Pope Paul VI Quotes

This quotation is often used by those who support the right to abortion to argue that the moral argument against abortion is exactly the same against contraception. And that if the state can interfere with the right to an abortion, then the state can equally interfere with the fight to family planning by means of contraception, and indeed such was the law until 1963. It is true that before that and since the Roman Catholic Church has argued that both abortion and contraception should be unlawful. Abortion opponents attempt to separate the two as only a small majority of Americans favor the right to an abortion while an overwhelmingly large proportion support the right to use contraception. Abortion opponents, generally avoid the contraceptive issue and try to isolate the abortion question.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio. This quotation was reprinted in religious and secular organs of almost all religions as the message was universal and could apply also to non-Roman Catholic Churches and non-Christian religions. The Pope in this statement did not change church doctrine one bit. It urged a major change in tactics, context, emphasis and style. Extreme fundamentalists within the Roman Catholic church and without, however, saw the statement as a softening of the moral position of the church regarding these controversial areas. Most however welcomed his quotation as long overdue and a stylistic throwback to a different time where people were less educated and less informed by media.

Although considered by the government as a rabble rouser and trouble maker in her early days, public opinion turned around and the Swedish government issues a stamp in her honor—see the graphic." Ottar

History has shown that as girls and women get educated and learn about family planning, their children are healthier and have better chances of survival and despite the lower death rate the population trend slows as a result of family planning.

At the time, condoms and other forms of contraceptives were illegal to buy, sell, possess or own. As late as 1963 a Connecticut druggist was sentenced to jail for filling a doctor’s prescription for condoms and selling them to a married couple even thought the woman might die if she again became pregnant. The Supreme Court (Griswald v. Connecticut) established that a woman had a right to control her own reproductive cycle and the government had no business interfering with a privacy right possessed by a couple. Roe v. Wade established the right to an abortion. The same moral compunctions used with abortion were, and still are used by some to oppose any form of artificial birth control. They argued: preventing a life was as serious a moral failure as taking one. Many Catholics, many evangelical and fundamentalist protestants, and some orthodox Muslims are today morally opposed to birth control and believe that the government should ban birth control as it once was in the United States.

Condoms and other birth control usage had been forbidden by the Catholic Church. However, most American Catholics utilized artificial birth control devices anyway. However, the official church positions inhibited and influenced politicians throughout the nations. Even as late as 1963 selling birth control devices was illegal in parts of America. A pharmacist was sentenced to jail for filling a prescription for a condom for a couple where the woman could not bear a child safely as the result of a physical condition. The Supreme Court reversed the conviction.

The Prime Minister’s wife, a Roman Catholic, like most Roman Catholics in Europe and America practice contraception despite the fact that the Catholic Church still maintains that artificial means of birth control is a sin. Rarely are such personal matters discussed with the media in Great Britain which respects the personal privacy of public figures more so than the United States. However, Mrs. Blair and her husband have been particularly open throughout their public career.

Actually it was as late as 1963, that the Supreme Court ruled that States could not make the sale of birth control devices or drugs illegal. In many jurisdictions in the United States, women who do not have insurance and cannot afford birth control, there are state and private organizations, like Planned Parenthood, who will provide them. However, some conservative forces are trying to put Planned Parenthood out of business. A few doctors and nurses who perform abortions and proscribe birth control have been murdered by the fanatics. Almost of the so called “pro life” forces not only oppose abortion but contraception and family planning as well. They tactically tend to concentrate first on abortion, but most also believe that the life and death issues are for them the same, as opposed to most American feelings. The literal prohibiting Biblical injunctions are even more specific about birth control than abortion.

This quotation is a good example of the conflation (confusing) of different issues. West’s is concerned that men are becoming subservient to women. He uses the word “neutering”—men are being behaviorally castrated. There are men who see power as a zero sum game. If one person gains it, someone else must be losing it. Since more and more women are reaching equality and therefore gaining more power over their own and their family life, they reason that somehow the men must be losing their power. In a sense, from the era where men had control of all family money even if earned by the wife, equality has meant less power for men. When men could legally beat (chastise) their wives, they in some sense had more power and some see it as more masculinity. However, most secure men do not feel this way. They do not have to dominate others to feel masculine. Then West refers to Planned Parenthood and Code Pink organizations. The latter is a very left wing women’s’ peace organization that does not deal much with the other issues between men and women. And Planned Parenthood is America’s oldest main line family planning organization. West was talking to a right wing audience and is of that wing himself. They oppose code pink for their war stand; they oppose Planned Parenthood because they support the right of a woman to choose abortion and birth control devices if she wishes. So somehow, peace now, abortion / birth control have been conflated with rights and powers of men and women.

This is a very important quotation because it is the official ban of the Roman Catholic Church against birth control of all forms. Prior to 1930, there was no official prohibition against birth control although individual Roman Catholics had argued that it was sinful. For example, see St. Augustine {625106}.

The American Catholic Bishops wanted the right of religious organizations who ran civil institutions like hospitals or universities to deny its female employees any insurance coverage for birth control while paying for Viagra for males. Artificial birth control methods were considered immoral by the Roman Catholic Church. The Bishops did not feel that their institutions should be required to follow the civil law if their religious precepts opposed it. Quinn observed that 99% of women in America use birth control and even 98% of Catholic women did. This is a wonderful example of how subtle a basic principle like separation of church and state can be. The churches themselves did not have to pay for birth control insurance, but other Catholic-related entities did. How far would the bishops take their view. If a spaghetti factory were owned by a Catholic Church, would it have to insure birth control like other spaghetti factories? What about if the factory were a public company and the church owned all the stock? Most of the stock? Part of the stock? There are no clear and simple answers to these questions.

McCain had lost the 2008 Presidential Race and was not going to run again. At this time he was trying to counterbalance the views of some of his party’s new presidential nomination candidates—all men—who wanted to reverse a woman’s Constitutional right to abortion and favored policies that would diminish women’s access to affordable birth control. Some people observed that his logic applied equally well to abortion, but he was at that time not in favor of abortion on demand but did support the right of a woman to choose an abortion in cases of rape, incest or medical conditions where childbirth would endanger the life of the mother.