Be Fruitful and Multiply examines the moral justification offered by Anglican leaders for their support for eugenic, pronatalist, and neo-Malthusian schemes in the United Kingdom during the interwar period. These religious leaders often comprehended their efforts to control fertility within the context of a broader struggle over competing conceptions of human purpose in English society, and regularly justified their efforts on the grounds that fertility-manipulation schemes served to align procreative behaviors with "Christian" conceptions of human purpose. The shared moral logic of Anglican leaders helps to explain the pervasive interest in birthrate patterns, along with the enduring appeal of fertility-manipulation schemes, amongst middle- and upper-classes during the first half of the twentieth century. This book also sheds light on how population concerns led to the liberalization of church positions on marriage and sexuality, and illuminates how Anglican leaders sought to maintain moral influence in the face of the perceived large-scale rejection of Christian moral teachings.
Format: Paperback / softback
CONTRIBUTORS: Andrew Moeller
EAN: 9781978845688
COUNTRY: United States
PAGES: 230
WEIGHT:
HEIGHT: 229 mm
PUBLISHED BY: Rutgers University Press
DATE PUBLISHED: 2026-12-08
CITY:
GENRE: MEDICAL / History, RELIGION / Christianity / Anglican, RELIGION / Ethics, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Abortion & Birth Control
WIDTH: 152 mm
SPINE:
Book Themes:
Ethical issues: abortion and birth control, History of medicine, Religious ethics, Anglican and Episcopalian Churches
Andrew Moeller is a hosted research fellow at the Uehiro Oxford Institute and an associate member of the History Faculty at The University of Oxford, England. He is also the leader of a research project entitled "Biotechnology and the Humanities," based within the Medical Humanities Research Hub at Oxford.