8. FAMILY PLANNING

Marriage as a natural process exists for the procreation and education of children as well as for the good of the spouses and the welfare of society. While this statement is true, it is also true to say that in recent years limiting the natural process or family plan­ning has become a burning issue all over the world. Much atten­tion has been given this problem in our day because of various "population explosions" in various parts of the world. One of the results has been great confusion over such terms as "planned parenthood," "artificial birth control," "natural birth control," "birth prevention," "contraception," "family limitation," and "rhythm," all of which have been used interchangeably in the press and ordinary conversation. The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to give the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding family planning based upon natural and divine laws, and to offset the confusion now existing through ignorance or misinformation.

What's in a Name?

What is family planning? By family planning we mean restricting in some way the number of children to be born in a given family. Contrary to what those outside the Church seem to think, the Catholic Church does not hold that married couples are under the obligation to bring into the world the maximum number of children or to bring an ever increasing bumper crop of babies into the world. The Church merely insists that married couples use the proper, legitimate method in limiting or planning their family. The proper, legitimate method of family planning is natural birth control (self-control), better known as periodic continence or the rhythm method. This method involves limiting marital sex relations to such times when through the operation of the laws of nature a woman cannot ordinarily conceive.

H. Armstrong Roberts

The family is the basic unit of society. Where family life flourishes, that nation is strong.

Planned parenthood, on the other hand, is the voluntary limita­tion of possible offspring by artificial or mechanical means. While both methods are aimed at controlling or regulating the birth of children, the first is achieved by cooperating with nature, while the latter is intrinsically evil because it frustrates nature. Planned parenthood, or artificial contraception, frustrates the primary pur­pose of the marital act, namely the begetting of children. It places emphasis on the secondary ends of marriage, while deliberately preventing the primary from being fulfilled. Instead of viewing sex for life as it was designed by God, it advocates life for sex — a reversal of the natural law. It takes a faculty designed by God for the continuation of the human race and makes of it solely an instrument of pleasure.

Nothing New

The practice of family planning in the sense of voluntarily limit­ing the increase of population is not new or peculiar to our age. A glance at history reveals that various methods of family limita­tion have been tried from the earliest of times. The most common methods employed have been infanticide, sterilization, onanism, abstinence, and abortion. And while it may surprise the modern reader, history shows that the Greeks were familiar with contra­ceptive drugs as early as 100 B.C., while mechanical contraceptive devices so prominent in our day date from the second century after Christ.

Infanticide

The earliest and most common method was infanticide, that is, destroying the newly born infant by abandonment or exposure. This was common practice among the Greeks and Romans and in other parts of the ancient world. It was practiced in the Middle Ages and is still common among primitive and savage people. In Sparta a special tribunal examined every newly born infant and determined whether or not it was to be permitted to live. Even the noble Plato advised the exposure of unwanted children. And Aristotle, the most versatile of ancient scholars, suggested that the size of the family be determined by the state and that all children born beyond the limits set by the authorities be exposed. Seneca, the Roman philosopher and moralist, advised that all children born of tainted or diseased parents be merci­fully put to death.1

Sterilization

Sterilization is a process of rendering men and women barren by means of a surgical operation, X ray, or intravenous injection. This sterility is not to be confused with involuntary sterility which happens either naturally or accidentally. This sterility concerns itself with the direct prevention of procreation by unlawful means. There are three types of direct or voluntary sterilization. They are eugenic, punitive, and therapeutic.

Eugenic Sterilization

Eugenic sterilization is a distinctly modern development. In the first decades of the twentieth century the eugenic movement, spurred on by Darwin's evolutionary theory and the scandalous record of several generations of the Jukes and Kallikak families, whose members compiled a terrifying score of crime and insanity all of which was naively assumed to be inherited, proposed that a thoroughgoing program of sterilization of the unfit would usher society into a golden age in which antisocial behavior would approach the vanishing point. Twenty-eight states were quick to pick up the program. By 1949 more than 50,000 sterilizations of the feebleminded and the insane had been effected.

