Quotes Supporting Situational Ethics from the Birth Control Review

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Quotes Supporting Situational Ethics from the Birth Control Review

1917
"... one is forced to admit that our whole attitude towards sex is on an unwholesome and unsound basis. Fundamental psychic changes must obtain, a cleaner, more natural attitude must take the place of the primitive convention-veneered instincts ) in short, we must create a new morality ... we need a new morality."

Lillian Browne-Olf. "A Psychological Aspect of Birth Control." Birth Control Review, Volume I, Numbers 4 and 5 (April-May 1917), page 12.

1920

"To those who unconsciously hold to the idea of an unchanging and unchangeable code of morality, we might mention that moral standards are evolutionary, and change from time to time, and often completely reverse themselves from epoch to epoch."

William J. Fielding. "The Morality of Birth Control." Birth Control Review Volume IV, Number 11 (November 1920), page 13.

1924

"One reason for the difficulty I suggested in the quotation from William Blake with which she heads the article: `and priests in black gowns were walking their rounds and binding with briars my joys and desires ...'

"In the first place, let us recognize that in the ordinary acceptance of the term, morality is nothing but the net residuum, of social habits, the codification of customs. Decent conservative and altogether respectable cannibals find nothing immoral in anthropology. The only `immoral' person, in any country is he who fails to observe the current folkways."

"`Today the chief warfare against Birth Control is waged by the Roman Catholic clergy and their allies ... the church has occupied itself with the problem of imposing abstinence upon its priesthood ... it is not surprising that such a class of professional celibates should be physically sensitive to the implications of the idea of contraception. Taught to look upon all expressions of physical love as sinful, it is but natural that these men should combat a school of thought so diametrically opposed to their own ... The philosophy of Birth Control insists upon the maximum of personal liberty in every sphere of human behavior that is compatible with the maximum of personal responsibility. Rightly or wrongly, it throws back upon the individual full responsibility for his behavior. It requires him to act upon the basis of reason, experience and prudence. True morality, we claim, is the outgrowth of experience and of the exercise of rational intelligence upon that experience.

"`The Catholic scheme of ethics, on the contrary, demands strict obedience to the laws and prohibitions that have been codified by authority. That authority declares in no uncertain terms that all positive methods of this nature (contraception) are immoral and forbidden.'"

Margaret Sanger. "The Fight Against Birth Control." Birth Control Review, Volume VIII, Number 9 (September 1924), pages 245 to 248.

1925

"Sexual expression is one of the most profoundly spiritual of all the avenues of human experience, and Birth Control the supreme moral instrument by which, without injury to others nor to the future destinies of mankind on this earth, each individual is enabled to progress on the road of self development and self realization ...

"The application of the State Board of Charities for increased appropriation for the South Dakota School and Home for the Feeble-minded shows to what extent our present methods are meeting the problem of the breeding of the unfit."

"Editorials." Birth Control Review, Volume IX, Number 8 (August 1925), pages 243 and 244.

"This mirage of relief for their miseries ) this program based on emotional starvation ) is all the greatest of the Christian Churches has to offer its children as the alternative for Birth Control. The self control which would limit a marriage to a reasonable family of, say, three children means that many years of married life must be passed in absolute celibacy.

"This church, of any institution in the world, ought to know that such self control is a mirage. For more than fifteen hundred years the Roman Catholic Church has been trying to enforce celibacy not upon the rank and file, but upon a picked body of the holiest men in its membership."

"Editorials." Birth Control Review, Volume IX, Number 10 (October 1925), page 276.

1926

"Sexual expression is one of the most profoundly spiritual of all the avenues of human existence, and Birth Control the supreme moral instrument by which, without injury to others, nor to the future destinies of mankind on this earth, each individual is enabled to progress on the road of self-development and self-realization."

Margaret Sanger, quoted in the Birth Control Review, Volume XI, Number 1 (April 1927), page 121.

1928

"What does the World League for Sexual Reform aim at?

