Catholic Doctor Defends 'Pill'

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30884, 18 October 1965, Page 2

Catholic Doctor Defends 'Pill'

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) CONCORD (New Hampshire), Oct. 17. Dr. John Rock, the Roman Catholic doctor who helped develop the oral contraceptive, defended the “pill” yesterday. ..

He said there was a limit to the amount of members a population could assimilate. Dr. Rock, speaking before the New Hampshire conference on population problems, said: “When crowding takes place, there is what we call obnoxious proximity." “Man cannot wish his sexuality away,” Dr. Rock said. He advocated methods of “separating fecundity from sexuality.” Dr. Rock, the author of “The Time Has Come; a Catholic doctor’s proposal to end the battle over contraception,”

also said birth control pills were “100 per cent effective when taken correctly, in spite of newspaper stories.” He said side-effects to such pills were minimal, and that those who promulgated stories about the side effects were indulging in. “wishful thinking.” Dr. Rock said women who

; took the birth-control pills i usually experienced some of : the discomforts and disadvantages of pregnancy at first “without any of the beneficial : aspects of pregnancy.” > He said the so-called intra- • uterine devices were “almost ' as effective as the pills.” i Dr. Rock predicted it might

be possible to take injections that would curb the breeding of spermatozoa in the same way an injection can now be received to kill a bacteria.