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Families that are non-contraceptive, it has
been rigorously demonstrated,
tend to be happier and less dysfunctional.
The case against contraception
By W. Patrick Cunningham
Every American Catholic alive today is, in some sense, a survivor of a titanic disaster. Furthermore, this moral shipwreck is one whose full ramifications have not yet been experienced or even understood. The keel of the ill-fated ship, artificial contraception, was laid down about a century ago when barrier methods of contraception were “perfected.” The ship first ran aground when American Protestants and Jews began contracepting in earnest in the 1920s, and their families began to perish. A Great Depression even came about in no small part because of it. But the disaster became truly epic when, in the 1960s, the contraceptive hormone pill became widely available, and Catholics across the developed world, duped by disingenuous scientists and specious moralists, began to use it. Despite Paul VI’s warnings in Humanae Vitae that large-scale marital infidelity, disrespect for women and family disintegration would result, a majority of married Catholics have become contraceptive. The demographic and cultural effects of this sea change in practical morality have literally refashioned society into what Pope John Paul II has rightly called a “culture of death.”
Although in recent years millions of Catholics and Evangelical Christians have awakened to this tragedy, pockets of “Humanae Vitae resisters” remain both in Catholic and Protestant circles, and, despite signs that the fertility rate is beginning to turn up, a contraceptive mentality remains embedded in the minds of millions of married couples in the developed world. It is necessary, then, to revisit the fundamental reasons for the moral prohibition against behavior that interferes with the procreative act of marriage. To be successful, it is important to go beyond the true statement “all Christian faiths forbade contraception prior to 1930.” To a person mired in the contraceptive thought-system, arguments from history sound stale and musty. Furthermore, to say, as we can and must, that the Catholic Church has consistently condemned contraception and abortion from the earliest times, is also largely ineffective. Catholic couples either do not ever hear this particular nuance of the Good News, or they hear conflicting voices, or they —amazingly — consider matters of marital morality to be beyond the province of the Church’s commentary. No, our argument must be based on good science, and consistent and persuasive on other levels, and work with the modern desire to “live in harmony with nature.” It must be able to convince people of good will of the truth, “every act must remain open to the transmission of life.”
Although Scriptural arguments against contraception are not without merit, they generally begin with Genesis 38:9, the sin of Onan, technically coitus interruptus. This verse is rightly interpreted as God’s prohibition of artificially standing in the way of conceiving children. Augustine, commenting on this passage, talks about Onan “wasting the good that he has” (Against the Manichees, XXII). Jerome (Against Jovian, I), is often thought to have denied that marriage was for any purpose other than the procreation of children. But, in fact, we can infer from the context that what he actually meant is that use of the marriage act with contraceptive intent is wrong. That is, the marriage act must be open to the generation of offspring, as Paul VI and John Paul II have reaffirmed.
But the first Scriptural argument against contraception is, in fact, the first and most obvious commandment of Torah, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gen. 1:28). This precept is more wide-ranging and eschatologically oriented than, for instance, the command to the fish and birds in 1:22. Man, created male and female in God’s likeness, is to have godlike dominion over the other creatures. Furthermore, he is made subject to no other creature. Only God has dominion over man, by giving him a primal command. Furthermore, and most importantly, there is no definition given to the command to “fill the earth.” Only God knows when the earth will be full, a fullness that St. Paul would interpret as completion in Christ in the letter to the Ephesians (Eph. 1).
What are the ends of marriage?
Clearly there are two ends of marriage, and, in Christian thought, we can even speak of a third end. The two obvious ends of marriage, both good and holy, are unitive and procreative. Marriage brings a Christian man and woman together in a sacrament instituted by Christ toward fidelity to each other and the foundation of a family. In other words, human beings through marriage sign forth the unity and fecundity of the Blessed Trinity.
This leads us to conclude that a Christian marriage should also sign forth the union of Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:21-33). Husband and wife give themselves up to each other as Christ gave himself up for the Church, and the Church gives herself up for Christ, in a perpetual covenant of love and mutual concern. Although the emphasis in this passage is on the unitive nature of the marriage bond, the maternal character of the Church is a vivid reminder that marriage is for the raising of godly offspring.
