Eugenics and Genetics 
One of the primary commandments is to respect the rights of 
others. I think that this is the point where the humanists may 
be able to rejoin the Christians. There is a widespread 
tendency to fail to respect those rights, or to fail to define them 
properly. These rights are quite numerous: the right to earn a 
livelihood (economic rights), the right to marry, the right to 
beget children—that is clearly part of natural law—and at the 
same time the duty to look after them, and not throw the 
responsibility on other people. 
I am rather surprised at the extraordinary concern which is 
shown here about contraceptives, even by people who feel very 
strongly that they are entitled to use them, because it seems to 
me a little out of date now that so much more is known about 
how short the period of fertility is in the menstrual cycle, and 
the possibility of regulating the menstrual cycle where it does 
turn out to be irregular. I understand that moral theologians 
say that taking a medicine for the purpose of regularizing an 
abnormal cycle is not an offence against natural law (using the 
word in the moral sense), whereas to take a pill for the purpose 
of rendering yourself infertile is. I think that this is clear. Now 
that knowledge has been acquired and is spreading about how 
very short the fertile period is, a great many Roman Catholic 
clergy and laymen are extremely anxious for population 
limitation and they regard my views on population as extremely 
harmful; one very prominent French priest has complained 
strongly that the things I am saying about the agricultural 
capacity of the world are hindering his campaign to make 
marriage more spiritual by producing fewer children. This is a 
theological matter on which I should not seek to express an 
opinion, but I do want to point out that opinion among Roman 
Catholic clergy and laymen is considerably divided on the 
question of the desirability of increased population. 
Coming back to questions of morals: artificial insemination 
by a donor other than the husband has all the malice of adultery 
—it is a form of adultery—and I think that anyone who under- 
stands the moral meaning of the word adultery is bound to 
reach that conclusion. 
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