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Americans, Catholics, and Birth Control
People & Events: The Pope Issues Humanae Vitae ("Of Human Life"
In July 1965 a Gallup poll asked Catholic Americans if they thought their Church would ever approve of birth control. Sixty-one percent of the respondents replied yes. There was just cause for optimism. Oral contraceptives had been on the market for five years, and had not been banned by the Pope ...
John Rock had lobbied long and hard in favor of the Pill, and Humanae Vitae was a bitter disappointment. "The hierarchy has made another terrible mistake," was all he could say publicly on the subject. Rock was not alone in his reaction. In the United States there was an immediate groundswell of resistance. At Catholic University in Washington, D.C., two thousand demonstrators, many of them priests and nuns, gathered to voice their dissent. A number of priests even resigned in response to the Vatican's decision.
Even though John Rock had lost the battle with the Vatican, Catholics around the world agreed with his view. A Gallup poll taken only a month after the encyclical found that only 28% of American Catholics favored the Vatican's stance. Among Catholics in their twenties, 8 out of 10 disagreed with the pope.
Within just two years of Humanae Vitae, almost as many Catholic women used the Pill as non-Catholics. By 1970, two-thirds of all Catholic women and three-quarters of those under 30 were using the Pill and other birth control methods banned by the Church. In 2002, Humanae Vitae still defined the Church's position on birth control, and many observers of the Church believed that it contributed to the erosion of the Vatican's authority during the last decades of the twentieth century.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/e_humvit.html
John Rock had lobbied long and hard in favor of the Pill, and Humanae Vitae was a bitter disappointment. "The hierarchy has made another terrible mistake," was all he could say publicly on the subject. Rock was not alone in his reaction. In the United States there was an immediate groundswell of resistance. At Catholic University in Washington, D.C., two thousand demonstrators, many of them priests and nuns, gathered to voice their dissent. A number of priests even resigned in response to the Vatican's decision.
Even though John Rock had lost the battle with the Vatican, Catholics around the world agreed with his view. A Gallup poll taken only a month after the encyclical found that only 28% of American Catholics favored the Vatican's stance. Among Catholics in their twenties, 8 out of 10 disagreed with the pope.
Within just two years of Humanae Vitae, almost as many Catholic women used the Pill as non-Catholics. By 1970, two-thirds of all Catholic women and three-quarters of those under 30 were using the Pill and other birth control methods banned by the Church. In 2002, Humanae Vitae still defined the Church's position on birth control, and many observers of the Church believed that it contributed to the erosion of the Vatican's authority during the last decades of the twentieth century.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/e_humvit.html
Poll: Most Say The Pill Improved Women's Lives
May 10, 2010 4:12 PM
CBSNews
Poll analysis by Jennifer De Pinto.
... Men (59 percent), women (54 percent), and women who have ever taken the pill (54 percent) say that women's lives were improved as a result of the birth control pill.
More specifically, Americans think the birth control pill helped women enter the work force: 57 percent say the pill made it easier for women to have jobs and careers outside the home.
That number rises to 69 percent among Americans age 45 and over -- an age group more likely to have felt the impact of the pill when it was first developed and put on the market. Among women age 45 and older that figure is 64 percent ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-204_162-6468828.html
More specifically, Americans think the birth control pill helped women enter the work force: 57 percent say the pill made it easier for women to have jobs and careers outside the home.
That number rises to 69 percent among Americans age 45 and over -- an age group more likely to have felt the impact of the pill when it was first developed and put on the market. Among women age 45 and older that figure is 64 percent ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-204_162-6468828.html
Survey | Majority of Catholics Think Employers Should Be Required to Provide Health Care Plans that Cover Birth Control at No Cost
02.07.2012
Our polling on the birth control issue
February 10, 2012
We've had a lot of people asking us this week if we've done any polling about the birth control issue. We did a national survey for Planned Parenthood last weekend. Here are the key things we found:
-56% of voters generally support the birth control benefit, while 37% are opposed. Independents strongly favor it, 55/36, and a lot more Republicans (36%) support it than Democrats (20%) oppose it. Women are for it by a 63/29 margin.
