripture clearly shows that children are a gift from God, fertility is a blessing, barrenness is looked upon negatively, and that a man's life was taken by God over a contraceptive act (see Gen. 38:9-10)
"For since the bringing of children into the world is the principal end of marriage, to do anything in order to prevent the accomplishment of this end is always a mortal sin." (St. Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church)
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