Contraception outside marriage

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Ron_Conte

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With the 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae this past week, there have been lots of articles on contraception. One error that keeps cropping up is the claim that contraception is wrong because it offends against marital sex only. They say that the very definition of contraception as an intrinsically evil act must include marriage.

But in fact the Church has condemned contraception regardless of marital state:
Fr. Richard Hogan at EWTN “Intercourse outside of marriage is seriously sinful. Contraception within or outside of marriage is seriously sinful.”
E. Christian Brugger
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/zcontmar.HTM
and the Catholic Answers staff


The claim that contraception is only condemned by HV in marriage leads to a number of errors, such as claiming that condomized fornication is less evil than simple fornication since the former has less risk of resulting in pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.

In traditional Catholic moral theology, using contraception outside marriage “joins the malice of contraception to the malice proper to these respective acts — adultery, fornication, etc.” [de Haro, William May]. So it makes the sexual sin more sinful by introducing a greater moral disorder.
 
I have only heard this argument with regards to acts of sexual violence, not fornication. Rape is not a unitive act, so victims do not sin by preventing conception (if they can.)
 
even in this case contraception adds an aggravating circumstance. Contraception is a sin of the same kind as abortion, and is against the 4th commandment “you will not kill”
 
even mere contraception, because it artificially prevents a life, is a sin against the 4th commandment.
 
Mboo said:
even in this case contraception adds an aggravating circumstance. Contraception is a sin of the same kind as abortion, and is against the 4th commandment “you will not kill”
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Well, not exactly.
There is a relation, and a difference, between abortion and contraception.
 
the difference is just “technical”. In the same way that there is also a difference between an abortion and the murder of an adult person.
 
Mboo said:
the difference is just “technical”. In the same way that there is also a difference between an abortion and the murder of an adult person.
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Not going to belabor the point. They are related but distinct acts.
 
they are distincts acts it’s obvious, but they’re acts of the same kind
 
Mboo said:
Contraception is a sin of the same kind as abortion, and is against the 4th commandment “you will not kill”
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No, it’s really not. Putting mere pregnancy prevention on the same level as abortion undermines the severity of the latter.
 
Contraception is an anti-life act because it prevents life, whereas abortifacients are anti-life because they take a life.

William May on contraception: “It is not, indeed, an act of homicide, but it is an antilife act, since its precise point is to impede the beginning of the new human life that could begin if something were not done prior to, during, or subsequent to a freely chosen sexual act through which one reasonably believes new human life could be given” [Marriage and the Family in the Documents of the Magisterium, note 49, p. 360]
 
Ron_Conte said:
So it makes the sexual sin more sinful by introducing a greater moral disorder.
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This ^ is a pointless argument, a road to nowhere, given the wide spectrum of marriages that would be considered valid by the Church. It also contradicts the reality of the practice of radical sanation, and invincible ignorance. It’s a statement so removed from reality that it can be disregarded.

Sexual morality between couples will never be able to be reduced into detailed, legalistic, academic statements no matter how hard some academics are trying. I doubt that God intended to reduce our share in creating life to a set detailed of rules made by men. That approach has already been tried by man, and discarded by God Himself.
 
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1Lord1Faith said:
Sexual morality between couples will never be able to be reduced into detailed, legalistic, academic statements no matter how hard some academics are trying. I doubt that God intended to reduce our share in creating life to a set detailed of rules made by men. That approach has already been tried by man, and discarded by God Himself.
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What are you talking about? Are you rejecting the entire set of teachings of the Church on contraception, or on sexual ethics? The moral law certainly does include teachings on what is and is not moral on both subjects.
 
TheAmazingGrace said:
No, it’s really not. Putting mere pregnancy prevention on the same level as abortion undermines the severity of the latter.
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some will also say that putting the abortion of an embryo that is just a cluster of cells at the same level as killing an adult decreases the severity of the murder.
All this (contraception, abortion, murder) are acts that are opposed to life so that violates the 4th commandment
 
Mboo said:
some will also say that putting the abortion of an embryo that is just a cluster of cells at the same level as killing an adult decreases the severity of the murder.
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Both take lives. Contraception that prevents ovulation/fertilization does not.
 
I would say that all three are opposed to life, they just differ on how to prevent life, but in the end we have the same result: a life that should have been, is no longer there.
 
Mboo said:
but in the end we have the same result: a life that should have been, is no longer there.
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That’s only true for murder. With contraception, a life that didn’t exist before still doesn’t exist. Not every sex act is going to result in fertilization, even if the woman is ovulating.
 
traditionally, the Church has interpreted the 10 commandments so that they forbid things that are related to what is explicitly stated. So you shall not murder, also forbids causing injury unjustly; and you shall not commit adultery also forbids other sexual sins. So the prohibition against contraception could be interpreted as anti-life and be categorized with murder, even though no life is taken.
 
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