De Smet. Collationes Brugenses, December, 1910. Wouters. Nederlandische kathol. Stemmen, January 15, 1911. Waffelaert. De Virtutibus Cardinalibus, vol. ii. Bruges, 1889. Sharp. Journal of the American Medical Association, December 4, 1909. This is the article which started the entire vasectomy controversy. Barker. Maryland Medical Journal, April, 1910. Bell. Hereditary Criminality. Medico-Legal Journal, vol. xvii. New York. Desfosses. Presse Méd., vol. xviii. Rentoul. St. Thomas Hospital Gazette, vol. xx. London. Swift. Maine Medical Association Journal, December, 1914. Lydston. Medical Record, November 8, 1913. New York. CHAPTER XXIV THE ETHICS OF BIRTH CONTROL A corollary of the doctrine which treats of the destruction in medical practice of existent human life, is a consideration of what is called Birth Control, or the criminal prevention of possible human life by onanistic contraceptive methods. There has been an agitation for several years past in western and northwestern Europe and in the United States to bring about the repeal of laws which forbid the spreading of information on the methods of preventing conception. The laws which the agitators wish to have abrogated declare that contraceptive information is indecent and should be classed with the circulation of obscene literature, pornographic pictures, and instruction in abortion. The birth control advocates pay no attention to accusations like those expressed in the laws, or to those made by persons who have accurate notions of morality and common decency, but assert that the spread of contraceptive information tends to benefit the individual and human society. Birth control as advocated by its perpetrators is intrinsically contrary to the natural law, and therefore immoral; it mentally and physically debases those that are guilty of the practice; it does not benefit the poor as its advocates claim it does; the arguments urged by its supporters are foolish and frequently deliberate untruths; and it is destructive of society and the state. Broadly speaking the natural law rests on the principle that order, reason, justice, what is congruous with the nature of a being or faculty and tends to its perfection in being or action, should prevail, and that disorder, unreason, injustice, the unnatural, must be avoided. The right order of nature as established by the Supreme Creator of nature is the standard of action; what is contrary to that order is evil, wrong, destructive, criminal, injurious, or the like, in different circumstances, but altogether these deordinate conditions must be removed, not accepted. Morality also depends on these facts. Morality is merely the observance of the natural law, and immorality is revolt against that law.