Catholic theology and the steroid pill

Abstract

These days one hardly opens a Catholic paper or periodical without coming across at least one article or one letter about "THE PILL". Questions are asked and opinions are put forward which, more often than not, complicate rather than clarify some of the fundamental issues involved. Ardent hopes are also expressed that the Second Vatican Council will make a definite pronouncement on "the burning question of the lawfulness or otherwise of the pill." In this folder it will be attempted to state as briefly and with as few technical terms as possible the medical facts and the moral aspects of what have been termed "the new revolutionary drugs." Only drugs already developed, namely those taken by women, will be considered here, since the heralded "birth pill for men" is still in the realm of the possible or, maybe, of the probable and, being expressly designed to "stop completely the production of spermatozoa", it is clearly and solely contraceptive in intent.