The Big C Word . . . Contraception

[runningdude]

Sex during menses (presumably unintentional) made the man unclean for 7 days. - Lev 15:24
Sex during menses (presumably intentional) cut both man and woman from the people.- Lev 20:18.

Ritual cleanliness is no longer relevant; cleanliness only referred to one’s worthiness to enter the Temple in Jerusalem to offer animal sacrifices. Jesus’ final sacrifice on the cross brought an end to Temple worship.

 

[TomFromMD]

Ritual cleanliness is no longer relevant; cleanliness only referred to one’s worthiness to enter the Temple in Jerusalem to offer animal sacrifices. Jesus’ final sacrifice on the cross brought an end to Temple worship.

Lev 15:24 would have referred to worthiness to enter the temple. Lev 20:18 seemingly went beyond that. Aquinas seemed to think sex during menstruation violates moral law. I’ve always understood it to be the case that the Church doesn’t consider this binding on us (I don’t have a cite here though), and Aquinas seemingly based his position at least in part on a misguided belief that sex during menstruation could harm a fetus.

newadvent.org/summa/5064.htm

 

[Wesrock]

It depends. If you are using these artificial man made instruments, such as thermometers, charts, calendars, etc. with the specific intention of avoiding children, then your intention is against (contra) conception. You are using these artificial, man made tools, methods and strategies so that your wife will not become pregnant.

But you’re not interfering with the unitive and procreative direction that the sex act is ordered to. If you abstain, you are not using the sex act in unchaste ways.

 

[ffg]

But you’re not interfering with the unitive and procreative direction that the sex act is ordered to. If you abstain, you are not using the sex act in unchaste ways.

Bingo.

Always bugs me when people use the false term ‘contraceptive mentality’.

If you are not having sex, you are not sinning.

If you do something that removes or does not include unity, that’s sin.

With regard to contraception - removing the procreative direction, is playing games with God’s gift.

It’s just the Burger King effect. We want things our way.

 

[Tomdstone]

But you’re not interfering with the unitive and procreative direction that the sex act is ordered to. If you abstain, you are not using the sex act in unchaste ways.

It seems to me that you are going against the divine commandment to increase and multiply. The intention is the same whether you use NFP to avoid conception or the pill to avoid conception. In both cases you are using artificial tools to achieve your goal to prevent conception.

 

[Wesrock]

It seems to me that you are going against the divine commandment to increase and multiply. The intention is the same whether you use NFP to avoid conception or the pill to avoid conception. In both cases you are using artificial tools to achieve your goal to prevent conception.

You are skipping over the sacredness of the sex act, and are confusing “unnatural” products such as thermometers with natural law, which doesn’t mean “returning to nature” but functioning towards the ends that are natural to us. But “thermometers seen’t natural” is entirely irrelevant to the argument.

Backing away from natural law, Church teaching on children in marriage is that you should really only avoid additional children if there is actual hardship to consider, for health reasons or for not being able to provide for your children. Wanting to limit the kids so you can afford that new Porsche is not a great reason for family planning. But still, this is in a different league than taking the additional steps of violating the good of the conjugal act.

 

[tonyrey]

Here is a question I have always wanted to ask. (By the way, I’m not new to the board. I had the username Aggieman1211, but it somehow got lost).

Contraception. When my wife (Fiance at the time) and I came into the church in 2010; it was something we grappled with. And, I still do.

First,
let us tackle history first. Now, it was not really until 1968 that the Catholic Church condemned contraception and birth control (at least to the extent that it is today). It was not as if this was some new thing that had popped up. Contraception has been dated back past 2000 B.C. And for those that may feel that isn’t relevant, the first Condom was created in 1844 (which made of rubber, hence the old term you hear even though they are now made of latex). And the research and development of the pill form of birth control started being invented in 1951 and was FDA-approved and on the market by 1960.

Second,
It was not until 1968 that Pope Paul VI in his encyclical condemned birth control. Up until that point, there was no issue. So, all in all, until almost 50 years ago the Church had said nothing specifically condemning about contraception. Again, to the blatant extreme that it is today.

Third,
I will use myself as an example although there are millions of other cases and scenarios that could be utilized.

Currently, my wife is a school teacher (anyone knows, it isn’t bringing in the dough). And I had to resign from my job in 2014 due to health issues and have decided to go back and get my Masters. And so I am a part-time student and part-time stay at home dad to our 2 1/2 (3 on March 13) son.

