Tough Moral Issues: Contraception

Tough Moral Issues: Contraception Contraception is the deliberate attempt to suppress the procreative part of the sexual act. The sexual instinct is very strong Given our fallen nature, it shouldn’t surprise us that people would want to get pleasure from the sexual act but avoid having children and the responsibilities they bring.

Tough Moral Issues: Contraception Pope Paul VI Of Human Life (Humanae Vitae 1968) Condemned all forms of contraception and was hailed as hopelessly out of date. The controversy surrounding the Church’s teaching on contraception has created a great crisis in the Catholic church. Many Catholics stubbornly refuse to accept the Church’s absolute prohibition of all types of contraception. Polls indicate that the vast majority of the laity, as well as a large percentage of the clergy, reject the Church’s teaching on contraception.

Tough Moral Issues: Contraception A Brief History of Contraception Ancient Egyptian documents, dating from 1900-1000BC, give recipes for contraceptives that women could use. The practice of premature withdrawal (onanism) was common in the ancient world roughly 1500 years before Christ. (Genesis 38:9-10) The Jewish Talmud, as well as the Greek philosopher Aristotle and the Roman historian Pliny mention various contraceptive devices and potions.

Tough Moral Issues: Contraception Its clear that contraception was widespread in the ancient world. Modern contraception simply uses methods that are more efficient: Birth-control pills and surgery Contraception is now practiced on a scale unprecedented in human history.

Tough Moral Issues: Contraception The early Church condemned contraception in the strongest possible language. The Didache (DID a KAY) Condemns the use of potions, which were used for contraception and abortion. Refutation of All Heresies, St. Hippolytus Condemns women who take drugs to make themselves sterile. Sts Jerome, Augustine, and John Chrysostom all forbid contraception. No Catholic bishop or theologian has ever condoned contraception until modern times.

Tough Moral Issues: Contraception Why is this problem so entrenched among Catholics of our day? In the 1960s the birth-control pill appeared on the market and the sexual revolution erupted. A worldwide uprising against authority occurred around the same time. A popular spirit of self-indulgence developed that considered children a burden. Governments began to lift all restrictions against contraception. Counterfeit systems of morality were devised to justify sexual sins. The Church became ‘a voice crying out in the wilderness.’

Contraceptive Methods • Barriers: condoms and diaphragms • Spermicides: chemicals that kill sperm • Birth-control pills: • Hormones (estrogen and /or Progesterone) designed to keep the ovaries from releasing an ovum into the fallopian tube. • Abortifacients that change the lining of the uterus so that a fertilized egg cannot implant • IUD: intra-uterine devices inserted in the uterus to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the wall of the uterus • Depo-Provera: a progesterone drug that is injected, lasts for months , and works like a birth control pill • Norplant: similar to Depo-Provera but is implanted under the skin in the form of pellets • RU-486 (mifepristone) is actually an abortifacient but is often described as a contraception, ‘morning-after pills.” • Sterilization: tubal ligation in women, vasectomy in men

Contraceptive Methods Women who take contraceptives for medical reasons are not really contracepting because they are taking hormones they need found in the pill. These hormones have the unwanted side effect of suppressing ovulation. Surgeries for serious medical problems may also have the unwanted side effect of sterilizing. This effect is tolerated not desired. These situations are morally acceptable according to the principles of double effect and totality. If effective treatments other than these are available they should be considered first.

Contraceptive Methods Reason discerns that the marital act when viewed through the natural law has two essential meanings or purposes: Procreative (life-giving) Purpose Unitive (love-giving) Purpose Every marital act must respect and safeguard these two elements, neither must be deliberately attacked or suppressed.

Church Teaching On Contraception The Church’s prohibition is based on natural law. • Marriage and the marital act are by their nature designed for the begetting and rearing of children. • Even in marriage, the sexual instinct must be kept under control. Because sex is permitted in marriage doesn’t mean that it can be used in an unbridled way. • Sexual acts are noble and worthy in marriage. These acts remain lawful even if they are infertile due to factors outside the wills of husband and wife: age, medical conditions, or the woman’s menstrual cycle. • For serious reasons—physical, economic, social, psychological—a couple may limit the number of children. But they may use only moral methods.

