The capacity to procreate is merely a potential which man is not obligated to
actualize. The choice to have children or not is morally optional. Nature
endows man with a variety of potentials—and it is his mind that must decide
which capacities he chooses to exercise, according to his own hierarchy of
rational goals and values.
The mere fact that man has the capacity to kill, does not mean that it is his
duty to become a murderer; in the same way, the mere fact that man has the
capacity to procreate, does not mean that it is his duty to commit spiritual
suicide by making procreation his primary goal and turning himself into a
stud-farm animal . . . .
To an animal, the rearing of its young is a matter of temporary cycles. To
man, it is a lifelong responsibility—a grave responsibility that must not be
undertaken causelessly, thoughtlessly or accidentally.
In regard to the moral aspects of birth control, the primary right involved is
not the “right” of an unborn child, nor of the family, nor of society, nor of
God. The primary right is one which—in today’s public clamor on the
subject—few, if any, voices have had the courage to uphold: the right of man
and woman to their own life and happiness—the right not to be regarded as the
means to any end.