God's Law?

The wealth of publicity of the Presidential campaign has obscured one of the most controversial and misrepresented issues in Massachusetts politics of the last decade. Out of the Birth Control Referendum, which will appear as question number four on November's ballot, has grown a bitter fight over separation of church and state.

The history of the struggle for birth control in Massachusetts is long and complicated, but the important facts are these. In 1879, one of the so-called Blue Laws was passed making it illegal to advertise or give information about contraceptive devices. As medical knowledge increased and Victorianism waned, the law sank into oblivion. In 1938, however, when birth control clinics were flourishing throughout the Commonwealth, the old law was unexpectedly enforced when the Salem Clinic was raided by police and the doctors arrested. The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth upheld the police action followed by the closing of all the clinics. Thus Massachusetts became one of the two states in the Union where contraceptive advice is outlawed. In 1942 a bill sponsored by the Planned Parenthood League was introduced into the Legislature. Defeated there, it was placed before the voters as a referendum and turned down.

As a referendum the proposed legislation will appear once again on the ballot in November. It proposes that the law "which makes it an offense to advertise or give information as to the procurement of means for the prevention of pregnancy or conception shall not apply to treatment or prescription given to married women by registered physicians for the protection of life or health." It is, therefore, purely a permissive and actually a medical measure. Unfortunately it has been turned into a religious issue through the opposition of the Catholic Church.

The doctrine of the Church calls contraception "murder," hence "against God's law." It is, according to this thesis, the duty of the Church to prevent all men, whether Catholics or not, from committing such a crime. This is indeed a difficult argument to answer on its own grounds. In this nation, however, the question of murder is a legal rather than a sectarian matter. It is not, therefore, relevant to argue it on a religious level. And when the Church attempts to force such doctrines on the state, it challenges the fundamental precept of a free society.

As the law stands now, doctors are forbidden to give advice even though it in no way runs counter to their own moral or religious convictions or that of their patients. If the bill were passed, no one would be obliged to seek or receive contraceptive information. It would only allow that woman who does not believe that contraception is against God's law to procure the advice from her physician which might save her life or preserve her health.