Sinkspur said:
There might be some applicability of the principle of double effect here: the woman uses the condom to save her life. That is the primary use. The fact that it also serves as a contraceptive is a secondary effect.
What is being proposed as a valid argument for invoking the principle of double effect is false. An attempt was made to correlate a valid & good operation to save a mother's life (a good act) resulting in an indirect/consequential abortion (a bad end)with the use of a condom (an illicit/immoral act) to save her life (a good end). As I have attempted to demonstrate, one cannot do evil in order to bring about a good, that is, one may not adopt the use of condoms to prevent a disease from engaging in the marital act.
While there are a few good well known moral theologians who have proposed condom usage as a means to prevent unwanted pregnancies/disease from rapists, the Church has not accepted those proposals as part of her teaching.
For a more complete answer, I will defer to Fr. Stephan Torraco. Here is a more complete response to this question:
There are two points -- a moral point and a technical point -- to be made about the use of condoms, either for contraceptive purposes or for protection against disease. First, there are some who argue that the use of a condom, either by married or unmarried people, for protection against disease (AIDS, for example) is the "lesser evil" than the contraction of AIDS.In the case of married people, even if the use of a condom were without contraceptive intent, or even if one partner were sterile and thus there would be no contraceptive effect, it is important to note that the intrinsic disorder (moral malice) of condomistic intercourse in marriage derives not only from a contraceptive intention but likewise from the fact that condomistic intercourse is simply not marital intercourse.
The act itself is gravely disordered and merely a sinful simulation of a marital act. As such, even without any contraceptive intention, it is seriously and intrinsically wrong, and thus can not be justified for any purpose, however good or in any circumstances, however mitigating they might seem to be. The same would apply, of course, to any other prophylactic use of a condom; for example, to prevent the contagion of a venereal infection even within marriage.
On two counts, the argument for the moral justification of the use of a condom (as the "lesser evil") by unmarried people as protection against AIDS does not hold. First, note that the so-called "lesser evil" is a moral evil, namely "fornicated fornication," that is, marital intercourse between unmarried partners that is further distorted by condomistic intercourse as described above, which is a further violation of marital intercourse. The so-called "greater evil" is the contraction of AIDS, which is a physical evil. It is worse for one's soul to commit a moral evil than to suffer a physical evil. Secondly, the moral justification of choosing a "lesser evil" is possible only if the criteria of the principle of double effect are met. The very first criterion is that there be no alternative action to the one in question, or that there be a genuine dilemma. In the case at hand, there is no genuine dilemma.
The second point to be made about the use of condoms as protection is of a technical nature. Contrary to the popular myth according to which condoms enable people to have "safe sex," condoms are NOT safe. At best, when taking into consideration the cycles of fertility and infertility, condoms are 60% safe. That means that 40% of the time, they are not safe. If you learned that 40% of the time airplanes crash, would you fly? If you learned that 40% of the time, when eating at a restaurant, you die of poison, would you eat at a restaurant? In the end, it is turning out to be the case that the indispensable key to the solution of these sexually related problems is chastity, even celibacy.
The second point to be made about the use of condoms as protection is of a technical nature. Contrary to the popular myth according to which condoms enable people to have "safe sex," condoms are NOT safe. At best, when taking into consideration the cycles of fertility and infertility, condoms are 60% safe. That means that 40% of the time, they are not safe. If you learned that 40% of the time airplanes crash, would you fly? If you learned that 40% of the time, when eating at a restaurant, you die of poison, would you eat at a restaurant? In the end, it is turning out to be the case that the indispensable key to the solution of these sexually related problems is chastity, even celibacy.
--Fr. Stephan Torraco, EWTN Ask The Experts "Expert"
Fatima,
Here is a priest's view. Hope you accept it.