Word: pills
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Catholics & Conscience. The pill poses two grave moral problems. The first affects Roman Catholics and, for different theological reasons, the smaller number of Orthodox Jews. Not until 1930 did the Vatican modify the Augustinian rule that sex must be for procreation, when Pope Pius XI approved the rhythm method. The Vatican has banned all mechanical and chemical contraception. But Dr. Rock, an unswerving Catholic, has been arguing ever since he sired the pill that its use imitates nature-which occasionally, but only occasionally, makes a woman skip ovulation-and that it should therefore be approved by the Vatican...
...less than 53% of American Catholic couples, according to the Ryder-Westoff survey, have adopted some form of birth control other than rhythm. And though some Catholic doctors will not prescribe the pill for them, many others will. In heavily Catholic Massachusetts, its use is widespread. Says Norwood Gynecologist Francis C. Mason: "Despite the doubletalk from Rome, the pill is the most acceptable method of birth regulation. Use of the pill by a large Catholic population acts to make them psychologically sound and to create
...Takes Character." The second moral problem posed by the pills relates to the unmarried. Does the convenient contraceptive promote promiscuity? In some cases, no doubt it does-as did the automobile, the drive-in movie and the motel. But the consensus among both physicians and sociologists is that a girl who is promiscuous on the pill would have been promiscuous without it. The more mature of the unmarried in the Now Generation say that, far from promoting promiscuity, the pills impose a sense of responsibility. Formerly, many a young woman rejected premarital relations specifically because of her fear of pregnancy...
...either a baby or an abortion, the chances are that she will soon be pregnant again. To break the pattern, Dr. Philip Sarrel recently took 90 pregnancy dropouts in New Haven, set up special classes for them and, with their parents' permission, put them on the pill or gave them IUDs. On form, he could have expected 50 pregnancies within a year and a half. Actually there was only one-and that because a girl deliberately skipped her pills. In Baltimore, a preventive pill-and-IUD program is being carried out among pubertal-age girls in "high-risk" (slum...
Such problems are not exclusive with the poor. Last week, during a private lecture at a California resort for the well-to-do, a psychiatrist asked 30 assembled mothers whether they would give birth-control pills to their teen-age daughters. Only a few said no. Most were undecided. One-third said yes, definitely-and one mother announced that she was already slipping the pill into her daughter's breakfast milk...