The most popular contraceptive in America today, despite adverse health warnings, is the birth-control pill. Up to 8 million women take it, compared with 5 million who use other contraceptive devices. Dr. Herbert Ratner, associate clinical professor of public health and preventive medicine at the Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago, says more and more doctors are losing faith in the Pill, because it is not as safe as they had been led to believe. Said one doctor, an eye specialist, "I told my wife I won't let her be a guinea pig. I see too many eye changes in my patients." The fact is, never have so many individuals confidently placed their trust in such a powerful medication — a chemical which interferes with the enormously complicated endocrine (hormonal) system — naively assuming it to be safe. The "safety" of the Pill promises to be one of the century's most explosive medical controversies! Apparently disregarding all questions of their bodily well-being, however, the fact is that some 20 million women around the world are now taking the Pill. Some doctors claim the Pill comes closest to being the ideal contraceptive since it is easy to take and is virtually 100 percent effective. This is why the Pill has been so extremely popular among women. However, this popularity has had certain "side effects," besides the implications to health. Authorities have admitted that the Pill, which has freed women from unwanted pregnancies, has also freed them from sexual restraint! The results? Increased spread of genital infections, including syphilis and gonorrhea. VD is "making the scene" with young people as never before, and no doubt some of the blame can be laid before this "gift" of human ingenuity. Because the Pill has provided a forceful impetus behind the "sexual revolution" and has consequently unloosed an avalanche of sexual promiscuity and permissiveness! In Sweden, increasing use of the Pill has been blamed for alarming rises in venereal diseases. Gonorrhea, especially, has shown recent rapid increases. Syphilis is spreading also. Says Dr. H. Williams in his book The Pill in New Perspective: "It (the Pill) has REVOLUTIONIZED SEXUAL MORES and attitudes for many, and it has become the symbol of a new era" (p. 3, our emphasis). Says Professor Martin B. Loeb, director of the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin, "...Women are now sexually free wherever they are, just as men have always been. They have a sense of mastery of their own bodies" (The Pill and Its Impact, by Ostermann and Arnold, pp. 21-27). In California, the Pill is the favorite contraceptive of young people — as common on college campuses as aspirin or toothpaste. Said one girl with a strong Protestant background: "The Pill is no longer a moral question. It does not involve a moral absolute like 'Thou shalt not kill.' [What about 'Thou shalt not commit adultery'? — the next verse after this young lady's quote!]" Another girl confessed: "You won't say 'no' as often after you start The Pill. The temptation is still there, but the danger isn't." People today have gotten away from the teachings of the Bible. Young people no longer look to the moral absolutes of Scripture to guide their lives. Of course, previous generations had their widespread immorality and sexual looseness, too — but never so much as ours today! Today in our modern "cosmopolitan" age, the warnings of God go unheeded and ignored. But God's Word speaks with AUTHORITY! Every transgression of God's Law has a serious penalty, a deadly kickback. So while God's Word endorses the principle of birth control, it contains some powerful statements against immorality. The Apostle Paul warns "FLY from immorality!" (I Corinthians 6:18, Goodspeed translation.) Said Paul, "... the immoral man sins against his body" (same verse, Moffatt translation). The Amplified Bible gives the full force of the meaning of this verse: "Shun immorality and all sexual looseness — flee from impurity [in thought, word or deed). Any other sin which a man commits is one outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body."
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