Poll on contraception

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Pup7 said:
St Thomas lived before we knew that a period is proof - with very few exceptions - pregnancy did not occur.

Clearly St Thomas isn’t an accurate source for physiology in 2018. Good grief.

And check your science on what a single birth control pill can do. It’s not abortive. It’s not even remotely powerful enough. It stops implantation, not pregnancy. And women are not by definition pregnant until implantation occurs. Your body doesn’t even know it’s pregnant until implantation happens.

Does it prevent pregnancy? Yes. Does that still make it wrong per the Church? Yes. But it is not an abortifacient. Go look it up.
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But it can end a human life before implantation has occurred and that is troubling.

As for Thomas Aquinas, the poor scientific understanding does not change the principle that one should not engage in an act that could harm an unborn child. Yes, his science was wrong, but the principle remains.
 
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Still unanswered by @LittleFlower378 is the question regarding how far one must go to preserve unknown life from potential harm. Must a woman of childbearing age proactively avoid all medications that increase the risk of miscarriage? NSAID medications block prostaglandin, which is also a way that hormonal contraceptives work, though hormones do it more consistently.
 
A woman’s own body rejects an estimated 50-80% of fertilized embryos (technically the term for the unborn child at this stage is blastocyst, but we aren’t in med school) from implanting w/o birth control. The implantation stage, where the protective lining of the embryo is shed, is fraught with danger to the conceived child. It very often fails to work for one reason or another. Many, many couples have conceived a child only for it not to survive for more than a few days because of failure to implant. This is well studied science. it is often referred to as a “chemical abortion”, even though no abortofacient drug was used, or as a spontaneous abortion. That is why when people use IVF, they often use multiple fertilized embryos, because many do not survive.
 
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Contraception is declared by the Church as intrinsically evil. Meaning no intention or circumstance can make a contraception act good. It is always a sin. As far as other medicines,I don’t know, people should use prudence and judge the circumstances. A pregnant woman taking an overdose of certain drugs can harm the prenatal child so prudence must be taken.
 
People are allowed to take medicines that effect fertility to correct a condition. That is not the same as using a contraceptive to specifically prevent a pregnancy, and certainly not anything close to taking a substance to deliberately cause an abortion.
 
LittleFlower378 said:
Contraception is declared by the Church as intrinsically evil. Meaning no intention or circumstance can make a contraception act good. It is always a sin. As far as other medicines,I don’t know, people should use prudence and judge the circumstances. A pregnant woman taking an overdose of certain drugs can harm the prenatal child so prudence must be taken.
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Contraception is intrinsically evil, but drugs (the chemical substance) is morally neutral. Contraception is not a hormone or drug, it is an act. If a woman were to take Aleve with the intent of it preventing implantation, would it not be the same evil of contraception, even if it were ultimately unsuccessful? But if that same woman were to take Aleve because she wanted to get rid of a headache and it unknowingly caused a fertilized egg not to implant , she would not be guilty of a sin. If a woman gets pregnant while on the pill is she no longer guilty of contraception because her efforts failed? Intent always matters.
 
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Intent doesn’t matter when the end is intrinsically evil. Contraceptions end in itself (when acted upon by the marital act) is intrinsically evil because 1)it renders the act non procreative, which every sexual marital act must be 2) with the pill and other devices, it can be abortive.

And yes it would be intrinsically evil for someone to take Aleve to the point of harming a fetus.
 
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LittleFlower378 said:
Intent doesn’t matter when the end is intrinsically evil. Contraceptions end in itself (when acted upon by the marital act) is intrinsically evil because 1)it renders the act non procreative, which every sexual marital act must be 2) with the pill it can be abortive.
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My point is that contraception, which is intrinsically evil, is an act, not a substance. A substance doesn’t have an end. An act has an end.
 
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A condom is not intrinsically evil if it is used as a balloon. If it is used to contracept, then it becomes a tool in an intrinsically evil act. The same goes for hormones.
 
Ok the act of using contraception is intrinsically evil because contraceptions ends go against the proper ends of the marital act and can destroy life
 
Intent does matter. In fact, one of the three conditions necessary for something to be a mortal sin is specific intent (along with full knowledge and that the issue being considered is gravely serious) If you take a medicine that may impair your fertility as a side effect, it is not the same as taking a medicine specifically to prevent pregnancy.
 
Right, there is also an intention to every act. When our intentions are good, the act is good, when our intentions are bad the act is sin.

But here we are talking about the object of the act, which is contraception, which is intrinsically evil.
 
LittleFlower378 said:
And yes it would be intrinsically evil for someone to take Aleve to the point of harming a fetus.
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Aleve is not known to cause direct harm to a fetus, but neither is hormonal contraceptive. If a fetus is present, the contraceptive intent of taking the hormones has failed. Like contraceptive hormones, Aleve is known to interfere with prostaglandin production, which changes the lining of the uterus, possibly interfering with implantation of a blastocyst, which is an earlier stage of human development than fetus. Since this is not predictable and there is no known safe dose of Aleve, is it fair to say that you believe a sexually active woman of childbearing age should avoid taking it at all because to do so would be intrinsically evil?
 
Also, deliberate intent is one of the three categories that must be met for something to be considered a mortal sin by the Church.
 
Andy235 said:
Also, deliberate intent is one of the three categories that must be met for something to be considered a mortal sin by the Church.
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Just as clarification and not speaking one way or the other here, something can still be impermissible and therefore (possibly gravely) sinful with a good intention. An intrinsic evil is always evil regardless of personal culpability.
 
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Here the Pope is not talking about the act of contraception, for no good intentions can make an intrinsically evil act, a good act.
 
It could be a grave matter, but if the person committing that act is unaware what they are doing is a sin, or they do not intend to deliberately sin, it cannot be considered a mortal sin in their specific case. A person who does the same grave act, with knowledge and intent, is culpable in a way that the ignorant or well meaning person is not.
 
Oh, I agree. I was replying to Arwing about when someone commits something that is defined as a sin while having good intentions or not intending to cause harm or sin.
 
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Although, one can still be culpable with good intentions. For instance killing someone and knowing it’s wrong, as the means to the good end of saving another’s life.

Anyway this is kind of beside the point.
 
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