Contraception: Why It's Wrong

Catholic Culture ^ | 3/15/2007 | Dr. Jeff Mirus

[markomalley]

The recent debate over contraception between Fr. Thomas Euteneuer of Human Life International and nationally syndicated talk-show host Sean Hannity has brought to center stage an issue which most Americans—and most Catholics—simply do not understand. Let’s review what’s wrong with contraception.

The intrinsic moral issue of artificial contraception is a marriage issue. Contraception has little or no intrinsic moral relevance outside of marriage. This contributes to the difficulty our culture has in understanding the problem, because our culture doesn’t understand marriage either. After all, only about half of all couples are formally married. For this reason, it is perhaps best to start with what we might call the extrinsic moral issues associated with contraception, which apply to all sexual relations.

The Consequences of Contraception

I am using the word “extrinsic” to apply to the consequences of contraception as opposed to its own essential moral character. Catholics are not consequentialists, and we don’t determine the morality of an act by attempting to foresee all its consequences. But we do determine the prudence of an act by assessing its potential consequences. For this reason, it is highly instructive to examine the extrinsic moral issues associated with contraception.

Even morally neutral acts can have good or bad consequences and should be selected or avoided accordingly. It is a morally neutral act, for example, to dam a river, but one wants to be pretty sure of the consequences before one builds the dam. So too, many moralists have argued (I believe correctly) that contraception is morally neutral in itself when considered outside of marriage. But contraception suppresses the natural outcome of sexual intercourse, and in so doing it has two immediate and devastating consequences.

First, it engenders a casual attitude toward sexual relations. An action which, because of the possibility of conceiving a child, makes demands on the stability of the couple is stripped by contraception of its long-term meaning. The mutual commitment of a couple implied by the very nature of this intimate self-giving is now overshadowed by the fact that the most obvious (though not necessarily the most important) reason for that commitment has been eliminated. This clearly contributes to the rise of casual sex, and the rise of casual sex has enormous implications for psychological and emotional well-being, personal and public health, and social cohesion.

Second, it shifts the emphasis in sexual relations from fruitfulness to pleasure. Naturally-speaking, the sexual act finds its full meaning in both emotional intimacy and the promise of offspring. For human persons, sex is clearly oriented toward love and the creation of new life. By eliminating the possibility of new life and the permanent bonding it demands, contraception reduces the meaning of human sexuality to pleasure and, at best, a truncated or wounded sort of commitment. Moreover, if the meaning of human sexuality is primarily a meaning of pleasure, then any sexual act which brings pleasure is of equal value. It is no surprise that pornography and homosexuality have mushroomed, while marriage has declined, since the rise of the “contraceptive mentality”. Abortion too has skyrocketed as a backup procedure based on the expectation that contracepton should render sex child-free. All of this, too, is psychologically, emotionally and physically damaging, as well as destructive of the social order.

The Intrinsic Evil of Contraception

Now all of these evil consequences apply both inside and outside of marriage. Within marriage, however, there is an intrinsic moral problem with contraception quite apart from its horrendous consequences. Outside of marriage, sexual relations are already disordered. They have no proper ends and so the frustration of these ends through contraception is intrinsically morally irrelevant. Outside of marriage, contraception is to be avoided for its consequences (consequences surely made worse by the difficulty of psychologically separating contraception from its marital meaning). But within marriage, the context changes and the act of contraception itself becomes intrinsically disordered.

Within the context of marriage, the purposes of sexual intercourse are unitive and procreative (as Pope Paul VI taught in his brilliant and prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae). It is worth remembering that there is no proper context for sexual intercourse apart from marriage; this is why it is impossible for human persons to psychologically separate contraception from the marital context. But the point here is that marriage has certain ends (the procreation of children, the stability of society, the mutual happiness of the couple, and their mutual sanctification) and so does sex within marriage. The purposes of the marital act are the procreation of children and the progressive unification of the spouses. These two purposes are intimately related, for it is through marriage that a man and a woman become “two in one flesh”, both through sexual relations and, literally, in their offspring.

