BIRTH CONTROL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 August 1938, Page 7

BIRTH CONTROL

REPLY TO THE WOMEN’S DIVISION POSITION OF THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY (Bv Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The statement that the Catholic teaching had been quite clearly outlined and the position correctly presented by the hierarchy was made by the Rev Father J. A. Higgins, S.M., when commenting in an interview last night on the reference by the Dominion president of the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union, Mrs Jessie C. Wickham, to the statement by the Roman Cattolic Hierarchy last week on birth control. Father Higgins is director of social studies to the Catholic Archbishop of Wellington and Metropolitan of New Zealand, Archbishop O’Shea, S.M. Nothing said by the president of the Women’s Division had in any sense altered the position; what the lady did not appear to realise was the fact that the hierarchy, speaking officially for the Catholic Church in New Zealand, had stated that artificial birth control was wrong in principle, that it was always wrong, Father Higgins said. “Some make the mistake of thinking that the Church condemns artificial birth control when there is no right to make use of it —whereas there is never any right to use it,” he added. “It is consequently, beside the point to urge that the sale of contraceptives should be controlled; of course, if they are to be sold, their sale should be controlled; but the question is whether they should be sold at all. As there is no right, moral use for them, they should not be sold at all. The Women’s Division errs in advocating the control of the sale of contraceptives as though they may in certain circumstances rightly be used and. ..therefore, rightly sold. “Also, it must be remembered that once it is admitted that there can be right and proper use of contraceptives, there is simply no possibility of controlling their use; that married people will not consult the Women’s Division concerning their conduct; that the unmarried will take what licence they see fit without reference to the Women’s Division. “What the modern world, the Women’s Division included, will not face is the problem of the absolute right or wrong of birth control,” Father Higgins said. “People generally wish to act on expediency rather than on principle, but we are false to the law of God unless we decide that our conduct is to be settled not on what is convenient, but cn what is right as opposed to what is wrong. “It does not trouble people who are selfish enough to act on convenience rather than on the law of God, that the practice of birth control will ruin society. They may not personally suffer, though they may; society will certainly suffer. But the people who are willing to violate the laws of nature for their own satisfaction are not loyal enough to think of anything but themselves.”