At first glance the eugenist's idea to promote a healthy citizenry by ridding the human race of the mentally deficient (i.e., morons, imbeciles, and idiots) may appear good and necessary. To achieve a good end by an immoral means, however, is sinful. Eugenic sterilization is against the moral law, or the right of an individual to contract and enjoy marriage. And while such marriages are not advised, they cannot be forbidden because of the natural law. Eugenic sterilization, therefore, violates the right of an innocent human being to bodily integrity.

Besides being sinful, sterilizing the unfit does not and will not guarantee a perfectly healthy citizenry. At least this has been the conclusion of reputable authorities who have found that at least 50 per cent of the cases of feeblemindedness arise from nonheredi-tary causes. The remaining 50 per cent of the unfit may be at­tributed to hereditary causes. Feebleminded offspring come from feebleminded parents as well as from normal parents who are carriers of feeblemindedness (recessive genes). To sterilize the entire feebleminded group without sterilizing all others for the next 2000 years, therefore, would merely reduce feeblemindedness from the proportion of 1 per 1000 to 1 per 10,000. The only sure way of stamping out all feeblemindedness is to sterilize everyone. But this is absurd.2

Punitive Sterilization

Punitive sterilization is performed on criminals (sex offenders, unwed mothers, etc.) as a punishment for their crimes. Since the State has the power to punish, even with capital punishment, some argue that the State can also sterilize as a punishment.

This argument seems logical until one investigates why the State has the right to punish criminals. Punishment acts as a strong deterrent to crime. When capital punishment is enforced with true justice, major crimes diminish considerably. Since the State has the duty to take care of the rights of its citizens, and since protect­ing their lives and property is part of this duty, the State may, if it so decides, take the lives of those who have forfeited their right to life by some major crime.

Punitive sterilization or sterilization as a punishment does not act as a deterrent to future crime. When it is imposed upon sex criminals, it does not keep them from ever repeating their crime. It merely prevents the conception and birth of offspring after the crime has been committed. This appears to be more of an incentive to further crime than a preventative. For this reason, as well as the fact that the State has no right to destroy a natural faculty of man without sufficient reason, punitive sterilization is wrong.

Therapeutic Sterilization

Therapeutic sterilization is used to protect or restore the health and well-being of an individual. This may be done by the removal of certain organs or by some treatment which destroys temporarily or permanently the functioning of organs necessary for procreation. There are two types: indirect and direct.

Sterilization is indirect when the operation, or whatever treat­ment takes place, is needed and intended to remove diseased organs or to restore a person's general health. Such sterilization, like any other operation required for the sake of health, is perfectly lawful. In such cases the Law of Double Effect must be applied.

Four conditions are necessary for the lawful performance of an action from which both good and bad results are foreseen:

1. The original action must be morally good or indifferent in itself.
   
   
2. The good effect must not be the result of the bad effect, but both the good and the evil effects must be the immediate result of the original action, or the evil effect must follow from the good effect rather than vice versa. Evil cannot be used to obtain a good result,
   
   
3. There must be a proportionately serious reason for doing the original action and permitting the evil effect. The good effect must be of equal or greater value than the evil.
   
   
4.  The evil result which is foreseen must not be intended nor approved, but only permitted.
   

Therapeutic sterilization which is direct is never lawful. It is contrary to the fundamental nature of marriage to perform preventive sterilization for either the private or the social good. There­fore, regardless of how lofty one's motives may be, for example, to prevent pregnancy or to avoid undesirable offspring, this type of therapeutic sterilization may never be performed.

