Thoughts on contraception

[FM927]

Abortion is MURDER, NOT CONTRACEPTION!!!
By contracepting, one is preventing the chance of abortion, therefore is actually preventing MURDER!!!

 

[rad314]

But likewise, we should keep in mind that the argument that such teaching was present in the Church in spite of there being no positive evidence for it is also an argument from silence (and one that Catholics use liberally).

The Church doesn’t make the argument that what she teaches now is ONLY what she has always taught. That gets us back to the deposit of faith and the development of doctrine. The deposit of faith doesn’t change; however, the Church’s awareness of the fullness of that deposit develops.

The Holy Spirit guarantees that the Church will not teach error. Everything the Church teaches is true. That doesn’t mean that everything that is true was ever taught by the Church, is now taught by the Church, or ever will be taught by the Church. It means that at no time can the Church teach something that is false. The Church teaches more now than she did 1500 years ago and almost certainly less than she will 1500 years into the future (barring the Second Coming, of course). Something doesn’t ‘become true’ when the Church starts to teach it; it was true all along. That’s why Church teaching can’t contradict itself.

 

[rad314]

Notice how the two arguments against contraception are entirely distinct. Trent gives one reason; the CCC gives an entirely different reason.

You haven’t shown a contradiction, only that the arguments put forth are different. Show how they cannot simultaneously be true. Without that, you can’t claim that a teaching has changed.

 

[rad314]

But doesn’t life begin at conception?

Yes, and that’s why it’s a conspiracy to commit murder, not murder. ABCers conspire to deprive someone of life.

 

[Jennifer_J]

Abortion is MURDER, NOT CONTRACEPTION!!!
By contracepting, one is preventing the chance of abortion, therefore is actually preventing MURDER!!!

Some forms of contraception are infact, abortofacient–meaning they don’t (always) stop ovulation and conception then occurs, however, the uterus has been made inhospitable via the hormones and the baby is aborted…

 

[Jennifer_J]

And that crime is “nothing less than wicked conspiracy to commit murder.” Again, I ask: “Murder?” So, using drugs so as to prevent a woman’s eggs from moving from the ovaries down the fallopian tubes to the uterus is murder? Vasectomies and tubal ligations (which also fall within the realm of medicine) are murder?

And let’s not overlook that at Trent the argument against contraception was tied directly to the argument that marriage was established by God for procreation:

Contrast the above argument with the one presented in the modern CCC:

Notice how the two arguments against contraception are entirely distinct. Trent gives one reason; the CCC gives an entirely different reason. There is great significance here. Something had to have changed between the Council of Trent and the publication of the modern CCC that invalidated Trent’s argument (“contraception is murder”) and caused the authors/editors of the CCC to switch to a more “philosophical” explanation of why contraception is wrong.

–Mike

They are the same argument…the CCC says nothing in contradiction to the Trent statement. The CCC gives a fuller explaination…

btw, it doesn’t say they committed murder, but that it is a conspiracy to commit murder. I see this as a difference. To act against life via contraception is to keep someone from being (all things being equal, we know that not acts of intercourse result in pregnancy). Also, when these contraceptives fail, it often leads to further action–abortion.

 

[rad314]

In fact, my printed copy has footnotes, one of which refers to a section of Summa Theologica in which St. Thomas Aquinas explicitly rejects the proposition that all marital intercourse is sinful.

Let me clarify. It wasn’t under the treatment of matrimony that I found the reference to the Summa. In trying to find any support for the contention that marital intercourse is inherently sinful, I also checked the coverage of the Sixth Commandment (cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/trent/tcomm06.htm) and that’s where I found the reference to the passage in which St. Thomas rejects that claim.

My apologies if I confused anyone.

 

[mpartyka]

The Holy Spirit guarantees that the Church will not teach error. Everything the Church teaches is true…at no time can the Church teach something that is false…Church teaching can’t contradict itself.

(Quoted for effect.)

You haven’t shown a contradiction, only that the arguments put forth are different. Show how they cannot simultaneously be true. Without that, you can’t claim that a teaching has changed.

The absence of the earlier argument, however, testifies to the fact that the earlier argument was, in fact, invalid, or else it would have been included alongside the later argument. “Contraception is murder,” after all, is a much more powerful argument than, “The unitive and procreative elements of sex cannot be separated.”

Yes, and that’s why it’s a conspiracy to commit murder, not murder. ABCers conspire to deprive someone of life.

How does condom use constitute a deprivation of life? How does surgical sterilization deprive someone of life? How do hormones that prevent a woman’s ovaries from periodically releasing eggs deprive someone of life? You can’t deprive someone of life until there’s actually life there to deprive.

–Mike

 

[rad314]

The absence of the earlier argument, however, testifies to the fact that the earlier argument was, in fact, invalid, or else it would have been included alongside the later argument.

