You can't really protect women or men from their choices, so let them have their own lives and trust the process. Given the history of society's efforts to control women's sexuality and reproduction, this remained a revolutionary idea. No wonder it disturbed and frightened some people so deeply.
I do assert that one prepares for eternity not by being religious and keeping the rules, but by living fully, loving wastefully, and daring to be all that each of us has the capacity to be.