What's wrong with contraception?

[Nabooru]

o you have car insurance?

And then there was another example I saw on a TV show about a family of Christian Scientists who wouldn’t allow their child to be treated by mainstream medicine because they thought the right thing was to have prayer save him. Another character pointed out that maybe God’s gift of healing is in the form of all the modern medicines available today. The family’s prayers had been answered, they were just refusing to accept the blessings.

Contraception is a blessing from God. It has helped billions of people. Too many groups consider as far as birth of children goes, more is always better. They don’t realize or frankly don’t care that contraception brings people a relief from unneeded suffering, starvation, poverty, and abuse.

Did it ever occur to you that using contraception is not opposing God’s will, but using responsibility is? People assume that every time they have a child, even if it’s one they can’t afford or don’t want, it’s a (not necessarily appreciated) blessing from God - it never occurs to them that God is only allowing the effects of their irresponsibility to carry out? I’m not saying a child is a punishment, but it’s God’s plan that we use our will, reason and conscience to make our lives. And that may or may not involve children, depending on the individual and couple; it’s not a universal law like murder or theft.

Do you really think that God would prefer we have several starving children than two well-fed people who are capable of donating their time and money to others? Having children is far from the only way to serve others. There is absolutely nothing wrong with owning nice things; believe it or not, many families with children do, and many of those families use themselves as an excuse as to why they can’t be charitable. In fact when I was growing up, my dad bought high-end cars and electronics for himself, but my brother and I only got to wear clothes off the clearance rack at Wal-Mart only after we’d begged. Meanwhile my grandparents only found the time to serve at the food pantry after their kids had moved out. When Zacchaeus told Jesus he’d give half his possessions to the poor, did Jesus chastise him because he didn’t give more?

 

[ConstantineTG]

See the Church’s teachings on the fonts of morality. It is not the intent alone that determines morality. The object, the ends, and the circumstances together form a unity.

The means of engaging in the sexual act while corrupting it through contracetion is NOT a moral means to the end.

Abstaining is.

I will not oppose an “abstinence only” position. But the fact is the Church allows NFP which is a deliberate act to avoid conception. So why is that allowed and not non-aboritve ABCs? Let us leave abstinence out of the discussion here, I don’t think anyone will disagree on that. But the Church doesn’t teach abstinence only.

Because you do not alter the act. You engage in it fully. The same reason a couple past menopause can engage in the act at all. Because it is not immoral to engage in a completed act of intercourse at any time. It is not immoral to abstain at any time. It is immoral to engage in an incomplete act every time (incomplete= deliberately contracepted so that the natural full ends of the act are disrupted).

And NFP is a deliberate contraception. You have full knowledge that the woman will not conceive. So how is that natural? And do you call sticking a thermometer inside a woman’s, you know, natural to know when you can have intercourse?

Gorgias is well meaning, but this is not the basis of the Church’s teaching.

The Church’s teaching is based on each act of intercourse-- that act must be fully ordered to unity and procreation.

But NFP is NOT fully ordered to procreation. You are deliberately avoiding it. You have sidestepped the issue here. Why is NFP allowed and withdrawal and condoms are not? Please don’t give canned answers that are vague. Let us discuss the issue here directly. You haven’t answered my question about NFPs and why is it acceptable.

 

[1ke]

I will not oppose an “abstinence only” position. But the fact is the Church allows NFP which is a deliberate act to avoid conception. So why is that allowed and not non-aboritve ABCs? Let us leave abstinence out of the discussion here, I don’t think anyone will disagree on that. But the Church doesn’t teach abstinence only.

But you are missing the point. Not having sex is’t an action. It’s an inaction. Refraining from relations is not immoral.

And NFP is a deliberate contraception.

No. it isn’t. Contraception is an action taken to sterilize an act of intercourse by disrputing it.

You have full knowledge that the woman will not conceive. So how is that natural?

Because God designed the woman that way. A woman during her infertile time of the month can engage in a completed act of intercourse. A post menopausal couple has full knowledge the woman will not conceive. A couple who is already pregnant who chooses to engage in intercourse has full knowledge they will not conceive. A woman who has had a hysterectomy has full knowledge she will not conceive.

