And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

—­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 cooperators with the Creating in bringing children into the world.  This consideration may be subtle but it undoubtedly represents the facts.

“In the second place, the deliberate restriction of the family through these immoral practices deliberately weakens self-control and the capacity for self-denial, and increases the love of ease and luxury.  The best indication of this is that the small family is much more prevalent in the classes that are comfortable and well-to-do than among those whose material advantages are moderate or small.  The theory of the advocates of Birth Control is that those parents who are comfortably situated should have a large number of children (Sic!) while the poor should restrict their offspring to a much smaller number.  This theory does not work, for the reason that each married couple have their own idea of what constitutes unreasonable hardship in the matter of bearing and rearing children.