What about PROceptives?

[Stella_Matutina]

Obviously artificial contraceptives are not morally permissible to avoid pregnancy.

But what about PRO-conception devices and technologies? The Church teaches that such technologies that ultimately kill human embryos like invitro is wrong (of course.) As are technologies that separate the union of the sperm and egg from the conjugal act such as artificial insemination.

But what about technologies that aid the sperm’s ability to travel up the uterus to the egg after natural intercourse has taken place? Such as a sperm-friendly lubricant like pre-seed? I have also heard of women using a “mooncup” (which is actually made as an alternative to tampons and pads to wear during your period) but women have used them for “sperm-catching.” In other words, inserting the device after intercourse to keep the semen contained near the cervix as long as possible to increase chances of more sperm making it up the right way.

What is to be said about the morality of the use of these things or even something more simple like a woman raising her pelvis for thirty minutes afterwards? (Which probably the likelihood that this would increase chances is negligible but I’m still curious about its morality.)

 

[Nate13]

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html

Lots of information in this document that may help you see the shape of the Church’s reasoning behind this but it looks like you already have a pretty good handle on it.

Thus, fertilization is licitly sought when it is the result of a “conjugal act which is per se suitable for the generation of children to which marriage is ordered by its nature and by which the spouses become one flesh”.(41) But from the moral point of view procreation is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not desired as the fruit of the conjugal act, that is to say of the specific act of the spouses’ union.

In short I would say all the specific things you asked about are permissible.

 

[sw85]

So long as they accord with the sexual act itself (i.e., they are compatible with intravaginal, noncontraceptive ejaculation in the context of marriage), sure. There is nothing wrong with facilitating a natural and healthy function of the body.

Maybe an analogy would be useful here. If your eyesight is poor, you can correct it with eyeglasses. You may not gouge them out, which is sort of the equivalent of, for instance, sterilization.

 

[PJD1987]

Donum Vitae has all the answers to said question, which I believe has already been linked.

God bless,
Paul

 

[Stella_Matutina]

This all seems logical but I was wondering how to argue or use a helpful analogy to illustrate how artificial insemination when the sperm sample is collected through a porous condom could be considered immoral.