Contraception: Hazardous Rhythm

Roman Catholics who have long com plained that the rhythm method is a highly unsatisfactory means of birth control because it is so uncertain now have added cause for concern. Two em inent gynecologists, one Irish and one Italian, say that when the rhythm method fails, it carries an added risk that the baby will be fatally malformed, suffering from anencephaly—literally, absence of a brain.

Dublin's Dr. Raymond G. Cross noted that the incidence of anencephaly and of a comparable abnormality, spina bifida (failure of the spinal column to close), varied with...

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