Hypothetical question.

Post Reply New Topic

I have been thinking about Humane Vitae, which was written by, I believe, Pope John Paul II. I do not want to flame anyone here. I personally am not in favor of making birth control illegal. However, I do see some truth in what was written. A prediction was made that birth control would cause men to disregard the emotional and physical well-being of women. So, I am curious as to what the men here would do if, let's just say purely hypothetically speaking, there was no birth control or legal abortion in existence. Would this change how you view women and relationships? What would you do in terms of romantic relationships if birth control and abortion were not available? This would probably leave men with much fewer options in terms of relationships with women. Some argue that the availability of birth control was what truly liberated women and that if it were not available then women's options would be severely limited. But, on the other hand, I think it would very likely reduce male options for relationships other than marriage. So who has benefitted the most from birth control; men or women?

It would have no effect on me at all.

birth control has been around for thousands of years before the Christianity came along.

The only difference is today its a lot more effective and easily accessible.


I disagree with the good ol' pope on this issue.. if anything, birth control allows a couple to be much closer to each other without the fear of a pregnancy they are not prepared for.

who has benefited more? I'd say women because for the first time they now have a means to be in control of when they can get pregnant (the pill) whereas in ages long past she would've been stuck with a baby and very likely without a father for that child (im sure the incidence of abandoned single mothers has decreased a lot since the pill was made available).

Humane Vitae was issued by Pope Paul VI not Pope John Paul II.

I really don't think birth control lessened men's regard of women one way or the other, whether romantically or whatever.

Afterall, romantic relationships were actually discouraged until relatively recently as an impediment to making a proper marriage in the eyes of society. The emotional needs of either partner were not considered as important as making the right match that benefitted the families, either in status or financially...yet, men had outlets like whore houses and gentlemen's clubs that catered to their baser needs and needs for intellectual outlet. Even in the poorest groups, there were similar conditions, if more loosely defined, and the outcomes extremely bad for women who could not make a marriage work.

And there's plenty of evidence to show in male dominated societies that women's health and well-being were not considered in terms of her own worth but her worth to society. Could she be managed? Was she acting like a proper woman?
There were all kinds of ways for women to be "managed", including genital mutilating surgery, drugs and hospitalization.

As for the Catholic church, it was only recently (the sixties, I believe) that women had the full rights as male congregants. I will leave that to people who are of an age to speak to that. I just remember the church excommunicating my mother for divorcing her first husband in 1958, and not helping her keep her children. However, the laws of most of the states at that time did not allow custody of children under five years old to remain with the mother if she worked. And if she couldn't work, she couldn't support her kids. It seems that without birth control, women of that time didn't exactly have their health and well-being considered at all. The state allowed the divorce because he used to beat her, and it was well known fact with the police.

So, if anything, birth control gave women a bargaining chip and an opportunity to act like a fully responsible adult, as opposed to being "protected" from the sins of the flesh.

R.