Includes bibliographical references (p. 407-420) and index.

Beginnings of the Debate -- A Brief of the Church's Condemnation of Contraception -- First Stirrings of Dissent -- Papal Commission -- The Minority Report and Natural Law -- The Majority Rebuttal and Natural Law -- The Final Report, The Schema -- Christian Marriage -- Christian Marriage -- Marriage and Procreation -- Conjugal Love and Personalist Values -- Personalist Values of Marriage -- Gaudium et Spes -- Humanae Vitae: Preliminary Philosophical Considerations -- Natural Law -- The Purpose of the Sexual Organs -- Contraception: An Intrinsic Evil -- Unnatural Acts -- Contraception is Artificial -- The Physiological Argument against Contraception -- The Principle of Totality --The Principle of Tolerating the Lesser Evil -- The Principle of Double Effect -- Natural Law Arguments against Contraception -- The "Intrinsic Worth of Human Life" Argument against Contraception -- The "Special Act of Creation" Argument --The "Contraception is Contralife" Argument -- The "Violation of the Unitive Meaning of the Conjugal Act" Argument -- The Difference between Contraception and Natural Family Planning -- Some Theological Considerations --Scriptural Foundations for the Teaching of Humanae Vitae -- Scriptural Foundations for Specific Natural Law Arguments -- The Concept of Munus -- The Interiority of Munus -- An Application of Munus to Humanae Vitae -- Humanae Vitae and Conscience -- The Infallibility of Humanae Vitae -- The Aftermath of Humanae Vitae and the "Revision" of Natural Law -- Pope Paul VI and Humanae Vitae -- Dissident Theological Response -- Nature and Grace -- A monolithic System of Natural Law -- Physicalism -- A Classicist View of Nature versus Historical Consciousness -- Evolutionary Historical Consciousness -- Current Views of Curran and Hearing -- Premoral Evil and Other Variations on a Theme -- The Revisionist Position -- Are Exceptionless Norms Tautologies? -- Exceptionals Norms and Circumstances -- The Principle of Double Effect -- Aquina's Analysis of Moral Action -- A Comparison with the Revisionists -- Self-Giving and Self-Mastery: John Paul II's Interpretation of Humanae Vitae -- The Gift of Self -- Criticism of the Views of John Paul II -- John Paul II's Continual Reaffirmation of Humanae Vitae

Rather than end the debate over artificial means of contraception once and for all, the encyclical letter Humanae Vitae only energized the debate when is appeared in 1968, and that debate continues to this day, Janet E. Smith presents a comprehensive review of this issue from a philosophical and theological perspective. Tracing the emergence of the debate from the mid-1960s and reviewing the documents from the Special Papal Commission established to advise Pope Paul VI, Smith also examines the Catholic Church's position on marriage, which provides the context for its condemnation of contraception. Smith analyses the various moral principles that are crucial to an understanding of Humanae Vitae. She offers new renderings of several traditional arguments based on natural law, among which is an argument based on personalist values. A chapter on theological arguments for Humanae Vitae includes a consideration of scriptural support and an analysis of munus, a word that appears in the first line of Humanae Vitae and is accorded special status in the documents of Vatican II. She also evaluates the reasons given by revisionists for their rejection of Humanae Vitae and presents a review of John Paul II's innovative defense of the condemnation of contraception. Smith notes that those moral theologians who once challenged only the Church's teaching on contraception have come to challenge the very principles on which the Church's teaching is based. This incisive book also argues that while revisionists early on claimed to use personalist values to urge the moral legitimacy of contraception, the traditional defenders of the Church's teaching have begun to show how personalist values serve to strengthen rather than to negate natural law argumente against contraception. Throughout the books, Smith's keen observations and perceptions contribute to a discerning and thought-provoking study.