The USCCB and the Use of Contraceptives

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Yes, discernment is required. God desires us to be open to his plan for marriage. In marriage, we are only to limit our number of children by respecting the natural cycles that God has created. Using contraception in marriage opposes the divine will.

For a woman who has been sexually assaulted, to use contraception does not oppose the divine will because the procreation would not take place within a union approved by God to begin with. The disorder of the sexual assault has removed the need for order with regards to the openness to procreation. The Church teaches that the sexuality is unitive and procreative and these cannot be separated.

The Church also makes it clear that once a child is conceived, regardless of the circumstances, that child of God has a right to life because it is not the child’s fault that any wrong has been done.

Admittedly, the licitness of emergency contraception is somewhat of a deep concept.

Greg
 
I thought the Church taught that LIFE should be respected from it’s earliest stages of life, which include the sperm, etc. To say only when the baby has been “concieved” goes against what I thought originally: That Life should be repected at all times. Because it isn’t in the “Divine Will” of God, couldnt’ that be applied to all people who weren’t concieved in marriage?

deep concept is an understatement. 😦
 
Are you misreading this fact sheet or am I? This just appears to be a fact sheet on how the “emergency contraception” works and it also says hospitals should not be required to participate in a program that ends life. It doesn’t look like it’s condoning it to me.
 
Hi Bear,
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bear06:
It doesn’t look like it’s condoning it to me.
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A woman who has been raped should be able to defend herself from a potential conception and receive treatments to suppress ovulation and incapacitate sperm.

usccb.org/prolife/issues/abortion/ecfact.htm

Greg
 
The medical procedures described in the fact sheet are to help the woman prevent conception not eliminate a pregnancy.
 
Hi Galandriel,
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Galandriel:
I thought the Church taught that LIFE should be respected from it’s earliest stages of life, which include…
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I do understand your confusion. Also given the dissent today, we are quick to react when something looks wrong. I admire your search for truth. However, I think this teaching about EC is correct.

In the case of sexual assault, it is the assaulter who has disrespected the gift of fertility, not the woman. The woman has proportionately grave reason to avoid being pregnant. Consider this. To misuse fertility is a sin, true. To force someone to be pregnant against their will is also a sin. ***Before ***a human life is conceived, morality is based on using our fertility as God wills. Assault is not using fertility as God wills and I think it is not God’s law to follow through on being a victim of someone else’s misuse of their fertility.
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Galandriel:
Because it isn’t in the “Divine Will” of God, couldnt’ that be applied to all people who weren’t concieved in marriage?
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A human has a right to life. Regarding the man’s seed, apparently, a woman’s right to not be forcefully impregnated is a higher right. The moral principles involved ***before ***conception relate to the proper use of sexuality and not an already-created human life.

My Thoughts,
Greg
 
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Greg_McPherran:
Hi Bear,

A woman who has been raped should be able to defend herself from a potential conception and receive treatments to suppress ovulation and incapacitate sperm.

usccb.org/prolife/issues/abortion/ecfact.htm

Greg
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Yes, but the origninal post was about eliminating a pregnancy which I don’t believe the USCCB is saying is OK.

“The law should not require hospitals to administer so-called “emergency contraception” when those drugs will end the life of a newly conceived human embryo.”
 
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Seatuck:
The medical procedures described in the fact sheet are to help the woman prevent conception not eliminate a pregnancy.
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EXACTLY!

Contraception may licitily be used by raped Catholic under specific circumstances.

A blood test is conducted to see if the woman has ovulated within the last 3 days.

If there has been no ovulation, contraception may be used to surpress ovulation.

Since there is no egg, there is no chance that the contraception used could have an abortive effect.

If however, ovulation HAS occured, emergency contraception MAY NOT BE USED. This is because the contraception may prevent an embryo from implanting, thus inducing an abortion of human life.
 
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Galandriel:
I thought the Church taught that LIFE should be respected from it’s earliest stages of life, which include the sperm, etc. To say only when the baby has been “concieved” goes against what I thought originally: That Life should be repected at all times. Because it isn’t in the “Divine Will” of God, couldnt’ that be applied to all people who weren’t concieved in marriage?

deep concept is an understatement. 😦
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A sperm is not human life, neither is an unfertilized egg.

An embryo IS human life and cannot be licitly directly destroyed.

Rape is not sex, it carries no requirement for the victim to be open to life. Thus contraception to kill the sperm and to suppress ovulation are not only licit, but moral.

If fertilization has occured, however, human life is present and must be cherished and protected.

And thus the USCCB prohibits the use of contracepives when there is a chance fertilization has occured (and only then)
 
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Brendan:
A sperm is not human life, neither is an unfertilized egg.
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Agreed. Thank you.
An embryo IS human life and cannot be licitly directly destroyed.
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Agreed – “directly?” Close enough.
Rape is not sex, it carries no requirement for the victim to be open to life. Thus contraception to kill the sperm and to suppress ovulation are not only licit, but moral.
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Fair enough, but in order to use this argument, one has to believe that it is indeed licit to artificially separate the procreative function from behavior that is the biological equivalent of consentual sex.

Once you’ve accepted that, it brings up a question about girls who are willingly giving themselves into bio-sex but are under the age of consent and thus effectively are being raped, whether by an adult or by someone legally too young to be charged. In that case, how is it that the activity in which they are engaging can possibly carry the requirement for the victim to be open to life?

By incrementalism, one could carry this further. Could all sex outside of marriage, being “prohibited” by God’s law, not fall under the same consideration? This sex is not supposed to even be occurring, so how is it possible that those engaging in it have a duty to preserve the “unitive and procreative” aspects of their bio-sex?

Although I could extend this line of questioning into marriage, I’ll stop here for the moment. We teach that illicit sex carries with it an additional sin if done using contraception. If sex is not supposed to be taking place at all, how can it be disobedient to God’s plan to thwart conception while engaging in such an activity? My own opinion is that like rape, all illicit bio-sex is not a true act of love, and therefore could not carry the additional moral burden of preserving the unitive and/or procreative aspects. The act already falls short of true marital union, so it is already “broken” in that regard.

Alan
 
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bear06:
Yes, but the origninal post was about eliminating a pregnancy…
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I didn’t think the original question related to that but rather to the contraceptive aspect. If you read Galandriel’s 2nd post:
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Galandriel:
I thought the Church taught that LIFE should be respected from it’s earliest stages of life, which include the sperm, etc. To say only when the baby has been “concieved” goes against what I thought originally…
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bear06:
…eliminating a pregnancy which I don’t believe the USCCB is saying is OK.
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Agreed.

Greg
 
This document is somewhat problematic.

Emergency “contraception” is hardly contraception at all. If the victim has already ovulated, it will be impossible to determine whether or not she is pregnent, and so it is impossible to safely administer E.C. An Ob/Gyn posted on another board (well, maybe it was this one) that if she has not already ovulated, E.C. will normally not prevent ovulation. Therefore, Emergency “Contraception” almost always acts as an abortifacient.
 
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