Each of these couples can engage in a completed act of intercourse despite the woman’s objecctive infertile state. What they cannot do is engage in a disordered act-- masturbation, oral/anal intercourse, or contracepted intercourse.

Knowledge of whether or not a woman is fertile or infertile isn’t immoral. Choosing to engage in intercourse or not isn’t immoral. Choosing to engage in intercourse and alter that act is.

It is not the “naturalness” or “unnaturalness” that makes NFP or contraception moral or immoral. It is what you do DURING intercourse. You either do absolutely nothing (engage in a completed act) or you do something (purpposely try to sterilize the act).

And do you call sticking a thermometer inside a woman’s, you know, natural to know when you can have intercourse?

Natural has nothing to do with it. Nonetheless, taking temps vaginally (or orally) or observing mucus or cervical position isn’t immoral.

But NFP is NOT fully ordered to procreation.

NFP is simply information.

It is each act of intercourse that is either ordered to procreation or not. It is ordered to procreation when it is a completed vaginal act of intercourse. It is disordered when it is not completed or not vaginal. it is not completed when one contracepts or when one uses alternatives to intercours to achieve orgasm (masturbation, oral/anal, etc)

You are deliberately avoiding it. You have sidestepped the issue here. Why is NFP allowed and withdrawal and condoms are not?

You have to look at each act of intercourse. Each act of intercourse has to be complete. You can choose to have intercourse or you can choose to not have intercourse, but if you do it has to be a completed act of intercourse, not a disrupted act of intercourse.

I am not sidestepping anything. This is the entire crux of why contraception is immoral while periodic continence is moral.

Please don’t give canned answers that are vague. Let us discuss the issue here directly. You haven’t answered my question about NFPs and why is it acceptable.

NFP is just periodic continence. Continence can be based on information, or continence can be a random guess. Continence can be complete, or continence can be periodic.

If a couple chooses to exercise their right to the marital embrace, they do so fully. They don’t alter it, they don’t sterilize it, they don’t disorder it.

 

[ConstantineTG]

But you are missing the point. Not having sex is’t an action. It’s an inaction. Refraining from relations is not immoral.

I will repeat, I am not talking about abstinence. It’s a non-issue. Nobody here is arguing anything against abstinence. We are talking about NFP which is not purely abstinence.

No. it isn’t. Contraception is an action taken to sterilize an act of intercourse by disrputing it.

But NFP is contraception. Same banana.

Because God designed the woman that way. A woman during her infertile time of the month can engage in a completed act of intercourse. A post menopausal couple has full knowledge the woman will not conceive. A couple who is already pregnant who chooses to engage in intercourse has full knowledge they will not conceive. A woman who has had a hysterectomy has full knowledge she will not conceive.

How is sex with the use of condoms not a completed act as opposed to one using NFP?

Each of these couples can engage in a completed act of intercourse despite the woman’s objecctive infertile state. What they cannot do is engage in a disordered act-- masturbation, oral/anal intercourse, or contracepted intercourse.

Again, how is NFP any different from using condoms?

Knowledge of whether or not a woman is fertile or infertile isn’t immoral. Choosing to engage in intercourse or not isn’t immoral. Choosing to engage in intercourse and alter that act is.

And where do we find this teaching?

It is not the “naturalness” or “unnaturalness” that makes NFP or contraception moral or immoral. It is what you do DURING intercourse. You either do absolutely nothing (engage in a completed act) or you do something (purpposely try to sterilize the act).

But you do something with NFP. You have a chart, you use a thermometer.

Natural has nothing to do with it. Nonetheless, taking temps vaginally (or orally) or observing mucus or cervical position isn’t immoral.

Yes, sin is defined by intention, is it not?

NFP is simply information.

So is gossip. But gossip is immoral.

