orbidden because they are "unnatural," being "the perversion
of a natural function." This, of course, is the weakest link in the
whole chain. Yet "there is no question of the lawfulness of birth
restriction through abstinence"--as though abstinence itself were not
unnatural! For more than a thousand years the Church was occupied with
the problem of imposing abstinence on its priesthood, its most educated
and trained body of men, educated to look upon asceticism as the finest
ideal; it took one thousand years to convince the Catholic priesthood
that abstinence was "natural" or practicable.(3) Nevertheless, there is
still this talk of abstinence, self-control, and self-denial, almost in
the same breath with the condemnation of Birth Control as "unnatural."

If it is our duty to act as "cooperators with the Creator" to bring
children into the world, it is difficult to say at what point our
behavior is "unnatural." If it is immoral and "unnatural" to prevent
an unwanted life from coming into existence, is it not immoral and
"unnatural" to remain unmarried from the age of puberty? Such casuistry
is unconvincing and feeble. We need only point out that rational
intelligence is also a "natural" function, and that it is as imperative
for us to use the faculties of judgment, criticism, discrimination of
choice, selection and control, all the faculties of the intelligence,
as it is to use those of reproduction. It is certainly dangerous "to
frustrate the natural ends for which these faculties were created."
This also, is always intrinsically wrong--as wrong as lying and
blasphemy--and infinitely more devastating. Intelligence is as natural
to us as any other faculty, and it is fatal to moral development and
growth to refuse to use it and to delegate to others the solution of
our individual problems. The evil will not be that one's conduct is
divergent from current and conventional moral codes. There may be every
outward evidence of conformity, but this agreement may be arrived at, by
the restriction and suppression of subjective desires, and the more
or less successful attempt at mere conformity. Such "morality" would
conceal an inner conflict. The fruits of this conflict would be neurosis
and hysteria on the one hand; or concealed gratification of suppressed
desires on the other, with a resultant hypocrisy and cant. True morality
cannot be based on conformity. There must be no conflict between
subjective desire and outward behavio