The Case Against Contraception

[sw85]

In response to the abundance of pro-contraception threads that keep popping up here, I offer a defense of the Church’s teachings on contraception, and an explanation of how that teaching is utterly inextricable from the rest of its teachings regarding sexual morality – and indeed, from morality in general.

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1. Everything in nature can be said to have a “form” or “essence” which it “instantiates” or “participates in.” To borrow an example from Edward Feser, a triangle can be said to be a closed-plane figure consisting of three straight lines; this is the essence of triangularity which all triangles approximate to varying degrees.
2. Because not all instances of a thing instantiate its essence equally well, there necessarily exist gradations of goodness in nature. For instance, a triangle painstakingly drawn with a ruler on a flat surface is more likely to approximate the essence of triangularity than one scrawled with crayon on the plastic seatback of a moving bus. We can meaningfully say that the former is a “better” triangle than the latter; this is not an arbitrary and subjective preference but the product of a rational and objective evaluation of the facts.
3. Distinctly related to the idea of essence is the idea of telos, the end which a thing serves. Many things in nature naturally act toward an end; pens are meant for writing, chairs for sitting, eyeballs for seeing, etc. Because of this we can meaningfully talk about “birth defects,” a judgment that would be meaningless if there were not norms arising from nature from which certain features of a person may deviate. Here, to, value judgments come into play; the “goodness” of a thing can be said to represent the extent to which it acts according to its end, so that a good pen is one that writes well (since writing is the pen’s telos) and a good chair is one that supports your weight when you sit on it (since sitting is the chair’s telos).
4. These principles, applied to human behavior, furnish a basis for moral judgments.
5. For instance, the various faculties which a person has are possessed of varying telos’. If the goodness of a thing consists in the degree to which it instantiates its essence, and if essence necessarily informs telos, then goodness necessarily means using one’s faculties in a manner consistent with their respective ends, and sin or disorder in using them in some contrary manner. For instance, our communicative faculty exists for the purpose of expressing what’s on our minds and communicating perceived truths; therefore it is good for us, when we speak, to do so in a manner consistent with the end of speech, and bad for us to do so in some contrary manner (e.g., by lying).
6. The human sexual faculty points toward the end of procreation; we know this because of the distinct sexual configuration of men and women and because conception occurs in principle as a result of sex (in other words, the essence of the sexual faculty points toward the end of procreation). Therefore, goodness consists in using this faculty in a manner consistent with its end (i.e., intravaginal ejaculation) and sin/disorder in using it in a manner contrary to that end.
7. Because procreation results in pregnancy, and because pregnant women are generally vulnerable and in need of care and support, and because newborn children are likewise in need of care, support, and proper instruction during the formative years of their lives, the sexual act entails a degree of continuing commitment (and therefore also a unitive aspect to sex) that gives rise to the institution of marriage.
8. This principle pays no regard to the outcome of the act: it is merely considered with the proper use or ordering of our faculties. Thus chronically infertile couples can marry, provided they can complete the sexual act in a manner consistent with its end; but same-sex couples may not, because they cannot. Likewise, it remains licit to have sex during (even exclusively during) natural periods of infertility, provided the sex act is completed in a manner consistent with its end.
9. Contraception is naturally contrary to the end of procreation, hence why it is called contraception; therefore, it is illicit. So is any sexual act which is, on principle, incapable of procreation, including masturbation, homosexuality, bestiality, etc. Polygamy violates this principle because it violates the commitment which the sexual act naturally demands of couples.

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Pretty straightforward, I think. If the Church is in error in its teaching, it should be a relatively simple task for dissenters to point out the flaw in the reasoning here – and to explain how that flaw does not likewise invalidate all the rest of the Church’s moral teachings.

 

[coolduude]

Good post. Logic works wonders.

I thought of this retort myself:

If God approved of contraception, he would have created condoms when he created man.

Think about it.

