THE TIME HAS COME

Subtitled A Catholic Doctor's Proposals to End the Battle Over Birth Control, this is an informed brief by a Massachusetts gynecologist whose practice has convinced him that family planning is a definite good, whose research has included work on the ral contractive, and whose Catholicism has led him to attempt a substantial rationale for action on ""the first world problem in history"". Exploring the doctrinal differences in regard to birth control, he feels that the causes of conflict and conflict itself have been exaggerated, that the areas of agreement are crucial and provide sufficient springboard for action. In public policy, Dr. Rock thinks that the birth control issue has become a symbolic struggle masking other aspects of the Protestant-Catholic conflict. In counterpoint, he cites the common interest, Catholic as well as non-Catholic, in the objective -- family planning in line with an emerging conception of the nature of responsible parenthood. He consistently plays the evolving, progressive thought of Catholic leaders against the more stereotyped, static views of other leaders of the faith, thus arguing from within for development of new attitudes. He probes the possibility of a new awareness of revealed truth in regard to natural law, poses his personal view of the nature of sex in man, would render oral contraceptive measures, the first physiologic contraceptive, affecting bodily function and thus acting naturally,- acceptable to the Church. While surveying the legal questions -- the as yet unsuccessful test case in Connecticut., the successful resolution of conflict in the Kings County Hospital dispute which might serve as a wedge in application, Dr. Rock's central interest lies in defining areas where doctrinal and public policy may merge successfully. In research and its attendant acceptance he sees the key to the espousal of fertility control so essential to a world where the population may double in forty years. Uncompromising, candid, and resourceful, this cogent argument should come to the attention of all religious leaders, all publicly active individuals -- providing as it does a catalyst for controversy and a valuable link between doctrinal outlook and public practice.