--William Blake

Orthodox opposition to Birth Control is formulated in the official
protest of the National Council of Catholic Women against the resolution
passed by the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs which favored
the removal of all obstacles to the spread of information regarding
practical methods of Birth Control. The Catholic statement completely
embodies traditional opposition to Birth Control. It affords a striking
contrast by which we may clarify and justify the ethical necessity for
this new instrument of civilization as the most effective basis for
practical and scientific morality. "The authorities at Rome have again
and again declared that all positive methods of this nature are immoral
and forbidden," states the National Council of Catholic Women. "There
is no question of the lawfulness of birth restriction through abstinence
from the relations which result in conception. The immorality of Birth
Control as it is practised and commonly understood, consists in the
evils of the particular method employed. These are all contrary to the
moral law because they are unnatural, being a perversion of a natural
function. Human faculties are used in such a way as to frustrate the
natural end for which these faculties were created. This is always
intrinsically wrong--as wrong as lying and blasphemy. No supposed
beneficial consequence can make good a practice which is, in itself,
immoral....

"The evil results of the practice of Birth Control are numerous.
Attention will be called here to only three. The first is the
degradation of the marital relation itself, since the husband and wife
who indulge in any form of this practice come to have a lower idea of
married life. They cannot help coming to regard each other to a great
extent as mutual instruments of sensual gratification, rather than as