I just can’t imagine…

If my wife and I did not use a form of birth control, I would feel that I was being reckless. Because even though we plan on having more kids in the future, if it happened right now between the medical bills of a pregnancy and another child, we would quickly be homeless. Right now we scrape by each month, but we make it work. I just can not see and accept that God would expect me as an intelligent human being to not take precaution when I know it is there.

And one aspect I have always found a bit . . . odd.

I did research on NFP and the methods of mucus, temperature, and such. I find it strange that one crucial aspect is the part of taking the temperature. Does this not completely contradict the entire thing? The quote from the encyclical was, “Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.” Is the act of checking body temperature (not even taking into account that thermometors is a modern day invention) and curving the process not just another form of going against the teaching? Because a wife (a) checking mucus, (b) taking temperature, (c) tracking days, not just another way of an “action” which “before” sexual intercourse is done to “prevent procreation?”

It seems all rhetorical and beating around the bush to me. And it all comes down to, does anyone think if you get to Heaven, God is going to say, “Ehh…Well…Susie and Johnny…You used Condoms. Sorry, off you go to Hell.” Come on. Really?

I would love some insight into this as I have always found it to be the only strange and perplexing topic that I just can not agree with that the Church teaches.

Blessings,
Matt

The solution to your problem is not hard to find, Matt. If contraception doesn’t kill the foetus it is justified if it is the lesser of two evils. In that respect your conscience is your ultimate authority…

 

[tonyrey]

“you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten”
Didache, AD 70

If there is no foetus nothing has been begotten!

 

[tonyrey]

It seems to me that you are going against the divine commandment to increase and multiply. The intention is the same whether you use NFP to avoid conception or the pill to avoid conception. In both cases you are using artificial tools to achieve your goal to prevent conception.

The commandment to increase and multiply doesn’t imply ignoring the circumstances of married couples…

 

[tonyrey]

You are skipping over the sacredness of the sex act, and are confusing “unnatural” products such as thermometers with natural law, which doesn’t mean “returning to nature” but functioning towards the ends that are natural to us. But “thermometers seen’t natural” is entirely irrelevant to the argument.

Backing away from natural law, Church teaching on children in marriage is that you should really only avoid additional children if there is actual hardship to consider, for health reasons or for not being able to provide for your children. Wanting to limit the kids so you can afford that new Porsche is not a great reason for family planning. But still, this is in a different league than taking the additional steps of violating the good of the conjugal act.

That is the most reasonable response to the problem - taken in conjunction with not practising contraception which kills the foetus.

 

[Tomdstone]

But still, this is in a different league than taking the additional steps of violating the good of the conjugal act.

If you intend to have sex and receive all of its pleasures, but you are doing everything you can to avoid conception by using artificial man made instruments such as thermometers, calendars, charts, NFP etc, it seems that you are “violating the good of the conjugal act”.
Your intention is to avoid having the responsibility of children while enjoying all the pleasures of the marital embrace.
Whether you use the pill or NFP to avoid conception, your intention is the same. You want to avoid having to care for too many children, but you want to enjoy sex with your partner. And the tools or means you use in either case are artificial and man made.

 

[ffg]

A married couple having sex on an infertile day does not equal contraception. Same with the inverse. Reading fertility is not controlling fertility.

The Church is quite purposeful in covering causes to withhold having kids in general buckets because each marriage is unique. The responsibility lies with the adult married humans to evaluate their own life.

Also, it is possible to evaluate fertility using no tools. We like the Billings method.

 

[ffg]

A few more points-

Any hypotheticals or parallels someone can make up to try and prove a point is unrelated to the teaching of the Church (or reality of ‘proper’ use of the body’s we have). Each marriage is unique, thus if circumstances are to be evaluated, it’s on an individual real case basis.

I encourage folks to look back at some comments JPII gave an audience of childless couples, I think in the 80’s. If your google monster is frustrating you, let me know. The usccb has a bit of a quote on it’s site too. The key point there was to 1) don’t be discouraged and 2) see others as that similar opportunity to nourish and serve.

If a healthy couple gets married with zero intention of having kids, regardless of contraception understanding- there is a lack of understanding a most key purpose of marriage. Where there is a lack of understanding, is where there is opportunity to learn.

Understanding a key purpose to marriage is having kids and not having kids is totally different than trying to navigate marriage without the understanding.

Take care,

Mike

 

[Wesrock]

If you intend to have sex and receive all of its pleasures, but you are doing everything you can to avoid conception by using artificial man made instruments such as thermometers, calendars, charts, NFP etc, it seems that you are “violating the good of the conjugal act”.
Your intention is to avoid having the responsibility of children while enjoying all the pleasures of the marital embrace.
Whether you use the pill or NFP to avoid conception, your intention is the same. You want to avoid having to care for too many children, but you want to enjoy sex with your partner. And the tools or means you use in either case are artificial and man made.

