Birth Control vs Other Medication

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Mavzylor

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I don’t mean to compare pregnancy to illness, but just human nature to human nature. It is wrong to use artificial birth control pills because it goes against the natural way God designed us. How is this different from using chemical medications to cure diseases, when our human nature leaves us prone to diseases? Might it interfere with God’s plan for us to gain something by suffering an illness?
 
Each marital act must be ordered toward procreation. Nothing to do with natural vs unnatural. Contraception disorders the act. Contraception takes a healthy organ or system and makes it act as if it were diseased.

Medication is used to cause a diseased organ or system to behave as if it were well.
 
Contraception like the oral contraceptive pill does not make the ovaries or the uterus behave as though diseased. Share Church teaching, but not at the expense of correct pharmacology.
 
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A uterus that will not allow implantation of a zygote is not functioning as “normal”.

Healthy ovaries in a fertile woman release an ovum approximately every 28 days unless that woman is pregnant.
 
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Well I think she says diseased as in contrary to the way it was designed to function. However we were also designed in a way that we contract diseases, which is why I am confused.
 
Yep. I’m a nurse.

My point is don’t use the word diseased. That’s incorrect.

It thins the lining of the uterus to hinder implantation.
 
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Mavzylor said:
It is wrong to use artificial birth control pills because it goes against the natural way God designed us.
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that is a common misunderstanding and not at all the reason that contraception is wrong. Note that “birth control” (spacing of children) is morally neutral. It is contraception that is an immoral means of doing this.
Mavzylor said:
How is this different from using chemical medications to cure diseases, when our human nature leaves us prone to diseases?
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Again, not why contraception is wrong.

However, I should point out that medicine cures diseases. Fertility is not a disease or an illness. Disease is not the natural state of the body, and medicine intends to restore it to its working order. Contraceptive devices seek to disable a healthy functioning part of the body.

So, the two are not at all comparable.
Mavzylor said:
Might it interfere with God’s plan for us to gain something by suffering an illness?
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No. The Church does not teach that we must suffer or cannot cure illnesses. Jesus gives us the example that we can cure illnesses. Luke was a physician. There has never been a Jewish or Christian teaching that we must reject medicine.

Suffering can be for a good purpose. Choosing to suffer can be heroic virtue. It’s a heroic act, not a routine one.
 
Mavzylor said:
Well I think she says diseased as in contrary to the way it was designed to function.
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diseased is impaired or damaged.
Mavzylor said:
However we were also designed in a way that we contract diseases, which is why I am confused.
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That is because this whole concept of disease or no disease, natural or not natural, is not the basis on which contraception is immoral.
 
I asked you in the other thread but you never answered.

Adderall is used by ADHD and ADD children and adults to focus when they cannot. It is a lifesaver for many, allowing them to go to school and hold down jobs. Society, in general, approves this.

Adderall is used by students who want an edge on exams. In non-ADHD people, it provides a phenomenal advantage. Society, in general, does not approve this. Or steroids, or any real performance enhancers.

So why do we think it’s ok to “cheat” fertity?
 
Then perhaps they should consider changing Natural Family Planning to Moral Family Planning or something, because the whole topic has been very confusing to me.
 
Natural Family Planning means observing the natural signs that the human body gives to indicate fertility and then making decisions based on that information.
 
I’m sorry I didn’t respond. What you are saying makes sense, but I don’t need to be convinced. I already hold the beliefs. I am just asking questions about specific aspects of the arguments to get a better understanding.
 
Mavzylor said:
I’m sorry I didn’t respond. What you are saying makes sense, but I don’t need to be convinced. I already hold the beliefs. I am just asking questions about specific aspects of the arguments to get a better understanding.
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I think being able to understand the hypocrisy of why a thought is in place is an important part of understanding the arguments.
 
It’s not the “naturalness” or “unnaturalness” that makes it immoral or the fact that chemicals or manufactured objects are involved. The Marquette Method uses mechanical devices in the observation of fertility-- peeing on a stick and looking for presence and concentration of hormones in the blood with a monitor device. That is not “natural”. But it is also not immoral.

What makes contraception immoral is that each act of intercourse must be ordered per se to both unity and procreation. The vague descriptions of “open to life” or “natural vs unnatural” obscure things. (yes, I realize that per se ordered to unity and procreation isn’t readily understood by everyone).

The right use of the genitalia is confined to completed acts of marital intercourse. We know this through divine revelation. We can observe that this is how genitalia work, what their purpose is generally speaking, through the natural law, but coming to the conclusion that the only moral use of these faculties is in the context of marriage and completed acts of intercourse does require more. The sixth commandment illuminates the conscience to this fact. The natural law only takes you so far here.
 
You’re right, but you are answering general questions about why NFP is morally acceptable and ABC is not. In the other thread I was looking specifically for how NFP meets the procreative aspect of the marital act (which (name removed by moderator) corrected and explained to be “ordered per se to procreation”) in a way that contraception doesn’t, when God could easily defy contraception just as he can bring a child into existence through NFP.
 
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Yeah, it’s not about natural vs unnatural, but ordered vs disordered.

True medicine helps something disordered become ordered (or prevents further disorder). Contraception deliberately introduces disorder for the purpose of disrupting what would otherwise be ordered.
 
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Mavzylor said:
However we were also designed in a way that we contract diseases, which is why I am confused.
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That was not God’s doing. We wounded ourselves which he allowed.

For a proportionate reason it is perfectly acceptable to treat serious disease even if unintended side effects affect fertility.
 
Note that in addition to the other issues, the modern birth control pill is not simply a contraceptive, but a three-part approach.
  1. it does prevent release of the egg, somewhere from 90% to 99% of the time, depending upon which estimates and studies you use.
  2. It changes the chemical composition of the path making it harder for the sperm to flow upstream, reducing chances of conception in those 1% to 10%.
  3. while those usually work, it also changes the lining of the uterus, preventing the child from implanting in the mother. 😱😱
The first two are “merely” a moral issue, while the third is infanticide 😱

hawk
 
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