Increasing access to and availability of contraception is and will remain public health policy, insisted Health Minister Simon Harris, responding to a bishop’s comments about birth control.

On the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Church’s publication of ‘Humanae Vitae’ — which opposed all form of artificial contraception — TP O’Mahony looks back at an ill-conceived document which not only has caused enormous harm to papal authority itself but has also been the source of worry, stress, and misery for millions of Catholic couples around the globe.