BIRTH CONTROL

Hokitika Guardian, 1 June 1932, Page 6

BIRTH CONTROL

AND MARRIAGE QUESTION

ANGLICAN ATTITUDE REVISED

(United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copying I ’-*-.)

•LONDON, May 31

The resolutions which the Lambeth "Anglican Conference of 1930 adopted on the pbject of marriage and of sex are critically discussed in the Report of the Committee of the Lower House of Convocation, which is to be presented to the Convocation this week.

Referring to the decision on birth control, the report notes that the firm tone of the previous Lambeth Conferences had been progressively qualified since the 1908 Lambeth Conference described .ail of the artificial means of birth restriction as being “demoralising to character, and as “hostile to the national welfare.’’ While welcoming the 1930 Lambeth Conference’s condemnation of conception control from motives of selfishness, luxury, and convenience, the report regrets that the majority of the bishops have made the .statement that other methods than that of abstinence may be usable in some circumstances.

The report states: “We deprecate this admission, and we ask the House of Convocation clearly to recognise what this .change has involved. It is true that we interfere with nature at every point, but birth control, belongs to the moral sphere, and it essentially affects man’s progress in good. If the Church, is to give the public, direction in sex matters, then the- ideal of Christian life as one under discipline must be upheld at all costs; and the “impossible standard,” whether of the indissolubility of marriage, or 'self control within it, is strictly maintained.” Referring to the matter of divorce, the Lower House of Convocation Committee regrets the inconsistency which contemplates the admission to communion of an innocent party, who has re-married under a civil sanction.

Tbe Committee consists of the Deans of Hereford and Chichester; the ■Bishops of Kingston-on-Thames and Malmsbury ; Canons Ividd, Freer, Drawellstone and Heazell, Prebendaries Briscoe and Harris; and Professor Belton.

The Dean of Chichester is dissenting from the report. He declares that the report shirks the fundamental problem of birth control. He says th e limitation of the family is now assumed as a normal procedure in all educated cades, and that a fresh moral theology must be worked out thereon. The Bishops of Kingston and Malmsbury agree with the Dean of Chichester and they add that it cannot be assumed that the use of artificial method 1 ' iu birth prevention is immoral in itsM . i r “The--Dean-of- Hereford. ..jiissents- tilth the Committee’s unqualified eneV<s»menfc of the indissolubility of marriage.