the conditions of
this world believe that a healthy, happy human race is more in keeping
with the laws of God, than disease, misery and poverty perpetuating
itself generation after generation. Furthermore, while conceding to
Catholic or other churchmen full freedom to preach their own doctrines,
whether of theology or morals, nevertheless when they attempt to carry
these ideas into legislative acts and force their opinions and codes
upon the non-Catholics, we consider such action an interference with the
principles of democracy and we have a right to protest.

Religious propaganda against Birth Control is crammed with contradiction
and fallacy. It refutes itself. Yet it brings the opposing views into
vivid contrast. In stating these differences we should make clear
that advocates of Birth Control are not seeking to attack the Catholic
church. We quarrel with that church, however, when it seeks to assume
authority over non-Catholics and to dub their behavior immoral because
they do not conform to the dictatorship of Rome. The question of bearing
and rearing children we hold is the concern of the mother and the
potential mother. If she delegates the responsibility, the ethical
education, to an external authority, that is her affair. We object,
however, to the State or the Church which appoints itself as arbiter
and dictator in this sphere and attempts to force unwilling women into
compulsory maternity.

When Catholics declare that "The authorities at Rome have again and
again declared that all positive methods of this nature are immoral and
forbidden," they do so upon the assumption that morality consists in
conforming to laws laid down and enforced by external authority, in
submission to decrees and dicta imposed from without. In this case, they
decide in a wholesale manner the conduct of millions, demanding of
them not the intelligent exercise of their own individual judgment and
discrimination, but unquestioning submission and conformity to dogma.
The Church thus takes the place of all-powerful parents, and demands
of its children merely that they should obey. In my belief such a
philosophy hampers the development of individual intelligence. Morality
then becomes a more or less successful attempt to conform to a code,
instead of an attempt to bring reason and intelligence to bear upon the
solution of each individual human problem.

But, we read on, Birth Control methods are not merely contrary to "moral
law," but f