You have made many arguments that you haven’t repeated here. They must be invalid as well, then.

Your challenge is to show that the two arguments are contradictory.

“Contraception is murder,” after all, is a much more powerful argument than, “The unitive and procreative elements of sex cannot be separated.”

How does condom use constitute a deprivation of life? How does surgical sterilization deprive someone of life? How do hormones that prevent a woman’s ovaries from periodically releasing eggs deprive someone of life? You can’t deprive someone of life until there’s actually life there to deprive.

There’s a very good reason that you insist on ‘contraception is murder’ instead of the Church’s actual statement that ‘contraception is a conspiracy to commit murder’. That reason is that your argument collapses if you treat the Church’s claim fairly.

Or are you going to argue that people who use condoms, sterilization etc. aren’t conspiring to deprive someone of life?

 

[mpartyka]

Your challenge is to show that the two arguments are contradictory.

My point is that the arguments are distinct, not that they are contradictory. You say that fact has no impact on this discussion, whereas I say it does have impact, and so we at a natural impasse. Let the reader decide which of us is right.

There’s a very good reason that you insist on ‘contraception is murder’ instead of the Church’s actual statement that ‘contraception is a conspiracy to commit murder’. That reason is that your argument collapses if you treat the Church’s claim fairly.

Not so. The problem is not that I’m twisting the Church’s argument. The problem is that you’re not understanding the basis for the Church’s use of the word “murder” (and how it relates to my original question #2).

Would you agree that for deprivation of life to occur, there has to be in existence an already-living victim to deprive of life? You can’t murder something that doesn’t have life, right?

Or are you going to argue that people who use condoms, sterilization etc. aren’t conspiring to deprive someone of life?

That’s exactly what I’m arguing, for, prior to conception, there is no “someone” of whom to deprive of life.

–Mike

 

[mpartyka]

Let me clarify. It wasn’t under the treatment of matrimony that I found the reference to the Summa. In trying to find any support for the contention that marital intercourse is inherently sinful, I also checked the coverage of the Sixth Commandment (cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/trent/tcomm06.htm) and that’s where I found the reference to the passage in which St. Thomas rejects that claim.

You should have read one article further:

Question 153, Article 2 asks the question, “Whether no venereal act can be without sin?” and answers it, “…the use of venereal acts can be without sin, provided they be performed in due manner and order, in keeping with the end of human procreation.” Therefore, if a couple has sex for the purpose of procreation, there is no sin in their use of sexual intercourse for that purpose.

Question 153, Article 3, however, asks the question, “Whether the lust that is about venereal acts can be a sin?” and answers it, “…without any doubt lust is a sin.”

Note how St. Thomas doesn’t even for a moment contest the question’s premise – namely, that lust accompanies all venereal acts. He sees that as a given.

Thus, St. Thomas here perfectly reflects St. Augustine’s views: The act of sexual intercourse itself is not inherently sinful. However, both St. Thomas and St. Augustine recognize that the act of sexual intercourse is always accompanied by lust, which is a sin. Therefore, there is no instance of sexual intercourse which is completely free from sin because it is always accompanied by the sin of lust, which the married couple makes good use of so that the intercourse can occur.

–Mike

 

[rad314]

Question 153, Article 3, however, asks the question, “Whether the lust that is about venereal acts can be a sin?” and answers it, “…without any doubt lust is a sin.”

Why don’t we look at the entire answer?

“I answer that, The more necessary a thing is, the more it behooves one to observe the order of reason in its regard; wherefore the more sinful it becomes if the order of reason be forsaken. Now the use of venereal acts, as stated in the foregoing Article, is most necessary for the common good, namely the preservation of the human race. Wherefore there is the greatest necessity for observing the order of reason in this matter: so that if anything be done in this connection against the dictate of reason’s ordering, it will be a sin. Now lust consists essentially in exceeding the order and mode of reason in the matter of venereal acts. Wherefore without any doubt lust is a sin.”

You miss the point entirely. Look especially at the sentence before his conclusion: “Now lust consists essentially in exceeding the order and mode of reason in the matter of venereal acts.”

Read Article 1, too.

It’s the fact that lust goes beyond right reason that makes it a sin. It’s clear that St. Thomas recognizes that marital intercourse does not necessarily involve the wantonness or debauchery that constitute lust.

 

[rad314]

My point is that the arguments are distinct, not that they are contradictory. You say that fact has no impact on this discussion, whereas I say it does have impact, and so we at a natural impasse. Let the reader decide which of us is right.

In case you don’t realize it, the CCC doesn’t supersede or revoke the earlier catechism. Both stand.

Would you agree that for deprivation of life to occur, there has to be in existence an already-living victim to deprive of life? You can’t murder something that doesn’t have life, right?