"It aims at being the headquarters of a campaign against a false sexual morality, a false morality, to which already endless numbers of human beings have been sacrificed, and which continues daily to demand its victims.

"In this fight we mean to use exclusively those mental weapons and those facts, which sexual science (in the widest sense) gives us.

"What is out of accord with the laws of nature and science can never be ethically right or truly moral. Where opposition exists between the forces of nature and of society (as, for example, in the population question) one must be at pains to do away with this opposition by using the conscious will of mankind to bring these forces into harmonious cooperation.

"We are unable to recognize as binding the varying rules prescribed at different times by the moment. We can recognize only what is in agreement with the teachings of life and love.

"The following ten points deserve special consideration:

1. Marriage reform. Wedlock must be raised to the position of a living comradeship between two people. This necessitates a reform in the marriage contract, conjugal rights and divorce.

2. The position of women as members of society. Women have not by any means everywhere as yet won the equal rights that are their due in political, economic, social and sexual spheres.

3. Birth Control i.e. greater sense of responsibility in the begetting of children. We believe in making harmless contraceptives known, combat on the other hand both abortion and the penalizing of abortion.

4. Eugenics in the sense of Nietzsche's words: "You shall not merely continue the race, but move it upward!"

5. A fair judgment of those who are unsuited to marriage, above all the intermediate sexual types.

6. Tolerance of free sexual relations, especially protection of the unmarried mother and the child born out of wedlock.

7. The prevention of prostitution and venereal disease.

8. The conception of aberrations of sexual desire not as criminal, sinful or vicious but as a more or less pathological phenomenon.

9. The setting up of a code of sexual law, which does not interfere with the mutual sexual will of grown-up persons.

10. The question of sexual education and enlightenment.

"All these points have in the last fifty years been the subject of lively discussions, which have not only often fundamentally altered the whole conception, but also the whole organization of sexual life. We can in this sense speak of a sexual crisis. The old morality with its terrible sexual misery still has the upper hand, and the human prejudices and condemnation are still heaped higher."

"News Notes." Birth Control Review, Volume XII, Number 7 (July 1928), page 215.

1930

"Law in the first instance is merely the crystallization of custom. And custom is no more than what most of us are in the habit of doing most of the time."

Dorothy Kenyon. "Nullification or Repeal?" Birth Control Review, Volume XIV, Number 10 (October 1930), page 278.

"In the ideal community human life will be sacred, inviolate and of the highest value ... But such a community cannot develop unless we learn to eliminate the weak and incapable, in the simplest and most painless way."

"Dr. Helene Stocker Writes" (from the German daily Der Wiener Tag of September 18, 1930). Birth Control Review, Volume XIV, Number 11 (November 1930), page 322.

"Humanism does not believe in the supernatural. Its supreme aim is the understanding and development of human personality, progressing toward an ideal society of ideal persons. It is not the worship or love of God. The faith of Humanism is not in a supernatural God, but in the supreme value and perfectibility of human personality. It does not seek a justification for life in another life beyond death, but bends its energies toward making life on earth as deep and full as possible. "Instead of the fear of God as a means of social control, man prefers the good-will of man ... For a mystic sense of union with the divine, the Humanist substitutes a genuine reverence for and appreciation of truth, beauty and goodness, as found in nature, including human nature."

It is worthy of special note that the second item of Mr. Potter's social program of Humanism is the "legalizing of Birth Control.""

Review of Charles Francis Potter's book Humanism: A New Religion, by Eric L. Alling, M.D. Birth Control Review, Volume XIV, Number 11 (November 1930), page 327.

1931

"The importance of this encyclical [Casti Connubii] lies in the fact that the head of the most powerful division of Christianity announces the refusal of that Church to recognize as moral an accepted practice in modern marital relations. When a majority of intelligent, honest citizens deliberately accepts a practice it thereby becomes moral, whatever any religious leader may say to the contrary. Contraception is here to stay, and if the Catholic Church refuses to sanction it, so much the worse for that Church."

