Miscellany

“What theological objections could the pope himself raise to a birth-control method that simply permitted parents to choose a son in preference to a daughter? After all, God did,” reasoned Clare Boothe Luce, a playwright and U.S. congresswoman, in an article published in the Washington Star in 1978, promoting the use of a hypothetical “man-child pill” that would control population growth by ensuring the birth of a boy.