I remember when Catholics all had huge families of 7 or more children. Birth control was a sin. Anything that kept women from getting pregnant was a mortal sin and forbidden. Being Catholic was synonymous with having more children than you could afford. Also, it was wrong for women to deny conjugal rights to their husbands. Pregnancy was God’s will and not to be thwarted.
Non-Catholics decried the lack of fiscal responsibility in having more children than you could afford. I don’t remember anyone suggesting couples should abstain from having sex to prevent pregnancies. Just stop having so many children.
Better birth control helped but the statistics that talk about how effective it is all contain the caveat of “When used as directed”. If don’t take the Pill at the same time and in the same way every day it’s less effective. So if you sleep in take your Pill, at 10:00 instead of 7:00 am, as usual, you could get pregnant. If you have the flu and throw up your pill, you could get pregnant.
The real world failure rate is of the Pill is 15%. Every year 15 out of every 100 women taking the Pill get pregnant every year. And the Pill has the lowest failure rate.
MR. HARRY BLACKITT: Look at them, bloody Catholics, filling the bloody world up with bloody people they can't afford to bloody feed.
MRS. BLACKITT: What are we dear?
MR. BLACKITT: Protestant, and fiercely proud of it.
MRS. BLACKITT: Hmm. Well, why do they have so many children?
MR. BLACKITT: Because... every time they have sexual intercourse, they have to have a baby.
MRS. BLACKITT: But it's the same with us, Harry.
MR. BLACKITT: What do you mean?
MRS. BLACKITT: Well, I mean, we've got two children, and we've had sexual intercourse twice.
MR. BLACKITT: That's not the point. We could have it any time we wanted.
MRS. BLACKITT: Really?
MR. BLACKITT: Oh, yes, and, what's more, because we don't believe in all that Papist claptrap, we can take precautions.
MRS. BLACKITT: What, you mean... lock the door?
MR. BLACKITT: No, no. I mean, because we are members of the Protestant Reformed Church, which successfully challenged the autocratic power of the Papacy in the mid-sixteenth century, we can wear little rubber devices to prevent issue.
MRS. BLACKITT: What d'you mean?
MR. BLACKITT: I could, if I wanted, have sexual intercourse with you,...
MRS. BLACKITT: Oh, yes, Harry.
MR. BLACKITT: ...and, by wearing a rubber sheath over my old feller, I could insure... that, when I came off, you would not be impregnated.
MRS. BLACKITT: Ooh!
MR. BLACKITT: That's what being a Protestant's all about. That's why it's the church for me. That's why it's the church for anyone who respects the individual and the individual's right to decide for him or herself. When Martin Luther nailed his protest up to the church door in fifteen-seventeen, he may not have realized the full significance of what he was doing, but four hundred years later, thanks to him, my dear, I can wear whatever I want on my John Thomas,...
[sniff] ...and, Protestantism doesn't stop at the simple condom! Oh, no! I can wear French Ticklers if I want.
MRS. BLACKITT: You what?
MR. BLACKITT: French Ticklers. Black Mambos. Crocodile Ribs. Sheaths that are designed not only to protect, but also to enhance the stimulation of sexual congress.
MRS. BLACKITT: Have you got one?
MR. BLACKITT: Have I got one? Uh, well, no, but I can go down the road any time I want and walk into Harry's and hold my head up high and say in a loud, steady voice, 'Harry, I want you to sell me a condom. In fact, today, I think I'll have a French Tickler, for I am a Protestant.'
MRS. BLACKITT: Well, why don't you?
MR. BLACKITT: But they-- Well, they cannot, 'cause their church never made the great leap out of the Middle Ages and the domination of alien episcopal supremacy.
Monty Python the meaning of life