Out of Control
WE drew our lengthy correspondence on Roman Catholics and birth control to a close last week. For the disinterested reader it has seemed to raise a number of vital points, some of them only implicit. The most obvious is the strength, of the Roman Catholic oppOsition to change. It is impossible to make any criticism of Catholicism without drawing an unusually large number of replies. Letters from Catholic organisations addressed to our anonymous Catholic writers arrived in our office for forward- ing within a few hours of publication. Another notable point is that those English Catholics anxious to restrict their families who quote the phenomenal population increases. in Asia and elsewhere are often confusing two issues. Their main concern is, understandably, to produce a morality to match their own desires (which are not just physical) rather than for the more general problems of over-population. They are seeking from control a degree of economic well-being quite unknown in most underdeveloped countries, and many of them have the intelligence and the will to use the limited methods of birth control already sanctioned by the Catholic Church. This is not so in many countries where national, as distinct from individual family, birth control is really an issue. What is so alarming is that one wonders if even a radical change of the Catholic attitude would make any significant difference to population increase in the countries where it really matters. Any new form of control that Rome is likely to accept will require a degree of complex instruction and administration far beyond the reach of many of the people who benefit from it. The Church is clearly being blamed for developments over which it has no. possible control. It is interesting, however, to note that a new book by a Catholic gynaecologist*
*Tim TIME HAS COME. By John Rock. (Long- mans, 18s.) shows convincingly how active American Catholics have been in preventing state funds from being devoted to any major research on the subject.
We may add that the Catholic view k neither as rigorous, nor as clearly defined, nor as actively disseminated as even some Catholics would have us believe. There has been no ex cathedra pro- nouncement on birth control and the statements there have been vary widely in interpretation. Many Catholics are much more dogmatic in their beliefs than their own instructors. The reasons for sanctioning the regularisation of the rhythm period arc growing remarkably close to those which may in the end sanction the use of the contraceptive pill. It is here that there is most ground for hope. The pill is likely to be the safest, cheapest and most simply administered method of control that has so far been discovered. Further research into this should not have to hang upon Catholic approval. That, after all, is not likely to come before the research is completed, but it may well come afterwards.
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