Birth Control Pills

A radically new way of limiting the size of a family is birth control pills. These chemical compounds have quite legitimate uses. When used to test ovarian function, correct menstrual disorders, and prevent abortions (miscarriages), these pills are completely unobjectionable. When these oral steroids are used to bring about sterility for contraceptive purposes they are just as immoral as surgical procedures. Pope Pius XIIdeclared in a talk to a group of blood specialists (September 12, 1958) that the use of medicine for contraceptive purposes is morally wrong. No amount of ration­alization will ever justify the use of these pills for contraceptive purposes.

O nanism

Onanism is a form of birth control which receives its name from the man who practiced this unnatural act as recorded in Chapter 38 of Genesis. "Onan knowing that the children should not be his ... spilled his seed upon the ground . . . and therefore the Lord slew him because he did a detestable thing." While some authorities refer to onanism as the most common form of contra­ception still practiced by man today, it is nevertheless sinful. It is a masturbatory act against the virtues of chastity and justice required in marriage. It is because of this that St. Augustine could write in the fourth century: "Intercourse even with one's legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the conception of the offspring is prevented. Onan, the son of Juda, did this and the Lord killed him for it."

Abstinence

The most perfect form of controlling birth is abstinence or continence (self-control) voluntarily practiced totally or partially by married couples. According to the natural law, it is not sinful for husband and wife voluntarily and mutually to abstain com­pletely or to limit the use of their marriage privileges to certain times for a variety of reasons, some of which may have nothing to do with the possibility or expectation of conception. The natural law demands only that there is no interference with the proper method and end of the marriage privilege whenever it is used. Periodic continence and total abstinence, while not impossible, oftentimes require heroic virtue on the part of both husband and wife.

The Rhythm Method

The practice of periodic continence in our times has popularly become known as the rhythm method. First discovered by two scientists — Ogino of Japan and Knaus of Austria, rhythm refers to a systematic method of performing marital relations on certain days of the month. The method is built around the rhythm of fertility and sterility which occurs in the monthly cycle of a woman's menstrual period. According to a woman's menstrual cycle, there are days of the month when she is quite likely to conceive a child and other days when she will not conceive. The days on which conception is quite likely to occur are called "fertile." Those on which conception will not take place are called "sterile." The rhythm method consists in following a systematic method of per­forming marital relations only on "sterile" days and abstaining on "fertile" days. By this method, therefore, pregnancy may be post­poned or avoided altogether. This is the only method of family planning or birth control approved by the Church. For as Pope Pius XI has stated: They are not considered acting against nature who in the married state use their right in the proper manner although on account of natural reasons either of time or of certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth. For in matrimony as well as in the use of matrimonial rights there are also secondary ends, such as mutual aid, the cultivating of mutual love, and the quieting of concupiscence which husband and wife are not forbidden to consider so long as they are subordinated to the primary end and so long as the intrinsic nature of the act is preserved.3

The affection of a parent for its offspring is a reflection of God's love for His creatures.

Occidental Life Insurance Company of California

How Rhythm Is Justified

The rhythm method or the practice of periodic continence may be used only by married people who have a serious and legitimate reason for avoiding pregnancy. The mere fact of having had a certain number of children does not justify a husband and wife in deciding to use rhythm continuously thereafter. Those who desire to practice rhythm must fulfill three conditions. They are easily remembered by the mnemonic phrase WAR:

W — Willingness of both parties. Both husband and wife must agree to its use.

A — Ability to practice continence must be had by both. In other words, there is little danger of incontinence (self-abuse, etc.) on the part of either husband or wife during the fertile periods.

R — Reason. Only a serious motive or reason, deriving from external cir­cumstances, can make it lawful for husbands and wives to adopt the practice of rhythm for either a short or long time.

When it comes to reasons, everyone SEEMS to have a reason. Because of this, it is helpful for a married couple to seek spiritual counsel from a priest, in order that selfishness be ruled out and a prudent decision made. The reasons for practicing rhythm have to be based on social, economic, eugenic, or medical conditions. These reasons can be easily remembered by the mnemonic word SEEMS:

S — A Social Reason, such as necessary travel and location at a new job or home, or professional responsibilities that involve husband and wife, may make it advisable to avoid pregnancy.

