From David Deavel's review of Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution on the Unique For a Reason—Why Marriage Matters site:
G. K. Chesterton wrote in his 1908 classic Orthodoxy, “The
unpopular parts of Christianity turn out when examined to be the very
props of the people.” The outer crust of Christian reality is a moral
sternness that seems ugly, but makes possible “pagan freedom.”
Neo-pagans wishing to excise those outer morals have brought on
themselves “despair within.”
This is one of the central paradoxes of Mary Eberstadt’s new book “Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution.” The sexual revolution made possible by modern, more reliable contraception came with promises of a world that was emancipated, free-spirited, and happy. Instead, everywhere embraced, the revolution has brought a shrinking, aging general population, scores of abused, abandoned, and aborted children, and unhappiness for men and—most strikingly—for women. The despair is within, but its ugly fruits are everywhere to be seen in anecdotal form and even in the hard data of thoroughly secular social scientists.
What does the data say? In contrast to scholars who argued in the Sixties that contraception would reduce abortion and child abuse, stabilize marriages and be a barrier to poverty, Eberstadt cites the work of Lionel Tiger, which linked contraception to “the breakdown of families, female impoverishment, trouble in the relationship between the sexes, and single motherhood.” Tiger, who views all religion as “toxic,” also explicitly argues that “contraception causes abortion.”
Even Pope Paul VI did not make that last argument in his encyclical Humanae Vitae, reiterating Catholic teaching on contraception. But he did make four specific predictions: lower moral standards in society, more infidelity, less respect by men for women, and coercion by governments to get people to use reproductive technologies. In all four cases, the Church was right. ...
Eberstadt brings to this book not only a comprehensive knowledge of social scientific research and a discerning eye for popular culture, but a wicked sense of humor that helps one laugh a bit at the data that would otherwise brings tears. She also brings an eye of sanity that is surely connected to her experience as a wife and mother of four (her husband, demographer Nicholas Eberstadt, is also a serious Catholic scholar). This book is a must-have for those who want arguments to use against people who think the sexual revolution a grand thing. It is also useful to give to Catholics and other Christians who want to reject the more outlandish aspects of the revolution but keep contraception. Eberstadt shows it is, after all, a bitter pill. And she has the data of social scientists—who don’t necessarily like the Church that teaches this truth—to back her up.
Read the entire review. Also:
• The Introduction to Adam and Eve after the Pill
• Visit the website for Adam and Eve after the Pill
• "The Party's Over": A Catholic World Report interview with Mary Eberstadt
Comments