More on artificial contraception

[Orielensis]

Hi everyone,

having read the thread challenging Protestants to justify their use of artificial contraception, I thought I’d create a new thread, as the current one is just far too long for anyone to join the debate at this point.

Here’s how I understand Rome’s prohibition of artificial contraception:

1. AC goes against the natural law, namely that sexual intercourse was designed by God for the purpose of procreation.
2. AC is a contravention of the commandment to procreate in Genesis 1:28.

Please allow me to respectfully submit a few comments on this approach:

1. Many moral philosophers and theologians, although I do not include myself amongst them, would reject ‘natural law’ theory as either unbiblical or as committing the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ of deriving an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. (Cf. G.E. Moore).
2. There seems to be no reason to assume that the obvious procreative purpose of sexual intercourse is the only purpose of that intercourse. Jesus’s teachings on divorce seem to make it pretty clear that another purpose of sexual intercourse is that it is unitive of the married man and woman.
3. Re: Gen.1:28, I struggle to see how this can be interpreted as a command to procreate every time the conjugal act is enjoyed. One can be open to children without constantly procreating. Is it sinful, for example, for a couple to abstain from sex when the woman is fertile? Should every couple have a child every year? If we adopt a maximalist approach to Gen. 1:28, as Rome seems to do so on this occasion, man and woman have a duty to procreate as often as humanly possible!

These are some thoughts to consider with regard to the question of AC’s morality. If people wish to continue discussing the role of certain ‘traditions’ of interpretation regarding the Reformers’ views of contraception, or the immoral effects on society of AC, perhaps that could be discussed in a different thread, so as to focuse more carefully on the core moral issues in this one.

Many thanks,
O.

 

[Barbkw]

Having been there and done that, I have a take on ABC that speaks to my experience.

When I began using ABC I mentally was saying “No” to the responsibility of motherhood and to the life long parenting of children.

Be aware that statistically 50% of the women who become pregnant while using ABC choose to kill the fetus. Why do women become pregnant using ABC that is said to be 99.9% effective.

Watch this video: bloodmoneyfilm.com/trailer.php

When a woman makes a personal decision to say “No” to motherhood, she generally is also creating a lifestyle that continues to exclude children from her life. The longer that this mental attitude is nurtured, the harder it is to break this cycle of “me”.

 

[manualman]

Your summary of the catholic position is distorted and incomplete. Allow me (by no means a trained expert) to attempt a more accurate and complete version:

God gave us the gift of human sexuality so that a man and wife could mutually give their love to one another and that profound self giving love (physically manifested) so closely images the life giving love of God himself that it too has the capacity of bringing forth new life (an image of the love God has that created us all).

As a result of this deepest meaning of human sexuality, when a couple seeks to engage in the unitive benefit of sex while simultaneously intentionally sterilizing it, they fundamentally change and damage the nature of what it is they are doing from being an act of mutual giving into an act that is at least partially one of mutual taking. And the damage is cumulative over time such that both partners are diminished in the ability to totally give themselves to one another (and as a result to the children that come forth).

Look around our culture, can’t you see it?

 

[Orielensis]

Your summary of the catholic position is distorted and incomplete. Allow me (by no means a trained expert) to attempt a more accurate and complete version:

God gave us the gift of human sexuality so that a man and wife could mutually give their love to one another and that profound self giving love (physically manifested) so closely images the life giving love of God himself that it too has the capacity of bringing forth new life (an image of the love God has that created us all).

As a result of this deepest meaning of human sexuality, when a couple seeks to engage in the unitive benefit of sex while simultaneously intentionally sterilizing it, they fundamentally change and damage the nature of what it is they are doing from being an act of mutual giving into an act that is at least partially one of mutual taking. And the damage is cumulative over time such that both partners are diminished in the ability to totally give themselves to one another (and as a result to the children that come forth).

Look around our culture, can’t you see it?

Well, yes and no. I can see it, but I can’t see why that should necessarily be the case with a married couple. I don’t see how individual acts of sexual intercourse can be non-giving if they’re already open to children, i.e. having had some kids and planning on having more in the future…

 

[Orielensis]

Having been there and done that, I have a take on ABC that speaks to my experience.

