Letters

The Pill

Denise M. Cameron

Contents - Apr 2009 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Confronting the long march of secularism - Michael Gilchrist Benedict XVI addresses a Vatican conference on evolution and Christianity - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World US Catholic universities: how not to observe Lent American women religious: Vatican apostolic visitation - AD2000 REPORT Red Mass Homily: Catholics as 'bearers of light' in a secular culture - Bishop Peter J. Elliott Anti-life platform: Archbishop Chaput: President Obama and the challenge for US Catholics - Archbishop Charles Chaput Foundations of Faith: The Mass and private devotions in Catholic life - Br Barry Coldrey Andrew Cichy: A bold project to reinvigorate Church music in Australia - Anthony Barich Events: Holy Week 2009 - Traditional liturgy in Melbourne Conversion: Peter has spoken through Leo: why I became a Catholic - Michael Daniel Letters: Active Catholics? - Rev Edward P. Evans Letters: Hippies - Stephen Hemingway Letters: Dissent - Peter D. Howard Letters: The Pill - Denise M. Cameron Letters: Capitalism - William Briggs Letters: Church unity - Alan Baron Letters: Love and truth - Frank Mobbs Letters: Church in China - Francis Vrijmoed Letters: Bush fires - Maureen Federico Books: RENDER UNTO CAESAR:Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life, Charles Chaput - Tim Cannon (reviewer) Books: LIVING BIBLICALLY, by Archbishop Barry Hickey - Michael Gilchrist (reviewer) Books: AD2000 Books for April Reflection: The Resurrection: confirmed by faith and reason - Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli

Recent newspaper grabs on the president of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations Jose Maria Simon Castevelli's claim that 'one of the causes of masculine infertility in the West is the environmental contamination caused by the products of the pill' featured the usual digs about bizarre statements coming out of the Vatican.

If the diggers had dug a little deeper they would find Castevelli's concerns re artificial contraception are shared by none other than a co-inventor of the oral contraceptive pill. These are concerns worthy of deeper analysis and dissemination.

Eighty-five-year-old Carl Djerassi, the Austrian chemist who helped invent the contraceptive pill, now says that his co-creation has led to a 'demographic catastrophe.' He said that in most of Europe there was now 'no connection at all between sexuality and reproduction'.

Castevelli also reiterated what is acknowledged in scientific literature, that 'the most widely used anti-ovulatory pill in the industrialised world, the one made with low doses of estrogen and progesterone, in many cases works with an anti- implantation effect, that is, abortifacient, because it expels a small human embryo.'

Vienna's Catholic Archbishop Christoph Schönborn has publicly admitted to being initially 'negative' about the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae condemning artificial contraception but now believes it was 'prophetic.' As Pope Paul VI warned: 'The contraceptive society is the abortive society'.

Who could disagree?

DENISE M. CAMERON
President, Pro Life Victoria
Hawthorn, Vic

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 22 No 3 (April 2009), p. 15