Marriage: Love and Law exhibition catalogue - Flipbook - Page 84
The challenge of balancing older concepts of marriage, parenthood and
family with modern progress arguably came to a head with the issue of the
contraceptive pill. Introduced in 1961, taxed at 27 per cent and available only
to married women, ‘the Pill’ posed a dilemma for Australia’s three million
practising Catholics. Expectations that the Pope would approve the use of the
Pill in response to the social changes advancing women’s rights were dashed
when he ruled against contraception in 1968. Polls, however, suggested that
the Pope was ‘wrong’ (66).
65 John Aloysius Mulligan
Press conference on birth
control, St Mary’s Cathedral,
Sydney, 29 July 1968
Black and white negative
1968
National Library of Australia,
PIC/3661/733
66 A.G. Wincer
TELE-VOTE survey results
for the question ‘Do you
think the Pope is wrong’,
with reference to the
Vatican’s ruling on The Pill,
1 August 1968
Paper
1968
NSW State Archives, NRS 12060
[3/14351]
65
66
84
85
