Birth Control to stop pain

[Xantippe]

Very true. ** I’ve also seen this attitude when it comes to “natural birth” or breast-feeding. ** **Many Christians, even non-Christians, who have no issue with using ABC, get very militant over avoiding “over-medicalization” when it comes to management of pregnancy, childbirth, and caring for infants. **

Yes.

 

[StGerardMajella]

Ah, but how do you know who and isn’t a competent priest without being fairly competent yourself?

First, you start with their credentials, experience, educational background, and specialized knowledge on the subject at hand. You look for credible references. And, when necessary, you seek a second opinion from other authorities, such as medical doctors.

No doubt, the person has pastoral needs, but their medical needs may be very urgent and should not be unnecessarily delayed.

Anyone with urgent medical needs should consult a medical doctor, not a priest.

but a priest who is not competent will just give an answer on the fly–and perhaps cause a great deal of suffering in the process.

When your car mechanic gives you a flippant answer, you don’t decide to stop driving.

If your estate attorney gets short with you, that doesn’t stop you from preparing your will.

When your life insurance representative isn’t transparent, you still do your homework and make sure you have adequate insurance coverage for your family.

Spiritual and medical decisions are no different.

 

[Xantippe]

**First, you start with their credentials, experience, educational background, and specialized knowledge on the subject at hand. ** You look for credible references. And, when necessary, you seek a second opinion from other authorities, such as medical doctors.

Anyone with urgent medical needs should consult a medical doctor, not a priest.

When your car mechanic gives you a flippant answer, you don’t decide to stop driving.

If your estate attorney gets short with you, that doesn’t stop you from preparing your will.

When your life insurance representative isn’t transparent, you still do your homework and make sure you have adequate insurance coverage for your family.

Spiritual and medical decisions are no different.

1. So, email or make an appointment with a Georgetown or Fordham moral theology professor and ask his advice? That will go well.

We have a basic problem here that in order to evaluate competence, the patient herself needs to be pretty knowledgeable.

1. The problem is that the moral advice from a priest is probably already the 2nd opinion–the 1st opinion was probably the OB/GYN who suggested the use of birth control pills to control the gynecological condition.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense to go to the OB/GYN, get prescribed birth control pills, then go to a priest, perhaps get told not to use the birth control pills, and then go back to the doctor for a second opinion. Do you see how unworkable that is?

1. While there are medical issues that allow some leisure in consulting experts, there will always be time-sensitive bioethics issues, where there’s a dangerous but at the same time ethically difficult situation.

Hence the utility of the National Catholic Bioethics Center.

1. Let’s say the patient goes to a random priest for advice and gets an answer in either direction. It’s off the cuff and not well informed by Catholic teaching. How is the patient supposed to know that?

I think it makes a lot of sense just to skip that step entirely for murky medical ethics issues–go straight to a specialist.

 

[StGerardMajella]

We have a basic problem here that in order to evaluate competence, the patient herself needs to be pretty knowledgeable.

You could say the same statement about any kind of situation where specialized advice is needed. Just because someone isn’t knowledgeable doesn’t mean they shouldn’t seek counsel.

Do you see how unworkable that is?

No, see above. Mixed advice is quite common in many situations where specialized counsel on complicated subjects is required.

Let’s say the patient goes to a random priest for advice and gets an answer in either direction. It’s off the cuff and not well informed by Catholic teaching. How is the patient supposed to know that?

By gathering information from multiple sources. Reading, seeking counsel, research. It’s no different from any other situation.

If you get bad advice from your car mechanic, what do you do? You ask your friends for the number to a competent mechanic. You get a second opinion. You shop prices, etc. You Google the car problem to learn more about possible solutions. You call another dealership.

 

[Listener]

Yes, it is morally fine if your doctor prescribed pills for your female problems, even if these pills could be used for birth control. Pope Paul VI said so, so why do you need a priest to verify this?

Yes, you might be “masking the symptoms,” but if the underlying cause is endometriosis, or something like that, the real cure could very well be hysterectomy. Women who hope to have children in the future would be better off if they went on the pill.

We women are not required to just grin and bear it, perhaps spending time in bed, while taking narcotic painkillers.

Jesus even cured a woman who was having a problem with bleeding.

 

[Xantippe]

You could say the same statement about any kind of situation where specialized advice is needed. Just because someone isn’t knowledgeable doesn’t mean they shouldn’t seek counsel.

No, see above. Mixed advice is quite common in many situations where specialized counsel on complicated subjects is required.

By gathering information from multiple sources. Reading, seeking counsel, research. It’s no different from any other situation.

If you get bad advice from your car mechanic, what do you do? You ask your friends for the number to a competent mechanic. You get a second opinion. You shop prices, etc. You Google the car problem to learn more about possible solutions. You call another dealership.

