Is Sterlization ok if medically required?

[Listener]

Your situation is exactly the reason that many Catholics just decide to ignore Church teaching and practice birth control anyway. I have never understood that aspect of Church teaching either. If you’re looking for a loophole, I have just read a good book called What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Premenopause by John R. Lee, M.D. and Jesse Hanley, M.D. It is an interesting book, and I have never seen anything like it before. I don’t really know if what it says is true. It states that many women have an overabundance of estrogen and a serious lack of progesterone. It also states that synthetic progestin is bad for us. The book says that the overabundance of estrogen happens from feeding it to cattle, pesticides, etc.

Lack of enough natural progesterone causes miscarriage and short leutal (sp) phases. I believe that your wife could at least justify taking some natural progesterone to make her cycle more normal. This book recommends natural creams. If she got too much and it acted like a birth control pill, that would be secondary. According to this book, natural progesterone will help rather than harm the fetus. Your wife has a right to a normal cycle and is justified in using medication to achieve that.

Maybe some doctors on this site can verify whether or not this idea is true or false.

 

[Jennie]

hfwarner3:

My wife has severe pre-ecclampsia complicated by some other chronic health issues. She is 28 weeks pregnant and her blood pressure is currently averaging around 150s/90s. She has a constant migraine headache, she has visual problems from the BP, she is starting to show signs of swelling on the brain, and they are worried that her kidneys and/or liver are going to fail any day now. She has had a lesser form of this with each pregnancy. The doctor has made it clear that as she gets older, this is only going to get worse.

The only question is how we, as Catholics, should respond from here. What I am hearing is that I can choose celebacy or continue the risk of killing my wife and/or a future child. I am having a hard time in seeing the blessing God is giving us in that.

As you are probably well aware, the Dr probably has her on Mag Sulfate, will probably give steriods to speed up lung development in your baby, and then deliver early by C-Section.

The good news is that Mom and baby will most likely be fine.

What you seem to be asking is, “How can I still (make love) to my wife, yet not risk killing my wife and/or future child”?

I think that your wife would love to know that you love HER more than you love the pleasure that intercourse creates.

Personally, I still think you can be sexually intimate the way you both would like, but under the circumstances, not as often.

This is not an all or nothing situation. And it certainly isn’t permanent.

It just takes a lot of faith and strength. God Bless.

 

[felra]

hfwarner3:

My wife and I are in a very tough spot.

Now that you have the background, I can get to my question. My wife is reading Life Giving Love by Kimberly Hahn while she is on strict bedrest. On Page 194 of the paperback version, she states, “We cannot discount the doctor’s opinion that another pregnancy could cause serious harm or even death, just because we want more children. If the Pill or a hysterectomy is required medically, and it is not being chosen for contraceptive effect, there is no sin.”

Is Kimberly Hahns statement true? How should we approach and way the moral sides of this issue? Where is my wife selfishly persuing her own desire for more children and rejecting her responsibilities as wife and mother to existing children? Is it enough to talk to a single priest about this or should we do something more “official” before we make a permanent decision that I have always thought was against Church teaching? Is celebate love really our only remaining option?

Sorry to hear of your very tough situation. I will pray for you and your wife. Here are some authoritaive Church statements addressing medical concerns and moral options available similiar to your situation. God bless.

In response to its query on sterilization, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s statement of March 13, 1975 replied to the United States National Conference of Catholic Bishops as follows:

“Any sterilization, that is, of its own nature and condition, has the sole immediate effect of rendering the generative faculty incapable of procreation, is to be considered direct sterilization, as the term is understood in the declarations of the pontifical magisterium, especially of Pius XII. Therefore, notwithstanding and subjectivity right intention of those whose actions are prompted by the care of **prevention **of physical or mental illness which is foreseen or feared as the result of pregnancy, such sterilization remains absolutely forbidden to the doctrine of the church. And indeed the sterilization of the faculty itself is forbidden for an ever graver reason than the sterilization of individual acts, since it induces a state of sterility in the person which is almost always irreversible.”

and……………

The effort to justify contraceptive sterilization on the grounds of the principle of totality (the argument that some hoped for-good-to-come about can justify the deliberate intention to act directly against a good here and now) was explicitly rejected by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in their July 9, 1980 “Statement on Tubal Ligation”, *Hospital Progress, *61.9 (1980), 39.

and …

In his address to the Congress of Urology on October 8, 1953, Pope Pius XII outlined the specific conditions under which **sterilization **(or amputation, for that matter) may be performed:

Three things condition the moral permission of surgical operation requiring an anatomical or functional mutilation;

1. that the preservation or functioning of a particular organ provokes a serious damage or constitutes a threat to the complete organism [that is **the principle of totality];
2. that this damage cannot be avoided, or at least notably diminished, except by the amputation in question and that its efficacy is well assured; and
3. that it can be reasonably foreseen that the negative effect, namely, the mutilation and its consequences, will be compensated by the positive effect: exclusion of a damage to the whole organism, mitigation of the pain, etc.

[As far as sterilization is concerned], the conditions which would justify disposing of a part in favor of the whole in virtue of the principle of totality are lacking. It is not therefore morally permissible to operate on healthy oviducts if the life or (physical) health of the mother in not threatened by their continued existence.

