Church grabs chance to attack birth control pill
Roman Catholic leaders have pounced on a "confession" by one of the inventors of the birth control pill who has said the contraceptive he helped create was responsible for a "demographic catastrophe".In an article published by the Vatican this week, the head of the world's Roman Catholic doctors broadened the attack on the pill, claiming it had also brought "devastating ecological effects" by releasing into the environment "tons of hormones" that had impaired male fertility.The assault began with a personal commentary in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard by 85-year-old Carl Djerassi. The Austrian chemist was one of three whose formulation of the synthetic progestogen Norethisterone marked a key step towards the earliest oral contraceptive pill.Djerassi outlined the "horror scenario" that occurred because of the population imbalance, for which his invention was partly to blame. He said that in most of Europe there was now "no connection at all between sexuality...
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