E — An Economic Reason. Poverty, or the problems of space in the home, of food or clothing, medical and dental care, education, etc., may be serious enough for a couple to practice rhythm.

E — A Eugenic Reason would exist if there were a great probability of bringing forth defective children into the world.

M — A Medical Reason could necessitate the use of rhythm. Too many children too closely spaced together, or organic damage suffered by the mother during childbirth, or a severe miscarriage are medical reasons for avoiding conception for a time. In all cases, however, the family doctor is the one to advise.

S — Selfishness is never a reason to practice rhythm.

Objections to the Use of Rhythm

The main objection that can be brought against the use of the rhythm method is the fact that all married people have an obliga­tion to procreate, that is, to provide for the conservation of the human race, unless they are excused for serious reasons. In 1951, Pope Pius XII, in a talk to a group of Italian midwives, stated;

The individual and society, the people and the state, the Church itself depend for their existence in the order established by God on fruitful marriage. Therefore, to embrace the married state, continuously to make use of the faculty proper to it and lawful in it alone, and on the other hand, to withdraw always and deliberately with no serious reason from its primary obligation, would be a sin against the very meaning of conjugal life.4

Married couples should at best seek only the spacing of children, not permanent avoidance of conception, because they do have an obligation to procreate. How many children are married people obliged to have? On this point, theologians disagree. Four or five children seem to be sufficient to fulfill one's obligation to the they feel excused from having them, there are certain moral limits set by the Church. The Church insists that both the social and personal goals of marriage be fulfilled. As Pius XII has said:

The truth is that matrimony as a natural institution, by virtue of the will of the Creator, does not have as its primary, intimate purpose the personal improvement of the couples concerned, but the procreation and education of new life. The other aims, though also connected with nature, are not in the same rank as the first, still less are they superior to it. They are subordinated to it. This holds true for every marriage, even if it bear no fruit."

Whether married people feel obliged to have children, or whether human race.5

Any method of birth prevention (rhythm included) therefore, frustrates a natural need. John R. Cavanagh, M.D., noted psy­chiatrist and marriage counselor, recently expressed it this way.

All methods of conception control (and this would include the use of periodic continence) make of the sex act a purely physical reaction, since the act is thereby deprived of its primary creative element. True mating calls upon the total personality, the mind, will, and feelings. It is the occasion for experiencing a true harmony of instincts and aspirations. Anything which separates the procreativc element from the pleasure element in the sex act and makes sex pleasure an end in itself destroys the "oneness" and the "we" of marriage.

If the mates no longer find in the sex act, thus deprived of its purpose, a reason to go along with the natural order, the act will tend to lose its appeal. It is likely, under these circumstances, to become a source of discord, of deceit, and of emotional conflict. It is no longer a true mating act. Such false mating impedes the couple's progress toward their true destination as helpers in creative activity, and leads to psychic disorders.7

Abortion

By the word "abortion" is meant the interruption and termina­tion of pregnancy by the expulsion of a nonviable fetus from the mother's uterus. A nonviable fetus is one that is so immature that it is unable to survive outside the uterus of the mother. The loss of a child is more apt to happen before the end of the seventh month of gestation. Sometimes this occurs spontaneously, because of some illness or accident or by a pathological condition within the woman. In popular language this is known as a miscarriage or premature birth. More often abortion is voluntarily performed induced by the application of some kind of force or the use of medicine. There are two types: therapeutic abortion and criminal abortion.

Therapeutic Abortion

This type of abortion is usually produced by a physician to preserve the health, welfare, or perhaps the life of the mother. Such direct taking of life of an unborn child is never justified even to save the life of the mother, because no matter what it is called, direct abortion is always murder. Besides being a violation of the natural law, it is a serious sin and forbidden under pain of ex­communication (Canon 2350). The Church has always proclaimed that once life has begun in the womb, it is as sacred as any self-sustaining life. The claims of mother and unborn child to life are equal. One cannot be taken to save the other.