Church Teaching On Contraception • Direct sterilization (surgery done for the express purpose of rendering a person sterile) either permanent or temporary is not permitted. • No action done before, during, or after the sexual act for the purpose of rendering it infertile is permitted. • Both direct sterilization and contraception are intrinsically evil. This means they are always wrong, always prohibited, no matter what the circumstances and intentions • When a necessary medical treatment renders a person infertile as a an unwanted side effect, this is not immoral

Church Teaching On Contraception • If spouses have serious reasons to limit the number of children, they are permitted to use natural family planning (NFP). In NFP a couple carefully monitors the woman’s fertility signs and has intercourse only during the naturally infertile days of her cycle. • There is an essential difference between contraception and NFP. • With contraception the marital act is perverted from its natural purpose and meaning through sterilization. The procreative aspect is deliberately blocked. • With NFP, the marital act takes place in an entirely natural way. Nature renders a woman periodically infertile, and the couple chooses to have sex only during these times. In time nature eventually renders a woman permanently infertile. • The use of contraception will lead to widespread marital unfaithfulness, a general lowering of moral standards, coercive use by government to enforce it, men will come to view women as mere sex objects

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Objections to Catholic teaching on contraception fall into two major categories: Christian and Non-Christian Normally non-Christians have to be brought to Christianity before they can be convinced that contraception is wrong. It’s difficult to convince people from natural law arguments alone. Christian objections break down into two further categories: Catholic and non-Catholic

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Catholic Objections “While I accept the Catholic Churches authority, I can still use birth control because Church’s prohibition of contraception has never been proclaimed by a solemn (ex cathedra) definition.” This objection arises from the mistaken assumption that the only infallible doctrines are those proclaimed by the solemn magisterium (general councils and ex cathedra papal statements) But the church also teaches infallibly through the ordinary magisterium. When bishops, united to the pope, are in general agreement that a particular doctrine must be definitively held, this teaching is infallible. Virtually all infallible doctrinal and moral teachings of the Church originate from the ordinary magisterium.

Answering Objections to Church Teaching The Church’s teachings against contraception have a 2000-year history. Bishops have been virtually unanimous in forbidding contraception. Countless encyclicals, papal letters, episcopal letters, have been written condemning contraception Popes have been especially firm. John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio affirms has always taught prohibition Pontifical Council for the Family “Vademecum for Confessors Concerning Some Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life” (1997) States that the Church’s teachings on contraception are “definitive and irreformable”

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Papal teaching is binding even when it is not taught infallibly. Catholics who refuse to accept the teachings of Humanae Vitae (1968) as infallible must still obey them because the popes, as Vicars of Christ, have prohibited contraception in the strongest possible language. We must then abstain from contraception simply because the pope says so.

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Other Catholic Objections “I have a right to follow my conscience.” You first have a duty to form your conscience according to Church teaching. “I am choosing the lesser of two evils.” In this case you can choose a non-evil: NFP. “It might be wrong, but I am doing it for a good intention.” Contraception is intrinsically evil and is never moral for any reason.

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Some Pastors Advice Occasionally Pastors will say that contracepting is not always sinful. This blurs the distinction between objective and subjective morality. A couple may not be subjectively guilty if they lack knowledge or receive bad advice. Objectively however the act is still gravely evil. The act does not become okay because of ignorance sin is simply not imputed. These pastors say that it is better to leave a couple that is acting in good faith alone rather than teach them that something is sin that they will refuse to abandon.

