It’s scandalous that the pro-life movement didn’t apply more pressure to get the White House to back down from its reckless pro-IVF campaign promise.

Very often, in response to anything coming from a pro-life prospective on abortion, the comments section will fill up with instistence that birth control be made more widely available, if ending the abortion is one’s goal. The problem with that is not just Catholic morality, for those of us who follow that lead, or Making America Healthy Again/green living – keeping, say, a carcinogen out of girls’ and young women’s bodies. Telling young people, do what you will do, but do it with a condom, or, here’s a pill that helps with pimples, too, or an implant, means they will have more sex, increasing the likelihood they do so without one of those barriers, making pregnancy more likely. There’s also disease and the emotional and physical toll of using and or being used.

Erika Bachiochi and Catherine Pakaluk, among others, have done some good work on this.

And 56 years ago today, Pope Paul VI warned us. Out of love. On human love. Today was the publication date for the controversial and prophetic Humanae Vitae (“On human life”).

I often apologize, as a Catholic, to non-Catholics about this. Paul VI said so much that could have helped the world. But inside the church, there was outright rejection, including in some pretty important institutions (including my alma mater, The Catholic University of America). It’s one of the reasons I wanted to go to CUA. Because it can lead in directions good and bad.

Here’s kinda the money section, as they say, of Humanae Vitae:

Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.

Limits to Man’s Power

Consequently, unless we are willing that the responsibility of procreating life should be left to the arbitrary decision of men, we must accept that there are certain limits, beyond which it is wrong to go, to the power of man over his own body and its natural functions—limits, let it be said, which no one, whether as a private individual or as a public authority, can lawfully exceed. These limits are expressly imposed because of the reverence due to the whole human organism and its natural function

In 2012, as some of you know, Pope Benedict XVI handed me a message to all of the women of the world — of any and no religious faith. It was a repeat of a message from Paul VI, as it happens, from 1965. It says:

At this moment when the human race is under-going so deep a transformation, women impregnated with the spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid mankind in not falling.

And:

You women have always had as your lot the protection of the home, the love of beginnings and an understanding of cradles. You are present in the mystery of a life beginning. You offer consolation in the departure of death. Our technology runs the risk of becoming inhuman. Reconcile men with life and above all, we beseech you, watch carefully over the future of our race. Hold back the hand of man who, in a moment of folly, might attempt to destroy human civilization.

Concluding, not so subtly:

Women, you do know how to make truth sweet, tender and accessible. . . . Women of the entire universe, whether Christian or non-believing, you to whom life is entrusted at this grave moment in history, it is for you to save the peace of the world.

Oh just destruction of human civilization and the peace of the world.

That’s what the Catholic Church thinks of women, by the way. We’re that powerful.

Back to today. It’s not only the 65th anniversary of Humanae Vitae. It’s World IVF Day. And that’s not to throw a rock in the face of anyone who tries to say Humanae-Vitae-Was-Right (which I, among others, may die saying). Forty-seven years ago today, Louise Brown became the first baby born from in vitro fertilization. This year, we await the Trump administration’s details on how it’s going to make Making Babies Great Again by making IVF cheaper and more accessible. It’s scandalous that the pro-life movement didn’t apply more pressure, that the supposedly pro-life vice president and so many others did not get the White House to back down from that reckless campaign promise. Ericka Andersen and I talked this week about how IVF creates lives that largely wind up destroyed.

It also pushes aside actual restorative medicine that might just treat the medical problem that caused a couple to seek IVF in the first place.

It would be nice to dub July 25th for the future something like: Remember Life Day, where we sit down, take a deep breath, and consider doing better by human life and women and families. Because Paul VI was right and his guidance can still be heeded.

We’re not going to end abortion in America without getting foundational. Sex is a good, to honor human life and love. Girls today have no idea they are — yes, I’m going to say something quaint — worth waiting for. Imagine the shot at respect and happiness they might have knowing that, and knowing they can set higher expectations for the boys in their lives.

You get the idea. Taking that healthier approach, we might expect something better from medicine, too. So it, too, honors and respects human reproduction and human life.

This doesn’t have to be a religious thing. It’s a human thing. Let’s be more human — especially for the sake of our young people. Why would we have them repeat the mistakes of the past quarter century? The young deserve better than that. Humanity was made for better than that.

Note: For more on IVF, see this week’s edition of National Review‘s new weekly pro-life newsletter, The Lifeline. To sign up to receive The Lifeline in your e-mail inbox weekly, sign up — it’s free, no upgrade requests — here.