Is it ok to use birth control to

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I think it is important to use terms carefully.
  • Birth control is the spacing and planning of children.
  • Contraception is an immoral means of birth control in which a couple engages in the marital act while trying to sterilize it by various means.
  • Natural family planning is a moral means of birth control in which a couple abstains from intercourse periodically.
A medication to “regulate your period” is none of these things. It is medicine.

That said, many doctors prescribe pills whose primary pupose is to supress ovulation or make the womb inhospitable to new life as medicine for “regulating periods”.

Morally, for a married woman, the Principle of Double Effect would apply here. If you are not familiar with it, I suggest you read up on it. To be moral the proposed treatment would have to meet all of the critieria of Double Effect. So, in some cases yes it can be moral and in other cases it might not be.

For an unmarried woman, applying the Principle of Double Effect would not be necessary.
 
White_Peony said:
…regulate your period?
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It would be morally okay, but personally I think it inadvisable. The side effects for one, there are other options and the contraceptive pills are going to prove hugely negative for our environment in future years.
 
White_Peony said:
…regulate your period?
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As I have remarked before on this topic:
[A]s far as the moral issues are concerned, it is important to be clear: although people colloquially say that Church teaching is “against using birth control,” this is just a shorthand expression. The Church does not teach that it is a sin to take a birth control pill. Similarly, for a man, it is not a sin to put on a condom. What is a sin is engaging in sex outside of marriage, and/or in an unnatural way that attempts to defeat the creation of life.

Therefore:
  1. If you are not having sex, Catholic moral teaching leaves you free to pop birth control pills (or put on condoms) all day if you want to. By itself, this is a morally neutral act, and it only gains a moral significance in its relation to sexuality.
  2. If you are having sex, under the principle of double effect it is still permissible to take such medications for legitimate medical purposes other than preventing conception. As Pope Paul VI said in Humanae Vitae:
    On the other hand, the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever.
    Now, it would be sinful, for instance, to persuade your doctor to prescribe you some contraceptive like Yaz for the asserted purpose of preventing acne, when in reality the only reason you want Yaz instead of Proactiv is because it’s a contraceptive. But if the pill is prescribed for justifiable purposes and you are not taking it intending to prevent conception, that is okay. It would certainly be good for a Catholic woman (or the couple together, ideally) to talk over such a case with their priest to make sure they are proceeding on morally and ethically sound lines.​
    Therefore, if you are not having sex, you can feel free to take all the birth control pills you like. But if you are having sex (or at least intending to), you should, ideally, consult with your priest to determine whether the purported justification (regulating the period) is of sufficient gravity to justify interference with the procreative nature of the sexual act. In any event, the sin if any would not consist in taking the pill as such, but rather in deliberately having sexual intercourse while on it.
 
White_Peony said:
…regulate your period?
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many people do. It’s easy for people to say you can’t do it or shouldn’t do it but those people have probably never had any of the problems that can come with the female cycle. There are things like hemorrhaging, cysts, and other problems that the pill is the most effective medicine for.
 
I suggest you find an OB/GYN who is faithful to the teachings of the Church. I too had irregular periods(I have PCOS) and took something else that made my cycles come monthly. IMHO it should be the last resort. But I also want to say that it is important to have regular cycles…endometrial cancer risk is higher if you do not. Google PCOS, irregular periods are one of the symptoms.
 
MarkThompson said:
Now, it would be sinful, for instance, to persuade your doctor to prescribe you some contraceptive like Yaz for the asserted purpose of preventing acne, when in reality the only reason you want Yaz instead of Proactiv is because it’s a contraceptive. But if the pill is prescribed for justifiable purposes and you are not taking it intending to prevent conception, that is okay. It would certainly be good for a Catholic woman (or the couple together, ideally) to talk over such a case with their priest to make sure they are proceeding on morally and ethically sound lines.
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My doctor had a way around this. She wouldn’t prescribe a dosage of BC pills that would actually prevent ovulation, just enough to treat what needed treating. She even warned not to use it as a form of BC because it wasn’t a strong enough dosage.
 
1ke said:
Morally, for a married woman, the Principle of Double Effect would apply here. If you are not familiar with it, I suggest you read up on it. To be moral the proposed treatment would have to meet all of the critieria of Double Effect. So, in some cases yes it can be moral and in other cases it might not be.
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The principle of double effect never justifies an intrinsically evil act.

The Magisterium teaches:
  • that actions which are in themselves, i.e. by their nature and condition, ordered toward a contraceptive end are intrinsically evil.
  • that the use of contraception is intrinsically evil because it deprives sexual acts of their procreative meaning.
  • that contraception is so profoundly illicit that it can never, for any reason, be justified. * that legitimate intentions on the part of a married couple do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means such as contraception.
  • that a good intention is not sufficient, a correct choice of actions is also needed.
 
Deo_Gratias42 said:
My doctor had a way around this. She wouldn’t prescribe a dosage of BC pills that would actually prevent ovulation, just enough to treat what needed treating. She even warned not to use it as a form of BC because it wasn’t a strong enough dosage.
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If you are sexually active, and you take a pill to prevent ovulation, you are using contraception. Chemical contraceptives generally work by preventing ovulation.
 
Ron_Conte said:
The principle of double effect never justifies an intrinsically evil act.

