How Birth Control Changed America for the Worse

This article by Kathryn Jean Lopez, "How Birth Control Changed America for the Worse", appeared in Crisis Magazine on March 1, 2001. The cultural references are dated, but the negative consequences of artificial birth control predicted in Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae have without exception come tragically true. The women featured underscore the enormous damage the pill has wrought on men, women, marriage and society. An excerpt:

"Not only has birth control torn apart traditional notions of family life, but it has taken a personal toll on young women like Amanda, who learn the hard way that when sex is readily available, people have a hard time making romantic commitments. The philosopher Allan Bloom noted this phenomenon more than a decade ago in his book Love and Friendship. 'There is an appalling matter-of-factness in public speech about sex today,' he wrote. 'On television schoolchildren tell us about how they will now use condoms in their contacts — I was about to say adventures, but that would be overstating their significance.' Bloom also decried the use of the passionless word 'relationship' that most people nowadays use to describe their pairings. He wondered what had happened to the word 'lover,' with its connotations of erotic intensity.

Even Katha Pollitt, a columnist for the ultraliberal opinion magazine The Nation, recently bemoaned the fact that the promised post-pill paradise has yet to become a reality. 'The Pill has changed a lot, but if you look back at what it was supposed to do — let women have guilt-free, carefree sex like men—it hasn’t happened,' she wrote recently. 'It’s not even working at the level of contraception. Look at the abortion rate in this country.'"  Continue reading...