It is each act of intercourse that is either ordered to procreation or not. It is ordered to procreation when it is a completed vaginal act of intercourse. It is disordered when it is not completed or not vaginal. it is not completed when one contracepts or when one uses alternatives to intercours to achieve orgasm (masturbation, oral/anal, etc)

Again, intentionally having sex when you have full knowledge that one cannot conceive is NOT ordered to procreation. By intentionally avoiding fertile periods, how can that be ordered to procreation? You are avoiding procreation.

You have to look at each act of intercourse. Each act of intercourse has to be complete. You can choose to have intercourse or you can choose to not have intercourse, but if you do it has to be a completed act of intercourse, not a disrupted act of intercourse.

And who defines what a complete act is?

I am not sidestepping anything. This is the entire crux of why contraception is immoral while periodic continence is moral.

Again, we are not talking about abstinence. I do not know why you keep bringing it up.

NFP is just periodic continence. Continence can be based on information, or continence can be a random guess. Continence can be complete, or continence can be periodic.

If a couple chooses to exercise their right to the marital embrace, they do so fully. They don’t alter it, they don’t sterilize it, they don’t disorder it.

But isn’t sin defined by intent? If I kill someone out of self-defense, it is not sin. I had no intention of killing the person but the situation warranted it. If I kill someone out of hate, then there is malice. Then it is a sin. Same with NFP. If avoiding conception is sin, then if I use NFP knowingly avoiding conception is sinning. If avoiding conception is not sin, then does it matter what method I use?

 

[waywardson]

What is wrong with contraception? It really isn’t a hard question when you think about it.

Hormonal contraception, Intrauterine devices, and sterilization (temporary and permanent sterilization) harms our bodies by damaging our fertility and are immoral.

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Barriers, spermicides, and withdrawal (pure contraception) interfere with the sexual act. God created sex as a gift to spouses. Contraception messes up that gift. God intended for couples to be one flesh and sex is how they do that. You cannot be one flesh with a barrier. You cannot be one flesh with withdrawal.

Another problem is with other sexual acts (i.e. martial masturbation). While these are merely “gravely disordered” and not “evil” like contraception, they are still sins. Remember, God gave SEX to spouses. As Bill Clinton once said, these activities are not sex. Couples are trading what God gave them for something else. They are doing so because they are seeking sexual pleasure outside of the marital act, which is lust. The degree of sinfulness of these activities depends on a number of factors (not just the act itself), and ranges from relatively minor to very serious.

NFP is different. Contraception goes against what God gave us, while NFP works with what God gave us. It violates nothing that God gave us. Another name for NFP is “fertility awareness” because the couple uses the method to become aware of the woman’s fertility so they can work with it to achieve or avoid pregnancy. Contraception fights the system, NFP works the system. Contraception is cheating, NFP is playing the game well.

Big difference.

 

[twoangels]

To start off, this is a question, not an argument.

I don’t understand the Church’s problem with contraception. As long as it is used by a married couple, I do not see the harm. I have seen the issue come up on posts here and some of the things I have heard sound a bit strange to me, including some of the positions held I read in the ask the apologist section. Some of the posts I have read from this site have said a women cannot use contraception even if a pregnancy would kill her or if a health condition made it impossible for a fetus to survive anyway.

Also, why is “natural family planning” ok? The ultimate goal is the same as contraception.

Lastly, is there a problem with a woman (married and sexually active) taking the pill for health reasons?

To be honest, I tend to find a lot of diversity in opinions on sexual morality even among those who are loyal to the Church. It is clear that the Church teaches that contraceptives are immoral. That’s not something you can dispute. I think though that there are many sexual situations that aren’t addressed directly by the Church. This leads to a lot of speculation which is based, I believe, on the person’s belief or attitude as to why contraception is immoral.

Obviously, contraceptives and NFP act in different ways. Contraceptives allow you to have sex whenever you want (provided your spouse is available and willing), while NFP restricts your available days to have sex. Its effectiveness is based on successfully abstaining when you’re fertile. So it is important to recognize that it is an abstinence approach. We do nothing, rather than we divert our sexual natures or acts away from procreation.

