The Zika virus and contraception

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badnewsbarrett

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The Zika virus has been especially widespread in some of the most Catholic areas on the planet. I’ll acknowledge upfront that abortion remains out of bounds, and this thread is only about contraception. It is not supposed to be a backdoor to an argument for abortion, and I am personally pro-life. I will admit however that I am pro-contraception, and I believe it’s a very good thing that contraception exists for exactly this kind of situation. Women in the hardest-hit countries are being advised to delay childbirth until 2018 or so, which is when effective treatment options are likely to be viable. I think we’re still awaiting conclusive confirmation on whether the virus is spread through sexual contact as well.

At any rate. This seems like an emergency situation, and an opportunity for the Catholic Church to relax some of its explicit condemnation of contraception in the interest of public health in a particular region. Please note the qualifiers, especially where I said “in a particular region.”

I’m curious to see what this would look like as a voting opportunity. Let’s find out.
 
badnewsbarrett said:
The Zika virus has been especially widespread in some of the most Catholic areas on the planet. I’ll acknowledge upfront that abortion remains out of bounds, and this thread is only about contraception. It is not supposed to be a backdoor to an argument for abortion, and I am personally pro-life. I will admit however that I am pro-contraception, and I believe it’s a very good thing that contraception exists for exactly this kind of situation. Women in the hardest-hit countries are being advised to delay childbirth until 2018 or so, which is when effective treatment options are likely to be viable. I think we’re still awaiting conclusive confirmation on whether the virus is spread through sexual contact as well.

At any rate. This seems like an emergency situation, and an opportunity for the Catholic Church to relax some of its explicit condemnation of contraception in the interest of public health in a particular region. Please note the qualifiers, especially where I said “in a particular region.”

I’m curious to see what this would look like as a voting opportunity. Let’s find out.
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I don’t think the Catholic Church has the ability to relax its condemnation of contraception. It seems to be Church doctrine, and I don’t think Church doctrine can change. Are you saying it’s Not Church doctrine, or that Church doctrine Can change? Or am I missing some alternative?
 
Luigi_Daniele said:
The Holy Father says that it can be relaxed, in special circumstances*:

hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_REL_POPE_ZIKA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
  • this is an AP story, FWIW
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I’ve read the pope’s recent words and agree with them. But he didn’t say the condemnation of contraception can be relaxed. He talked about the lesser of two evils, comparing abortion and avoiding pregnancy, but didn’t say contraception can be used in the Zika case. It is a lesser evil than abortion, but still evil.

This is the pope’s actual interview: catholicnewsagency.com/news/full-text-of-pope-francis-in-flight-interview-from-mexico-to-rome-85821/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+catholicnewsagency%2Fdailynews+%28CNA+Daily+News%29&utm_term=daily+news
 
Regardless of the Zika virus, it is difficult for me to make any sense of the Catholic Church’s position on ABC (clearly, the Catholic Church is fine with contracting via “natural” methods).
 
dmar198 said:
I’ve read the pope’s recent words and agree with them. But he didn’t say the condemnation of contraception can be relaxed. He talked about the lesser of two evils, comparing abortion and avoiding pregnancy, but didn’t say contraception can be used in the Zika case. It is a lesser evil than abortion, but still evil.

This is the pope’s actual interview: catholicnewsagency.com/news/full-text-of-pope-francis-in-flight-interview-from-mexico-to-rome-85821/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+catholicnewsagency%2Fdailynews+%28CNA+Daily+News%29&utm_term=daily+news
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I appreciate the clarification.👍
 
dmar198 said:
He talked about the lesser of two evils, comparing abortion and avoiding pregnancy, but didn’t say contraception can be used in the Zika case. It is a lesser evil than abortion, but still evil.
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He compared avoiding pregnancy to the virus and complications associated. Then said abortion wasn’t a lesser evil to anything, it is a crime. At least that’s the way I understood it.
 
The way the Church views contraception can be relaxed in extreme circumstances. Pope Paul VI relaxed it for nuns in Africa at one time facing rape. Contraception over abortion any day. It is a necessary evil for occasions like these.
 
dmar198 said:
You say it is necessary, but I think it isn’t. I think no evil actions are ever necessary.
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Well I’m not saying this is actually evil. I’m saying this is not what is desired but it must be done in circumstances such as these. A past Pope has done this before. I don’t think we have to agree with the Pope but what he is doing is not against the Church. Even if it was, it wouldn’t go against Papal Infallibility unless he was teaching this Ex Cathedra.
 
Yes, as an emergency response of course, without any change to Church teaching.
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This doesn’t even make sense. Of course, it would be a change to Church teaching.
 
It’s not a ban. This thread, posted as a poll, fails to understand the Catholic teaching at all.

It is not a “ban” or a “rule” that can be “relaxed” or “changed”. Contraception is an intrinsic evil, grave matter against the sixth commandment. That is truth, not a rule. It cannot change.
 
That Church cannot relax its view of contraception for any reason whatsoever. It is always a mortal sin to use. If people don’t want to conceive children, then they shouldn’t have sex.

You cannot consider yourself truly pro-life if you support something that prevents life and leads to abortions. Half of all abortions are due to failed contraceptives. People aren’t suddenly going to want a child that they were trying to prevent from being conceived.
 