But this isn’t a car–you are in pain, exhausted, suffering, and your physical and mental condition is perhaps deteriorating–and you’re supposed to be making multiple appointments to talk to multiple people about it and then weighing all the different answers you get before it’s possible to start appropriate medical treatment? Any delay can have very serious, permanent consequences.

I feel like, given that the moral theology principles are pretty simple, it shouldn’t look like that. There are genuinely difficult bioethics situations, but this is not one of them. It’s really not that hard. If birth control pills are the easiest, cheapest, least invasive, safest method to control particular gynecological problems and the least likely to permanently destroy fertility, then that is the right solution.

 

[pensmama87]

But this isn’t a car–you are in pain, exhausted, suffering, and your physical and mental condition is perhaps deteriorating–and you’re supposed to be making multiple appointments to talk to multiple people about it and then weighing all the different answers you get before it’s possible to start appropriate medical treatment? Any delay can have very serious, permanent consequences.

I feel like, given that the moral theology principles are pretty simple, it shouldn’t look like that. There are genuinely difficult bioethics situations, but this is not one of them. It’s really not that hard. If birth control pills are the easiest, cheapest, least invasive, safest method to control particular gynecological problems and the least likely to permanently destroy fertility, then that is the right solution.

Right.

I know people who have done both, too. Get the symptoms under control and manageable, then research other options that might work better long term.

(And Napro doctors do use hormone therapy in some cases too.)

I know lots of people who have been helped by Napro. It’s not bad, I don’t think, to suggest that as an option, since many people have never heard of it and it does help a lot of people. But as a previous poster said, 99% is not 100%, not all providers are created equal, and the Church already permits hormone use for therapeutic (not contraceptive) reasons.

 

[Xantippe]

I know people who have done both, too. Get the symptoms under control and manageable, then research other options that might work better long term.

That sounds very reasonable.

 

[CountrySinger]

Right.

I know people who have done both, too. Get the symptoms under control and manageable, then research other options that might work better long term.

(And Napro doctors do use hormone therapy in some cases too.)

I know lots of people who have been helped by Napro. It’s not bad, I don’t think, to suggest that as an option, since many people have never heard of it and it does help a lot of people. But as a previous poster said, 99% is not 100%, not all providers are created equal, and the Church already permits hormone use for therapeutic (not contraceptive) reasons.

I had a friend who bled all the time. She was unable to work (couldn’t afford treatments beyond the Pill, which was based on income). Once on the Pill, she was able to work and save up for a treatment that worked. Not all people have mounds of money.

Is a lifeboat permanent? No, but if the ship is going down, it is better than drowning.

 

[Rau]

Because there are some laity on these forums who propose to be experts in Church teaching, when they are not. They utilize highly specious arguments and legalism to promote their personal agenda. And they give advice that is both medically unsound and spiritually harmful.

I trust should that occur, others - perhaps including yourself - will point it out.

 

[Xantippe]

**The issue is that some laity hide their personal agenda under the guise of “Church teaching”.

To advance their ideology, they will cite general Church doctrine and try to apply that doctrine without taking into account context, mitigating factors, and unique facts. This is especially true with highly controversial topics, such as birth control.**

This is why we have priests and ecclesiastical courts. ** Each individual situation needs to be evaluated carefully by competent medical and spiritual authorities for its unique circumstances.**

This is exactly why Moses instituted tribunals. Church law doesn’t operate in a vacuum.

That’s why I would suggest turning to the National Catholic Bioethics Center for a consult, rather than going from local priest to local priest, shopping for an opinion (and that’s really what it winds up being when people go from priest to priest).

These medical ethics questions are not meant to be solved by putting the diocese’s pastors to a vote–there is medical expertise required and there are clear traditional Catholic principles to apply to the particular facts.

I’d also suggest that if there is as much confusion as you suggest, maybe it’s not that easy for the average suffering lay person to sort it all out for themselves by accumulating a big pile of opinions fro other people?

 

[3_Dog_Night]

People will give you advice based upon their own experience, knowledge, education and moral/ spiritual grounding. That advice may or may not be appropriate for you.

Is the question as to whether to use birth control (hormone replacement) for severe menstrual pain? Or is the question about what other people think or if they judge you or if they gossip? Or whether you have questions as to the morality/ rightness of the decision?

I spent many, many years on the birth control pill because of severe menstrual bleeding. We are talking about bleeding 20 out of 30 days each month with massive and frightening amount of blood loss. Needless to say, this was not at all a healthy situation.

After a complete gynecological and endocrine work-up, it came down to one lab value. There were two solutions to my problem: one, a diuretic OR two, the birth control pill.

I could not take the diuretic because I had a low blood pressure. A diuretic would worsen that problem (low blood pressure) and cause me to faint. The birth control pill regulated my menstrual cycles and kept the bleeding to what was normal and natural and healthy.

Would I have made an appointment to see a local Catholic ob/gyn doctor? No, I would not. I was seeing specialists at the Cleveland Clinic. These were highly competent MDs.