But the question is why is it ok to abstain when fertile if its ok to have sex when you’re infertile? You’re still not getting pregnant and you’re still enjoying sex. Its just very inconvenient to your schedule and to your desires. At times, it can feel like you have to either give all of yourself or none of yourself. Why can’t you express your love in ways where you give part of yourself, especially when sex is good for your marriage and not solely motivated from a mere desire for pleasure, but a real desire for intimacy.

I think we have a tendency to demonize sexual pleasure because we see procreation negatively when it isn’t completely under our control. As such, the logic seems to follow that periodic abstinence is preferred because sexual pleasure is bad. But if that’s the case, why can you have sex when you’re naturally infertile?

Procreation isn’t bad. It must be seen as a gift. Sex must be seen as important to marriage. NFP respects the natural cycles of a woman’s body. It keeps procreation and sex mentally linked. In deciding to prevent a child, you are giving up something positive and important: sex. As such, it requires you to really think about your reasons for abstaining. It helps you to discern whether your avoidance of a child is based on prudence or on selfishness.

Certainly, though, NFP isn’t easy for all couples, especially when women have severe health issues that make her fertility symptoms confusing leading to longer than usual periods of abstinence when she has greater need to prevent a child, I think that’s when our reasons break down. Suddenly its just “Look the Church teaches its wrong, so you just can’t do it. Sorry. I wish there was something I could do for you.”

The general rule makes sense and certainly extreme situations are not good things to make a rule by, but I think in trying to answer the extreme situation as if the rule stems from it leads to demeaning the importance of sex. You’ll either find people with negative attitudes toward sex or people who are simply afraid of contradicting the Church, following because we trust the Church. Others do not trust the Church and will say that because those cases don’t make sense, that it can’t be wrong either in that case or at all.

 

[Lrning]

Again, how is NFP any different from using condoms?

With NFP, one avoids getting pregnant by not having sex. With condoms, one avoids getting pregnant by sterilizing the act of sex. There is a big difference between not having sex and having sterilized sex.

Again, we are not talking about abstinence. I do not know why you keep bringing it up.

Because if one is using NFP to avoid pregnancy, then pregnancy is avoided through abstinence. None of the charting, temperature taking, etc work to avoid pregnancy. They simply provide information regarding a woman’s fertility. (Which can be useful to achieve or avoid pregnancy.) The only way to avoid pregnancy using NFP is to abstain from sexual relations.

If avoiding conception is sin, then if I use NFP knowingly avoiding conception is sinning. If avoiding conception is not sin, then does it matter what method I use?

Avoiding conception is not necessarily sinful. There are circumstances in which it is proper to avoid having children. And yes, the method you use to avoid conception does matter. It is sinful to use an evil method even to achieve a good result.

 

[Gorgias]

ConstantineTG:

Again, we are not talking about abstinence. I do not know why you keep bringing it up.

Because if one is using NFP to avoid pregnancy, then pregnancy is avoided through abstinence.

And, Constantine, before you attempt to wave off the reference to abstinence again, what Lrning is talking about is periodic continence – and this is something that is explicitly Scriptural and explicitly condoned in Scripture!

 

[sw85]

Folks, really, it’s not hard to get this.

(A) God created the world and saw that it was good. So the world is charged with meaning and value – there is no “fact-value” distinction.

(B) The fact is we have a reproductive system, and we call it that for a reason. Since facts are values, it’s a good thing that we have a reproductive system and it’s good when we use it in a manner consistent with its reproductive end.

(C) Contraception is by definition inconsistent with the reproductive end of the reproductive system. To use it is to do violence to the order of being which God ordained.

THIS MUCH IS INDISPUTABLE. All the arguments so far amount to “But NFP is just contraception!!!” Folks, if it’s true that there’s no equivalency between them, that would just mean that NFP is evil, not that contraception is good. Don’t equivocate.

(D) The morality of an action is determined by three things: the object, the intention, and the circumstances. “The object” is the “what” of the action. “The intention” is the why. “The circumstances” are the various qualifiers – the who, when, where, and how. A deficiency with respect to ANY of these suffices to call the morality of an act into question.

