John Rock. Courtesy of PBS.
Dr. John Rock
Physician John Rock, a faithful Catholic, supported the oral contraceptive at a time when the Catholic Church considered all forms of contraception as sinful.
"The moral or behavior of people [...] is not determined by the availability of opportunities for sin, and I firmly believe that the effectiveness of the pill, its availability, will have no significant effect on moral behavior."
- John Rock
Rock’s unique perspective as both a Catholic and a birth control advocate enabled him to reconcile the Church’s doctrinal disagreements and his convictions about the Pill’s potential to help solve the population crisis.
"Discoverer of Pill Discounts Critics." Ohio Mansfield News Journal, 1970.
"The Pill interferes with what has been considered the primary purpose of coitus. Of late, it has been realized and stated by many competent theologians [...] having children is the primary purpose of marriage, but it isn’t only having them, but bringing them up properly."
- John Rock, This Hour has Seven Days, 1964.
In 1963, Rock published The Time Has Come, outlining his stance on the birth control debate and his argument for the morality of the pill.
He asserted that his experiments did not violate Catholic ethics, and that the Pill imitated the female reproductive cycle without interfering with reproduction. His Catholic views contributed substantially to the debate over the ethics of the Pill.
John Rock on the morality of the Pill. This Hour has Seven Days, 1964.