Birth Control and Demographic Implosion

by Michel Schooyans

The idea of birth control was already present in antiquity. In The Laws, Plato affirms that the population of a city cannot surpass 5,040 heads of families and family residences (cf. V 737 e;740, d). In The Politics (II, 6), population control is also recommended by Aristotle. This idea reappears much later, for example in Thomas More's Utopia (1516) and the City of the Sun of Campanella (1623). Beginning in the modern era, this question was taken up more and more frequently, especially in England.  Read More...

Contraception

by Brian Clowes

In Contraception, from the Facts of Life, Dr. Brian Clowes discusses topics such as: definitions of contraception; method and user effectiveness rates; costs of various birth control methods; profitability of the “family planning” industry; condoms and venereal diseases; surgical and chemical sterilization; Catholic teaching on sterilization and contraception; and future technologies.  For the Table of Contents with links to the full content of the chapter, click here...

Contraceptive Mentality, The

by Grzegorz Kaszak

In the second half of the previous century, the commercialization of the Contraceptive Pill offered the opportunity for a new and efficient way to deprive human sexuality of its procreative potential. The wide distribution of the Pill had a large impact on changing people's ways of thinking and behaving. We can say that the new contraceptive means undoubtedly helped create a new mindset, which is called the contraceptive mentality. Read More...

Eastern Orthodoxy and Contraception

by Taras Baytsar

The voices of the various Orthodox churches have been muted in addressing the issue of contraception and "family planning." Even when church leaders have spoken, their communication is often inconsistent with early Church traditions and teachings, or contradictory from one period to the next or among Orthodox theologians. While the desire to avoid controversy is understandable, controversy can not be avoided at the cost of error or indifference. Read More...

Family And Philosophy, The

by Hayden Ramsay

The attacks which human beings and the family suffer today are in large part the result of confusions of language. These confusions refer to fundamental questions: person and individual, equality and identity, liberty and lawfulness, pleasure and happiness. They are at the same time a consequence of a reconsideration of marriage, which is the foundation of the family. Read More...

International Abortion Situation, The

by Brian Clowes

In The International Abortion Situation, from the Facts of Life, Dr. Brian Clowes discusses topics such as: the malthus manifesto; anti-natalist bigots; biphobia and self-hate; the situation in the USA; contraceptive imperialism; abortion's link with population control; catholic teaching on population; status of abortion legislation worldwide; and demographic summaries of the world's nations. For the Table of Contents with links to the full content of the chapter, click here...

Sex Education

by Aquilino Polaino-Lorente

"Sex education" is often discussed today, but mainly in order to include under this expression programs of information on human sexuality that are generally presented to children and adolescents in the context of schools. These programs would have as their objective furnishing enough biological information for children to avoid the heavy consequences of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS and unwanted pregnancies. This kind of sexual education is necessarily incomplete because it leaves to one side the relational, affective and spiritual aspects of human love. Read More...

Sexual and Reproductive Rights

by José Alfredo Peris Cancio

A series of vague and imprecise expressions made headway following a precise strategy during the Cairo and Beijing international conferences. The basis of this was a skewed interpretation of the 1948 International Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations grounded in a different vision of man than the one which inspired this fundamental historical text. One of the most important among these expressions is "sexual and reproductive rights" which is closely tied to an individualistic and statist conception of man and of society. Read More...