To say that “contraception is intrinsically evil” is to say that the object is always disordered, i.e., there are no circumstances nor any possible intention that makes it OK to use contraception as contraception. That’s because contraception is literally action against contraception, hence its name.

(E) NFP is periodic continence. There’s nothing objectionable about it. Not having sex isn’t immoral. Having sex with your spouse isn’t immoral. Tracking your fertility isn’t immoral. Three things that aren’t immoral don’t become immoral in combination; that’s absurdity.

(F) So if NFP isn’t evil by object, it can only be evil by intention or circumstances – i.e., “we’re using NFP cause we hate kids,” or “we’re using NFP long enough for us to save up to backpack through Europe” or “we’re using NFP cause my wife wants to keep her beach bod until she can get featured on Girls Gone Wild.” Which is means it’s not intrinsically evil, but only under certain conditions.

This is what is meant when the Church talks about using NFP with a “contraceptive mentality.”

The will not to have children is just fine when the circumstances legitimate that decision: when, for medical reasons, serious financial reasons, persecution, natural disaster, etc., make it extremely imprudent to have children. But it’s not enough for the circumstances and the intention to justify an action. The means must also be licit. NFP is in principle licit. Contraception isn’t. So you can’t use NFP when your intentions are bad (as above) and you can’t use contraception as contraception ever.

 

[waywardson]

To be honest, I tend to find a lot of diversity in opinions on sexual morality even among those who are loyal to the Church. It is clear that the Church teaches that contraceptives are immoral. That’s not something you can dispute. I think though that there are many sexual situations that aren’t addressed directly by the Church. This leads to a lot of speculation which is based, I believe, on the person’s belief or attitude as to why contraception is immoral.

But the question is why is it ok to abstain when fertile if its ok to have sex when you’re infertile? You’re still not getting pregnant and you’re still enjoying sex. Its just very inconvenient to your schedule and to your desires. At times, it can feel like you have to either give all of yourself or none of yourself. Why can’t you express your love in ways where you give part of yourself, especially when sex is good for your marriage and not solely motivated from a mere desire for pleasure, but a real desire for intimacy.

Certainly, though, NFP isn’t easy for all couples, especially when women have severe health issues that make her fertility symptoms confusing leading to longer than usual periods of abstinence when she has greater need to prevent a child, I think that’s when our reasons break down. Suddenly its just “Look the Church teaches its wrong, so you just can’t do it. Sorry. I wish there was something I could do for you.”

The general rule makes sense and certainly extreme situations are not good things to make a rule by, but I think in trying to answer the extreme situation as if the rule stems from it leads to demeaning the importance of sex. You’ll either find people with negative attitudes toward sex or people who are simply afraid of contradicting the Church, following because we trust the Church. Others do not trust the Church and will say that because those cases don’t make sense, that it can’t be wrong either in that case or at all.

Hard cases do make bad law, and I think this is why the catechism talks about extenuating circumstances in the section about masturbation. CCC 2352.

“To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility [about the sin of masturbation] and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety, or other psychological or social factors that lessen or even extenuate moral culpability.”

The Catechism is ambiguous about whether this is self-stimulation or mutual stimulation, but common sense tells us that mutual stimulation (at least mutually enjoyable stimulation) is less harmful in a marriage because it is mutually loving, though disordered, and not purely selfish, especially when sex is not available or prudent.

Unlike contraception, which is “intrinsically evil”, masturbation is merely “gravely disordered”, thus the pastoral clause. One sterilizes what God has created to be (potentially) fertile, the other is an intrinsically sterile act and a misuse of our bodies.

The reason behind the pastoral clause is because of simple human weakness. (The new YouCat, recommended by Pope Benedict XVI, is even more pastoral on the matter.) Loving married couples facing long periods of abstinence are not that much different than teenage boys with raging hormones and many years before the possibility of marriage. Caving to human weakness is a sin, but it isn’t the worst sin in the world, and the Church recognizes this. But at the same time, people who do cave to human weakness should recognize their sin and their weakness and their need for God’s grace.