It is intrinsically immoral to frustrate either of these purposes. Let me repeat this statement. It is immoral to choose deliberately to frustrate either the unitive or the procreative ends of marital intercourse. It is immoral to make of your spouse an object of your pleasure, to coerce your spouse, or to engage in sexual relations in a manner or under conditions which communicate callousness or contempt. These things frustrate the unitive purpose. It is also immoral to take deliberate steps to prevent an otherwise potentially fruitful coupling from bearing fruit. This frustrates the procreative purpose.

Related Issues

Because it causes so much confusion, it is necessary to state that it is not intrinsically immoral to choose to engage in sexual relations with your spouse at times when these relations are not likely to be fruitful. The moral considerations which govern this decision revolve around the obligation married couples have to be genuinely open to children insofar as they can provide for their material well-being and proper formation. There is nothing in this question of timing that frustrates the purposes of a particular marriage act.

Statistically, couples who avoid contraception find that their marriages are strengthened, their happiness increased, and their health improved. Some of these considerations are topics for another day. But Fr. Euteneuer is clearly correct and Sean Hannity is clearly wrong. Contraception is a grave evil within marriage and has grave consequences not only within marriage but outside of marriage as well. Both individual couples and society as a whole will mature into deeper happiness by freeing themselves from the false promises of contraception, and from its moral lies.

[Scotswife]

thanks. It isn't like I don't want NFP to work, but I have been convinced on two other occasions that I was "doing it wrong" and gave it another try only to conceive when it was supposed to be impossible to conceive.

Needless to say, I have a major trust issue with NFP.

But I shouldn't whine when I consider the poor couple (was it from New Jersey?) who appealed to Rome for their unique situation.

They couldn't monitor her fertile signs because her cycle was so irregular. She also couldn't carry a pregnancy to term because of an incompetent cervix.
This resulted in multiple miscarriages.

I believe their question was something like "is it better to artificially contracept than to continue to have dead babies?"

The answer came back "no" - live a life of celibacy.

yikes.

[klossg]

Kerretarded,

You say: I do understand what you are saying. I am more playing (pardon the phrase) devil's advocate. If the stated goals of sexual relations among married couples are two-fold, procreative and unitive, how can you KNOWINGLY bypass the procreative goal? You are trying to deny the possibility of procreation, which is precisely the reason given to why artificial means are deemed intrinsically evil.

Forgive my mid discussion interjection ...

Is your decision at this point ... should I use NFP or Contraception? If so, maybe looking at it from a very practical angle will bring the decision closer to your five senses (or is it six).

My wife and I use NFP. Regardless of the moralness of using NFP, it is not as "easy" for us in comparison to contraception. Maybe this goes without saying but having intercourse with one's spouse is much more pleasurable than not having intercourse. This is especially true, if like Austin Power says you are really "RaNdY, baby!" In short abstinence is less active sexually than not abstaining. At least that is how I feel when my wife and I are abstaining. I am not sure that is how everyone would feel. There are people for whom denial is a major turn on and it might actually be better than actual sexual activity.

In other words, avoiding pregnancy is much easier while not having sex. At the same time though, not having sex is harder than having sex. Especially when lying in the same bed with one's fantastic spouse!

The means are of the utmost importance when we are talking about sex and morality. I mean when the aim is solely not to have a child outside of wedlock, it is much more moral to abstain from having sex with your neighbor's spouse, than to have contraceptive sex with your neighbor's spouse. And depending upon the looks of your neighbors' spouses, it is also just as hard or harder to abstain. (Well in most cases. I admit that a some cases it would actually be easier.)

[markomalley]

Ok, I admit I haven't gotten much sleep lately, but what am I missing here? Isn't contraception a moral issue regardless of a couple's married state?

Look at it this way...contraception shouldn't be an issue for an unmarried couple one way or another. An unmarried couple shouldn't be in a position to concern themselves with the issue one way or another. If they (the unmarried couple) stopped contracepting, but were still partaking of activities that might call for contraception, the unmarried couple are still "living in sin."

[iranger]

Wow. I had not heard of this NJ case. Do you have a link to the story? BTW, I hear ya on being overly fertile. It sounds like my wife and I have had very similar experience to yours.

[klossg]

Scotswife,

My wife and I do teach NFP. And there are differences between the NFP styles out there. There are also differences in how well each teaching couple teaches and how each learning couple learns.

