On Planning and Controlling Human Birth

Catholic Bishops would like women to be unable to plan or time the birth of their own children, but it appears Catholic Bishops haven’t really given the subject much thought. Had they done so, I believe they might have a different opinion about the effects of birth control on a society. Here’s what Ludwig von Mises had to say on the subject:

Those fighting birth control want to eliminate a device indispensable for the preservation of peaceful human cooperation and the social division of labor. Where the average standard of living is impaired by the excessive increase in population figures. irreconcilable conflicts of interests arise. Each individual is again a rival of all other individuals in the struggle for survival. The annihilation of rivals is the only means of increasing one’s own well-being. The philosophers and theologians who assert that birthcontrol is contrary to the laws of God and Nature refuse to see things as they really are. Nature straitens the material means required for the improvement of human well-being and survival. As natural conditions are, man has only the choice between the pitiless war of each against each or social cooperation. But social cooperation is impossible if people give rein to the natural impulse of proliferation. In restricting procreation man adjusts himself to the natural conditions of his existence. The rationalization of the sexual passions is an indispensable condition of civilization and societal bonds. Its abandonment would in the long run not increase but decrease the numbers of those surviving, and would render life for everyone as poor and miserable as it was many thousands of years ago for our ancestors.

-Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, pg. 673.

So much for humans breeding like wild animals, we humans have moved past that. Or have we?

Via Reason.