 

[AveMaria12]

 

[Hokomai]

1. Everything in nature can be said to have a “form” or “essence” which it “instantiates” or “participates in.” To borrow an example from Edward Feser, a triangle can be said to be a closed-plane figure consisting of three straight lines; this is the essence of triangularity which all triangles approximate to varying degrees.
   .===
   Pretty straightforward, I think. If the Church is in error in its teaching, it should be a relatively simple task for dissenters to point out the flaw in the reasoning here – and to explain how that flaw does not likewise invalidate all the rest of the Church’s moral teachings.

OK, here’s the flaw. Your premise; that everything in nature ‘has’ a “form or essence” which it “instantiates or participates in” can be believed only on faith, and does not correspond to any observable scientific reality. Even if these words do have meaning in biology, then the decision about what the ‘essence’ is is subjective and in your case pre-defined by the magisterium of the Church. The ‘essence’ is not observable. To demonstrate this: you would say, no doubt, that the ‘essence’ of sex is procreation, even if it has other purposes. I could say (if I believed in essences, which I don’t) that the ‘essence’ of sex is pair-bonding, or having fun, or building mutual resistance to germs, or ensuring sharing of food. The point is that the ‘purposes’ so confidently put forward by proponents of ‘natural law’ (another unobservable belief) are just made up to suit the argument. And here is an observable phenomenon that demonstrates the flaw in the logic: I think you will find almost no one who does not have faith, and a specifically Catholic and Thomist faith at that, who will find the OP’s logic reasonable, and would be persuaded by it.

 

[sw85]

OK, here’s the flaw. Your premise; that everything in nature ‘has’ a “form or essence” which it “instantiates or participates in” can be believed only on faith, and does not correspond to any observable scientific reality.

That presupposes that scientific knowledge is the only kind of knowledge.

Given that that is itself a claim for which no scientific evidence exists, I consider it self-refuting.

There are plenty of things, for the record, that everyone intuitively knows to be true and which are widely accepted as such despite the absence of scientific knowledge. Science itself is dependent on some of them. We call them axioms.

Even if these words do have meaning in biology, then the decision about what the ‘essence’ is is subjective and in your case pre-defined by the magisterium of the Church.

Hardly. The essence of a thing is, by definition, that without which it cannot be that thing. That’s why it’s “essential.”

If you suppose essences are simply fabrications of the human mind, why do I identify dissimilar things (such as a tiny hairless chihuahua and a massive, furry St. Bernard) as belonging to a similar class, i.e., dogs? What am I identifying in them besides their common participation in the essence of being a dog?

The ‘essence’ is not observable.

Nor are numbers. What’s your point?

To demonstrate this: you would say, no doubt, that the ‘essence’ of sex is procreation, even if it has other purposes. I could say (if I believed in essences, which I don’t) that the ‘essence’ of sex is pair-bonding, or having fun, or building mutual resistance to germs, or ensuring sharing of food.

You are *actually *of the opinion, where moments ago you held science to be supreme, that the reproductive system of the human body is concerned chiefly with something other than reproduction? That all our talk of the reproductive system is so much arbitrary nonsense with which we can safely dispense?

The point is that the ‘purposes’ so confidently put forward by proponents of ‘natural law’ (another unobservable belief) are just made up to suit the argument. And here is an observable phenomenon that demonstrates the flaw in the logic: I think you will find almost no one who does not have faith, and a specifically Catholic and Thomist faith at that, who will find the OP’s logic reasonable, and would be persuaded by it.

I disagree. Nearly everyone agrees that it is meaningful to class things together according to similarities, including the vast majority of scientists, which is why we do that all the time.

 

[laircy]

[SIGN]Great thread![/SIGN]

 

[Hokomai]

If you suppose essences are simply fabrications of the human mind, why do I identify dissimilar things (such as a tiny hairless chihuahua and a massive, furry St. Bernard) as belonging to a similar class, i.e., dogs? What am I identifying in them besides their common participation in the essence of being a dog?.

