Religion has an irrational, non-materialist ideology which can result in unrestrained barbarism. In the battle over birth control women workers are in the front line and are suffering appallingly
During a recent visit to the United States, the Pope encountered considerable criticism of his views on "natural methods of birth control" and the rights of women to termination of pregnancy. Gallup polls conducted before his arrival such as in USA Today/RCC concluded that 75 percent would sooner follow their own consciences than accept papal doctrines. Another poll indicated that 83 percent of Catholics aged 18-25 years "believe they can disagree with Church teaching yet remain good Catholics". ("Catholics for Free Choice/KRC Research and Consulting", Lancet, 21 August). Other views expressed have been more critical. Frances Kissling, president of a movement called Catholics for Free Choice concludes that Pope John Paul is "lost in the pelvic zone as he increasingly insists on fidelity to his restrictive views on sex and reproduction".
The Catholic Church seeks to maintain and recruit followers based on strongly-held precepts or dogma. The purpose of the Pope's travels abroad is to reinforce these, including the Church’s views on contraception and termination of pregnancy.
Far from taking account of the views expressed in opinion polls by his adherents he is at present working on an encyclical entitled "Veritatis Splendor" which is said to be more extensive than the "Humanae vitae" put out 25 years ago. Leaked versions of the forthcoming encyclical do not indicate any compromise by the Pope on these issues. He is also working on yet another encyclical concerned about "questions of life" which will be concerned with questions of sexual morality.
Encyclicals are meant to be binding and obeyed. This may have been the ease in mediaeval times when the Catholic Church had total control of all information and ideas and their availability to the subject population but it is certainly not the case today.
The harsh reality of the world's problems and the futility of applying these outmoded concepts is brought home forcibly by A.A.Verkuyl, a gynaecologist working in Zimbabwe:
"In large areas of the world, health care is provided by the RCC and the Church’s powerful position prevents effective access to reliable contraception. In Rwanda one-third of the health facilities are administered by the RCC. The bishops refuse to discuss the possibility of promoting condoms for contraception or even for Aids prevention purposes while 40 percent of the under-five population are malnourished, the population doubles every I9years, and HIV prevalence in urban areas is more than 20 percent.As in sub Saharan Africa, so in tat in America and the Philippines " (Lancet, 21 August).
The author describes instances of what the Church's attitude results in:
"Take Maria. She is a girl of 17 living in abject poverty in one of the enormous third world cities. No running water or sanitation. Maria looks after her siblings while her mother can just scavenge enough to prevent starvation. Her only chance of escape is to marry someone with a good job. If she finds a candidate, he will most likely blackmail her into having sex before marriage. She assents out of fear of losing him. There are dozens of other girls who see him as an escape vehicle from terminal poverty, and thus he acts as a transport medium for gonorrhoea, syphilis, and HIV between them. The end result is that his girl friends experience infertility, ectopic pregnancies, backstreet abortions, and Aids. If they ever give birth, the baby may die of Aids or congenital syphilis, or become an orphan. Maria refuses to have an abortion. To provide for her child and herself she has to give sexual favours to a dozen men. Five years later she dies of Aids without dignity. Her son is a street urchin."
Another case deals with a recently-qualified nurse:
"she is happy to get a job in a remote RCC hospital even though her husband is obliged to stay in town and look for work. At Christmas her husband visits her . . . there are no condoms in the hospital. At the end of her 6 months’ probation the nuns in charge of the hospital will make here have a pregnancy test. If it is positive she will not get the job. Six weeks before the urine test she misses her period. A traditional doctor in a nearby village tries to help. She dies of a perforated uterus."
The Muslims are no less reactionary than the RCC in these matters. They consider a child to be a gift from Allah. Verkuyl quotes the case of a 12-year-old girl:
"Her father is a staunch Muslim, thinks that education is not important for girls. She had had her menarche so a marriage is arranged. She never had sex education and has no idea about antenatal care and what is supposed to happen during delivery. Her mother cannot tell her; she died during her eleventh pregnancy. After three days' labour at home she is encouraged with hot irons on her hack to push harder. In the end a dead baby is born. Three months later she is able to walk more or less normally and is rejected by her husband because the huge hole in her bladder causes her to smell and leak. Her family do not want her back. So much for 'natural methods ’."
The lifetime risk of death from pregnancy is greater than one in twenty-five in Zaire and in Muslim northern Nigeria whilst the risk in western Europe is one in 25,000 Both religions are united in their outmoded view that women should not have a say in deciding how many children they have.
Commenting on the argument that family planning is unnatural the author writes that:
"These arguments would not be used by somebody who flies in an aeroplane all over the globe and has a natural tumour removed by unnatural surgery under unnatural general anaesthesia."
On a recent visit to Brazil the Pope pursued the same authoritarian line that he has elsewhere. The murder of the street urchins in Rio recently emphasizes the consequences of these policies in Latin America."Almost two million Brazilian girls aged between 9 and 17 are prostitutes, an inquiry has been told in Brasilia" (Daily Telegraph, 24 August).
The Roman Catholic Church and the Islamic leaders have millions of followers. But how obedient are they to the outmoded view's of these religions that deny any fundamental right to women and take no account of the economic problems facing ordinary workers or agrarian workers anywhere? The vast majority of Catholics do not practice natural methods as defined by the Church. J. Poole writing in the Lancet in 1992, in an article entitled "Time for the Vatican to Bend" commented:
"It is hard to see how Western European and American Catholics, 80 percent of whom have themselves rejected the teaching of Humanae vitae, can vote to deny effective family-planning to the women of the poor nations of the world." In other words the Pope and the Muslim leaders are out of touch with the views of their own followers and fail to realize that they cannot turn the clock back as far as the development of human ideas are involved, which finally are shaped by the everyday material problems people have to face world-wide.
So what is the significance of the Pope’s visits abroad and the above comments from people grappling with the everyday problems of living and in many eases literally barely surviving? It is clearly incontrovertible evidence that chinks are appearing between these leaders and their followers as the views fail to have any application to the consequences of modern capitalism.
To the Socialist, religion or any concept based on the supernatural is a means of keeping the masses subservient to a given class-divided society. It is a barrier to social progress and can only exist where there is a minority owning the means of production and the bulk of the wealth produced. People who believe in a life hereafter are more likely to tolerate adverse conditions here on this planet.
Marx had no doubts about this. He wrote:
"It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion, as the illusory happiness of men, is a demand for their real happiness. The call to abandon their illusions about their condition is a call to abandon a condition which requires illusions." (Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, 1843).
When the resources of the world are owned and shared by those that produce them, then the palliative needs satisfied in some cases by religion will disappear.
Terry Lawlor
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