Arguments against Contraception

[lethalbean95]

Hi fellow Catholics in Christ. How would I a Believing-Catholic, convince a non-believer or non-Christian person why contraception is bad? Any solid SECULAR arguments that come to anyones mind?

 

[Wesrock]

I will think on this. Such argumentation is possible without appealing to scripture or church authority, but the type of arguments I’m thinking of would essentially require a re-education from scratch. Without going over the fundamentals, the arguments would be meaningless to them.

Perhaps somebody else has a better tact.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

Societies that embrace the contraceptive/abortive mentality are exterminating themselves out of existence. Who can argue that that is a good thing?

 

[pensmama87]

Depends on the angle you want. There are side effects and risks to contraceptive use. Sex is generally less pleasant. And of course, it’s not foolproof. It’s also not very environmentally friendly - you have to throw away devices or extra hormones get into the water.

You can make a moral yet non-religious argument on the basis of natural law - if we thwart the natural functioning of any of our other organs it’s obviously seen as problematic. It doesn’t make sense to exclude our reproductive system from that just because we feel like it.

 

[fredystairs]

Don’t know if this will fully fit your criteria of secular, but here goes…

The sexual act has two aspects. First is unitive. The two become one flesh. The second is procreative. The act, by its nature, is ordered for children. One thing that a couple does when they contracept is that they are using each other for their own pleasure. They are basically saying that they only want the other person for their own personal pleasure. The fact that the other person is a human being and has dignity is not relevant. The other is merely a toy for the person’s use.

When you deliberately make the act sterile, you have reduced the act to one that is just self serving. You really do not care about the other, you are only interested in your own pleasure. You might as well pay for sexual relations – you’re using the other person in either case.

 

[Jon_S_1]

Hi fellow Catholics in Christ. How would I a Believing-Catholic, convince a non-believer or non-Christian person why contraception is bad? Any solid SECULAR arguments that come to anyones mind?

One place to start would be the health problems with the pill. There are many and they are significant.

In general when looking at this, I would work on objects around,

If sex is only for pleasure and contraception makes it that way, then men objectify women over time and the giving aspect of sex is lost completely.

That takes a lot to develop.

I’d recommend “Men and Women are from Eden” by Dr Healy.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

The sexual act has two aspects. First is unitive. The two become one flesh. The second is procreative. The act, by its nature, is ordered for children. One thing that a couple does when they contracept is that they are using each other for their own pleasure. They are basically saying that they only want the other person for their own personal pleasure. The fact that the other person is a human being and has dignity is not relevant. The other is merely a toy for the person’s use.

When you deliberately make the act sterile, you have reduced the act to one that is just self serving. You really do not care about the other, you are only interested in your own pleasure. You might as well pay for sexual relations – you’re using the other person in either case.

This assumes that the unitive aspect is inherently self-serving by itself, that it can’t be an earnest expression of love; something that I think few people would grant. If your argument were actually valid, it would seem to be equally damning of other expressions of love (e.g. hugs.)

 

[JapaneseKappa]

You can make a moral yet non-religious argument on the basis of natural law - if we thwart the natural functioning of any of our other organs it’s obviously seen as problematic. It doesn’t make sense to exclude our reproductive system from that just because we feel like it.

This was covered in the other recent thread on contraception. I provided examples of times when we find it good to thwart natural functioning.

This was objected to on the grounds that the thwarting is in service of restoring us to an idealized state. I responded in this way.

 

[Rhubarb]

I would dispute that there is /a/ natural function of the sexual act - it seems to do many things for people. I also dispute any appeal to natural law - for much the same reason. I would also dispute that reducing the sexual act to pleasure necessarily is selfish - it certainly can be, but not in every circumstance. I would also dispute that sterilized sex objectifies women - women can enjoy, seek, and instigate sterilized sex for their own reasons. (Of course in this situation, I suppose it could be argued that the man is objectified. Would mutual objectification be a problem?)