Indirect abortion is another matter. There are times when it may be necessary for a physician to perform an operation on a mother or to administer medicine to safeguard her life and the expulsion of the fetus takes place as an unwanted secondary effect. If the reasons are serious, indirect therapeutic abortion is permitted. In all cases the principle of Double Effect must be applied. In no case does the Church teach that the life of a child must be preferred to that of the mother's or vice versa. Doctors must make every effort to save both.

Criminal Abortion

A criminal abortion is one which is produced voluntarily and intentionally merely to terminate an undesirable and/or undesired pregnancy. It is called a criminal abortion because it willfully destroys human life and must therefore be classified as murder and is considered a criminal offense in most countries today. Any per­son becoming guilty of this offense or assisting in producing this type of abortion is subject to criminal prosecution. Because of this, criminal abortion is usually carried on in secret, like the illicit narcotics trade. Estimates of the number of criminal abortions per­formed in the United States alone range from 200,000 to over 1,200,000, costing from 50 to 100 million dollars annually. It is also estimated that about 10,000 to 20,000 women's deaths occur each year in the United States as a result of this practice.8

Many times criminal abortion is performed under the title of therapeutic, for example, in order to save the parents' embarrassment; but no matter how well sounding the name, direct abortion is just plain murder. It is against the precept of God and the law of nature which reads: "Thou shalt not kill."

USDA Photos

The improvement of land after one year of irrigation is shown in these pictures. Alfalfa and grain grow on land formerly covered with sagebrush. The solution to the problem of the world's expanding population is cooperation with God's laws.

Contraception

While methods of contraception were used centuries before the time of Christ, the modern movement of birth control is generally regarded as beginning with the publication of the famous essay on population by the English clergyman Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, which appeared in the year 1798. Malthus was deeply concerned with the economic distress of the great masses of working people in England at that time, and he feared that the human race would increase more rapidly than the available or potential food supply. To maintain a proper balance between the two, he suggested a curtailment of population by controlling conception. The remedy which he suggested was moral restraint which would be achieved by late marriage and abstinence.

The Malthusian theory, spurred on by economic depression and overpopulation scares, found a spokesman in the United States in Margaret Higgens Sanger, in the year 1913. Convinced that her mother died because of too many pregnancies (she was the mother of eleven children) and that the only way abortion could be eliminated was by artificial methods of birth control, Mrs. Sanger founded what has become the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Unlike Thomas Malthus, who stressed "moral restraint," Mrs. Sanger "screamed from the housetops" the limitation of fam­ily size through contraception. Local birth-control clinics were es­tablished with the motto "Every Child a Wanted Child." Today PPFA clinics in the United States number about 570 in 36 states and the District of Columbia, and boast that over $1,000,000 is spent annually on contraceptive research.

The Attitude of Protestant Churches

The attitude of Protestant churches to planned parenthood has undergone a noticeable change in the past 30 years. Before 1930 practically all denominations were one with the Catholic Church in opposing every form of birth control, because such practices were opposed to the natural law. But public opinion has a way of swaying principles at times. With birth-control philosophy satu­rating society, Protestant churches changed their outlook on con­traceptives. In 1930 the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops throughout the world adopted a resolution which marked a begin­ning of an about-face position on birth control and preventatives for non-Catholics. The resolution read in part as follows:

Where there is a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood the method must be decided on Christian principles. The primary and obvious method is complete abstinence from intercourse as far as may be necessary in a life of discipline and self-control lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless in those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood and where there is morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles. The conference records its strong condemnation of the use of any method of contra­ception control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere con­venience.9

