The Case Against Contraception

[fred_conty]

People follow emotions not logic.

 

[louis91766]

The real difference between NFP and ABC is that NFP does not use any physical means of avoiding pregnancy.

I am not sure on this, but doesn’t NFP use thermometers, paper and pencil calculations, and calendars which are physical means to support the intention of avoiding children?

 

[benedictus2]

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.

I’d also add, if God approved of contraception, there would not be any “accidents”. But it seems, almost 99% of those who abort their children were contracepting at the time.

 

[Hastrman]

I am not sure on this, but doesn’t NFP use thermometers, paper and pencil calculations, and calendars which are physical means to support the intention of avoiding children?

Avoid, yes. Prevent, no.

And absent the semantics, NFP isn’t a steroid or a surgical implant. People freak out about corn syrup and refined sugar, but they’ll gulp down hormones like they’re breath mints. Who cares if it drastically increases a woman’s risk of stroke and heart attack, and impairs her immune system? Men are gettin’ laid!

 

[ahs]

@Eternal Jade: So, minus any facts at all that might possibly support your claim that contraception was merely frowned upon and that some alleged pope condoned it before becoming a Pope (which would not matter at all because obviously his opinion never made it into Church Doctrine), we go back to this, regarding where the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church stand on contraception:

They had the same view until the Orthodox Church changed its view. I’ve begun reading some history, and at least up to the 700’s, the Eastern (Greek) and Western (Rome) Church had the same view that is still upheld today by the Western Church. That’s as far as I’ve gotten in the book so far. We also know that NO Christian Religion approved of contraception under any circumstance until 1930.

So, who is more likely to be suspicious? The Church that still maintains the beliefs that have been in place sine the very beginning? Or the Church that has only recently (after 1930) changed its mind?

For 1,900 years of Christianity (and how many more years prior?) contraception had been proclaimed as an intrinsic evil. How then, after all this time, can an intrinsic evil suddenly become not evil?

How strange – the misconceptions are endless. “The word Catholic means ‘general’ or ‘universal’. The title was first used by St. Ignatius of Antioch in A.D. 107, in his letter to the Smyrneans, ‘where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.’ ” (The Catholic Catechism, Fr John A Hardon, S.J., Doubleday, p 217).

“Since Apostolic times, the faithful have professed in the liturgy their belief ‘in the holy catholic Church’, where the original Greek is never capitalized.” The “Eastern schism, [was] finalized in 1054, when oriental Christians isolated the term ‘Orthodox Church’ to identify themselves as distinct both from the Nestorians and Monophysites.” (Ibid p 218).
It should be of vital importance that the New Testament was written by Catholics, and no one would have a Bible if the Catholic Church had not infallibly defined what books comprise the Word of God, and no others, and had them laboriously copied by hand until the invention of the printing press. It is the same Bible that declares that “the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth.” (1 Tim 3:15).

As to your aforementioned claim…the most substantial evidence being shady rumor-mill at best:

newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm

I don’t see a Pope by that name…

The theory is based on conjecture that the person who wrote Thesaurus Pauperum was this Pope. However this Pope also died when his apartment in the Vatican collapsed on him. He was rumored to be a magician and supposedly the apartment crashing down on him was an act of God that prevented him from writing a heretical treatise. This is from Wikipedia of course mind you haha. If anything the supposed death of this Pope would make me wonder if you really want to trust him on whether to use birth control or not haha. Wow yeah and to add to all this he was Pope from August 18, 1276 to May 14, 1277…

The Pope was born with the name Pedro Julião.
Supposedly was also know as Pedro Hispano who wrote Thesaurus Pauperum.

 

[Good_Daughter]

I am not sure on this, but doesn’t NFP use thermometers, paper and pencil calculations, and calendars which are physical means to support the intention of avoiding children?

Any physical elements to NFP (pencils, paper, thermometers, calendars, OPKs) are used exactly the same way by couples trying to acheive pregnancy as couples trying to avoid pregnancy. That’s because the physical element to NFP can only determine and track fertility, not keep you from getting pregnant. Contraception, on the other hand, can physically prevent pregnancy.

 

[Nate13]

I have to say Eternal Jade’s Pope example if anything should push people the exact opposite way he intended. The Pope is rumored to be a sorcerer and is Pope for less than a year before his apartment in the Vatican collapses on him? Not exactly the kind of guy that makes you want to jump on board the contraception bandwagon.