I’m not bringing these up to nay-say. But to offer potential rebuttals to what a non-believer might say to stimulate other ideas. I can’t imagine many non-believers would buy into a teleos of the human body. Selfishness and objectification seems more plausible but I’m not sure it can’t be argued around in a coherent and consistent way.

 

[Jon_S_1]

I would dispute that there is /a/ natural function of the sexual act - it seems to do many things for people. I also dispute any appeal to natural law - for much the same reason. I would also dispute that reducing the sexual act to pleasure necessarily is selfish - it certainly can be, but not in every circumstance. I would also dispute that sterilized sex objectifies women - women can enjoy, seek, and instigate sterilized sex for their own reasons. (Of course in this situation, I suppose it could be argued that the man is objectified. Would mutual objectification be a problem?)

I’m not bringing these up to nay-say. But to offer potential rebuttals to what a non-believer might say to stimulate other ideas. I can’t imagine many non-believers would buy into a teleos of the human body. Selfishness and objectification seems more plausible but I’m not sure it can’t be argued around in a coherent and consistent way.

You are thinking micro. Individuals and individual situations.

It makes a better case macro. Look at the whole person and totality of life.

I can speak from experience on the selfishness and objectification. I think lots of people can. It’s not that it was necessarily apparent at individual moments, but in the totality of the relationship it was.

It can be argued well that contraceptive sex is what has led to the explosion of sexuality in the culture, of which women are huge victims. The ads, tv, movies, porn around every corner. It is all linked to this.

 

[Rhubarb]

It can be argued well that contraceptive sex is what has led to the explosion of sexuality in the culture, of which women are huge victims. The ads, tv, movies, porn around every corner. It is all linked to this.

This is an interesting point. How is contraception linked?

 

[Jon_S_1]

This is an interesting point. How is contraception linked?

I don’t feel I can invest the necessary time to cover that right now. I hope someone else picks up the torch.

There are lots of good books and it takes a book to properly lay it out.

It ultimately comes down to the ease of sex. Sex is not supposed to be easy…it is supposed to be an intimate bonding of partners for life. That’s why we, like many animals mate for life. Sex has a natural end…open any biology book to figure that out…children is the natural end.

I’m that context. Sex is a serious matter with serious ramifications.

When we remove that. Sex becomes a recreational activity. Men being already programmed to seek this activity see it advertised everywhere, we then “shop” for partners. Pay what we need (time gifts money etc…) to buy our pleasure toy (a woman) . Then when we are tired of it we get rid of it and seek another.

Now imagine that there is no contraception. Would that scenario occur as easily?

Would woman be seen as simply sex symbols? Or potential life partners and mothers of our children?

The difference is vast.

Mary Healy’s book Men and women are from Eden discusses this.

Anything regarding John Paul II’s theology of the body discusses this.

Also Angela Frank’s, writes about this topic. A feminist to boot. She has a book against abortion and one about contraception. Her book is “contraception and Catholicism”.

 

[Rhubarb]

I don’t feel I can invest the necessary time to cover that right now. I hope someone else picks up the torch.

There are lots of good books and it takes a book to properly lay it out.

It ultimately comes down to the ease of sex. Sex is not supposed to be easy…it is supposed to be an intimate bonding of partners for life. That’s why we, like many animals mate for life. Sex has a natural end…open any biology book to figure that out…children is the natural end.

I’m that context. Sex is a serious matter with serious ramifications.

When we remove that. Sex becomes a recreational activity. Men being already programmed to seek this activity see it advertised everywhere, we then “shop” for partners. Pay what we need (time gifts money etc…) to buy our pleasure toy (a woman) . Then when we are tired of it we get rid of it and seek another.

Now imagine that there is no contraception. Would that scenario occur as easily?

Would woman be seen as simply sex symbols? Or potential life partners and mothers of our children?

The difference is vast.

Mary Healy’s book Men and women are from Eden discusses this.