Right, but you can conspire to deprive someone of life by unnaturally preventing his conception.

 

[rad314]

My point is that the arguments are distinct, not that they are contradictory. You say that fact has no impact on this discussion, whereas I say it does have impact, and so we at a natural impasse. Let the reader decide which of us is right.

Yes, the reader will decide whether the fact that the Church has two, non-mutually-exclusive reasons for a teaching indicates that the Church’s teaching has changed.

No doubt you’re aware that the introductory material to the CCC says that the Christian faith’s “essential and necessary elements are summarized in the Catechism”. That phrase is significant.

If I gave three arguments last week for why I believe something and then, in speaking with other people this week, I give two other reasons for my belief, no reasonable and honest person would say that that means I repudiate the reasons I gave those other people last week.

Did St. Paul always use the same arguments, regardless of audience?

 

[mpartyka]

You miss the point entirely. Look especially at the sentence before his conclusion: “Now lust consists essentially in exceeding the order and mode of reason in the matter of venereal acts.” Read Article 1, too. It’s the fact that lust goes beyond right reason that makes it a sin. It’s clear that St. Thomas recognizes that marital intercourse does not necessarily involve the wantonness or debauchery that constitute lust.

St. Thomas says in Article 2:

Reply to Objection 2 – That venereal concupiscence and pleasure are not subject to the command and moderation of reason, is due to the punishment of the first sin, inasmuch as the reason, for rebelling against God, deserved that its body should rebel against it, as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiii, 13).

Reply to Objection 3 – As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiii, 13), “the child, shackled with original sin, is born of fleshly concupiscence (which is not imputed as sin to the regenerate) as of a daughter of sin.” Hence it does not follow that the act in question is a sin, but that it contains something penal resulting from the first sin.

But what does St. Augustine say in one of the chapters of City of God preceding the one just cited twice by St. Thomas?

…lust not only takes possession of the whole body and outward members, but also makes itself felt within, and moves the whole man with a passion in which mental emotion is mingled with bodily appetite, so that the pleasure which results is the greatest of all bodily pleasures. So possessing indeed is this pleasure, that at the moment of time in which it is consummated, all mental activity is suspended. What friend of wisdom and holy joys, who, being married, but knowing, as the apostle says, “how to possess his vessel in santification and honor, not in the disease of desire, as the Gentiles who know not God,” would not prefer, if this were possible, to beget children without this lust, so that in this function of begetting offspring the members created for this purpose should not be stimulated by the heat of lust, but should be actuated by his volition, in the same way as his other members serve him for their respective ends? – Augustine, City of God 14:16

St. Augustine, then, clearly taught that lust accompanies every instance of marital intercourse. St. Thomas doesn’t doubt this either, as his question, “Whether the lust that is about venereal acts can be a sin?” indicates. And according to St. Thomas, “…without any doubt lust is a sin.”

So, marital intercourse is one thing, and the lust that accompanies it and makes that intercourse physically possible is another. The act of marital intercourse itself can be accomplished without any inherent sin if it is done with the sole intent of procreation, but the act of marital intercourse cannot be accomplished without the accompanying sin of lust, since it is lust which necessarily enables the generative organs to fulfill their generative functions.

In summary, in searching for a proof that marital intercourse is inherently sinful, you’re barking up the wrong tree because neither St. Augustine nor St. Thomas believed that, nor have I been arguing that myself (though perhaps I misspoke somewhere along the way and made you think that – if that’s the case, then I apologize for not being more clear).

In case you don’t realize it, the CCC doesn’t supersede or revoke the earlier catechism. Both stand.

If the earlier argument still stands (which it doesn’t, as I hope to show later), then why isn’t it used anymore? Isn’t it because the use of the word “murder” in conjuction with non-abortive contraception (e.g., condoms, surgical procedures, ovulation-delaying drugs) is patently ridiculous? (Did you not see FM297’s outrage at the notion that contraception is murder?) And whether you call it “murder” or “conspiracy to commit murder” really makes no difference because you can’t conspire to murder someone who doesn’t exist!

Well, if you really want to get far-fetched, I suppose you could conspire to murder somebody’s firstborn child, even if that somebody has yet to conceive any children. You could even make preparations to carry out this “hit” on a person who doesn’t exist yet. But this still wouldn’t be an actual crime until there was an actual victim. There would perhaps be a crime of intent, I guess. But Humanae Vitae says, “It cannot be denied that in each case * the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result.” So if you’re going to ascribe “conspiracy to commit murder” (i.e., a crime of intent) to a couple using ABC, you’re going to have to ascribe the same crime to a couple using NFP. Is that really what you want to do?

–Mike*

 

[DavWan]

But likewise, we should keep in mind that the argument that such teaching was present in the Church in spite of there being no positive evidence for it is also an argument from silence (and one that Catholics use liberally).

