Contraception as a handmaiden to abortion

     On July 25, 1968 Pope Paul VI issued an encyclical letter titled Humane Vitae ( Of human life ). The encyclical clearly and with love and compassion points out the Churchs' long held teaching.  In the 1960's with the advent of "the pill" the Holy Father, who then was Pope John XXIII, formed a birth control commission to look into whether or not the Churchs' teaching could be changed.  After Pope Paul VI study of the commission's report  and a rather log delay He decided the teaching could not be reversed. This caused an uproar in Catholic circles with the result that theologians, bishops and priests dissented from it.  The teaching is valid and the consequences that would result from not adhereing to it as stated in the Encyclical have come about.

     In the 1992 Supreme Court case Planned Parenthood vs Casey, Justice O'Connor wrote in the plurality opinion that the right to abortion could not be curtailed "without serious inequity to people who, for two decades of economic and social developements, have organized intimate relationships...in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail."

     On August 12, 1950 The late Pope Pius XII wrote an Encyclical letter titled Humani Generis, (On certain false opinions which threaten to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine ). The document said the following about the weight of Papal Encyclical letters: "Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in encyclical letters does not of itself demand consent since in writing such letters the Popes do not exercise supreme power of their teaching authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: " He that heareth you heareth me" (Luke 10:16); and generally what is expounded and inculcated in encyclical letters alrady for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgement on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians."

     It seems that this question of  the morality of contraception has been settled and that  we should get on with the business of setting the record straight.