NEO-MALTHUSIANISM. — birth control (v.) which, originally taking its point of departure from the theories of Malthus and freeing itself from the honest means proposed by him (delay of marriage, continence between spouses, etc.), advocates absolute freedom in the use of means to avoid procreation.
Given the work of Christianization carried out from the time of the “Reformation” onward, the principles of n.-m. achieved rapid and extremely widespread diffusion and are extensively practiced in present-day society. An insistent and broadly organized propaganda, at whose basis commercial interests also cannot be excluded, has led to an incredible diffusion of contraceptive methods, whose characteristic may be said always to be directed toward corrupting the intrinsic mechanism of sexual intercourse. While there are States, such as Italy, for example (Penal Code, art. 553), which, concerned about the serious demographic, social, and hygienic harm produced by the unrestrained propaganda of birth limitation and by neo-Malthusian methods, prohibit it under more or less severe penalties, in others, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon countries, it is supported and taught through specialized societies and clinics. In England the “Malthusian League” works in this field, in Holland the “Niew-Malthusianische Bond”; in America there is an “International Neo-Malthusian and Birth-Control Federation,” etc.; many newspapers have such propaganda as their specific purpose: “The Malthusian,” “Birth-Control News,” “Die Neue Generation,” etc.
The methods proposed for contraceptive purposes consist of devices of a chemical or mechanical nature, or of ways of performing the sexual act, such as to produce the death of the male sexual element after its emission, or to prevent it from reaching the ovum and fertilizing II.
All contraceptive means, although in terms of effectiveness they provide a high degree of security (some as much as 93–98%), never succeed in being infallible; from the medical point of view, they are more or less seriously harmful to local integrity and general health. Distinguished gynecologists have extensively described and documented local uterine-ovarian manifestations; general manifestations connected with neurovegetative imbalance (general malaise, asthenia, dizziness, insomnia, migraine, etc.); manifestations affecting the various organic systems (digestive: nausea, diarrhea, constipation, gastralgia, etc.; circulatory: tachycardia, palpitations, attacks of false angina pectoris, etc.; endocrine); and manifestations affecting neuropsychic equilibrium: hysterism, psychasthenia, depressive psychoses, anxious states extending to Freud’s anxiety neurosis, apart from the sense of guilt that affects the consciences of persons endowed with moral and religious sensitivity (v. Frankel, Congr. della Soc. ed. d'Ostetr. e Ginec., in Arch. f. Gyn., 144 [1931], p. 86; Clivio, Atti della Soc. Ital. di Ostetr. e Ginec., 36 [1939], p. 621 and bibliography at the end of the article). Various authors (Lanz, Schroder, Löfler, Sellheim, Goeth, Schimitz, etc.) also consider it possible that spermatozoa which have escaped destruction but have been partially altered by the chemical substances used in contraceptive practice, while retaining their fertilizing power, might produce defective human beings. In certain forms of birth control, the impossibility of the woman’s reabsorbing seminal fluid could give rise in her to genuine syndromes of sexual deficiency (already discussed by Mattei as early as 1863), characterized by irregularity and progressive diminution of the menstrual periods, nervousness, a tendency toward melancholic and anxious states, etc. It should be stated here in particular that interrupted intercourse, so widely practiced, especially among the lower social classes, is equally harmful—and indeed far more harmful than the other methods—from the point of view of both local and general damage, and particularly of neuropsychic damage.
From the moral point of view, while even a superficial judgment undoubtedly makes it clear that the killing of a fetus already conceived, all the more so if sufficiently developed, is a patent violation of the right to life (v. ABORTO; EMBRIOLOGIA), the malice involved in the voluntary deformation of human sexual intercourse might seem less intuitive. If one considers, however, that the generative act is a natural act, ordered by God, the author of nature, toward a determined end—which in the case under consideration is generation—it will easily be understood that man is free to perform or omit this act, but that, if he does perform it, he must perform it integrally. To corrupt such an act is a deviation from the natural order, a sin which, if the deformation is essential, is intrinsically grave. In the case under consideration there is no doubt that the deformation is essential, given that in this way attainment of the proper end of the act is made impossible. The means used by n.-m. are deliberately directed toward introducing such a deformation into the natural act, preventing the end of the procreation of offspring and seeking instead to attain only the instrumental pleasure represented by sexual enjoyment. If the deformation of the act were absent, but the purpose of enjoyment and rejection of offspring remained the same, although one could not speak strictly of n.-m., the individual could sin in view of the motives and the end that impel his action (v. CONTROLLO delle).
The Church has always condemned neo-Malthusian practices as a grave transgression of the law of nature (S. Penitenzieria, various responses from 15 Nov. 1816 to 3 June 1916; S. Congr. del S. Ufficio, 20 May 1851, 19 Apr. 1853, 26 Mar. 1897, 23 Nov. 1922). While the ministers of other religions capitulated, albeit reluctantly, in the face of the spread of the evil, as demonstrated by the fifteenth resolution of the 1930 Lambeth Conference, Pius XI solemnly proclaimed the doctrine according to which “any use whatsoever of marriage in which, through human malice, the act is deprived of its natural procreative power, runs counter to the law of God and of nature; and that those who dare to commit such actions incur the guilt of grave sin” (AAS, 22 [1930], p. 560). The solemn form with which the Supreme Pontiff introduces this declaration has led many to suggest that this constitutes infallible teaching ex cathedra (cf. A. Vermeersch, Cathéchisme du mariage chrétien d'après l'enciclique «Casti connubii», Bruges 1931, pp. 90–91). The encyclical, going into detail, also established specific norms concerning the conduct of the spouse compelled to cooperate materially in illicit neo-Malthusian practices (v. MATRIMONIO. VIII. USO DEL M).
Giuseppe De Nino-Pietro Palazzini