–Mike

You err in making this claim. Both that the claim we argue is from silence and that there is no evidence.

You claim contradiction. Prove it. We claim that the mentioning of the procreative aspect your authors only spoke of, that does not talk at all of the unitive aspect.

Since I did not say that the silence proved the point, no claim of the fallacy can be laid at my door.

However since you argued contradiction, you need to show where the Church formally taught the unitative aspect is nor valid.

 

[rad314]

So, marital intercourse is one thing, and the lust that accompanies it and makes that intercourse physically possible is another. The act of marital intercourse itself can be accomplished without any inherent sin if it is done with the sole intent of procreation, but the act of marital intercourse cannot be accomplished without the accompanying sin of lust, since it is lust which necessarily enables the generative organs to fulfill their generative functions.

Seriously, do you not know what lust is?

newadvent.org/cathen/09438a.htm

What you say St. Thomas said directly contradicts what he actually said. Anyone who reviews the passages we’ve cited and reads them slowly enough to follow what he said (not always easy) – instead of forcing any views onto his words – will realize that.

Has it not occurred to you that if you’re right, then the Catechism cites passages that directly contradict the points it made? Maybe that just means you’re smarter and more insightful than St. Charles Borromeo was.

If the earlier argument still stands (which it doesn’t, as I hope to show later), then why isn’t it used anymore? Isn’t it because the use of the word “murder” in conjuction with non-abortive contraception (e.g., condoms, surgical procedures, ovulation-delaying drugs) is patently ridiculous?

It might seem ridiculous to someone who refuses to consider the explanation.

(Did you not see FM297’s outrage at the notion that contraception is murder?)

Outrage is an argument?

Humanae Vitae says, “It cannot be denied that in each case * the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result.” So if you’re going to ascribe “conspiracy to commit murder” (i.e., a crime of intent) to a couple using ABC, you’re going to have to ascribe the same crime to a couple using NFP. Is that really what you want to do?*

How about looking at the entire passage?

“Neither the Church nor her doctrine is inconsistent when she considers it lawful for married people to take advantage of the infertile period but condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly prevent conception, even when the reasons given for the later practice may appear to be upright and serious. In reality, these two cases are completely different. In the former the married couple rightly use a faculty provided them by nature. In the later they obstruct the natural development of the generative process. It cannot be denied that in each case the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result. But it is equally true that it is exclusively in the former case that husband and wife are ready to abstain from intercourse during the fertile period as often as for reasonable motives the birth of another child is not desirable. And when the infertile period recurs, they use their married intimacy to express their mutual love and safeguard their fidelity toward one another. In doing this they certainly give proof of a true and authentic love.”

I’m not the first person on CAF to observe your propensity for selective and misleading quotes and your tendency to twist or disregard arguments against your idiosyncratic views. Those who have the time and the inclination may want to review your posts on this thread as well as others and decide whether those tendencies are deliberate. They might wonder toward what end you employ them.

 

[rad314]

Maybe that just means you’re smarter and more insightful than St. Charles Borromeo was.

My mistake. Forgive me, St. Charles. John A. McHugh, O.P., S.T.M., Litt.D. and Charles J. Callan, O.P., S.T.M., Litt.D. were responsible for the notes.

 

[mpartyka]

What you say St. Thomas said directly contradicts what he actually said.

If that’s true, then St. Thomas is dishonestly quote-mining St. Augustine to support his views. (C’mon, I’m trying to err on the side of protecting St. Thomas’ character here!)

Has it not occurred to you that if you’re right, then the Catechism cites passages that directly contradict the points it made?

Wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve seen Jehovah’s Witnesses do the same (e.g., cast a quote from an ECF as anti-Trinity while ignoring clear Trinitarian statements on either side of the extracted quote).

It might seem ridiculous to someone who refuses to consider the explanation.

You didn’t explain anything. You just said, “It’s conspiracy to commit murder,” without showing how a murder could happen when there’s no life to take.

Outrage is an argument?

What can I say? Some people recognize “ridiculous” instantly.

How about looking at the entire passage?

The text surrounding that which I quoted speaks of actions. We were speaking of intent, and the text I quoted speaks of intent.

I’m not the first person on CAF to observe your propensity for selective and misleading quotes and your tendency to twist or disregard arguments against your idiosyncratic views. Those who have the time and the inclination may want to review your posts on this thread as well as others and decide whether those tendencies are deliberate. They might wonder toward what end you employ them.

Aaaaaand we’re back to ad hominem attacks! (That didn’t take long…)

–Mike

 

[DavWan]

If that’s true, then St. Thomas is dishonestly quote-mining St. Augustine to support his views. (C’mon, I’m trying to err on the side of protecting St. Thomas’ character here!)

Alternately, you err in your interpretation of the ECF