Anything regarding John Paul II’s theology of the body discusses this.

Also Angela Frank’s, writes about this topic. A feminist to boot. She has a book against abortion and one about contraception. Her book is “contraception and Catholicism”.

I can understand not having time to dig into the subject. I’m not prepared to say that sex has a ‘natural end’. Sex does a lot of things, including making children. I don’t think there’s a good way to say that any ‘end’ is more important or ultimate than any other end. For an analogy, my hands have many ‘ends’. I use them to work, to play, to defend myself, to build things and tear things down, etc.

I admit I’m not a sociologist and haven’t made an extensive study of the point, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that contraception makes men objectify women more. Men had no problem objectifying women prior to reliable contraception. It’s my understanding that reliable contraception leveled the playing field, as prior to contraception Don Juan could sow his oats all day long with relative ease, while the women have to carry the burden of children.

This is still an interesting point of comparison though. I think I’ll poke around and see if I can find any studies on it.

 

[davidv]

I can understand not having time to dig into the subject. I’m not prepared to say that sex has a ‘natural end’. Sex does a lot of things, including making children. I don’t think there’s a good way to say that any ‘end’ is more important or ultimate than any other end. For an analogy, my hands have many ‘ends’. I use them to work, to play, to defend myself, to build things and tear things down, etc.

I admit I’m not a sociologist and haven’t made an extensive study of the point, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that contraception makes men objectify women more.

Nor did JonS argue that it did. He said it made it easier to do so.

Men had no problem objectifying women prior to reliable contraception. It’s my understanding that reliable contraception leveled the playing field,

Thank you for proving one of the points. You just called sex a game.

as prior to contraception Don Juan could sow his oats all day long with relative ease, while the women have to carry the burden of children.

Which made women more likely to resist the advances.

This is still an interesting point of comparison though. I think I’ll poke around and see if I can find any studies on it.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

It can be argued well that contraceptive sex is what has led to the explosion of sexuality in the culture, of which women are huge victims. The ads, tv, movies, porn around every corner. It is all linked to this.

It can be, and it has, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it argued convincingly.

First and foremost is the failure to define the exact sense in which women are victimized. For example, we might say that in fundamental-religious countries, women are victimized in the sense that they are denied drivers licenses, voting rights, and considerations for divorces. But in this case, the primary “sense” in which women are victimized is that they are “objectified.” But it is taken for granted that things like sexy ads and movies constitute the evidence for this objectification, and that because those things are more visible now than in the past, the objectification is worse now than in the past.

I would like to remind you that the fundamentalist-religious spectre I mentioned earlier is not so far in our past. It wasn’t that long ago that we ourselves denied women the right to vote, required them to get permission from their husbands to write checks, etc. Now it is possible that the modern problem of pornography and sexy advertisements means that women are in some sense being “objectified,” but I will argue that denying women things like voting rights constitutes a much more significant denial of their personhood. I will also argue that phrases like “the world’s oldest profession” suggests that modern sexy ads are less unique than you’re suggesting.

 

[carefullytread]

The sort of argument you want to use depends on the sort of person you want to argue with and exactly the argument you want to make.

If you mean you’re talking to an atheist and want to convince them that people use contraceptives too much and that Western society should think about how to raise their birthrates, that’s a different conversation than trying to convince a non-Catholic Christian in Africa that women there really should still be having six children each because contraception is an objective evil.

Catholics like to use natural law arguments against contraception, but regardless of whether you find those argument convincing, I can tell you that anyone who doesn’t already agree with natural law arguments won’t. You may think they’re true, but a secular person is just going to think you’re assuming your conclusion by just calling it natural.

Better secular arguments are consequentialist ones. I think they are going to be a lot easier to use in wealthy countries than in poor ones. In wealthy countries, it seems much more clear to argue that the pendulum was swung too far. People have too few kids, the kids they do have are born out of wedlock, in the lower classes marriage rates are way down and marriage does a lot to stabilize people in their communities.