When I began using ABC I mentally was saying “No” to the responsibility of motherhood and to the life long parenting of children.

Be aware that statistically 50% of the women who become pregnant while using ABC choose to kill the fetus. Why do women become pregnant using ABC that is said to be 99.9% effective.

Watch this video: bloodmoneyfilm.com/trailer.php

When a woman makes a personal decision to say “No” to motherhood, she generally is also creating a lifestyle that continues to exclude children from her life. The longer that this mental attitude is nurtured, the harder it is to break this cycle of “me”.

Were you using it in marriage, having already had children?

 

[stephe1987]

The Church does allow Natural Family Planning for couples who have a good reason not to be completely open to another baby. Financial reasons, spacing of children (health of mother, baby, and future younger sibling), etc. are good reasons to avoid pregnancy.

Yes, some families can have a baby every year, but most women are not that fertile. Since the time of ABC people have forgotten that there are plenty of couples who do want more children, but God for whatever reason chooses not to bless them with more children. Not to mention miscarriages, not every baby conceived makes it to birth.

Sort of off-topic, but ABC statistically leads to higher divorce rates. The divorce rate for Catholic couples who use only NFP is <2% according to one study and <1% according to another study.

 

[Warrior1979]

Sort of off-topic, but ABC statistically leads to higher divorce rates. The divorce rate for Catholic couples who use only NFP is <2% according to one study and <1% according to another study.

I believe that is the wrong conclusion. It’s not the NFP/ABC that makes the difference, but the attitude of the couple. Those using NFP tend to be more devote Catholics, and as such, are far less inclined to divorce.

 

[manualman]

Well, yes and no. I can see it, but I can’t see why that should necessarily be the case with a married couple. I don’t see how individual acts of sexual intercourse can be non-giving if they’re already open to children, i.e. having had some kids and planning on having more in the future…

It’s roughly analagous to when your child tells you a lie, you look at questionable statements a little bit differently the NEXT time it happens. Life is an interconnected tangle, not a series of separate and unrelated events. With contraception, it is the INTENT to forcibly sterilize the act that alters it, makes the physical statement sex is supposed to reflect at least partially dishonest.

It IS hard to see at first because we’ve all grown up in a culture that wholeheartedly believes that sex is about indulging the self. Ever notice that companies spend billions of dollars on advertising, but no individual people seem to think that advertising influences their purchasing decisions? In both cases (ads and sex), what surrounds us DOES influence us, often at a level we don’t recognize.

 

[Orielensis]

The Church does allow Natural Family Planning for couples who have a good reason not to be completely open to another baby. Financial reasons, spacing of children (health of mother, baby, and future younger sibling), etc. are good reasons to avoid pregnancy.

Yes, some families can have a baby every year, but most women are not that fertile. Since the time of ABC people have forgotten that there are plenty of couples who do want more children, but God for whatever reason chooses not to bless them with more children. Not to mention miscarriages, not every baby conceived makes it to birth.

Sort of off-topic, but ABC statistically leads to higher divorce rates. The divorce rate for Catholic couples who use only NFP is <2% according to one study and <1% according to another study.

With regard to the divorce rate, I’m not sure that suggests that ABC leads to divorce; it seems more likely that those Catholics who take their Christianity seriously enough to avoid ABC are likely to simultaneously avoid divorce…

Now, with regard to NFP, what is the substantive difference between that method and ABC?

 

[Orielensis]

It’s roughly analagous to when your child tells you a lie, you look at questionable statements a little bit differently the NEXT time it happens. Life is an interconnected tangle, not a series of separate and unrelated events. With contraception, it is the INTENT to forcibly sterilize the act that alters it, makes the physical statement sex is supposed to reflect at least partially dishonest.

It IS hard to see at first because we’ve all grown up in a culture that wholeheartedly believes that sex is about indulging the self. Ever notice that companies spend billions of dollars on advertising, but no individual people seem to think that advertising influences their purchasing decisions? In both cases (ads and sex), what surrounds us DOES influence us, often at a level we don’t recognize.