I support all methods of NFP but we teach the Sympto-Thermal method of CCL. This method crosschecks the temperature sign with the mucus sign. We also teach the cervix sign which backs up the mucus sign. Some methods may teach both mucus and temp but they do not teach internal checking of mucus. Depending upon what rules they use, this can be all important. I feel that CCL's method is the best NFP method going. And as far as all methods, except for tubal or vasectomy, it is the best method of birth control known to mankind. Also, regardless of your level of fertility or your irregularity of cycles, I know CCL's Sympto-Thermal method obtains the effectiveness of the pill. It adjusts to the woman's body. It allows for split peaks in cycles, breakthrough bleeding, an extremely short cycle followed by an extremely long cycle ...

Nearly every couple/woman we have taught believes her cycle will not work with NFP. There are things that NFP just can't handle in her case. They come into the class thinking, that it wont work for them. By the second or at the latest by third of four classes, they are each amazed that it is working in their unique circumstance. I can't blame them. Every woman is so different and unique! Plus, there is so much doubt and misinformation out there. And, when looking at NFP from the outside, with no true or measured knowledge of the cycle, it seems so complex. But, in the end all one needs to know fits easily on the two sides of a 3" x 5" index card.

It works!!! I'd stake my marriage and my ability to control the birth of my own children on it! I already have. But, like all things that deal with the human body, it can be taught/learned/done wrong. I highly recommend CCL.

[sitetest]

Dear iranger,

"Sorry, I still don't see how ABC necessitates gorging."

It doesn't. One needn't gorge, either, to vomit what one eats.

However, just as bulimia permits eating without regard to limits or natural consequences, artificial contraception permits sex without regard to natural limits or natural consequences.

"...but note that I included fortified foods such as breakfast cerial along with diet soda in my example."

I don't eat breakfast cereal, nor do I drink much diet soda. ;-)

But seriously, the analogs to "fortified cereal" with regard to sexuality would be Vitamin E tablets, I think. At most, it might be analogous to using NFP to actually try to conceive, rather than to avoid conception.

After all, the "fruits" of eating are nutrition of the body - to provide energy and necessary nutrients, as well as the pleasure of eating. The "fruits" of sexual relations are procreation and mutual love. As adding vitamins to one's cereal is used to boost the nutritive value of food, it would be analogous to using NFP to boost the chances of conception.

It certainly wouldn't be analogous to voiding one of the fruits of sexual relations.

Diet soda is a better analog. It's ironic that some studies suggest that drinking diet soda provides little benefit over drinking sugared soda, as it seems that the artificial sweetener "tricks" the body into thinking it is absorbing sugar, and the body acts accordingly.

One wonders whether a similar effect carries over to the other side of our analogy.

However, the analog to diet soda would be, say, a vasectomy, where the "caffeine" has been removed. ;-) And that is no longer contraception but rather self-mutilation. A slightly different topic.

"People eat it for a variety of reasons (lower cholesteral, energy boosting, nutritional) and because it tastes good."

You've really only named two reasons: to maintain good health (if one doesn't eat, one dies, if one doesn't eat properly, one dies), and for pleasure. Again, adding nutrients to one's cereal merely increases the physiological effect; it doesn't void it. Thus, here, your version of the analogy fails, and fails badly. Adding nutrients to increase the positive physiological effect - nourishment of the body, is actually the opposite of artificial contraception, which voids the normal physiological end of sex - procreation.

"Along the same lines of reason, ABC is used by people for a multitude of reasons but it does not necessitate gorging yourself on sex but rather allowing couple to engage in intercourse at a time that is desirable to them."

Not all bulimics gorge themselves every time they're going to vomit. However, the bulimic act permits the person to eat without thought to the otherwise normal and natural consequences of eating.

I could stretch the analogy further (there is evidence that not only is it important to consider how much one eats, but also, when one eats what one eats, so there is an analog to your statement about having sex when one wishes, etc., etc.) but the purpose of analogies is not to show that two things are identical, but to illuminate through comparison.

The analogy from Brian Kopp does that very well, at least for many people.


sitetest

[iranger]

But by definition, bulimia is binge eating followed by purging and that is just the physical characteristics of the disorder. Once you start considering the emotional complications involved in bulimia, the analogy gets even more difficult to make. So like I said, neither analogy does the topic justice.

