contraception
Charles Rice
Right or Wrong?
The 19th century laws restricting contraceptives were passed by Protestant-dominated legislatures. No Christian denomination had ever held that contraception could be justified until the Anglican Lambeth Conference of 1930. The seismic effect of that rejection of millennia of moral teaching came in the 1960s with the advent of the pill. Does it make sense for the Catholic Church still to insist on that formerly unbroken teaching? Three questions are relevant:
Why is contraception wrong? First, it breaks, in the words of Pope Paul VI, "the ... connection — which is willed by God and which man cannot lawfully break on his own initiative — between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive and the procreative."
Second, the contracepting couple makes themselves the arbiters of whether and when human life shall begin. They confer on themselves, as Pope John Paul II put it, "a power which belongs solely to God; the power to decide in a final analysis, the coming into existence of a human person."
And, third, in contraception, instead of what John Paul II called the "total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife," there is a withholding: I give you myself except for my fertility, I will accept you only if you are altered to cancel your fertility.
In his 1994 Letter to Families, which could be read with profit by every engaged or married couple, whether Catholic or not, John Paul II explained that God, who is love, "wills" that each human person ought to come into existence through a loving act of self-gift between spouses united in a "communion of persons" modeled on the self-giving relation of the persons of the Trinity. Thus he noted the "similarity between the union of the divine persons" in the Trinity and the marital union, (LF, no. 8).
We, however, have free will. The contracepting couple, in effect, say to God, "For all we know, it may be your will that through this act of ours a new person, who will live forever, will come into existence. But we won't let you do it." In this light, we can see why John Paul said that, "Contraception is ... so ... unlawful as never to be ... justified. To think ... the contrary is equal to maintaining that ... it is lawful not to recognize God as God."
What about natural family planning (NFP)? In NFP the couple refrain from sexual relations during the fertile period. When they engage in relations during the rest of the month they may prefer not to have a child. But they have an accepting intent, in that they do nothing to destroy the integrity of the act and they are willing to accept the responsibility for a child. The contracepting couple, by drugs or plugs, take measures to destroy the integrity of the act to prevent a child. The privilege of procreation, however, is so important that NFP can be used only for "serious motives," which may include health, financial or other reasons. "In destroying the power of giving life through contraception," said Mother Teresa at the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast, "a husband or wife ... turns the attention to self and so destroys the gift of love ... The husband and wife must turn the attention to each other, as ... in natural family planning and not to self, as ... in contraception. Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily."
What are the social consequences of contraception? If man (of both sexes) makes himself the arbiter of when life shall begin, he will predictably make himself the arbiter of when it shall end, in abortion and euthanasia. The contraceptive society needs abortion as a back-up. It cannot say that homosexual activity is wrong without condemning its own premise that man is the arbiter of whether and when sex will have any relation to procreation. As Paul VI predicted, the acceptance of contraception puts "a dangerous weapon ... in the hands of ... public authorities" to reduce births among minorities. Promiscuity, divorce and cloning also follow from the contraceptive ethic. The growth of pornography, too, validates Paul VI's warning that contraception would cause women to be viewed as objects.
As Francis Fukuyama observed in "The Great Disruption," the pill and abortion liberated men from responsibility and put the burden on women, allowing "many ... ordinary men ... to live out fantasy lives of hedonism and serial polygamy formerly reserved only for a tiny group of men at the very top of society," (121). Women tend to pay the price for the sexual revolution.
The authentic Christian teaching on contraception does make sense.
Professor Emeritus Rice is on the Law School Faculty. His column appears every other Tuesday.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Friday, April 12, 2002