Reverend Charles Francis Potter, Founder of the Humanist Society. "Comments on the Pope's Encyclical." Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 2 (February 1931), page 40.

"I think the whole Christian world will thank him [Pope Pius XI] for his explicit declaration that abortion, in so far as this is used to enable people to escape responsibility, is murder. I do not believe anybody questions this, but it is well to have it stated.

"But when he comes to the matter of birth control, I cannot go with him. So far as I can see the Church has nothing to do with this. It is a matter for medical science to determine whether it is against nature. If it is, science itself will forbid it. If it is not, then it is a matter for the individual."

Right Reverend Arthur S. Lloyd, Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese of New York (Protestant Episcopal Church). "Comments on the Pope's Encyclical." Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 2 (February 1931), page 41.

"The churches too often are dragged unwillingly by the ears into the schools of modern thinking. There is want of red blood in their consent to that which they can no longer refuse.

"Moral teachers of many sorts have made too much of the art of saying "no." It is important enough; but the art of saying "yes," and of saying it so that everybody understands it, is far greater and far more needed. Religionists have more to fear from their own timidities than from any aggressiveness which wickedness has ever shown."

Robert Whitaker. "Yea-Saying." Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 3 (March 1931), pages 83 and 84.

"Birth control will help to eliminate disease, promote the welfare of the individual, of the family and society. Continence may be the ideal as the Catholic Church points out, but we may leave it for the time when we become angels."

Matheus P. de Freitas of Santa Cruz, Flores, the Azores. Letter to the Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 4 (April 1931), page 126.

"Opponents of birth control frequently shoot their cuffs and snort that "self control" is the proper alternative for married people who do not, for one reason or another, desire children. This theory sounds good, but it wrecks itself upon the shoals of human nature. There is little reason to believe that continence in married people is either desirable or possible, except for a few ascetics and eccentrics who refuse to recognize the biological urge as the basis of love and marriage. The churchmen who have indorsed birth control have taken a sane view of the matter and exhibited a sound understanding of the trend of public thought."

Editorial from the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch of March 23, 1931. "Comments ..... and Comments On the Report of The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America." Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 5 (May 1931), page 142.

"Childless couples (when fertile and sound) are a menace to civilization, their early supreme selfishness acts to destroy the ends they had anticipated, and they finally become dissatisfied and anti-social ... The illegality, under present disgraceful laws, of the dissemination of proper contraceptive information to those who need it, makes it incumbent on each individual couple to repudiate unjustifiable laws, which are no doubt also unconstitutional, and seek comfort, health and efficiency for themselves, to choose between poverty and handicap on the one hand and proper food and sufficient early training on the other, for their children."

Walter F. Robie, M.D. "The Ethics of Parenthood." Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 5 (May 1931), page 158.

"I find myself in complete agreement with Havelock Ellis in his article on Marriage ) An Enduring Institution. I believe that monogamy is the ideal to which society should approximate. There should be nothing compulsory about it. Marriage should be made harder and divorce easier. Plenty of sex education and probably sane and decent sex experience should precede permanent marriage. The new sexology, far from destroying marriage and the family, is the only thing which can make possible a happy and enduring marriage for the majority of mankind. Most marital discord is due to absence of sex knowledge and to sexual maladjustment, both of which would be eliminated if we were civilized enough to disseminate scientific knowledge on sex matters and to permit pre-conjugal sex experience.

"... Obviously, the bonds of theological and legal intimidation are bursting. The new family order must rest upon intelligence, freedom, and adequate information."

Harry Elmer Barnes. "Comments on Ellis' Article: Freedom and Knowledge Needed." Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 7 (July 1931), page 210.

