A Twenty-Year History (1958-1978) of Contraception and Abortion as Experienced by the Catholic Medical Association

This paper is an historical analysis of the issues of contraception and abortion as presented through the focus and lens of articles in The Linacre Quarterly, the official journal of the Catholic Medical Association (CMA). The twenty-year history includes the ten years before and after the pivotal papal encyclical Humanae vitae (HV). The articles show the clear link between the issues of contraception and abortion and how these issues led to the decline of the Federation of the Catholic Physician Guilds (the precursor of the CMA in the United States). It was a decline that, I propose, lessened opposition to liberalized abortion laws. There is, however, a new and revised CMA that has been built on a faithful and prolife membership of physicians and other health professionals