Last week United States health officials released the results of a survey of what some would call "reproductive behaviour", conducted in 2002. The National Survey of Family Growth revealed a striking decline in contraceptive use over the last decade, the New York Times reported.
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Predictably, the trend is causing consternation among birth control advocates, who publicly blame reductions in public funding and privately, perhaps, give vent to exasperation with what they see as the sexual irresponsibility of certain sections of the community. And there are more basic fears. A lengthy essay in the New York Times magazine by Russell Shorto paints a scenario in which the public support of contraception which has been taken for granted in recent decades is reversed by a Catholic-led, conservative Christian revival.
You don't have to be at the cutting edge of the culture wars to dislike contraception, any more than you need to be poor, brown or irresponsible—a lot of women find reason enough in what it does to their health—but it helps if you are Christian.
Conscientious objection to contraception was, for some decades of last century, an almost exclusively Catholic phenomenon, and for a diminishing number of Catholics at that. But a younger generation of Catholics is proving more open to their Church's teaching on this matter and they have been joined by a growing number of evangelical Christians. There are several reasons behind this movement: the link between abortion and contraception; damage done to marriage and the family by the sexual revolution; a return to the Biblical sources and Christian history; and the inspirational teaching of the late Pope John Paul II.[snip] Mercator.net
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