Is it a sin: Vasectomy in the Single Life?

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HumbleIOughtToBe

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All threads here mention vasectomy in the context of marriage. I have not read all forums here, but I skimmed around 10 or so.

When one is not going to be married, is a vasectomy morally permissible?

This is a hypothetical question, I am not doing this, nor do I know anyone who is.

Edit:
The phrase, “When one is not going to be married”, implies no sexual activity occurring.
 
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If a male is going to remain single as a Catholic he should be celibate, so why would a vasectomy be needed? If he chooses to marry later on, then what? Is it always reversible? I don’t know. There just should be no need for one.
 
No, neither contraception nor sterilization is intrinsically evil dependent upon marital state. So sterilization is wrong even for the unmarried, and contracepting fornicators commit two mortal sins, not just one.

The Holy See in December 2018 proved this with a decree on hysterectomies, from which we can deduce the precise object of sterilization and contraception. It is any act that has as its sole proximate effect, impeding the procreative functioning of the generative faculty, where that generative faculty itself is suitable for procreation. The malice consists in the refusal of offspring.

Notice, marital state is not a necessary constituent of the object. In conclusion, it is intrinsically evil!
 
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I don’t /THINK/ it’d be permissible, unless there was some life-threatening cause. Doing that seems Origen-esque imho.
 
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alphonsus1 said:
No, neither contraception nor sterilization is intrinsically evil dependent upon marital state. So sterilization is wrong even for the unmarried, and contracepting fornicators commit two mortal sins, not just one.

The Holy See in December 2018 proved this with a decree on hysterectomies, from which we can deduce the precise object of sterilization and contraception. It is any act that has as its sole proximate effect, impeding the procreative functioning of the generative faculty, where that generative faculty itself is suitable for procreation. The malice consists in the refusal of offspring.

Notice, marital state is not a necessary constituent of the object. In conclusion, it is intrinsically evil!
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Except hysterectomies would rarely if ever be done for solely contraceptive reasons. Tubal ligation would be done instead.
 
Tubal ligation and hysterectomies (not with a proximate effect of treating a pathology) have the same object, they both immediately sterilize the woman.

Also, the “intention” of the actor, in your words “the reason [motivation] it’s done” is not what determines the object of the act of contraception and sterilization, that is, it’s inherent nature. The object is deduced from the proximate end that the concrete act is inherently ordered towards, regardless of whether it attains that end, combined with the formal dimension of the object, to together form the moral object.
 
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I am unaware of any medical reason to have a vasectomy outside of the context of sterilization. I guess it is possible in some rare circumstance. But the mutilation of ones genitals for sterilization would be an evil regardless of age, marital status, or state of life.
 
Not to mention maybe Salpingectomies, seems like throwing the (no pun intended). baby out with the bathwater to get a full-blown hysterectomy for contraception.
 
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No clue, mere hypothetical question. I assume someone in this world would have this question.

I assume I must state a reason.
I would have said to avoid a certain sin, but then I looked up details on the procdure and apparently that sin can still occur, just the capacity to create new life is eliminated.
 
alphonsus1 said:
Tubal ligation and hysterectomies (not with a proximate effect of treating a pathology) have the same object, they both immediately sterilize the woman.

Also, the “intention” of the actor, in your words “the reason [motivation] it’s done” is not what determines the object of the act of contraception and sterilization, that is, it’s inherent nature. The object is deduced from the proximate end that the concrete act is inherently ordered towards, regardless of whether it attains that end, combined with the formal dimension of the object, to together form the moral object.
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But as you are aware, intent matters. The intent must be, as the Vatican says, refusal of offspring.

As has been stated above, a doctor in incredibly unlikely to recommend a hysterectomy - which is surgical removal of the whole uterus - for contraceptive purposes. Or indeed for any other reason than to treat a disease or defect of the uterus which cannot be treated any other way. In such cases it is morally permissible even where the effect is also that the woman is rendered sterile.
 
No, the intent of the actor, insofar as it is a more remote end, does not matter in determining the object of an act. The intent does not have to be refusal of offspring, even if the intent was to stop a future risky pregnancy, it would be wrong. It is very erroneous to reduce the object to the intentions of the actor.

I agree that most cases of hysterectomies are indirect sterilization. They are directly treating a pathology. However, the Holy See considered performing hysterectomies when a woman’s life would be in danger as a result of a future pregnancy (as a substitute for tubal ligation), but there was no current threat to the woman’s life from the generative faculty itself.

Refer to this Vatican site:

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS PROPOSED
CONCERNING “UTERINE ISOLATION”
AND RELATED MATTERS

That is why there must be a pathology present that is imminentally threatening a woman’s life. The intention of the woman is not what matters, it is the intellect recognizing her pathological state that matters.
 
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HumbleIOughtToBe said:
I would have said to avoid a certain sin, but then I looked up details on the procdure and apparently that sin can still occur, just the capacity to create new life is eliminated.
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I am genuinely puzzled about this. What sin could you possibly have imagined could be avoided by having a vasectomy? A vasectomy just makes it possible for a man to ejaculate without his semen containing any sperm cells. Were you perhaps confusing a vasectomy with castration?
 
It’s not morally permissible to destroy a healthy body part without a grave reason.
 
Yes I think the OP was unfamiliar with what a vasectomy was… castration to avoid mastirbation would be wrong as well. Genital mutilation is a grave and horrible thing. It is a slap in the face to the God who created us.
 
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It leads me to wonder why he thinks that a married man would want to have a vasectomy…
 
HumbleIOughtToBe said:
I assume I must state a reason.
I would have said to avoid a certain sin, but then I looked up details on the procdure and apparently that sin can still occur, just the capacity to create new life is eliminated.
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I really hope this is just a hypothetical and you’re not considering some kind of medical procedure to avoid masturbation, because if so, that’s…not normal, to put it mildly.
 
HumbleIOughtToBe said:
I do not discuss married men in this question.
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I thought that it was implicit in the wording of your question that a vasectomy was a procedure typically undergone by a man who is married or otherwise in a sexually active relationship with a fertile woman or who intends to have sex with fertile women and does not wish to become a father. Given that the only reason for having a vasectomy is to avoid conception when having sex with a fertile woman, I thought it was reasonable to assume that the position of married men was implicitly taken into consideration (this is a Catholic forum, so one would assume that as a norm people would expect sex to be something done by married men with their wives).

If you do not intend to get married, and presumably do not intend to have sex with women (who could be capable of becoming pregnant), it is unclear why you would want to have an operation whose only medical benefit is allowing you to have sex with a woman without the risk of her becoming pregnant. The more I think about it, the more confused I am. If you seem to believe that a vasectomy causes impotence or a loss of libido (you do not explain what you think it causes, but that is my guess), why do you imagine that so many married or partnered heterosexual men have vasectomies? Do you think that they have vasectomies because they no longer wish to have sex with their wives or partners?
 
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