Self-discipline and chastity are virtues, so couples and individuals should make every effort to follow the Church’s teachings, but they should not be committing multiple other sins in the name of pursuing virtue.

 

[twoangels]

I will repeat, I am not talking about abstinence. It’s a non-issue. Nobody here is arguing anything against abstinence. We are talking about NFP which is not purely abstinence.

Charting does not prevent pregnancy, only abstinence does. NFP merely allows you to limit the days you are abstaining.

Again, how is NFP any different from using condoms?

Infertile day of cycle situation:
Couple 1 is unaware of fertility cycle and uses a condom
Couple 2 is aware of fertility cycle and has sex without a condom.
Couple 3 is unaware of fertility cycle, uses a condom and it breaks.

Effect in all 3 situations: None of the couples become pregnant

Fertile day of cycle situation
Couple 1 is unaware of fertility cycle and has sex with a condom condom
Couple 2 is aware of fertility cycle and abstains from sexual activity
Couple 3 is aware of fertility cycle and decides to have sex anyway
Couple 4 is unaware of fertility cycle and decides to have sex with a condom and condom breaks.

Considering nothing additional is done to prevent pregnancy, Couple 4 and 3 have the same chance of getting pregnant. Couple 1 has a slightly increased chance of getting pregnant in comparison to couple 2.

Conclusion, the condom does not influence the chance of getting pregnant on infertile days. The couple using the condom have no need of the condom on their fertile days. they just use it because they’re ignorant of fertility cycles. Thus preventing pregnancy with NFP is done solely through abstinence.

But you do something with NFP. You have a chart, you use a thermometer.

And that won’t prevent pregnancy unless you abstain. You might as well be referring to a couple who picked up condoms of a birth control prescription at the pharmacy and didn’t use them. Using NFP means abstaining. Using contraceptives means surpressing bodily functions or covering areas of the body to enable sex to occur in a manner that frustrates the natural ends of sex.

Yes, sin is defined by intention, is it not?

Intention plays a part in your culpability. If you don’t notice a red light and run over someone, you’ve still killed someone but you’re less culpable. But in using contraceptives, you are deliberately choosing to run a red light. It doesn’t matter if you’re intention is to get somewhere faster. Comparing running a red light to someone who times out when to leave so that they miss rush hour traffic is about the type of comparison you are making.

And who defines what a complete act is?

No, I would agree with you there. Sometimes getting close doesn’t lead all the way to intercourse, and feeling like you have to morally justify sexual behavior through intercourse only tends to put psychological barriers that encourage such problems to occur with greater frequency. But there is still a difference between things just not working out, and deliberately diverting sexual activity away from procreation. I would say, though, with NFP, the line of limitations is not exactly clear. It is moral to have sex so you don’t have to be as strict as when you’re dating. Moreover loving acts of affection don’t always lead to sex. Ultimately though you have to be fair and should either have a point where you say “Ok if we go this far, and we end up desiring sex, we’ll go for it, but we won’t pressure ourselves to do it if it doesn’t happen.” and that line shouldn’t be crossed if you’re really serious about abstaining. You want to avoid turning NFP into an act of seeing how far you can get while still denying yourselves sexually. I think that is a very contraceptive approach. At the same time you don’t want to be cold and distant from your spouse.

But isn’t sin defined by intent? If I kill someone out of self-defense, it is not sin.

If you had time to deliberate and had another alternative to protect yourself, than killing the other person would be sinful. If you did not have time to think and maybe had a gun where you just aimed randomly to protect yourself, than you’re not culpable for the action. But objectively speaking, someone being killed by another is a moral tragedy.

If avoiding conception is sin, then if I use NFP knowingly avoiding conception is sinning. If avoiding conception is not sin, then does it matter what method I use?

The ends do not justify the means. You are either suppressing normally bodily function or you adding things to the act to divert the act away from conception. It is not wrong to avoid conception. It is wrong to have sex in a manner that treats conception as a evil to avoid.