English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Zendy Plus

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Zendy Tools

Zendy Open

Although it might be convenient to discuss the legal and political aspects of population control in the United States as if they were two separate topics, any such arbitrary division of the subject could well obscure the close relationship between them. Unfortunately, the word "political" is one of the debased coins of our language. Once encompassing the whole range of man's activities in relation to the common good, the sense of this adjective is now limited to the art of obtaining and retaining public office. If we go back to the older sense of the word, however, we can observe a truly "political" aspect in the history of the legislation against contraceptives in the United States in the attitudes of lawmakers and judges toward attempted changes in these laws and in the current controversies, of far-reaching importance in their impact upon personal freedom, over the availability of contraceptive advice in publicly-supported hospital and welfare services and in the foreign-aid programs of our own Government. The subject cuts across vistas of human lifenot merely legal, but religious and social; not merely theoretical, but practical and immediate. Interestingly enough, some measures of population control have run afoul of the law, while others have escaped any such proscriptive legislation. In the latter category are (i) absolute continence, a time-honored method of family limitation formerly, but no longer, extolled by the Roman Catholic Church as the only permissible alternative to contraception; (2) periodic continence, sometimes called rhythm, a method now approved and even under some circumstances recommended by the Roman Catholic hierarchy; (3) coitus interruptus,1 perhaps the most widely practiced of all birth control measures; and (4) coitus reservatus,2 a more exacting technique requiring an even greater degree of self-control than coitus interruptus. All of these have the virtue of being both legally permissible and inexpensive. One of them, absolute continence, possesses the added advantage of being foolproof. The other available methods, sterilization, abortion, and contraception, are still entangled in a maze of legislative prohibition or regulation. It is these three last-named methods that will be the subject of more detailed discussion in this article.

The Legal and Political Aspects of Population Control in the United States