 

[otm]

There is a bioethics group, the name of which escapes me, and that is the place you should seek this answer. They are true to the Magisterium, and deal with not only these issues, but end of life issues. I would think Catholic Answers could direct you to them.

I am not sure that you have a “black and white” issue; it sounds as if NFP could still work, with longer periods of abstinence, but you need to make the decision to not have any more children as the alternative would be to lose both your wife and the child with the next pregnancy.

I am particularly sad that some people have suggested that you abort. Too many people have the grace and intelligence of the south end of a north-bound horse.

It sounds like you are going to be a frequent visitor to the NICU. The whole thing sounds just plain scary, but they do good work (and they know a lot more now than 22 years ago when my twins spent 5 1/2 weeks getting up to speed). God bless, and do seek them out before you make any irreversable decisions.

It is said that God never gives us more than we can carry; a statement that is much easier to make when one is not in the middle of trying to carry that load.

 

[hfwarner3]

Jennie:

The good news is that Mom and baby will most likely be fine.

If that were the only medical condition involved, I am sure you are right. They would pop that baby out at 29 weeks with no problems (Do you really mean that? Have you looked at the list of average permanent health problems with children born at 29 weeks?)

Jennie:

I think that your wife would love to know that you love HER more than you love the pleasure that intercourse creates.

Personally, I still think you can be sexually intimate the way you both would like, but under the circumstances, not as often.

Ummm … I’ll let you tell that to the pregnant later laying in the hospital who is crying near continuously because she can not only not have any more children, but is being told that she can not make love to her husband without risking death and permanent injury. She is the one who is viewing herself as a failure. All I want to do is understand the logic behind the Church Teaching so that I can calmly, logically, sensitively, and lovingly help her through this without misleading her.

Using the most conservative form of NFP, we had 2-4 days out of any given cycle that were infertile days. This baby was conceived in that window. NFP failed. It was a METHOD failure. It is not an option now.

I am not looking for a loophole. I am looking for a logical explanation. It appears that no one here can give one. If so, there is no point in posting any more since this is only adding to the pain, anger, and frustration.

I do, however, appeciate the prayers. Thank you.

 

[hfwarner3]

felra:

In response to its query on sterilization, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s statement of March 13, 1975 replied to the United States National Conference of Catholic Bishops as follows…

Thank you. This is what I was looking for.

 

[rayne89]

hfwarner3:

Ummm … I’ll let you tell that to the pregnant later laying in the hospital who is crying near continuously because she can not only not have any more children, but is being told that she can not make love to her husband without risking death and permanent injury. She is the one who is viewing herself as a failure. All I want to do is understand the logic behind the Church Teaching so that I can calmly, logically, sensitively, and lovingly help her through this without misleading her.

Using the most conservative form of NFP, we had 2-4 days out of any given cycle that were infertile days. This baby was conceived in that window. NFP failed. It was a METHOD failure. It is not an option now.

.

My heart goes out to your wife. When I was told I couldn’t have anymore children my heart was broken. In time God gave me the grace to accept that that was His will for our family.

Please please reasure you wife that this has nothing to do with her being a success or a failure. This is a situation completely out of her hands. She did not cause this, she has not control over this.

Right now you need to take the pressure off your wife and tell her it what matter’s is that she’s alive, that the love that you share will not change and does not hinge upon your sexual relations. I don’t discount the importance of intimacy in a marriage in the least but in the middle of this health crisis with your wife in the hospital these concerns must be put on the back burner.

Women and men both need intimacy but women are keenly aware the importance that sexual intimacy for a man. I’m sure she is scared that your relationship will suffer. She may be worried that you may end up resenting her or even possibly look else where for sexual satisfaction. I am NOT saying you are the cause of these thoughts, I’m not saying you would do any of these things. But these are the kinds of things a women would think of when faced with these circumstances.

Now is not the time to concentrate on the sexual side of your marriage. Reasure her over and over that what’s important is her health. That you have been blessed by the children she has given you, and that your family is complete just the way it is. Reasure her that she has your love and fidelity no matter what. That God’s grace is sufficient to get you through this. Because it is. God’s grace will get you through this. Health is effected by mental state. You must do you very best to keep her calm during the remaining of her pregnancy. My prayers are with you.

 

[josea]

Dear hfwarner3,

We have a similar situation as you. We have three children and a new pregnancy could put in serious risk the life of my wife. I was posting here my concerns and worries. Felra is absolutely right about the official teaching of the Church.

The only point is that people still do not agree completely with the doctrine of Pius XII about this particular point. I know about many examples in a couple of countries where Church authorities will consider sterilization in this case as morally OK.

I already wrote to the nuncio of the Pope in my country to clarify the situation again and he wrote me back through a professor of moral theology, but the answer was again ambiguos and not clear at all. I have the feeling, but it is only a feeling, that Pius XII is not right saying that the principle of totality can not be applied here. But we have chosen to follow the teachings of the Church and pray that the situation is clarify even more in the future. We have marital relations once or twice per month and the end of the cycle and following Billings method of mucus observation.

You are in my prayers.
Jose