Lisa McClain’s article, “How the Catholic Church Came to Oppose Birth Control,” recently was published in The Conversation. It already has been picked up by 65 news outlets, including Smithsonian Magazine, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Salon.com, the Houston Chronicle and the San Francisco Chronicle. It has over 10,000 hits and is now being translated into Spanish to extend its global reach.
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Pope Paul VI’s landmark Humanae Vitae in 1968, which prohibits Catholics from using artificial contraception in light of the development of the Pill and other modern contraceptives. The article provides historical and theological analysis into the Catholic Church’s stance on contraception.