Tuesday, Feb. 9, 1965
University Daily Kansan
Page 3
U.S. Trend Approves Population Control
By Louis Cassels United Press International
WASHINGTON - (UPI) - In 1959, a presidential committee on foreign aid reported that rapid population growth was nullifying efforts to raise living standards in under-developed countries.
It recommended that the U.S. government support a broad program of research on fertility control, and provide both technical advice and other forms of assistance to countries trying to reduce their birth rates.
This recommendation drew a sharp blast of disapproval from Catholic bishops. The U.S. hierarchy issued a joint statement asserting that "Catholics will not support any public assistance, either at home or abroad, to promote artificial birth prevention, abortion or sterilization . . ."
A careful reading of this statement would have shown that it did not object to government-sponsored research designed to perfect "natural" methods of birth control, such as the rhythm method of periodic abstinence which the Catholic Church approves.
BUT GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS did not bother with such nuances. Terrified by the very idea of antagonizing millions of Catholic voters they dropped the whole idea of population control.
When president Dwight D. Eisenhower was asked at a news conference whether he favored more government-sponsored research on fertility regulation, he replied quickly that he could think of nothing more "emphatically not a proper governmental function."
Things have changed considerably since 1959. Today there exists a very substantial body of U.S. opinion in favor of positive action to cope with the world population explosion. It includes most of the major protestant bodies, many Jewish groups and a large number of Roman Catholics.
The Gallup Poll reported recently
that eight out of ten Americans now favor giving birth control information to anyone who wants it.
THE TREND OF public attitudes was clearly reflected in the calm reaction which greeted President Johnson's declaration in his state of the union message that the United States will "seek new ways to use our knowledge to help deal with the explosion in world population."
One Catholic official - Msgr. John C. Knott, director of the family Life Bureau of the National Catholic Welfare Conference-bridled at the president's announcement Msgr. Knott issued a statement recalling the hierarchy's stand in 1959, and added:
"Despite popular opinion to the contrary, the attitude of the Catholic Church toward contraception is still one of condemnation as a serious moral evil."
But the official newspaper of the Catholic Archdiocese of Indiana-polis promptly took issue with Msgr. Knott.
"The President is right. . ." it said. "Some ways must be found of limiting the size of families in underdeveloped countries. There are ways of doing this acceptable to the Catholic Church. There may soon be discoveries in medicine and a better understanding of God's law concerning reproduction that will increase the ways acceptable to the Church.
"Msgr. Knott's statement gave no indication that he recognizes these possibilities. In fact, it reads as though it were written by a man who is totally unaware of what Catholic theologians . . . are writing and saying about the problem President Johnson brought into the open."
THESE THEOLOGIANS are writing and saying that the Church can and should give its moral blessing to new methods of birth control—such as anti-ovulation pills—which are based on regulation of natural bodily processes.
Some theologians, mainly in Europe, have gone farther and are urging that the Church scrap the whole distinction between "natural" methods such as rhythm, which are held to be moral, and "artificial" methods such as the use of contra-
Enrollee Total Jumps
in Kansas City. This semester's enrollment at the Medical Center is 23 less than last spring.
ceptive devices, which are held to be immoral.
Students on the Lawrence campus number 11,244, and the remaining 1,012 are at the KU Medical Center
The second-highest spring semester enrollment total in KU's history may be reached by the end of this week, James K. Hitt, registrar and director of admissions, said yesterday.
Although there are 810 fewer students on Mt. Oread than there were last fall, this drop of seven per cent has become normal in recent years because of increased mid-year graduations. Many of the gaps have been filled by 435 new students, nearly all transfers from other colleges. Last year 377 new students enrolled the second semester.
Yesterday, 12,256 students began classes, and approximately 300 late enrollees are expected to join the crowds on Jayhawk Boulevard during the next several days. This projected total of over 12,500 shows a gain of 839 students over last spring's enrollment, an increase of 7.1 per cent.
For the KU coed there is one sad note: the male-female ratio is now 1.75 to 1. Last spring the ratio was 1.84 to 1.
The respectability of these viewpoints—for the present at least—was certified by three cardinals who spoke up at the recent session of the Vatican Council. Cardinal Leger of Montreal said it is time to modify the whole idea, which has shaped Catholic thinking about sex since the time of St. Augustine, that procreation of children is the "primary" end of marital relations, and the expression of conjugal love merely a "secondary" end.
Cardinal Alfrink of the Netherlands observed that many good Catholic theologians are no longer convinced by traditional arguments which seek to prove that it is contrary to natural law, and therefore intrinsically evil, to "interfere" with the biological consequences of sexual acts.
Cardinal Suenens of Belgium solemnly warned the Council that the Church must listen to what modern science has to say about overpopulation and birth regulation.
"I beg you, my brothers, let us avoid a new 'Galileo case,'" said the cardinal. "One is enough for the Church."
POPE PAUL VI HAS appointed a special commission to conduct a "wide and profound" study of the whole problem of birth control. Its findings will be reported directly to the Fope, and will form the basis of a new papal pronouncement.
PAR-DUPLICATE BRIDGE TOURNAMENT THURSDAY FEB.11 KANSAS UNION JAYHAWK ROOM
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