Birth Control Quotes
This is a wonderful example of a good rhetorical technique. He focuses the attention on the unborn by observing that all his opponents on this point have already been born. Of course, he and all his supporters on the point—those who are against abortion—have already been born also. So what would the unborn say? Well that no one could know nor can any one know if the unborn have any thoughts must less thoughts on the subject of abortion.
Sanger was not only anxious to work with Black organizations, but she hired Blacks in her own projects—a very unusual practice for the time. There have always been in America some Blacks who saw in birth control a plan to reduce the Black population. However, there are also always been some whites who favored birth control and other activities precisely because they might reduce the Black population. So what seems like paranoia may actually be a rational reaction to other people and forces.
Both the United States and Canada had laws regulating the sexual behavior of citizens in the privacy of their own homes. It was not just homosexuality that the state attempted to control. Even the specific positions and methods of heterosexual intercourse were controlled by some states. Oral sex, certain positions of intercourse and other “details” could put a person in jail. Canada, a parliamentary nation, changed this by legislation. In the United States, it was the Supreme Court decisions protecting privacy that invalidated these old sexual role restrictions and prescriptions. For example, just 4 years before this quotation was made, 1963, the state of Connecticut was ordered (Griswald v. Connecticut) to release a pharmacist for the “crime” of filling a doctor’s prescription for condoms for a married couple where the wife would likely die if she became pregnant and carried the baby to term.
This is one of the earliest Christian statements about the immorality of contraception. There was no official position of the Roman Catholic Church against contraception, until 1930 when Pope Pius XI issued his stricture. See {625105}. The reference to Onan is to the Old Testament. Onan however was not using contraception. He was masturbating. Augustine’s view was that everything sexual was designed by God for procreation. Therefore, any sexual function, not for the purpose of procreation, is inappropriate. Contraceptive techniques were used in Biblical times as well as later. The only difference was the technological sophistication and reliability of the different devices and methods.
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.