 

[alfred14]

I have to say Eternal Jade’s Pope example if anything should push people the exact opposite way he intended. The Pope is rumored to be a sorcerer and is Pope for less than a year before his apartment in the Vatican collapses on him? Not exactly the kind of guy that makes you want to jump on board the contraception bandwagon.

the guy who said this about the pope being a sorcer said it was from wiki. how can you trust anything from there?

and if God intended us to use NFP why did he not tell mosses to explain the way the female cycle works and have them use it back then.

simply saying if god wanted us to use something it would have been around back them is just stupid. thats like saying we cant use computers, or even wear the cloathes we wear.

your arguments have no substance. its like preschool kids arguing.

 

[EternalJade]

I’m not going to bother saying anything else about that Pope because a. It was just an example of people within the church not thinking it’s wrong and b. I have heard of this but personally can’t tell you it’s 100% true because I wasn’t there. I was just pretty shocked to read about a pope with those opinions. But that does beg the question, if the seat of the pope is infallible then I wonder how in the world he was elected if he was a sorcerer. Yikes.

Not condemned? It wasn’t condemned in Jewish law although it was common in OT times, and further not in the NT either. God wants us to reach heaven and so everything that can send you to hell is clearly and simply stated in the bible so that even stupid people can understand and go to heaven. Barrier bc violates none of the 10 commandments. It is not murder. As for churches? Churches opposed it because it was associated with promiscuity but it was never officially banned and deemed a sin. Until 1930. I suppose the Protestants saw that married couples could use it prudently. I agree it really IS a shame that it led to single people using it to fornicate. Would have been nice if only married people had been given access!

I’d also add, if God approved of contraception, there would not be any “accidents”. But it seems, almost 99% of those who abort their children were contracepting at the time.

No. About 50% of abortions are from contraception failures. The whole other HALF are from people not using any birth control at all.

…according to the arguments you guys pose, “God would have created this or that if we were supposed to…”

Then- C sections should be forbidden. If your wife’s Fallopian tubes are blocked she should not be allowed a simple procedure to have them unblocked, she should accept she wasn’t meant to be a mother. Appendicitis anyone? Well, I guess your number is up, that’s too bad. Maybe people weren’t meant to cut other people open and mess around with their works.

Ridiculous.

With your step by step sex and foreplay guide, indulgences, etc, Catholicism is the most legalistic religion I’ve ever seen.

 

[Nate13]

I’m not going to bother saying anything else about that Pope because a. It was just an example of people within the church not thinking it’s wrong and b. I have heard of this but personally can’t tell you it’s 100% true because I wasn’t there. I was just pretty shocked to read about a pope with those opinions. But that does beg the question, if the seat of the pope is infallible then I wonder how in the world he was elected if he was a sorcerer. Yikes.

Not condemned? It wasn’t condemned in Jewish law although it was common in OT times, and further not in the NT either. God wants us to reach heaven and so everything that can send you to hell is clearly and simply stated in the bible so that even stupid people can understand and go to heaven. Barrier bc violates none of the 10 commandments. It is not murder. As for churches? Churches opposed it because it was associated with promiscuity but it was never officially banned and deemed a sin. Until 1930. I suppose the Protestants saw that married couples could use it prudently. I agree it really IS a shame that it led to single people using it to fornicate. Would have been nice if only married people had been given access!

No. About 50% of abortions are from contraception failures. The whole other HALF are from people not using any birth control at all.

…according to the arguments you guys pose, “God would have created this or that if we were supposed to…”

Then- C sections should be forbidden. If your wife’s Fallopian tubes are blocked she should not be allowed a simple procedure to have them unblocked, she should accept she wasn’t meant to be a mother. Appendicitis anyone? Well, I guess your number is up, that’s too bad. Maybe people weren’t meant to cut other people open and mess around with their works.

Ridiculous.

With your step by step sex and foreplay guide, indulgences, etc, Catholicism is the most legalistic religion I’ve ever seen.

You have yet to prove the Pope did have those opinions while he was pope. If anything that story should be further proof of the Pope’s infallibility because if he was going to preach something that went against the doctrines of the Church we can thank God for stopping him.