I would hope you would classify them as ‘dog’ on the basis of common descent. But your belief in some sort of doggy ‘essence’ is undermined by the common descent they share with wolves, with which they can interbreed. The classification ‘dog’ has usefulness for some purposes but not for others. There is no ‘essence of dogness’ in any objective sense.

Do you have a response to my assertion that this sort of reasoning invariably fails to change the mind of anyone who does not begin from a position of Catholic, Thomist faith - my implication being that by the fruits of an argument, you may know its strength?

 

[desertlibrarian]

I have to question the link between function and ethics. The diet pill Orlistat works by blocking the absorption of dietary fat–a “contranutritive pill,” if you will. Has it been condemned by the Vatican?

Aquinas thought polygamy was consistent with natural law. I’m unsure what the natural law argument against lesbianism or female masturbation would be.

 

[mark_a]

Good stuff, especially this:

1. Contraception is naturally contrary to the end of procreation, hence why it is called contraception; therefore, it is illicit. So is any sexual act which is, on principle, incapable of procreation, including masturbation, homosexuality, bestiality, etc. Polygamy violates this principle because it violates the commitment which the sexual act naturally demands of couples.

Rape also separates the unitive and procreative, but we are so accustomed to to defending the other side of the coin. . . . . .

 

[mark_a]

I have to question the link between function and ethics. The diet pill Orlistat works by blocking the absorption of dietary fat–a “contranutritive pill,” if you will. Has it been condemned by the Vatican?

Not yet, women can’t really become “over-pregnant”.

Aquinas thought polygamy was consistent with natural law. I’m unsure what the natural law argument against lesbianism or female masturbation would be.

Check #9

 

[desertlibrarian]

Not yet, women can’t really become “over-pregnant”.

Check #9

Wouldn’t the case of Orlistat show that it is sometimes acceptable to engage in a biological function (eating) while preventing the attainment of its telos (digestion)?

Polygamous relationships can be stable enough for the proper raising of offspring. Although as Aquinas notes there are certain inconveniences in it that make monogamy preferable, this doesn’t entail polygamy is unnatural.

Since the female orgasm doesn’t have any reproductive telos, it doesn’t seem against the natural law for women to induce it through masturbation or lesbian activity. If it is replied that the female orgasm is intended to have a unitive effect whereby monogamous heterosexual unions are strengthened, I would ask for the proof of this without appealing to church teaching.

 

[sw85]

I would hope you would classify them as ‘dog’ on the basis of common descent.

Which is something quite real – a form in which they can be said to participate, and not an arbitrary invention. Thus, again, our recognition of genus, species, breed, etc.

But your belief in some sort of doggy ‘essence’ is undermined by the common descent they share with wolves, with which they can interbreed. The classification ‘dog’ has usefulness for some purposes but not for others. There is no ‘essence of dogness’ in any objective sense.

Then there is no basis for recognizing distinctions between *wolves *and *dogs *and your argument is again self-refuting.

Even if that distinction is nothing more than that wolves are feral and dogs are domesticated, it is still a meaningful distinction: a wolf in that case could become a dog by being domesticated; and thereby it ceases to instantiate that aspect which is essential to “wolfness” (its feral quality) and assumes that aspect which is essential to “dogness” (its domesticated quality). And they can do this because they mutually participate in some higher essence – call it “canine-ness.”

I almost think you’re thinking of this Platonically – as if “essences” exist in some other plane of existence. If that’s what you’re thinking, I agree that it’s ridiculous, but then Aristotle also thought it was ridiculous and it’s the Aristotelian tradition from which natural law springs. An essence is simply that without which a thing cannot be the thing that it is: if you deny essences you are literally saying there is nothing of significance that separates a wolf from a starfish, or a turnip from a skyscraper, or you from the number 7, and our decision to recognize a distinction between them is arbitrary and unsound. I hope you don’t actually believe that.

