Mercatornet has another good brief about Walking in a demographic winter wonderland asking the pertinent question

Why are people averting their eyes from the coming collapse of population growth?

Its worth a read and casts a decent shadow on what she calls a "conservative libertarian" and liberal response to the problem. The general theme is that its best just to ignore the problem. After all to look at it means you are:
1) Against greater choices
or
2) Racist

Humanae Vitae was prophetic indeed. This brings me to mention that the Vatican has recently come out stating that the contraceptive pill is bad for the environment. Of course, as with almost everything the Vatican says, the press will report it and then burst into hysterical laughter. This garnered the following response on a forum I visit

Our pill-popping generation has yet to feel the effects of our indulgence.

To which I responded

I disagree with that only because I think that many of the ill effects our society already feels are PRECISELY because of this indulgence.

Contraception divides sex from marriage and its intended purpose (be fruitful and multiply).
It thus fuels pre-marital sex by removing the natural consequence.
It fuels increased adultery by making the sin easier to cover up.
It fuels divorce by making fruitless sex the natural end and fostering great dissatisfaction should someone "more enticing" come along. Let me clarify -- it objectifies the wife thus making her primary purpose to the man sexual satisfaction.
It fuels a tremendous lack of self-control in couples, especially men, by giving them ready access to wives who will never go through pregnancies and medically recommended down periods. The tempering thought of the gravity of "openness to life" rarely enters the mind of the contracepting couple. Rather than seeing themselves as an always life-giving couple, they increasingly see themselves as a means to the end of pleasure (distinct from procreative).
It also undermines the discernment process before marriage by minimizing the role of parent in a future spouse.
Furthermore the "privacy" aspect of it is a direct precursor to so-called "abortion rights".

The division of sex from marriage also gives root to the idea that marriage is purely a socially recognized collection of folks who consent to have sex with each other. Today this is driving the gay marriage crowd. Tomorrow it will be polygamists, pedophiles etc. In fact, I have a hard time seeing how society is going to avoid the concept that sex is a "right" so much so that it would be selfish to require "consent" in the case of those who cannot exercise their "right". It would not shock me to see a push to legalize and "regulate" prostitution to allow people to exercise their right to sex. Sooner or later we will decide it should be "free" and thus federally funded prostitution will be the law of the land. The demographic winter is the final stage.

The environmental factor is a strong sign of what sex is to our country. Environmentalists are willing to use the "precautionary principle" to enact legislation of dubious possible outcome all over the map but when it comes to denying the right to free sex when it happens to be doing harm to the environment they are stunningly silent. There is our god America. IMHO contraception was like adding gasoline to the smoke filled campfire and now it is an out of control forest fire.

We must give up our idolatry.

I guess the whole point of this rant is that while I agree with the Mercatornet article, we have been covering our eyes and going la-la-la for 40 years now. What makes anyone think that willful ignorance is anything new or that its going to change tomorrow? (this is why I dislike the "stewardship" angle argued by many Christians in favor of contraception -- it totally dodges the moral question of "Is it even OK?") .... I repeat:

We must give up our idolatry!

In other news ... Pill inventor slams ... pill