The pill is still 15 at 50
TIME Magazine recently featured as its cover story the 50th anniversary of the pill, that diminutive tablet that usually comes in a set and has generated such a controversy that it has monopolized the use of the otherwise generic term, pill.
The article traces the long, tortuous history of the contraceptive, giving out plenty of details from different angles—biological, social, political, legal, economic, personal, marital and familial, etc. As expected, the moral angle had to struggle for due consideration.
In the end, the author acknowledged that the issue is so complicated that as its parting shot she said: “As the conversation of the past half-century makes plain, science alone will not resolve questions that reach this deep into our relations with one another.”
I’m ok for now with that non-committal position. The issue is still hanging in the air, unresolved and in earnest search for the truth. But the conversation, also known as debate, discussion, dialogue, etc., has to continue, even as the drama itself as played out in life, in real time will continue.
So, the immediate impression I got after reading through the article is that the smoldering issue is still a restless adolescent at age 50, still possessed with rebelliousness, caprice and instability, in danger of falling into total alienation from reality which, by the way, is far beyond the physical and temporal.
For sure, it has produced volumes of arguments, pro and con, that were nothing short of amazing. The tricky part is that each side has points that are true and false, logical and fallacious. Sorting out which is which is now going to require a colossal effort. We need to pray hard for enlightenment.
To me, the different stages and developments that marked its historical path so far are a reflection of the battle between faith and reason, belief in God and belief in men alone. I suspect it will take more time, more twists and turns, more blood, sweat and tears before we can see the final denouement.
The powerful reasonings built up by each side can be so convincing that one needs to be truly radicalized in his beliefs to decide which is one is correct and get out of confusion.
We cannot remain in the externals and the peripherals. Especially in this issue of the pill, we really need to go to the roots of things, before we get lost in our man-made webs of rationalizations and justifications.
I’m of the belief that only faith can truly go radical, since it has the original roots in God. Reason, on the other hand, can not be radical if not infused with faith. Alone it is simply a rootless, floating human faculty looking for its ultimate proper soil and port.
Reason alone without faith can easily be misused by us to follow our, not God’s, designs. With this anomaly right at the start of our capacity to know, we tend to make our own reality, our own world. We end up creating cultures contrary to God’s will, with laws and institutions to support them.
To be sure, there are those who are skeptical of faith. They think that any concession given to it necessarily undermines their reason, and they do not like that at all.
This is actually wrong, since what faith does is to enhance reason and to put it in its best conditions. For this, we have to acknowledge the limitations of our reason. And that is where much of the problem lies. Many of us do not like to accept the limitations of our reason.
In this issue of the pill, for example, the rationalization started by claiming that women need to have greater control or defense for their body in the face of the danger of the so-called unwanted pregnancy.
From there, all sorts of justifications developed. The legal angle exaggerated the right to privacy of individuals to the extent of undermining the objective moral law. The liberal feminists insisted that women have absolute right over their body, and can do anything with it as they choose.
Of course, all sorts of supporting data presented in vivid drama were made. But then again, nature cannot be cheated indefinitely. It always has a way to work out corrections in life and in people, often in very extraordinary, explosive manner.
We may still fail to promptly see the connection between our mistakes and the corrections. We may even harden our erroneous positions. But God and nature will eventually clarify things in stronger terms.
(Fr. Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City.Email: roycimagala@gmail.com)
