Medical issues with having children and contraception

[kage_ar]

**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).

scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2399.htm

This is short and clear, even a legitimate reason does not justify sterilization.

 

[bluerose]

Reproduction is all about the birth.
The Angels did not appear to shepherds heralding the conception of Jesus…

One did… his name was Gabriel.

 

[Good_Daughter]

To beget offspring implies that the child has the potential to live on its own.

That is the norm.

We live our lives outside the womb. We interact with God and our fellow men outside the womb.

If a woman has a condition where a fertilized egg will never implant on the uterus, we call her infertile… She is infertile not because she can’t conceive. Rather, she is infertile because she will never beget offspring.

This distinction in no way justifies abortion: when it comes to murder, the fertilized egg is a human. But, this does not mean that a women who can merely conceive is fertile in the same since as a woman who can give birth.

Say I sold you a cow. I explicitly tell you she procreates like clock-work. You can expect to have many many calves, I tell you with a wink.
Would you not be a bit miffed if you later found out the cow, while great at conceiving, could never give birth?
I would expect that you might sue me for fraud.

Reproduction is all about the birth.
The Angels did not appear to shepherds heralding the conception of Jesus…

The *American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language *defines infertile as, “Not capable of initiating, sustaining, or supporting reproduction.”

While I sympathize with your wife’s health issues, infertility does not seem to be one of them.

 

[Bonbar]

**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).

scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2399.htm

This is short and clear, even a legitimate reason does not justify sterilization.

That provision answers nothing.

My situation has zilch to do with the regulation of births.
My wife cannot give birth.

Moreover, the second sentence is rife with a gazillion exceptions relating to medical issues. That is, there are numerous situations where one could morally sterilized oneself.

Let’s face it… the Catechism is vague, ambiguous, and poorly written. The relevant provisions of the modern Catechism concerning sex are gobbledee-goop open to numerous interpretations. Please note, I’m not saying the CHURCH’s teaching is gobledee-goop… but the Catechism as written sucks.

Do you really think those two sentences you have cited CLEARLY set forth the Church’s position?

For instance, what is “direct sterilization”? Is a reversible vasectomy even sterilization? A vasectomy doesn’t make one sterile at all. You still produce sperm. And, if you hook the tubes back up, you can have babies. (Indeed, if you’re satisfied with in vitro, you don’t even need to hook the tubes back up… a syringe can suck the spermies out directly.)

In fact, the more I read this, the more I am completely befuddled as to what these two sentences even have to do with each other… Could you explain what the text means?

 

[Bonbar]

The *American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language *defines infertile as, “Not capable of initiating, sustaining, or supporting reproduction.”

While I sympathize with your wife’s health issues, infertility does not seem to be one of them.

Am I missing something?

The three meanings are DISJUNCTIVE. That is, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, if one is incapable of ANY of the three, one is infertile.

My wife cannot sustain or support reproduction.
According to you definition, she is infertile.

 

[Jennifer_J]

That provision answers nothing.

My situation has zilch to do with the regulation of births.
My wife cannot give birth.

Moreover, the second sentence is rife with a gazillion exceptions relating to medical issues. That is, there are numerous situations where one could morally sterilized oneself.

Let’s face it… the Catechism is vague, ambiguous, and poorly written. The relevant provisions of the modern Catechism concerning sex are gobbledee-goop open to numerous interpretations. Please note, I’m not saying the CHURCH’s teaching is gobledee-goop… but the Catechism as written sucks.

Do you really think those two sentences you have cited CLEARLY set forth the Church’s position?

For instance, what is “direct sterilization”? Is a reversible vasectomy even sterilization? A vasectomy doesn’t make one sterile at all. You still produce sperm. And, if you hook the tubes back up, you can have babies. (Indeed, if you’re satisfied with in vitro, you don’t even need to hook the tubes back up… a syringe can suck the spermies out directly.)

In fact, the more I read this, the more I am completely befuddled as to what these two sentences even have to do with each other… Could you explain what the text means?

Your situation has EVERYTHING to do with regulating births–your wife is endangered if she becomes pregnant, she shouldn’t become pregnant. The ONLY moral way to do this is to abstain totally or use NFP very conservativly. Now, if she has a medical condition that would be solved by having a hysterectomy, then that is licit, because the organ–the uterus–is diseased. This is a separate issue than “regulation of births”. “Regulation of births” is talking about not getting pregnant.

Vasectomy is contraceptive–it is mutilating a functioning body part for the sake of not being fertile. It treats no disease, (unless there is cancer in the vas deferense). IVF is also immoral. There is no way around the fact that DIRECT STERILIZATION for the sake of CONTRACEPTION is against clear Church teaching.

 

[nodito]

That provision answers nothing.

My situation has zilch to do with the regulation of births.
My wife cannot give birth.

Moreover, the second sentence is rife with a gazillion exceptions relating to medical issues. That is, there are numerous situations where one could morally sterilized oneself.

Let’s face it… the Catechism is vague, ambiguous, and poorly written. The relevant provisions of the modern Catechism concerning sex are gobbledee-goop open to numerous interpretations. Please note, I’m not saying the CHURCH’s teaching is gobledee-goop… but the Catechism as written sucks.

Do you really think those two sentences you have cited CLEARLY set forth the Church’s position?

For instance, what is “direct sterilization”? Is a reversible vasectomy even sterilization? A vasectomy doesn’t make one sterile at all. You still produce sperm. And, if you hook the tubes back up, you can have babies. (Indeed, if you’re satisfied with in vitro, you don’t even need to hook the tubes back up… a syringe can suck the spermies out directly.)

In fact, the more I read this, the more I am completely befuddled as to what these two sentences even have to do with each other… Could you explain what the text means?

Bonbar,

I think the catechism is very clear on this issue, but maybe I’m reading too much into it because of my understanding of the issue from other sources.

Humane Vitae (On the Regulation of Births) written by Pope Paul VI in 1968, says the following:

We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary.

I liked this quote because it speaks to three of your concerns: 1) It doesn’t mention “birth”. It does not say that sterilization is wrong because it prevents births. In fact, it doesn’t say here why sterilization is wrong at all (although the context of the complete paragraph in the encyclical is pretty clear). But it is obvious that it is seriously wrong, as equally condemned as direct abortion. 2) He writes that direct sterilization is not permissable, whether it be permanent or temporary. Although vasectomies are generally understood to be permanent methods of contraception, even if they weren’t they would still be considered immoral. 3) He writes that this is being stated “once more” and has been “affirmed on many occasions” which means this teaching isn’t new but has been consistently held and promulgated in other documents, which you could presumably look up and study.

The word sterilization is how we describe vasectomies and tubal ligations. The Church has adopted this language and so has the medical community. Go to any urologist’s office to ask for a “sterilization” and they’ll schedule you for a vasectomy. The fact that your body would still produce sperm does not negate the fact that you have sterilized yourself and your sexual relationship with your wife. Think about how we understand the word sterile today. Before surgeries, the instruments are sterilized to keep any new organisms from growing on them. You attempt to prevent new life from growing in your wife by having a vasectomy. To argue otherwise is to play with semantics.

In any event, Pope Paul VI continues:

Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good," it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general. Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong.

I consider this to be pretty strong and straightforward language. The Pope reiterates that even the intention to protect someone’s health one can not justify use of contraception, which is fundamentally against (contra) life (ception).

I highly recommend reading the document in its entirety, which you can find here: vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

God bless.