Except no, you aren’t. The sex itself is still fully unitive and open to the possibility of procreation, even if chances are low. It is being done according to the natural order. There is not attempt to actually interfere with the act. There is no misuse or abuse of the act. There is no mandate to have sex only during a woman’s fertile period, or forbidding infertile couples from having sex.

And “doing everything you can to avoid conception by using artificial man made instruments such as thermometers, calendars, charts, NFP etc” ???

First, it clearly isn’t doing everything that can be done to prevent conception, considering that artificial birth control is entirely off the table.

Second, you keep referring to thermometers, calendars, etc… as man made and artificial. That is completely irrelevant, and seems to stem from a misconception about what’s meant by natural law.

Furthermore, observing is different than interfering.

 

[davidv]

If you intend to have sex and receive all of its pleasures, but you are doing everything you can to avoid conception by using artificial man made instruments such as thermometers, calendars, charts, NFP etc, it seems that you are “violating the good of the conjugal act”.
Your intention is to avoid having the responsibility of children while enjoying all the pleasures of the marital embrace.
Whether you use the pill or NFP to avoid conception, your intention is the same. You want to avoid having to care for too many children, but you want to enjoy sex with your partner. And the tools or means you use in either case are artificial and man made.

Who uses a calendar when engaging in the marital act? Seems real kinky to me.

Intention is only one of the three factors used to determine the morality of an act. Avoiding a child, in and of itself, is not immoral.

 

[tonyrey]

Who uses a calendar when engaging in the marital act? Seems real kinky to me.

Intention is only one of the three factors used to determine the morality of an act. Avoiding a child, in and of itself, is not immoral.

Irrefutable. Even if a couple cannot have children they can still **express their love for each other **- which implies that being united physically as well as spiritually is its primary purpose. Procreation is not end in itself but love is! Otherwise matrimony becomes simply a licence for sexual intercourse in addition to reproduction. A Puritanical view of sex as a necessary evil seems to underlie this discussion…

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Pope Pius IX’s 1930 encyclical, Casti Connubii, says in part:

54. But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious.
​

The pope’s point sounds like the sort of argument you’d make if you were trying to argue that medicine constitutes thwarting the will of God. Of course medicine like antibiotics pretty exclusively targets foreign organisms, but other medicines (e.g. immunosuppressive drugs) pretty clearly inhibit natural processes so that we can do unnatural things (e.g. organ transplants.)

I would argue that if ovulation suppressing drugs (i.e. birth control medication) are inherently immoral, then so are immune system suppressing drugs.​

 

[tonyrey]

Except no, you aren’t. The sex itself is still fully unitive and open to the possibility of procreation, even if chances are low. It is being done according to the natural order. There is not attempt to actually interfere with the act. There is no misuse or abuse of the act. There is no mandate to have sex only during a woman’s fertile period, or forbidding infertile couples from having sex.

And “doing everything you can to avoid conception by using artificial man made instruments such as thermometers, calendars, charts, NFP etc” ???

First, it clearly isn’t doing everything that can be done to prevent conception, considering that artificial birth control is entirely off the table.

Second, you keep referring to thermometers, calendars, etc… as man made and artificial. That is completely irrelevant, and seems to stem from a misconception about what’s meant by natural law.

Furthermore, observing is different than interfering.

Indeed. Conception is a physical result of coition whereas joy is the spiritual consequence of an act of love. Sexual pleasure is not evil but the primary purpose of intercourse between a husband and his wife is personal union and fulfilment.

 

[tonyrey]

The pope’s point sounds like the sort of argument you’d make if you were trying to argue that medicine constitutes thwarting the will of God. Of course medicine like antibiotics pretty exclusively targets foreign organisms, but other medicines (e.g. immunosuppressive drugs) pretty clearly inhibit natural processes so that we can do unnatural things (e.g. organ transplants.)

I would argue that if ovulation suppressing drugs (i.e. birth control medication) are inherently immoral, then so are immune system suppressing drugs.

There is a vast difference because immune system suppressing drugs are used to treat an abnormal physical condition whereas ovulation suppressing drugs interfere with a normal physical function.

 

[DrTaffy]

There is a vast difference because immune system suppressing drugs are used to treat an abnormal physical condition whereas ovulation suppressing drugs interfere with a normal physical function.

You think the immune system is “an abnormal physical condition”? :ehh:

If you are deliberately suppressing your immune system it is because of some other abnormal condition, but the immune system itself is a normal physical function.