I had an online disagreement with someone on the very article The Anchoress begins this post with. Once upon a time, I, too, thought that responsible contraception was a good thing. Now I see the wisdom of Holy Mother Church. The entire post is worth reading, but I wanted to point out just one little part of this post; consider it a way to whet your appetite.

“… It’s not just the Vatican talking about birthrates. Check out Japan:

A line that straight downhill is spooky: it cries out for a cause. It is such a steep slope that it appears there was a national decision, after some initial indecision before the 1970s, to stop having babies.

Can a civilization exhaust itself? Turn so inward and self-indulgent? Is there some hidden virus or amoeba acting to suppress the desire to breed? Maybe an adequate diet—in exact opposition to theory—causes that suppression.

It isn’t just Japan. It’s Italy, Sweden, Germany, Austria, and on and on. Even the “developing” countries show signs of the same disease: the better they get (materially) the less they breed. So far, the US is holding its own and still getting to business. Nobody knows why. …”