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Vadamecom The principle of good faith • We must not assume that someone will not readily accept Church teaching. We should expect that sincere Catholics want to know what is right. • A confessor can’t tell a penitent that contraception is okay. They can defer the matter until the penitent seems more receptive to the truth. He may not remain silent if the methods are abortifacient. • Even if a confessor decides to leave someone in good faith, he must patiently begin to catechize, exhort, and admonish the penitent in the hope of eventually bringing them to accept Church’s teaching

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Non-Catholic Christians All accept the authority of the Bible All the Christian Fathers condemn contraception. Until 1930 all Christianity was unanimous in rejecting contraception. No one ever supported contraception until the middle of the 20th century. All the Protestant Reformers who invented the “Sola Scriptura“ doctrine, condemned contraception as unbiblical.

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Non-Catholic Christians The Bible mentions at least one form of contraception specifically and condemns it. Coitus interruptus, was used by Onan to avoid fulfilling his duty according to the ancient Jewish law of fathering children for one’s dead brother. "Judah said to Onan, ‘Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.’ But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him also" (Gen. 38:8–10).

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Non-Catholic Christians The biblical penalty for not giving your brother’s widow children was public humiliation, not death (Deut. 25:7–10). But Onan received death as punishment for his crime. This means his crime was more than simply not fulfilling the duty of a brother-in-law. He lost his life because he violated natural law, as Jewish and Christian commentators have always understood. For this reason, certain forms of contraception have historically been known as "Onanism," after the man who practiced it, just as homosexuality has historically been known as "Sodomy," after the men of Sodom, who practiced that vice (cf. Gen. 19).

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Non-Catholic Christians Contraception was so far outside the biblical mindset and so obviously wrong that it did not need the frequent condemnations other sins did. Scripture condemns the practice when it mentions it. Once a moral principle has been established in the Bible, every possible application of it need not be mentioned. For example, the general principle that theft is wrong was clearly established in Scripture; but there’s no need to provide an exhaustive list of every kind of theft. Similarly, since the principle that contraception is wrong has been established by being condemned when it’s mentioned in the Bible, every particular form of contraception does not need to be dealt with in Scripture in order for us to see that it is condemned.

Answering Objections to Church Teaching The biblical teaching that birth control is wrong is found even more explicitly among the Church Fathers, who recognized the biblical and natural law principles underlying the condemnation. In A.D. 195, Clement of Alexandria wrote, "Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted" (The Instructor of Children 2:10:91:2). Hippolytus of Rome wrote in 255 that "on account of their prominent ancestry and great property, the so-called faithful [certain Christian women who had affairs with male servants] want no children from slaves or lowborn commoners, [so] they use drugs of sterility or bind themselves tightly in order to expel a fetus which has already been engendered" (Refutation of All Heresies 9:12).

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Around 307 Lactantius explained that some "complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children, as though, in truth, their means were in [their] power . . . or God did not daily make the rich poor and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on any account of poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from relations with his wife" (Divine Institutes 6:20).

Answering Objections to Church Teaching The First Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council and the one that defined Christ’s divinity, declared in 325, "If anyone in sound health has castrated himself, it behooves that such a one, if enrolled among the clergy, should cease [from his ministry], and that from henceforth no such person should be promoted. But, as it is evident that this is said of those who willfully do the thing and presume to castrate themselves, so if any have been made eunuchs by barbarians, or by their masters, and should otherwise be found worthy, such men this canon admits to the clergy" (Canon 1).

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Augustine wrote in 419, "I am supposing, then, although you are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility [oral contraceptives]" (Marriage and Concupiscence 1:15:17).

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Non-Catholic Christians Martin Luther once proclaimed that "the purpose of marriage is not pleasure and ease but the procreation and education of children and the support of a family.... People who do not like children are swine, dunces, and blockheads, not worthy to be called men and women, because they despise the blessing of God, the Creator and Author of marriage" (Christian History, Issue 39, p. 24). Luther also said that birth control was the equivalent of sodomy (probably because of the likeness between homosexual wickedness and impotent sex). John Calvin declared that birth control was the murder of future persons and the Synod of Dort issued a Bible commentary which stated that contraception was the same as abortion.

Answering Objections to Church Teaching Contraception didn’t come from greater insight into moral law; it’s simply the product of an evil age.

Tough Moral Issues: Contraception