As for churches? Churches opposed it because it was associated with promiscuity but it was never officially banned and deemed a sin. Until 1930. I suppose the Protestants saw that married couples could use it prudently.

haha so it was just something that people saw as not a great idea to use? I’m sure that is why Protestants were a big part of making contraception illegal until the 1930’s in America. Not just illegal for non-married people either, illegal for everyone. That doesn’t sound like condemnation at all…

You really don’t get natural law so I won’t comment about C-sections. Fertility is not a disease or symptom of sex and contraception treats it like one.

You can thank the other 50% of the abortions to the people who teach that sex and babies don’t go together. It’s when people decide the can have sex without the consequences that abortions happen. If no one had sex unless they were willingly to accept a baby should it happen we wouldn’t have any problems. This isn’t what is being taught though since we have separated the pleasure of sex and the pro creativeness of sex. Fertility really is treated as a side effect.

With your step by step sex and foreplay guide, indulgences, etc, Catholicism is the most legalistic religion I’ve ever seen.

Where is this step by step foreplay guide, I’ll have to get myself a copy I love how religion goes from being understanding to legalistic because of a few rules about sexual relations. Indulgences are a matter of seeing that Jesus gave Peter the keys to the gates of Hades otherwise known as Purgatory.

 

[EternalJade]

Haha. According to natural law NFP is on the same footing as abc. NFP treats fertility like a disease that needs to be quarantined.

I’m done with this argument. If you thInk NFP is Holy, then it is indeed Holy for you and I truly respect that. Myself and many others don’t see it the same way though.

 

[Good_Daughter]

Barrier bc violates none of the 10 commandments.

I have a hard time understanding how a couple can become “one flesh” (as per God’s will in Genesis 2:24, reiterated in Matt 19:5 and Eph 5:31) while introducing a barrier to their emrace whose purpose is to separate their flesh.

 

[EternalJade]

I have a hard time understanding how a couple can become “one flesh” (as per God’s will in Genesis 2:24, reiterated in Matt 19:5 and Eph 5:31) while introducing a barrier to their emrace whose purpose is to separate their flesh.

Ok last post. I don’t know about you Good Daughter, but my husband and I are not just one flesh during sex. Spiritually we became one when we got married. We are an inseparable pair. We see the world the same using the binocular vision that only people as close as a married couple can have. It would be really, really sad if people only became one during sex because not all married couples can have sex.

 

[Nate13]

Haha. According to natural law NFP is on the same footing as abc. NFP treats fertility like a disease that needs to be quarantined.

I’m done with this argument. If you thInk NFP is Holy, then it is indeed Holy for you and I truly respect that. Myself and many others don’t see it the same way though.

NFP=holy? not sure how you got that from my statements or what you are implying that means. NFP does not treat fertility like a disease, but rather as something of incredible value that should not be squandered and tread on lightly. If a couple isn’t in a position to accept all of this gift and appreciate it to the fullest they shouldn’t be participating in that gift. NFP is not holy. Sex is holy because it mirrors the consummation of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.

 

[sw85]

Took a break from posting this last week. Pardon me while I catch up.

It’s just so weird that natural law must be applied to sex when it isn’t to anything else. I just do not agree. By these measures smoking or dyeing your hair or getting an epidural during labor could send you to hell. Eek! I can’t apply one set of rules to sex and another to everything else.

That’s nonsense, and with due respect, that you even believe it shows how little you actually know about natural law, your claims to the contrary notwithstanding.

Per natural law (which I outlined in the OP), sin consists in using your faculties in a manner contrary to their end. That is, deliberately subverting the faculty so that it does not serve its end. How in the world does smoking, dying your hair, getting an epidural constitute a sin? Hm?

These rules are applied everywhere and to all things, including to our understanding of relatively mundane things like property rights. I have no idea where you get the idea that they are applied to sex only.

Patrick I read your post too and there’s really nothing I can say to it because that’s the way you feel, and it works to you. I’m coming from an Anglican background. I think everything about the catholic faith makes sense, except for this. This one HUGE common during OT and NT times issue, that isn’t mentioned at all. I just can’t get on board with it, sorry. From an outside POV the NFP argument isn’t logical.

Then demonstrate a flaw in the logic.

For Heaven’s sake, I outlined the logic in the very first post. *Surely *if there is a flaw *somewhere *it can be articulated in a way that isn’t facially absurd. I’m still waiting to hear that; all I hear is question-begging.

