Melinda Gates challenges Catholic teaching on contraception

July 09, 2012

Melinda Gates, the Catholic wife of software czar Bill Gates and co-chair of his charitable foundation, has taken a public stand against the Church’s teaching on contraception.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is spearheading a drive to distribute contraceptives in impoverished countries, and Melinda Gates—who is described in news stories as a “practicing Catholic”—insists that the initiative “makes sense” to most people. Brushing aside the Church’s condemnation of artificial contraceptives, Gates said that her Catholic-school education taught here to “question received teachings.”

Claiming that birth control has not increased the level of promiscuity in society, Gates argues that there should be no longer be a debate about the value of contraceptives. “I think we made birth control and contraceptives way too political in the United States,” she said.

Writing for The Catholic Thing, Matthew Hanley argues that Melinda Gates provides another example of an all-too-common phenomenon:

And there you have it – an entirely emblematic portrait of an era: an influential lay Catholic, influenced by the meltdown in Catholic identity, which is to say by an alternative secular Magisterium, mimics rather than engages the modern world by advancing a hefty proposal heralded as “humanitarian,” but which is actually doomed from the get go.

 

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Further information:

• Melinda Gates responds to contraception program controversy (CNN)
• Gates Foundation’s birth-control initiative could fire up its critics (Seattle Times)
• Melinda Gates’ Missed Opportunity (The Catholic Thing)