-Only 39% of voters support an exemption for Catholic hospitals and universities from providing the benefit, while 57% are opposed to one.
-There is a major disconnect between the leadership of the Catholic Church and rank and file Catholic voters on this issue. We did an over sample of almost 400 Catholics and found that they support the benefit overall, 53-44, and oppose an exception for Catholic hospitals and universities, 53-45. The Bishops really are not speaking for Catholics as a whole on this issue ...
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/02/our-polling-on-the-birth-control-issue.html
-56% of voters generally support the birth control benefit, while 37% are opposed. Independents strongly favor it, 55/36, and a lot more Republicans (36%) support it than Democrats (20%) oppose it. Women are for it by a 63/29 margin.
-Only 39% of voters support an exemption for Catholic hospitals and universities from providing the benefit, while 57% are opposed to one.
-There is a major disconnect between the leadership of the Catholic Church and rank and file Catholic voters on this issue. We did an over sample of almost 400 Catholics and found that they support the benefit overall, 53-44, and oppose an exception for Catholic hospitals and universities, 53-45. The Bishops really are not speaking for Catholics as a whole on this issue ...
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/02/our-polling-on-the-birth-control-issue.html
Poll Finds Wide Support for Birth Control Coverage
By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: March 1, 2012
... Over all, 63 percent of Americans said they supported the new federal requirement that private health insurance plans cover the cost of birth control, according to the survey of 1,519 Americans, conducted from Feb. 13 to Feb. 19 for the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
While 8 in 10 Democrats said they supported requiring birth control coverage, only 4 in 10 Republicans did. Six in 10 people calling themselves independents voiced approval. Many Americans, in the survey and in independent interviews, expressed impatience with the focus on women’s reproductive issues in an era of economic distress ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/us/politics/americans-divided-on-birth-control-coverage-poll-finds.html
While 8 in 10 Democrats said they supported requiring birth control coverage, only 4 in 10 Republicans did. Six in 10 people calling themselves independents voiced approval. Many Americans, in the survey and in independent interviews, expressed impatience with the focus on women’s reproductive issues in an era of economic distress ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/us/politics/americans-divided-on-birth-control-coverage-poll-finds.html
Republicans Losing on Birth Control as 77% in Poll Spurn Debate
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis - Mar 14, 2012 4:30 AM ET
Americans overwhelmingly regard the debate over President Barack Obama’s policy on employer-provided contraceptive coverage as a matter of women’s health, not religious freedom, rejecting Republicans’ rationale for opposing the rule. More than three-quarters say the topic shouldn’t even be a part of the U.S. political debate.
More than six in 10 respondents to a Bloomberg National Poll -- including almost 70 percent of women -- say the issue involves health care and access to birth control, according to the survey taken March 8-11 ...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-14/republicans-losing-on-birth-control-as-77-in-poll-spurn-debate.html
More than six in 10 respondents to a Bloomberg National Poll -- including almost 70 percent of women -- say the issue involves health care and access to birth control, according to the survey taken March 8-11 ...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-14/republicans-losing-on-birth-control-as-77-in-poll-spurn-debate.html
New PRRI/RNS Poll: Religious Liberty and the Contraception Mandate Debate
By: Samantha | Topics: Abortion & Reproductive Issues, Politics & Government
03.15.2012
In our February Religion & Politics Tracking Survey, we found that a majority (55%) of Americans agree that employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost. Probing deeper into Americans’ feelings on this issue, we asked in our March PRRI/RNS Religious News Survey about what types of employers should be required to provide contraception coverage to their employees at no cost.
We found that with the single exception of churches or other places of worship, majorities of Americans believe that employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception at no cost ...
http://publicreligion.org/2012/03/new-prrirns-poll-religious-liberty-and-the-contraception-mandate-debate/
We found that with the single exception of churches or other places of worship, majorities of Americans believe that employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception at no cost ...
http://publicreligion.org/2012/03/new-prrirns-poll-religious-liberty-and-the-contraception-mandate-debate/
Americans, Including Catholics, Say Birth Control Is Morally OK
Birth control has the broadest acceptance among 18 behaviors
by Frank Newport
May 22, 2012
3 replies
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