I think it’s going a bit far to imply, as you appear to do so, that everyone who uses ABC does so for the sake of ‘indulging the self’. I would imagine that most married couples who have sex do so (a) to procreate, and (b) because it makes each other happy. I don’t see why (a) and (b) need always be simultaneous.

 

[smichhertz]

When a woman makes a personal decision to say “No” to motherhood, she generally is also creating a lifestyle that continues to exclude children from her life. The longer that this mental attitude is nurtured, the harder it is to break this cycle of “me”.

Well said!

 

[manualman]

I think it’s going a bit far to imply, as you appear to do so, that everyone who uses ABC does so for the sake of ‘indulging the self’. I would imagine that most married couples who have sex do so (a) to procreate, and (b) because it makes each other happy. I don’t see why (a) and (b) need always be simultaneous.

Well I must admit that I’d never have discovered it myself if I hadn’t learned from the Church and then decided to submit to it first. It becomes visible to you after a while like St. Paul’s blinders falling off. But I must quibble a smidge with the way you ended the sentence. They DON’T have to ALWAYS be simultaneous, which is why God made women fertile for such a small amount of time (several days a month, tops). Where the danger occurs is when WE seek to make a time that is naturally fertile infertile so that we can have (b) while outright rejecting (a). That’s when the damage occurs.

You’re right to point out that this isn’t a binary issue: the damage of many sins is at first small and subtle, but is cumulative. Lies are a great example. Neither a single lie or a single contraceptive use event is going to cause a divorce. But both are destructive habits in a marriage.

In your previous post, you asked a good question. I don’t have a citation readily at hand, but there are good hard statistics out there about the divorce rate of the overall average weekly mass attending catholics versus the divorce rate of catholics that use NFP. The former is still vastly larger than the latter. It’s not that the process of NFP makes marriages stronger (it’s just charts and stuff, after all), it’s that people who practice ABC are actually disturbing and tampering with a self-regulating safeguard God built into human sexuality to help prevent it from becoming perverted. We too often forget that sins aren’t just things on a list, but are by definition acts that do real damage to our ability to give and receive love (human and divine). Contraception is a sin only because it hurts us. NFP achieves pregnancy avoidance not through technology, but through sacrifice. Doesn’t virtue always work that way?

 

[Orielensis]

Contraception is a sin only because it hurts us. NFP achieves pregnancy avoidance not through technology, but through sacrifice. Doesn’t virtue always work that way?

This seems to be a different argument: you appear to be saying that it is not the avoidance of conception which is the issue, but rather the manner in which one attempts to do so.

Citing your post above, it seems that your argument is that one can refrain from having sex during fertile periods indefinitely, because it’s not the avoidance of conception which is sinful, but the means by which one does so.

Please let me know if I’m misinterpreting you, it’s hard to listen on the internet!

 

[manualman]

This seems to be a different argument: you appear to be saying that it is not the avoidance of conception which is the issue, but rather the manner in which one attempts to do so.

Citing your post above, it seems that your argument is that one can refrain from having sex during fertile periods indefinitely, because it’s not the avoidance of conception which is sinful, but the means by which one does so.

Please let me know if I’m misinterpreting you, it’s hard to listen on the internet!

You’re basically hearing me correctly, I think. Catholic moral theology says that a couple should only seek to avoid pregnancy for “just reasons”, but it is not clear (at least to me) if the use of NFP for avoidance for a less than “serious” reason is actually a sin or just a bad idea. Not all bad ideas are sins, you see.

If God offers a couple more children and they have no serious reason to turn him down, but they do not take him up on the offer (but do NOT utilize sinful means to get there) they are probably being dumb, but not sinful. Think about it! Why refuse a gift from the ultimate giver unless there is a REALLY good reason? Even when utilizing NFP to avoid for an extended time, there is a distinct difference from ABC. The NFP couple monthly gets reminded rather forcefully about how sex and babies are tangled up together. Contraception, on the other hand, encourages people to believe the two topics are only coincidentally related. Over time, that makes a difference.