Would I have sought the advice of the National Catholic Bioethics Center? No I would not! What would these folks tell me: take the pill or not; hemorrhage or not; live a normal life or not? Would these lovely people live my life for me? Would they bleed for me?

One priest told me that I could take the pill as long as I wasn’t going to have sex. If I were going to have sex then I needed to stop taking the pill. Obviously he didn’t get it!

So my suggestion to you is to do as your doctor advises – certainly you could seek the advice of a bio-ethics group if you wish – and remain quiet about your life and your choices. The “mom’s group” and “your Catholic friends” don’t need to know these things.

 

[paperwight66]

I honestly don’t see why there’s a problem. Humanae Vitae said it was OK.

 

[Xantippe]

I honestly don’t see why there’s a problem. Humanae Vitae said it was OK.

Yep.

 

[edwest2]

Hi everyone, been gone for a while but this isn’t the first time I’ve gotten the impression that some Catholics see “birth control” the same way some evangelical Christians see “Demon Rum”, or even how some secular humanists demonize firearms. That the fact that a substance/object has been used for immoral reasons, means it is illicit to use them even for moral reasons. Or that somehow, people are obligated to use ABC only as an absolute last resort.

However, I also realize that some of this antipathy toward “birth control” is a backlash towards those who use “health reasons” to actually approve the use of “birth control” for expressly contraceptive purposes. Even some priests have counseled that it’s OK to use ABC to avoid pregnancy if that would put a “woman’s health at risk”.

I even recall a number of posts from CAFers proudly proclaiming that they were taking advantage of the “health exception” to use ABC and were happy they didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant. That attitude seems to fly in the face of the idea from Humane Vitae that medicinal use of hormones that have contraceptive effects is only licit if “such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever”.

Though interestingly, even during Prohibition in the US, there was a legal exception for alcohol used for therapeutic means. And certainly, many of the “medicinal tonics” containing alcohol (and sometimes other drugs such as opium, cocaine, etc.) were used for recreational purposes even before Prohibition.

But I doubt anyone would question the morality of using, say, Oxycontin to treat pain if nothing else will work, even though there’s a lot of evidence that the company making it actually INTENDED for it to be used inappropriately, even for people who didn’t need it.

It also seems the Church does not disapprove of using marijuana to treat pain even though I think it’s pretty obvious that most people growing and using it are doing so for recreational purposes.

The first part of your last sentence is incorrect.

catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=18206

Ed

 

[edwest2]

I honestly don’t see why there’s a problem. Humanae Vitae said it was OK.

Other treatment methods have come into use after the publication of Humanae Vitae (1968). That some people have not tried them or did try them without success, or are not aware of them, is the sticking point. I’m not here to tell anyone what to do but with certain cases, on a case by case basis, I am here - among others - to make suggestions.

I think people forget that these open discussions are read by others aside from the OP.

Ed

 

[ToeInTheWater]

The first part of your last sentence is incorrect.

catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=18206

Ed

The article you linked to merely reports that the Vatican Pharmacy has decided not to stock cannabis-based medications. Last I checked the Vatican Pharmacy is not the Magisterium.

 

[ToeInTheWater]

Other treatment methods have come into use after the publication of Humanae Vitae (1968). That some people have not tried them or did try them without success, or are not aware of them, is the sticking point. I’m not here to tell anyone what to do but with certain cases, on a case by case basis, I am here - among others - to make suggestions.

I think people forget that these open discussions are read by others aside from the OP.

Ed

The issue however is that many Catholics seem to think there is some obligation to use non-hormonal treatments for gynecological issues, and only resort to hormonal treatments if the non-hormonal treatments fail.

I understand the prudential reasons why some people might do this, as hormonal treatments can have adverse effects, or out of personal conviction, but I do not see anything in official Church teaching that created a moral obligation.

 

[Xantippe]

The issue however is that many Catholics seem to think there is some obligation to use non-hormonal treatments for gynecological issues, and only resort to hormonal treatments if the non-hormonal treatments fail.

I understand the prudential reasons why some people might do this, as hormonal treatments can have adverse effects, or out of personal conviction, but I do not see anything in official Church teaching that created a moral obligation.

Right.

 

[o_mlly]

Is it wrong to take birth control to stop pain. I know someone who gets terrible pain when she is on her period, it will last for like a week. It makes her suicidal.

Would it be wrong to use birth control if it helped this condition? Assuming she abstained from sex while she was on it.

Until the docs diagnose the underlying cause of the pain, birth control if prescribed is permissible as a palliative. If the docs diagnose the pill as therapeutic or curative, permissible under double effect until cured. Once cured, no longer permissible.

Abstaining from sex with one’s married partner must be a mutual decision as the marital duty is an obligation from one spouse to the other. If married, abstinence in se does not make an evil act good. If not married, well … you get the point.