Do you have a response to my assertion that this sort of reasoning invariably fails to change the mind of anyone who does not begin from a position of Catholic, Thomist faith - my implication being that by the fruits of an argument, you may know its strength?

No, I don’t, because it isn’t compelling. Again, if the logic is unsound then it should be relatively easy to demonstrate the flaw in it; and if certain people choose to disbelieve it because its implications are inconvenient to them (which is the most common rationale for rejecting it that I’ve heard, especially as concerns contraception), well, that says more about the people than it does about the logic.

I have to question the link between function and ethics. The diet pill Orlistat works by blocking the absorption of dietary fat–a “contranutritive pill,” if you will. Has it been condemned by the Vatican?

Dietary fat is not the only form of nutrition, so it is not necessarily an evil. Though one can certainly see how it would rise to the level of a sin if the will of the person taking the pill were disordered – i.e., if one took the pill precisely so one could binge on unhealthy foods without consequence, or took it merely out of vanity rather than legitimate concern for one’s own health.

Aquinas thought polygamy was consistent with natural law. I’m unsure what the natural law argument against lesbianism or female masturbation would be.

He acknowledged that there was a weak natural law case for polygyny only, not polyandry; but then acknowledged the weakness of that case and proceeded to refute it. The relevant passages were highlighted in this blog post.

Polygamous relationships can be stable enough for the proper raising of offspring. Although as Aquinas notes there are certain inconveniences in it that make monogamy preferable, this doesn’t entail polygamy is unnatural.

Monogamous man-woman relationships “can be” infertile, as well, although they can still marry; we don’t imagine the exceptions/deviations void the rule/norm.

In principle, polygynous arrangements are unstable; they promote conflict, disharmony, and social disorder. And it is the principle, the general trend, the norm, the law which is of importance here.

Since the female orgasm doesn’t have any reproductive telos, it doesn’t seem against the natural law for women to induce it through masturbation or lesbian activity. If it is replied that the female orgasm is intended to have a unitive effect whereby monogamous heterosexual unions are strengthened, I would ask for the proof of this without appealing to church teaching.

The evidence at the moment suggests female orgasm is probably merely facilitative of procreation and not itself a determinant of it. This is why the Church has taught that its licit for a wife to have as many orgasms as she’s capable of leading up to and even following the sexual act, and there is no special requirements regarding them. It is the man who transmits life to the woman, after all, and her reception of that life is passive.

That said, the female orgasm occurs within the context of a system that is explicitly ordered toward procreation (i.e., women don’t, except in the case of gross deviations from the norm, orgasm when they, say, shake hands or urinate, but when they sexually stimulated or stimulated in a manner that emulates the sexual act), so it is better that her orgasms are confined to the sexual act in general, although when or how frequently they occur in the context of that act is, again, not a matter of moral concern.

As for lesbianism, again, whatever the nature of the female orgasm, the female reproductive system is no less ordered toward procreation than the male’s. For her to use it for some contrary purpose (i.e., merely for pleasure) is therefore no less a sin.

 

[mark_a]

Wouldn’t the case of Orlistat show that it is sometimes acceptable to engage in a biological function (eating) while preventing the attainment of its telos (digestion)?

Polygamous relationships can be stable enough for the proper raising of offspring. Although as Aquinas notes there are certain inconveniences in it that make monogamy preferable, this doesn’t entail polygamy is unnatural.

Since the female orgasm doesn’t have any reproductive telos, it doesn’t seem against the natural law for women to induce it through masturbation or lesbian activity. If it is replied that the female orgasm is intended to have a unitive effect whereby monogamous heterosexual unions are strengthened, I would ask for the proof of this without appealing to church teaching.

In my opinion, every one of your claims is valid unless one appeals to historical Church moral teaching authority and the idea of a particular judgement at the end of time.

 

[Debora123]

Good post. Logic works wonders.

I thought of this retort myself:

If God approved of contraception, he would have created condoms when he created man.

Think about it.

This same reasoning can be used against basically everything we have today - including the computer you are using and the clothes you are wearing right now.

