(The Nationalist, 20 January 2006)
The sexual revolution began in the Sixties. It came with the Pill, when one of the great constraints against promiscuity was removed, namely, the fear of the woman becoming pregnant.
Ireland was not exempt from any of this. In 1971, less than 3% of babies were born out of marriage. Now, it is more than 30%. In 1997, 45% of all first babies were born outside marriage, and 95% of births to teenage mothers were outside of marriage.
Sometimes, TV soap operas present extra-marital sex as a harmless frolic. But a price is paid in broken relationships, violated trust, the disrupted lives of children, and the loneliness and isolation of the solo mother.
One possible response to all this is to make available more contraceptives, morning-after pills, and abortion. In Britain, prescriptions for the morning-after pill to teenagers multiplied four-fold in the Nineties, but the level of abortions among them continued as before. Since the passage of the Abortion Act in 1967, over six million children have been aborted, with 100,000 of them to women who gave an Irish address. In the Seventies, the President of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Alan Guttmacher, said plainly that increased contraception leads to increased abortion.
Casual sex is like stealing: it is taking something you’re not entitled to. It is like telling lies: it is making an untrue statement with the body about the kind of relationship and commitment we have to the other person.
Statistically, there’s a higher level of marital breakdown where a couple have lived together beforehand than where they have not.
Christian teaching presents a different way of living: abstinence before marriage and fidelity within it. They make for good relationships, good conscience, and good health of mind, body and emotions.
This teaching asks a lot, but it also gives a lot:
- It asks for self-control; it gives self-respect.
- It asks for self-denial; it gives inner joy.
- It asks for self-sacrifice; it gives personal peace.
For those in a hurry: ‘Hell is the suffering of being unable to love’. (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)