I take it that since you threw down the Magesterium/infallibility gauntlet that you believe that via secular reasoning is not possible to defend the anti-contraception position?

I don’t know what you’re trying to say here. The logic I outlined in the first post is itself a secular position; it does not rely on revelation but on natural law philosophy which predates the Church in its origins.

This in and of itself is extremely interesting, and explains how the Onan story can be interpreted in the way it did. It allows one to ignore the big picture, that being ignoring God, and focus solely on the method to ignore God, as if any method to ignore God is moral.

I have precisely zero interest in the relevance of the story of Onan here.

So, in other words, suppressing the primary purpose of sex is actually allowed. That sounds a lot like…never mind.

Nothing about NFP “suppresses the primary purpose of sex,” hence why it is licit.

Trying to avoid pregnancy is licit, provided the means for doing so are licit and the reason is sufficiently serious.

The act might not be altered, but the primary function of sex is (procreation). Even Ray Charles can see that. The attempts at logic spin on this particular subject are just stunning.

Of course the primary function of sex is procreative – that’s what I’ve been saying all along. Hence why you must have sex in a manner that is consistent with the end of procreation: i.e., intravaginal ejaculation.

If the Church actually said to simply said “complete the sexual act in a manner consistent with its end,” no problem…that actually makes sense. The verbal gymnastics involved in trying to apply “procreation,” “procreative act,” “ordered to procreation,” etc. simply leaves everyone flummoxed.

If your reason is insufficient to grasp the reason for the teachings, follow them anyway. That’s what the magisterium is there for – so you don’t have to trouble yourself with hard things like reading philosophy.

It literally could not be more simple. Ejaculate in your wife’s vagina. That’s it.

That’s how babies are made: by ejaculating in a vagina. Not by ejaculating in a condom, or in your wife’s hand, or in her mouth, or on her belly, or in a vagina that has been intentionally and willfully rendered sterile. It doesn’t matter if babies are actually produced by the act, or even if the couple is capable of conceiving at that particular time or even at all – provided you ejaculate in a vagina. Because that’s how babies are made. Because that is the ONE ACT that is consistent with the procreative end of the sexual faculty.

The pleasurable part of sex, directly related to the unitive, is what drives sex in the first place. This part of sex always exists, though it naturally wanes with time. The procreative portion of sex does not always exist…which of course is simply stating the blatantly obvious.

And why is sex pleasurable? Because people who didn’t find sex pleasurable wouldn’t have it and would therefore never have kids – thus nature naturally selects to ensure that sex is pleasurable and desired.

If sex were not intrinsically procreative there would be no pleasure associated with it. And thus there would not even be a unitive aspect to it. I can sit around and shake hands with my wife all day but that act will not bring us closer because there is nothing going on there.

 

[louis91766]

Per natural law (which I outlined in the OP), sin consists in using your faculties in a manner contrary to their end. That is, deliberately subverting the faculty so that it does not serve its end. .

What about gastric bypass surgery that allows you to eat, but then dumps the food into the bowel tract. Would that then be a mortal sin since you are eating but contrary to using the food for your survival, it is thrown out with other waste from your stomach.
Suppose that this were recommended by a doctor, would you still go to hell if you underwent the surgery?

 

[sw85]

i dont understand this part of yalls faith, im lutheran. the churches teaching are from the Pope, if i am correct in saying this then it is all subject to error, the pope is mearly human and even the best of us humans have really screwed up so how can you believe every thing the Church tells you?

*READ.

THE.

ORIGINAL.

POST.*

Has everyone here just jumped into the discussion without reading the OP?

again christ told peter to creat the church and be in charge and peter was human. so many mistakes could have been made, im not saying they were made but simply saying that unless it was stated in the bible we are simply using are judgment about what God would want. again subject to many human errors.

And if there is an error in the reasoning relayed in the original post, surely you can demonstrate it? Declaring that it might theoretically be in error and therefore it’s not binding on anyone is self-serving absurdity.

This is literally the entire reason for me to post this thread: to see if anyone could identify a flaw in the logic behind the Church’s teaching on contraception.

this brings rise to the fact that sex has more then one purpose sex is to creat kids and to love your spouse. saying sex is only for making babies is like saying were like cats and dogs. we are much higher then animals and sex is much more then creating life

Read the OP before you comment, please.

