Thank you for the links; I would certainly put more trust in the links you provided esp. Fr. Serpa who appears to always be 100% orthodox in his answers.
I think the only choice married couples have, is to accept HV15 at face value. If the Holy Father wanted to say otherwise, he would have said so. Couples shouldn’t have to read between the lines to make a decision.
I posted elsewhere that I thought the Holy Father was deliberately vague to allow for the fact that he could not predict the state of medical science in the future. For instance, if a treatment other than the Pill became available that had the equivalent therapeutic effect without risking miscarriage, it would then not be moral to use the Pill when that alternative existed, unless the person had an allergic reaction or life-threatening side-effect to the new drug.
I also think he was deliberately vague in order to allow couples reasonable leeway in using their own consciences on the matter, given their individual, social and cultural circumstances.
I think you’re missing the point of HV 15. The Church is stating that artificial birth control (the pill, for instance) is intrinsically evil. The purpose of HV 15 is to reinforce that a woman CAN use the pill, or something similar, for legitimate reasons, if it is a cure. So, it’s not the pill that’s evil - it’s contracepted sex that is evil, REGARDLESS OF THE INTENT. Intent cannot make an intrinsically evil act morally good.
As set forth in the Catechism:
2399 The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).
Where, in HV 15, does it say that a woman who resorts to therapeutic means can have sexual relations while she is contracepting? It does not say that because that conclusion would not be correct.
If you cannot connect the dots yourself, then you would need an explicit statement from the Magisterium stating that a woman who is temporarily on contraception cannot licitly have sexual relations. You need the Magisterium to speak on each and every possible permutation so that you can know what is permitted and prohibited. That is unfortunate. That is not how the Church operates or needs to operate.
Why not follow the advice of pious NFP, pro-life physicians?
The opinion of Dr. Anthony Dardano, a pro-life physician (addressing a question on use of birth control pills for a specific medical condition, but we can extrapolate):
The use of the birth control pill as a medical therapeutic agent may be justifiable if certain conditions are met. First and foremost, the primary intent must be a medical therapy for a condition which is treatable by ovulation suppression. Ovarian cysts are a good example of this. By stopping ovulation for a few months, it gives the cysts a chance to regress. Frequently, surgery can thus be avoided and pain relief can be dramatic. However, with the lower dose pills of today, ovulation is not always completely stopped. If pregnancy were to occur it might very well be aborted by the action of the pill.
Therefore, if a woman is prescribed a pill for medical reasons, she must refrain from sexual intercourse during the therapy and only then would it be morally acceptable.
See
clmagazine.org/prolifebasics/2007sept-oct.pdf .
Another physician, Dr. Paul Hayes, weighs in:
Q: Is the taking of birth control ever okay for the regulating of (a woman’s) cycle?
A: The answer to this has two components, as there is a moral component to the use of birth control drugs and devices and a medical component.
MORALLY: If a woman is not sexually active, thus eliminating the contraceptive aspect of the birth control pill, there would be no wrong committed. It is the contraceptive effect of these medications that are not permitted, not the drugs that are in them.
Even if a woman were married, birth control drugs COULD (whether or not they SHOULD be used is another discussion) be used to treat a medical condition as long as the husband and wife were to abstain from marital relations, thereby eliminating the contraceptive effect. Some would argue that a couple could use NFP in these situations and simply avoid relations on the days of fertility, thus making their actions consistent with the drug they are using, though I believe this to be in error as the birth control pill will more frequently eliminate any signs of fertility making the use of NFP impossible. Plus, the birth control pill ALWAYS has an abortifacient effect, putting any baby conceived at risk of death from the drug the woman is taking.
Our Holy Father, John Paul II has stated over 15 years ago that “Contraception is to be judged so profoundly illicit that it can never be justified for any reason.” This seems to close the door on any attempt to use birth control pills for “medical reasons” if there is ever any possibility of a contraceptive effect.
The rest of his answer at
all.org/article.php?id=10162 addresses the medical advisability of using birth control pills for medical reasons. He offers alternatives. It is worth reading.
That which is intrinsically evil remains so, despite “intent.” And contraceptive effect is that of preventing otherwise fertile sexual organs from being fertile. (If the infertility is permanent, for other reasons, that would not be contraception).
Use your reason and study the Church’s teachings, and I bet you’ll come to the same conclusion. Merely trying to rely on one part of HV, which does NOT say what you claim (that a couple can resort to sexual relations while suffering a contraceptive effect of medication) is too superficial and, ultimately, incorrect.
