The Human Pesticide

Time magazine is devoting an upcoming cover story to the fiftieth anniversary of the anniversary of “The Pill.” In reply, Albert Mohler reflects on the significance of the event—and how evangelicals failed to foresee the detrimental implications:

Within a decade of the Pill’s emergence, the Roman Catholic church would declare its use forbidden for Catholics. Among evangelicals, there was much less moral concern for many years.

[ . . . ]

. . . I do indeed believe that the development of the Pill “has done more to reorder human life than any event since Adam and Eve ate the apple.” Why? Because sex, sexuality, and reproduction are so central to human life, to marriage, and to the future of humanity.

The Pill turned pregnancy — and thus children — into elective choices, rather than natural gifts of the marital union. But then again, the marital union was itself weakened by the Pill, because the avoidance of pregnancy facilitated adultery and other forms of non-marital sex. In some hands, the Pill became a human pesticide.

See also: Economist Timothy Reichert examines the negative effects of pharmaceutical contraception in the latest issue of First Things .