The unitive aspect of sex ITSELF DERIVES from the procreative. Sex would not be unitive if it were not innately procreative.

how is it irrellavent? the difference between a condom and just waiting till your wife is infertile. mentally they are identicale. sure it feals a lil better and suposidly science says its better for the women when there is no barrior, but mentally its the same.

Read the OP.

The intent of Natural Family Planning (NFP) is to have sex without getting pregnant. Based on your statement, it sounds as if sex for any other reason than procreation is a sin. I don’t think that this is the Church position, but if it is, then nothing other than abstinence should be used to avoid getting pregnant. Since sin is based on intent, this would prohibit the use of NFP to avoid pregnancy.

Read the OP.

I found it ironic that our NFP counselors at church claim a higher efficiency rate than condoms or the pill to avoid pregnancy. If the purpose of sex is procreation, then it seems as if NFP is more efficient in voiding God’s intent.

This is exactly the kind of rank consequentialism which alone can be mustered in defense of contraception.

Incidentally, if you actually buy into consequentialist logic, than contraception is NOT the only area in which you are rebelling against the Church’s magisterium.

Read the OP.

“Open to life” as in the actually LITERAL meaning of the phrase “open to life?”

YES.

…Because there is a higher possibility of life being brought into the world when a couple uses condoms as opposed to NFP.

However, there is apparently an alternate meaning to the phrase “open to life” that I have yet to fully comprehend. And according to THAT meaning, the answer would somehow be “NO.”

Again… openness to life is a function of the act itself, not its consequences. To say otherwise is to argue consequentialism and therefore to be in rebellion against the Church’s teachings in yet another area.

The ACT is open to life when it conforms to the end of the sexual faculty, i.e., when one ejaculates in a vagina that has not been willfully and intentionally rendered sterile.

Read the OP, please. I gather you didn’t the first few times.

Honestly people, I don’t know why I’m getting so much flack for saying this:

Everything I said in my above quote is true. I basically was saying that it depends on what you mean by “open to life.” In the literal sense, it means one thing, in the Church sense it means another.

I answered YES for one definition, and NO for the other.

Nothing I said was incorrect.

You’re “getting flack” for it because you’re propagating falsehoods.

What you individually mean when you say “openness to life” is irrelevant. Worse than irrelevant, actually, because you admit you mean something different than what the Church means when you say it yet you insist on borrowing the Church’s language to defend your position – an act that sows moral confusion.

You can argue all day long whether or not natural law permits NFP. But there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY to arrive at the conclusion that using contraception can be reconciled with openness to life, which was the entire point of this post before it hijacked into a discussion on NFP. Contraception is NECESSARILY NOT OPEN to life: if life results it’s because contraception FAILED in its purpose. By contrast, is life results from the practice of NFP it’s because the purpose of the sexual act was never subverted in the first place.

Ok, I’m out.

Sorry for challenging your beliefs and for having come here with nothing but the intention of letting you know that the arguments being made hold no water and that you should try something different if you truly intend on getting others to understand the immorality of contraception.

I asked you repeatedly for a demonstration of a flaw in the natural law logic. You not only failed to provide it, you insisted on subverting the discussion entirely. Good day.

 

[sw85]

What about gastric bypass surgery that allows you to eat, but then dumps the food into the bowel tract. Would that then be a mortal sin since you are eating but contrary to using the food for your survival, it is thrown out with other waste from your stomach.
Suppose that this were recommended by a doctor, would you still go to hell if you underwent the surgery?

I imagine it’s licit if done for legitimate medical reasons and a sin if done for illicit reasons, e.g., vanity, laziness, a desire to binge eat without consequence.

 

[louis91766]

I imagine it’s licit if done for legitimate medical reasons and a sin if done for illicit reasons, e.g., vanity, laziness, a desire to binge eat without consequence.

That doesn’t make too much sense, if you consider the fact that many people use contraceptives for what they consider to be legitimate reasons, similar to the legitimate reasons for NFP.

 

[Nate13]

That doesn’t make too much sense, if you consider the fact that many people use contraceptives for what they consider to be legitimate reasons, similar to the legitimate reasons for NFP.

Are you comparing fertility to obesity? I think there in lies your problem. Being fertile is a normal healthy condition. Being obese is not.