[sitetest]

Dear Scotswife,

"You seem like a reasonably intelligent person to me and have probably looked into this issue much more than the average person."

Thanks. I have you fooled. ;-)

"If it's difficult for you to understand (and for many reasonably intelligent folks) then I'm assuming it's also difficult to explain to many people."

Perhaps, but I don't think it's difficult for me to understand because I lack sufficient intellectual horsepower. I think it's difficult for me to understand because my intellect is clouded by sin. And not just my sin, but the collective sins of many.

Two hundred years ago, plenty of Americans thought that slavery was a perfectly acceptable institution. But today, there aren't many folks who will disagree with the proposition that slavery is objectively morally evil. Folks don't really have to be able to explain it well, or even understand it completely, against every argument - folks just know it's wrong.

What happened? Well, two hundred years ago, folks were born into a society that permitted slaveholding, and in many ways affirmed slaveholding. Especially in the south, most folks knew folks who owned slaves, and some of these slaveholders seemed like upright, good, and decent folks. Abraham owned slaves. St. Paul knew about slavery and seemed to accept it. How could slaveholding be wrong? These obviously good and decent people owned slaves, and seemed to have no qualms about it.

Being born into a society that accepted and often affirmed slavery, most folks didn't have the moral imagination or capacity to figure out that slavery is objectively gravely evil. This likely included most slaveholders.

There was a certain moral blindness in society that affected every member of society to some degree. Some folks may have been able to completely overcome that moral blindness, and see clearly that slavery is an objectively grave evil, others may have seen that less-clearly. But everyone was affected by it.

Today, large numbers of folks in our society believe that abortion is a morally-acceptable choice. How can that be?

Again, they live in a society that affirms IN LAW the right of women to procure the killing of their unborn children. This kind of social affirmation is part of what creates a social moral blindness. Fifty years ago, the overwhelming number of people in the United States would have told you that abortion on demand was an exceptionally gravely evil act. Pretty much EVERYONE knew it. They might not be able to counter every sophisticated argument against abortion, but they knew it was wrong.

But today, a lot fewer folks know it. It's more difficult for folks to see clearly that it's gravely evil. Even though it is!

And it's a lot harder to explain. I know that sometimes I get stumped when trying to explain that abortion is always objecively gravely evil.

And so it is with artificial contraception. Before 1930, the belief that it was objectively gravely evil to use artificial contraception was widely held. Folks didn't HAVE to explain why it was wrong - they just knew it.

Now, we've lived in a society that has had the magical "Pill" for nearly 50 years. Most folks currently alive were born into a society with easy, legal access to multiple methods of artificial contraception. It's a similar moral blindness that exists with abortion, that existed with slavery, that exists with other grave evils that persist in a given society at a given time.


sitetest

[sitetest]

Dear iranger,

Again, the analogy works perfectly well to illuminate the question of means versus ends without achieving an identity in every detail.

Frankly, though, when I think about the emotional complications involved in bulimia, it seems to me to make the analogy more apt. Having personally moved over the years from a position of accepting artificial contraception as a moral device to one that rejects that view, what I see in the "rearview mirror" is that acceptance of artificial contraception distorts thinking about marital relations.

See my post #20. It's a viewpoint the underlying premises of which I fought for years and years. I expect that for folks not ready to accept the truth about artificial contraception, it's a viewpoint that will encounter rejection.


sitetest

[klossg]

"may you never ever try to impose this belief on others, either actively or passively, through legislation."

No sir! I completely agree with you. That would be crazy and I would fight it. This should never be legislated! The only time legislation was used, was in the late 1800s. The Comstock laws failed. (Catholics were not involved. It was Protestants. Funny that!)

[iranger]

Sorry site...there is no logical flow here. I honestly can't discern much deductive argument out of your posts. Sheer accumulation of words and random ideas do not an argument make. My apologies if this sounds harsh as I'm pressed for time but I really don't think you've done anything other than try to support a bad analogy. I willingfully will back away from mine as I agree its full of holes but the bulimia thing is equally full of holes. Cheers!