"But so great has become the mass production of laws in the last few years, that people are now beginning to reflect that a law that is not or cannot be enforced is a stench in the nostrils of human progress. Thinking people in constantly increasing numbers believe that there is all the difference in the world between evils that are essentially and by common consent deleterious to human society ) such as murder, rape, robbery and the like ) and actions that are declared wrong by legislation, about which there may be a division of opinion. The old common law used to describe this difference as mala in se and mala prohibita. People are becoming more and more convinced that no law can be enforced or should exist that does not have behind it a practically united public sentiment, and are setting off against our traditional law-mindedness a steadily increasing emphasis on personal liberty.

"The old cry that a law is a law, and just for that reason must be blindly obeyed, has no place in the modern forward-looking, liberty-loving humanitarianism of present day life.

"The opposition in the present instance is confined, practically, to a single very powerful and magnificently disciplined church, but it is a very real opposition, and one that the eagle-eyed politician will always respect. Until that church can be persuaded to change its view ) and there, in my judgment, should be the focal point of attack ) all attempts to change this spuriously termed "moral" law will prove abortive."

George Packard. "Is Birth Control Legal?" Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 9 (September 1931), pages 248 to 250.

"... It is the opportunity to hold up before our youth the ideals of a Christian home. What will those ideals be? We will have to discover them; we do not fully know them yet. But at least we may be sure a Christian home will not be a home in which sex is thought to be naturally a filthy thing. It will not be a place where shame goes hand in hand with physical love. It will not be a place where the mother must bear child after child, some of them unfit to live, until her own health is forfeit. Rather it will be a place where children are wanted and where they are eagerly sought when health and finances permit. At other times it will be a place where physical love need not be burdened with the worry of unwanted pregnancies. Surely a Christian home ought to be at least this."

The Survey Graphic, August 1931, quoted in "In the Magazines: The Churches and the Stork." Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 9 (September 1931), pages 268 and 269.

1935

"Whatever else religion may teach today, it teaches that human progress is dependent on human initiative and human direction. Religion today regards man as able rationally and scientifically to control himself, his world, the world of energy, and the world of values for the satisfaction of human desires; and in proper proportions it glorifies these desires ...

"In accordance with this trend, the attitude of the church toward the whole problem of sex is changing. Religion is becoming actively interested in the erotic life where for ages the grossest ignorance and credulity, superstition and tyranny have held sway. In the place now occupied by such ignorance and credulity, such superstition and tyranny, the Church today will help you install knowledge and enlightened virtue.

"Too often in the past sex life has been thought of as largely an evil to be tolerated for the purpose of propagation. But as the church came to terms with science in other fields, it slowly capitulated in the field of sex. Here the church is no longer willing for nature to be uncontrolled by intelligence and scientific techniques. In recent years the following church organizations have gone on record in support of birth control:

Committee on Marriage and the Home of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ inAmerica

Lambeth Conference of Bishops of the Church of England

General Council of Congregational and Christian Churches

Universalist General Convention

The American Unitarian Association

Central Conference of American Rabbis

New York East Conference and other regional sections of the Methodist Episcopal Church

Special Committee of the Women's Problems Group of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting ofFriends

The 1934 Convention of the Y.W.C.A.

"The Rhythm method now making such rapid headway among Catholics, while not a satisfactory method of birth control, is nevertheless a distinct move in the direction of a modern attitude on the matter; for if sex life is ethical apart from propagation, then insistence on natural as distinguished from other scientific methods is an untenable position and will undoubtedly be abandoned in favor of techniques that offer greater safety than can the "safe period."

"The major cultural, ethical and religious significance of birth control is that it puts the realm of sex on the side of intelligence, control and human satisfactions. The basic importance of birth control is not primarily in its emphasis on the small family system ... but in its principle of intelligent control of life processes ... And perhaps most important of all, the mind of the public must be so educated that sex and all that pertains thereto can be thought and spoken of with the frankness that now prevails in the fields of dietetics and esthetics, or of ethics and religion."

Rev. Curtis W. Reese, Dean of the Abraham Lincoln Center, in a speech on the church and birth control. Birth Control Review, Volume II, Number 5 (New Series, February 1935), pages 2 and 3.