From a few days ago, the bishops telling women never mind about Zika and microcephaly, we still forbid you to use contraception, you whores.

As the Zika virus spreads in Latin America, Catholic leaders are warning women against using contraceptives or having abortions, even as health officials in some countries are advising women not to get pregnant because of the risk of birth defects.

…

After a period of saying little, bishops in Latin America are beginning to speak up and reassert the church’s opposition to birth control and abortion — positions that in Latin America are unpopular and often disregarded, even among Catholics.

Often disregarded, but not always? They should be universally disregarded, because what business is it of the church’s? It’s not the church who will be raising the children, so it’s not the church’s business to order women not to avoid conceiving them. It’s nothing to do with the church at all in any way, and the church should shut right up about it.

That’s all the more true because the church has a kind of moral authority over many people. It shouldn’t, but it does. Many people think they ought to obey the church, so the church should be very cautious and reflective about what it tells people to do. The church should be horrified itself for telling everyone, including many millions of desperately poor people, not to use contraception. It should realize it’s telling people to fuck up their lives, and stop doing that.

“Contraceptives are not a solution,” said Bishop Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, the secretary general of the National Council of Bishops of Brazil, and an auxiliary bishop of Brasília, in an interview. “There is not a single change in the church’s position.”

Yes they are. They are a solution. They’re the solution.

“The Vatican is very well aware of the seriousness of this issue, and the Holy Father is very aware of it,” Father Rosica said. “We’re waiting to see how the local churches in those countries respond.”

But Father Rosica said church teaching on abortion and contraception remains the same. The Zika epidemic, he said, presents “an opportunity for the church to recommit itself to the dignity and sacredness of life, even in very precarious moments like this.”

No. That’s disgusting. That’s flowery sentimental cruel piety at the expense of giving a damn about reality.