[sitetest]

Dear iranger,

Well, what can I tell ya?

Analogies don't make for precise logical arguments. As I've said multiple times to you, that isn't their purpose.

Read what I actually wrote, and perhaps you may understand what I actually wrote:

Kerretarded asked:

"If the purpose of sexual relations within marriage is to be both unitive and procreative, how is it intrinsically moral to purposely and knowingly avoid a time when the act could bear fruit?"

I replied, in part:

"That's a great question!

"As a Catholic, it's a question with which I struggled for years and years. Frankly, I've never found an intellectual argument that is wholly satisfying."[emphasis added]

I then continued:

"However, a former poster here at Free Republic, Brian Kopp, introduced me to an analogy that made the connection for me."

After presenting the analogy, I concluded:

"There are others who can present excellent intellectual arguments. Perhaps they might assist. However, for me, Brian's little analogy was persuasive to me in a way that the intellectual arguments were not."[emphasis added]

That you conclude that an analogy is not a rigorous intellectual argument is true... and irrelevant, as I explicitly offered it IN LIEU of a rigorous intellectual argument.

As an analogy, the analogy offered works splendidly. It illustrates and illuminates, rather than argues, the difference between means and ends.


sitetest

[trisham]

That makes sense. Thanks!

[markomalley]

This should never be legislated!

I agree fully. What we see, as shown in the magesterial documents I quoted above, is an attitude that needs to be infused again into society. Our culture ("the culture of life") needs to respect a profound love for God and for His creation...through a respect for the natural systems that He put in place. Legislation can never accomplish that.

[Scotswife]

"Wow. I had not heard of this NJ case. Do you have a link to the story? BTW, I hear ya on being overly fertile. It sounds like my wife and I have had very similar experience to yours."

I'll work on that for you. I'm relying on memory here, and I'm thinking it might have happened when JPII was still Pope.

[Scotswife]

Thanks for the recommendation and the pep talk.
I was monitoring it all baby!!
And really - my own problem seems to be with a medical condition that could skew the mucous readings...but I was monitoring temp and cervix too.

It appears to me that the alleged 3-5 day life of sperm is not accurate.
This puts the brakes one everything for 90-95% if the time if I'm going to wait the recommended 3 days after the temperature shift.

And with all this talk about temps, mucous, charts, and saying "no - not today AGAIN"...well....I'm burned out on it all, especially when I just pregnant anyway.

When I read posts about how lovely it is and brings couples closer - well, that hasn't been my experience at all.

[Scotswife]

"But by definition, bulimia is binge eating followed by purging and that is just the physical characteristics of the disorder. Once you start considering the emotional complications involved in bulimia, the analogy gets even more difficult to make. So like I said, neither analogy does the topic justice."

When I first heard the bulimia analogy it made me wonder about gastric bypasses.

If it is bad to "mutilate" your body to obstruct the natural gift of fertility....why isn't the Church opposed to stomach stapling for the same reason?

[iranger]

lol...touche'

[iranger]

well its a nice try anyway...

[VeritatisSplendor]

Pregnancy and lactation are the only body system functions I can think of which are potential in the adult. Everything else is actual: the heart pumps blood, the stomach digests, the intestines absorb, the kidneys filter, the muscles move, endocrines regulate, the nerves transmit...

And it is this potential function of pregnancy which is somehow set apart in the Church. You can remove an organ if it becomes dangerous or potentially dangerous to you, or even very inconvenient. A gangrenous limb - off. A cancerous lung - out. Breasts with a high risk of cancer - you may remove. A gall bladder that keeps making gallstones, or a uterus with bad fibroids - you may remove. A cancerous prostate whose removal will cause impotence - you may remove. Ovaries with a high risk of cancer - you may remove. Even a cancerous pregnant uterus you may remove. An ectopic pregnancy you may remove - if you treat it as a diseased fallopian tube and not as a pregnancy.

But if it is the state of pregnancy itself that is dangerous - if pregnancy would overtax a weak heart or kidneys - if it would with a very high likelihood cause hyperemesis gravidarum or severe early preeclampsia - tough, suck it up, offer it up. You may not remove the potential of pregnancy for the purpose of removing its potential danger.

Mrs VS