I don’t think you’ll be able to convince a secular person that contraception is completely bad, but you can try to get them to believe that used too liberally, it creates a culture with all the symptoms I’ve outlined above. There are various arguments for why this is the case, and you can try to judge which ones will resonate with the person you’re talking to.

If you really want to convince someone, start with an argument they might plausibly buy rather than one that’s just going to shut down their brain.

 

[losh14]

Hi fellow Catholics in Christ. How would I a Believing-Catholic, convince a non-believer or non-Christian person why contraception is bad? Any solid SECULAR arguments that come to anyones mind?

Convincing someone who is opposed to your point of view isn’t a measure of the validity of your point of view: it’s a matter of putting together an argument that is compelling to the one you’re presenting it to. So if you aren’t successful, it doesn’t mean your argument is without merit, but rather that it’s not convincing to the non-believer.

That said, start with why you believe it is offensive to God to use contraception. It may be enough to begin with “I believe in a God who loves us but has expectations for how we behave, and where He forgives us He doesn’t give us license to continue in sin, but rather that we should be free from that guilt and the debts of sin to be able to be more like Him and how He wishes us to be.” rather than trying to explain all of theology.

Describe how you believe that sexuality is meant to be productive - not that a baby should come out of every sexual act but that you must be open to it, and to do otherwise misses the point of sex. You may point out that sex isn’t meant for pleasure because it’s not always pleasurable ,and that it’s the only means by which anyone has ever been created (with one very notable exception).

Talk about how it affects your relationship with your spouse (if you’re married), that you find other ways to be intimate and that your intimacy isn’t merely something that happens in the sack. Don’t make it an either-or that you can’t defend. I once saw someone give a really stupid argument - that sex using contraception isn’t enjoyable (something that isn’t remotely true). Keep it in the realm of “we really appreciate the sex we do have because it’s not very often; maybe we’d appreciate it as much if we did it whenever, but we choose not to and our marriage is strong, we talk openly with each other about intimate matters and we’re very happy.”

Keep the discussion focused on your beliefs and your reasons for them. Again, it’s not that you must convince this other person; you are merely called to give reason for your faith.

 

[davidv]

It can be, and it has, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it argued convincingly.

Why do the unconvinced get to determine the truthfulness of an argument? If this were the case, we would have to deny the truth of some very widely accepted truths.

First and foremost is the failure to define the exact sense in which women are victimized. For example, we might say that in fundamental-religious countries, women are victimized in the sense that they are denied drivers licenses, voting rights, and considerations for divorces. But in this case, the primary “sense” in which women are victimized is that they are “objectified.” But it is taken for granted that things like sexy ads and movies constitute the evidence for this objectification, and that because those things are more visible now than in the past, the objectification is worse now than in the past.

I would like to remind you that the fundamentalist-religious spectre I mentioned earlier is not so far in our past. It wasn’t that long ago that we ourselves denied women the right to vote, required them to get permission from their husbands to write checks, etc. Now it is possible that the modern problem of pornography and sexy advertisements means that women are in some sense being “objectified,” but I will argue that denying women things like voting rights constitutes a much more significant denial of their personhood. I will also argue that phrases like “the world’s oldest profession” suggests that modern sexy ads are less unique than you’re suggesting.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Why do the unconvinced get to determine the truthfulness of an argument? If this were the case, we would have to deny the truth of some very widely accepted truths.

If you had said that we could prove that contraception has led to a sexual culture that victimizes women, then this response might make sense. But your position was just that “it can be argued.” I’ve asserted that the counter-argument is stronger, and therefore your argument is unconvincing.

 

[davidv]

If you had said that we could prove that contraception has led to a sexual culture that victimizes women, then this response might make sense. But your position was just that “it can be argued.” I’ve asserted that the counter-argument is stronger,

Really? How so?

and therefore your argument is unconvincing.

So what? To the closed minded, there can be no convincing, no matter how strong the argument.