The Federal Council of Churches in the United States suc­cumbed to the teachings of Margaret Sanger in 1931 when its committee on marriage and home issued a comprehensive state­ment on the whole problem of parenthood, the Christian view of sex, overpopulation, and the use of contraceptives. While there was some opposition to the new position, the majority of members agreed and issued the following statement:

A majority of the committee holds that the careful and restrained use of contraceptives by married people is valid and moral. They take this position because they believe that it is important to provide for the proper spacing of children, the control of the size of the family, and the protection of mothers and children; and because intercourse between the mates, when an expression of their spiritual union and affection is right in itself. They are of the opinion that abstinence within marriage, except for a few, cannot be relied upon to meet the problem, and under ordinary conditions is not desirable in itself.10

In 1952 the Lutheran churches in America openly backed the PPFA religion of free motherhood by issuing this statement which reads in part as follows:

1. A Christian husband and wife know that children are the natural and desirable fruit of their marriage in fulfilment of God's command, "Be fruitful and multiply."
   
   
2. Every child born into the world should be a wanted child. To be unwanted by its parents is a fate more cruel to the child than is poverty, low social standing, or nearly any other handicap.
   
   
3. Married couples have the freedom so to plan and order their sexual relations that each child born to their union will be wanted both for itself and in relation to the time of its birth. How the couple uses this freedom can properly be judged not by man but only by God.
   
   
4. The means which a married pair uses to determine the number and spacing of the births of their children are matters for them to decide with their own consciences, on the basis of competent medical advice and in a sense of accountability to God.
   
   
5. No moral merit or demerit can be attached to any of the medically approved methods for controlling the number and spacing of chil­dren. Whether the means used be those labeled "natural" or "artificial" is of far less importance than the spirit in which these means are used.11
   

The Position of the Church

The position of the Catholic Church toward planned parenthood, artificial birth control, birth prevention, contraception, or whatever other name it goes by, is contained in the words of Pope Pius XI given in 1931: "Any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of grave sin."12

The essential evil of contraception, therefore, consists in the fact that it is intrinsically evil; that is to say by its very nature it is opposed to the natural law, since it is contrary to the nature and dignity of man in the exercise of his sex faculties and subverts the sacredness of marriage. Sex is for life, not life for sex.

The natural law is a rule of moral conduct prescribed by our very nature. Contraception is contrary to this law because our reason tells us that the special privileges of married life have the procreation and education of children as their primary purpose. Contraception involves the unnatural use or perversion of man's sex faculties. It perverts marital intercourse from co-operation (potential if not actual) with God into a mere means of sensual gratification. It reduces husbands and wives to the level of mutual instruments of indulgence.

A Comparison

In the decadent days of Rome there were palaces that promoted orgies of eating and drinking. When the guests had gorged them­selves to the full on various delicacies, they made use of a room called a vomitorium where a slave tickled their palates with a feather until they regurgitated all their food. Then they began all over again. This action was sinful because the nourishment of the body, which is the primary purpose of eating, was deliberately frustrated. There was a morally unjustifiable interruption of the due process of nature. The natural process of eating is mastication, deglutition, digestion, assimilation, and nutrition. The last three of these were excluded in a deliberate and disordered fashion. Such orgies were wrong because they were unnatural. Man eats to live, not lives to eat.

The parallel between Roman gluttony and contraception in any form should be quite easy to see. In marriage sexual intercourse tends naturally to conception, gestation, and parturition. By contra­ception, these are deliberately excluded. The secondary purposes of marriage are made an end in themselves. Contraception takes a faculty designed by God for the continuation of the human race and makes of it solely an instrument of pleasure. But sex is for life, not life for sex. That is why, in summary, from the Church's viewpoint, artificial prevention of conception (this in­cludes mechanical, chemical, and oral means of contraception) is an act intrinsically evil, opposed to the natural law, and will never be justified under any circumstances whatsoever. Natural birth control (continence or rhythm), on the other hand, is not an intrinsically evil act. The morality of this form of family planning depends upon the circumstances under which it is practiced. As already mentioned, for serious reasons the spacing of children by limiting marital sex relations to such times when through the oper­ation of the laws of nature a woman cannot ordinarily conceive is definitely lawful.

