AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
LOUISE BROWN, the world's first "test tube baby," was born in 1978, ten years to the day after Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae. It was a resonant coincidence. The papal encyclical is best known for reaffirming the classical Christian prohibition on contraception, but it also condemned as immoral attempts to separate procreation and sex from the other end. In the decades since then, in vitro fertilization has become a nearly universally accepted social phenomenon. Some states even require health insurers to cover its costs.
Catholic teaching on contraception may be widely ignored, even by most Catholics. But most Catholics are not even aware of their church's ...