 

[coolduude]

This same reasoning can be used against basically everything we have today - including the computer you are using and the clothes you are wearing right now.

The point is that if God condoned contraception, He would have gave humans a natural way to do it (NFP excluded because it’s not really contraception). But there is no ‘natural’ way to contracept; all the ways are man made. Why? Because it’s not part of God’s plan.

Computers and clothes are morally neutral. There’s no need to condone or condemn them. But contraception is a whole different story…

 

[Debora123]

The point is that if God condoned contraception, He would have gave humans a natural way to do it (NFP excluded because it’s not really contraception). But there is no ‘natural’ way to contracept; all the ways are man made. Why? Because it’s not part of God’s plan.

Computers and clothes are morally neutral. There’s no need to condone or condemn them. But contraception is a whole different story…

Coitus Interruptus.

 

[ahs]

Coitus Interruptus.

Natural? I disagree. Regardless, we already know that Onan committed that sin and was killed for it.

I think it could be argued, however, that Coitus interruptus is not natural, but is unnatural because it acts contrary to nature…contrary to the natural order of the reproductive act.

Continence or abstinence, on the other hand, would fit into a “natural” means of avoiding conception, because not having sex has a natural consequence of not procreating.

 

[Debora123]

Natural? I disagree. Regardless, we already know that Onan committed that sin and was killed for it.

The interpretation of the Old Testament story of Onan is extremely debatable.

I think it could be argued, however, that Coitus interruptus is not natural, but is unnatural because it acts contrary to nature…contrary to the natural order of the reproductive act.

Continence or abstinence, on the other hand, would fit into a “natural” means of avoiding conception, because not having sex has a natural consequence of not procreating.

I guess it all depends on what you mean by “natural.”

To me, natural is natural - meaning, not artificial.

It’s crazy how many meanings of words people change in order to make a case against contraception. “Procreation” has an alternative meaning now, that apparently doesn’t mean “procreation.” Same with “procreative,” “open to life,” and now “natural” as well.

I don’t mean to argue contraception, I am merely pointing out flaws in the arguments against it. Flaws that really don’t help the case against contraception.

Furthermore, there have been many anti contraception posters on this very forum who have explained time and time again that the natural vs artificial aspect of contraception has nothing to do with its immorality.

If you really want to convert people’s minds about contraception, come up with an argument that at least holds more water and remains consistent Just a suggestion.

 

[mark_a]

Natural? I disagree. Regardless, we already know that Onan committed that sin and was killed for it.

I think it could be argued, however, that Coitus interruptus is not natural, but is unnatural because it acts contrary to nature…contrary to the natural order of the reproductive act.

Continence or abstinence, on the other hand, would fit into a “natural” means of avoiding conception, because not having sex has a natural consequence of not procreating.

And from the male point of view, it is completely unnatural, and generally speaking it is a last resort.

The pill allowed folks a way around the traditional Christian teaching against Onanism because technically speaking, there was no withdrawal. Once the culture’s conscience was dulled, legalized abortion was the next logical step.

 

[Veritatis3]

The interpretation of the Old Testament story of Onan is extremely debatable.

I guess it all depends on what you mean by “natural.”

To me, natural is natural - meaning, not artificial.

It’s crazy how many meanings of words people change in order to make a case against contraception. “Procreation” has an alternative meaning now, that apparently doesn’t mean “procreation.” Same with “procreative,” “open to life,” and now “natural” as well.

I don’t mean to argue contraception, I am merely pointing out flaws in the arguments against it. Flaws that really don’t help the case against contraception.

Furthermore, there have been many anti contraception posters on this very forum who have explained time and time again that the natural vs artificial aspect of contraception has nothing to do with its immorality.

If you really want to convert people’s minds about contraception, come up with an argument that at least holds more water and remains consistent Just a suggestion.

Holy Mother Church has addressed this issue already, it isn’t up for discussion. If you believe in contraception then you deny the Church.