Wilt the Church Ever Change Her Mind on Contraception?

Non-Catholics frequently ask this question. The answer, of course, is definitely negative! The Church cannot change her position on contraception any more than she can change her basic position on the nature of man. Both positions are unchangeable; they are here to stay. Just because some of her members commit sin, the Church does not change God's laws. Artificial prevention of conception is always and under all circumstances immoral and grievously sinful.

The Problem of Overpopulation

By the end of this century the United Nations estimates that between six and seven billion people will inhabit the earth. "Will we be able to provide for our ever expanding world population with adequate sustenance and a decent way of life?"

The informed Catholic answers "Yes!" The population challenge is a problem of the ratio, or balance, between population size and the productivity of the world. The approach to this problem must always be moral and rational. That is why immoral solutions such as mass sterilization, abortion, and contraception so openly advo­cated by many today are wrong. The true solution lies in increasing production by technical assistance, discovery of new foods and materials, immigration of populations to undeveloped lands, aid from "have" to "have not" nations, promoting a later age of marriage, the elimination of polygamy and concubinage, the de­velopment of a greater love for the vocations to celibacy, the encouragement of absolute or relative continence within marriage, and stricter divorce laws.

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

A for Abortion, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Thomas J. Cawley (Scranton, Pa.: The Catholic Light, 1954), 24 pp. "Catholics and Birth Control,"

Ave Maria, John Reedy, Vol. 85, May 18, 1957, pp. 4-5.

*The Catholic Viewpoint on Overpopulation, Anthony Zimmerman, S.V.D. (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1959).

Genetics Is Easy, Philip Goldstein (New York: Lantern Press, 1956).

Happy Marriage, John A. O'Brien (Garden City, N. Y.: Hanover House, 1956). "Important Facts About Abortion,"

Reader's Digest, Vol. 68, February, 1956, pp. 53-56.

Love and Marriage, Ralph L. Woods (New York: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1958).

Marriage and the Family, Clement S. Mihanovich, Gerald J. Schnepp, John L. Thomas (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1952).

Marriage and Rhythm, John L. Thomas, S.J. (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1957).

Mutual Agreement on Rhythm, Donald F. Miller, C.SS.R. (Liguori, Mo.: Liguorian Pamphlets).

Overpopulation—A Catholic View, Msgr. George A. Kelly (New York: Paulist Press, 1960).

Parenthood, Daniel A. Lord, S.J. (St. Louis: The Queen's Work, 1946).

Planned Parenthood — God's Plan, G. Gibbons, C.SS.R., and H. O'Connel, C.SS.R. (Liguori, Mo.: Liguorian Pamphlets, 1960). "Rhythm . . . Morality and The Method,"

Information, Daniel J. Bradley, M.D., September, 1959, pp. 14-20.

Rights and Wrongs in Marriage, Donald F. Miller, C.SS.R. (Liguori, Mo.: Liguorian Pamphlets, 1958).

*Sins of Parents, Charles Hugo Doyle (Tarrytown, N. Y.: The Nugent Press, 1951).

The Rhythm of Sterility and Fertility, Leo J. Latz, M.D. (Chicago, 111.: Latz Foundation, P.O. Box 152, 1956).

Those Dangerous Babies, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Thomas J. Cawley (Techny, 111.: Divine Word Publications, 1959).

What They Ask About the Church, J. D. Conway (Chicago: Stratford Press, 1958).

When Is Rhythm Allowed?, T. E. Tobin, C.SS.R. (Liguori, Mo.: Liguorian Pamphlets, 1960).

Why Is Birth Control Wrong?, Donald F. Miller, C.SS.R. (Liguori, Mo.: Liguorian Pamphlets, 1956).

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...