The Magisterium teaches:
  • that actions which are in themselves, i.e. by their nature and condition, ordered toward a contraceptive end are intrinsically evil.
  • that the use of contraception is intrinsically evil because it deprives sexual acts of their procreative meaning.
  • that contraception is so profoundly illicit that it can never, for any reason, be justified. * that legitimate intentions on the part of a married couple do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means such as contraception.
  • that a good intention is not sufficient, a correct choice of actions is also needed.
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Contraception is intrinsically evil. Correct.

But we are NOT talking about contraception.

Taking a medication to treat a medical condition is NOT intrinsically evil and is NOT contraception.
 
1ke said:
Taking a medication to treat a medical condition is NOT intrinsically evil and is NOT contraception.
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  1. “To treat a medical condition” is the intention of the subject who acts, that is, the purpose for which the subject performs the act; it is the subjective goal (why we do the act). But a good intention is not sufficient.
  2. The the objective act (what we do), must also be good. A correct choice of action is based on the object of the act. In this case, the chosen act is to take a pill which deprives sexual acts of their procreative end. When a person who is sexually active takes such a pill, the sexual acts are objectively contracepted. The chosen act has a contraceptive object, even if the intended end is not contraceptive.
In addition, chemical contraceptives are abortifacient. So the person is also choosing an act that is objectively ordered toward an abortive end, as well as a contraceptive end. And this is what makes the act intrinsically evil.
  1. Finally, we must consider the circumstances of the act, which include its consequences. One consequence of taking an oral contraceptive, over a period of time, while sexually active, is the death of innocent prenatals. This bad consequence outweighs the good of treating a medical disorder because the person could refrain from all sexual acts and take the medication, treating the disorder while avoiding this grave harm.
In cases where a woman must take a medication to treat a disorder, and the medication has an abortive effect, she can only take the medication if she refrains from all sexual acts.

Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives:

"in these extreme cases, every preventive practice and every direct attack upon the life and the development of the new life is, in conscience, forbidden and excluded, and that there is only one way open, namely, that of complete abstinence from every performance of the natural faculty…

"It will be objected that such an abstention is impossible, that such a heroism is asking too much. You will hear this objection raised; you will read it everywhere…

“God does not command the impossible, but when He commands, He warns you to do what you can, and to ask for the grace for what you cannot do, and He helps you so that you may be able”
 
If you are not sexually active, then regulating your periods with hormones is fine.
 
👍

And if one is sexually active (and married, of course), it also depends on the severity of the “period regulating need”. If it’s for a minor inconvenience and with a particular couple is abortifacient, that’s no good.
 
Here is an answer from the American Life League on this question:

"People frequently ask whether it is acceptable to take birth control pills in order to regulate a woman’s menstrual cycle when they are irregular or to reduce the severity of extreme menstrual pain.

"The answers to these questions have two components; a moral component 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 moral wrong committed. It is the contraceptive (and abortifacient) 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 be used to treat a medical condition as long as the husband and wife were to abstain from marital relations, thereby eliminating the contraceptive (and abortifacient) effect. (Whether or not they should be used is another discussion.)”
 
The Magisterium teaches that there are three fonts of morality, and that, in order for any act to be moral, all three fonts must be good:
  1. the reason or purpose for choosing the act, i.e. the intention
  2. the type of act being chosen (moral species), which is determined by the moral object
  3. the good and bad consequences.
Common errors:
a) confusing the intended end, such as a medical purpose or other good reason for choosing the act, with the moral object.

The intended end is in the subject, the person who acts; the moral object is inherent to the chosen act itself. The deliberate choice of an inherently disordered act is sinful, regardless of intention or circumstances. Intention and circumstances do not determine the moral object.

b) claiming that unintended bad consequences have no moral weight.

The font called circumstances weighs “the totality of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons concerned.” (Veritatis Splendor 79) When any bad consequence, of any moral weight, is intended, the intention (first font) is a sin. But the moral weight of the consequences does not depend on intention.

In the case of abortifacient contraception, the deliberate choice to be sexually active while taking the birth control pill for any intended end (any reason or purpose, even a medical one) is intrinsically evil because it is a deliberate choice of a type of act ordered toward contraceptive and abortive ends. Objectively, the sexual acts are contracepted. Objectively, over a long enough period of time, some abortions do occur. A good intention or purpose, such as to treat a medical disorder, cannot change the objective nature of the chosen act. The act remains ordered toward abortive and contraceptive ends.

USCCB Catechism: “Every moral act consists of three elements: the objective act (what we do), the subjective goal or intention (why we do the act), and the concrete situation or circumstances in which we perform the act… All three aspects must be good – the objective act, the subjective intention, and the circumstances – in order to have a morally good act.”
 
Ron_Conte said:
Here is an answer from the American Life League on this question:

"People frequently ask whether it is acceptable to take birth control pills in order to regulate a woman’s menstrual cycle when they are irregular or to reduce the severity of extreme menstrual pain.

"The answers to these questions have two components; a moral component 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 moral wrong committed. It is the contraceptive (and abortifacient) 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 be used to treat a medical condition as long as the husband and wife were to abstain from marital relations, thereby eliminating the contraceptive (and abortifacient) effect. (Whether or not they should be used is another discussion.)”
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In theory, if the contraceptive effect of this medication is only contraception and without abortifacient effect, what is your intellectual approach? Is it the same?
 
The temporary sterility is an unintended consequence of taking the medication under the Principle of Double Effecct and it is entirely permissible. It is NOT contraception to take a medication to treat Medical Issue A that has the unintended consequence of sterility, even if this is foreseen. Just as it is not the sin of sterilization to have your uterus removed because it is diseased. Both of these are permitted under the principle of double effect.
 
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