Regarding the nuns who might be raped using contraception… this is different from a married couple using contraception because with the nuns there is no consent to the sexual intercourse and they are not making love but being violated, so using contraception is not going against a marriage covenant and that would go for any women who is being raped against her will. The reason that contraception is wrong (as long as it is not an abortifacient) is that sexual intercourse is meant for the unity of the married couple and the procreation of children. Trying to directly thwart the procreative part of making love as in contraception is directly going against a new life that may be conceived in the marriage (as opposed to natural family planning where one avoids intercourse on fertile days when one has a just reason to avoid pregnancy). It is not wrong to try to avoid conceiving a child when one is being raped as long as one does not kill the unborn child if one is conceived.
 
thephilosopher6 said:
Well I’m not saying this is actually evil.
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Yes, I see that. But how can the contraception proposal be reconciled with the Catechism:

“[E]very action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil.” CCC 2370

This contraception proposal seems to be that couples in Zika-affected areas should use contraception in the conjugal act in order to render procreation impossible. I don’t see how that can possibly be squared with the doctrine of the Church as stated in the Catechism.
A past Pope has done this before.
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First, the past pope did not say people can use contraception in the conjugal act. The nuns referred to were unmarried and did not intend to have sex. What happened there was not a violation of Church doctrine. The Zika proposals that I have seen appear to be violations of Church doctrine. The pope can’t change that.
I don’t think we have to agree with the Pope but what he is doing is not against the Church.
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I agree that the pope isn’t doing anything against the Church. But he is also not saying it’s okay to use contraception.
Even if it was, it wouldn’t go against Papal Infallibility unless he was teaching this Ex Cathedra.
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Agreed.
 
Regarding Pope Francis possibly “suggesting” according to the media that woman may use contraception to avoid birth defects from the Zika virus, that would be contrary to established church teaching so I think he is being misunderstood. Church teaching would say that if a couple has just reasons to avoid pregnancy that a couple may abstain and/or use natural family planning methods (which, while requiring some abstinence, can be highly effective in avoiding pregnancy).
 
The Church has spoken about the issue of contraception which is always rejected in all cases.

Even though the Holy Father Francis has allowed for an emergency allowance does anyone else think that the media will claim that Church teaching has changed on this issue
 
The Holy Father either didn’t say that or had a slip of the tongue. Not new.

Evil is not allowed to prevent evil. Caiaphas used this kind of thinking in convincing the crowd to kill Jesus to prevent an uprising. “It’s an emergency.”

Zika ain’t much of an emergency, either. The hype over it is insane.
 
Trad_Catholic27 said:
Even though the Holy Father Francis has allowed for an emergency allowance
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When did he do that? Because I don’t think he did, not in this interview and not in the past.
does anyone else think that the media will claim that Church teaching has changed on this issue
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Yes, because they make that claim all the time anyway. They claimed Church teaching had changed when Benedict mentioned that using a condom can sometimes represent thinking about another person charitably. Of course, he didn’t say using a condom is okay, just that it can signify that a light turned on in someone. The media claimed Church doctrine had changed in that case by misquoting the pope, and they will likely do that again with this quote from Pope Francis. Nothing new there.

Pope Francis has already condemned contraception several times:

“[O]penness to life is a condition for the sacrament of matrimony. A man cannot give the sacrament to the woman…if they are not in accord on this point of openness to life. If it can be proved that he or she married with the intention of not being Catholic [on this point] then the matrimony is null. [It is] a cause for the annulment of the marriage, no? Openness to life.” source

“[About] Humanae Vitae…[the] genius [of Pope Paul VI] was prophetic, as he had the courage to go against the majority, to defend moral discipline, to apply a cultural brake, to oppose present and future neo-Malthusianism.” source

“Paul VI was not antiquated, close minded. No, [he was] a prophet again who with [Humanae Vitae] told us to watch out for the Neo-Malthusianism that is coming. This is what I [want] to say.” source
 
I’d like to point out something that intrigues me- that Pope Francis elected to give an example of Pius VI and an exemption that he authorized.

Pius VI, the Pope whose name is on HV. HV, which as an encyclical letter is certainly not dogma nor is it necessarily doctrine in all parts and in all places, but it is the go-to reference of the modern era for any matter pertaining to contraception within the Catholic Church. And once again, Pope Pius VI is the name on the document.

Pope Francis was being asked about the potential for finding some way to relax some of the usual prohibitions in the face of the Zika virus. He categorically rejects any possibility of allowances for abortion, but then he brings up an example of Pius VI-

who, again, has his name on the front of HV-

and he gives an example of a time when he made a contraception-related exemption due to extraordinary circumstances, which of course is not the same thing as changing doctrine, it is an exemption. Just like what I said, an exemption. Not something different.

Now why would Pope Francis bring up Pius VI- whose name can be found on the front of HV- and recall some details of a time when he authorized an exemption that directly related to HV and to some form of contraception? I can think of one very good reason, and it ties in with the line of questioning that strictly had to do with the Zika virus.

I know I’m not the only one seeing this.

Let me rephrase this in a different way. This is not exactly how the conversation went, but I’ll rewrite it with the subtext intact.

Excuse me Pope Francis, the well-known encyclical Humanae Vitae and the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church notwithstanding, is there any way that the Church’s position against abortion and/or contraception could be temporarily relaxed in the region affected by the Zika virus?

On the matter of abortion, H to the No, absolutely not, don’t even think about it under any circumstances. As for contraception- let us consider how Pope Pius VI, who wrote Humanae Vitae, authorized an exemption so that nuns, of all people, wound up using contraception under truly extraordinary circumstances. So what you can go ahead and take away from this is that my answer on contraception is totally different from my answer on abortion, in that I established the earliest possible precedent for a pope allowing for exemptions where HV is concerned, starting with the man whose name is on the thing.

As far as I can tell, that was the subtext.
 
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