Natural birth regulation, or NFP, operates within that covenanted relationship, and properly enlivens it. Both husband and wife are involved in the decision to use, or not use, the natural time of fertility. Both are challenged to find non-genital expressions of love, if they propose not to conceive a child at the time. Both are open to the transmission of life, because they are not actively taking steps to prevent it.
The act of marriage spoiled by contraceptive action and intent is substantively different from NFP. In contraceptive sex, two actions are engaged in. The marriage act is joined to some chemical or physical action, and the latter frustrates at least one of the moral ends of the former.
Artificial birth control operates in one of two ways. By its very nature, it must either prevent the union of sperm and ovum, or act to reject a conceived zygote. Barrier and chemical methods purpose to keep sperm and ovum from uniting. This action to prevent union of male and female is, of its very nature, anti-unitive. It stands between the man and the woman. It also, by its very nature, pits male against female. The woman decides not to have a child, and takes concrete action to prevent the completion of the male-female union. Alternately, the man makes the same decision, and uses a mechanical or chemical device to either prevent his seed from entering the woman, or to destroy it once it has. Barrier technologies are so obviously opposed to the “one flesh” witness of Genesis and Ephesians that most couples are instinctively repulsed by them — they have an aesthetic ugliness that is obvious to Christian and non-Christian alike.
Hormonal methods of contraception, although they purpose to prevent release of an ovum, very frequently act as abortifacients. That is, an ovum is released, fertilization occurs, but the hormones act to prevent implantation or slough off the implanted child. It is obvious that abortion is an anti-life action, and thus frustrates in a most radical way the procreative aspect of marriage, but it is also anti-unitive. On a purely natural level, it represents the woman’s “will to power” over the creation of life in the womb, and her rejection of the man’s seed in the cruelest manner possible. To think that such a phony “union” can be a sign of the union of Christ with his Church is to misunderstand the character of both unions.
Ironically, it was in the first half of the 20th century, when natural methods of regulating births were in their infancy, based on crude understandings of reproductive cycles, that Catholic couples were most in tune with the venerable Church teaching that the creation of human life was not to be interfered with. Today, with reliable and well-understood methods of licit child-spacing available and widely known, compliance with this ancient rule is less widespread. Today, even as we understand more and more the awful effects of three generations of disobedience — divorce, unwed births, epidemic venereal disease, maternal and child poverty — little thought is given to resisting the deceptive charms of artificial birth control. But if there is to be a true renewal of the Church, an authentic strengthening of the family, more than a little thought and prayer needs to be focused in that direction.
An action plan
It has been frequently noted that preaching on contraception may be one of the hardest things for a priest or deacon to do. But preaching on any sin is hard to do, because there is a real chance that you might catch a substantial number of listeners who practice that sin. This is true of tax evasion, spousal abuse, gossiping and lying just as much as illicit sex practices. So the first decision to make is that, from time to time, the homily will focus on sin and repentance. The second decision is to hone in on contraception as a particular offense against God and family. If one never preaches on sin of any kind, contraception will always be ignored.
Is there any reason to preach on sin? The great spiritual masters such as St. Francis de Sales insisted that no spiritual progress of any kind can be made if there is even a vestige of attraction for sin, let alone a vicious habit holding the soul in thrall. So we can talk about love and concern and doing good works all year long, but if many of the hearers are mired in vices like contraception, we’ll just be piping them along to perdition. If we do not warn them to avoid sin, we may be the first ones into the fire.
Still, there is a really positive face to this kind of preaching. Families that are non-contraceptive, it has been rigorously demonstrated, tend to be happier and less dysfunctional. They are somewhat larger than those produced by contraceptive couples, so they are seedbeds for religious and clerical vocations. Couples who practice NBR have better communications skills, and have better abilities to help their children understand the proper role of sexuality, and the importance of self-control both before and after the wedding.
It would also to useful to young couples if they had available a local support group that could help them understand NBR, marital communications, parenting and other important family-building skills. One useful objective for a diocesan family life office would be to plant such a group in every parish.
Contraception is a grave offense against God and family. But the developed world, and the people in it, are not condemned to slide further into the realm of death and sin. With consistent and positive preaching, and parish supports, we can truly be a Church that chooses life.
Mr. W. Patrick Cunningham received his B.A. and M.A. in theology from St. Mary’s University in Texas. He also earned an M.A. in education from Stanford University. He has taught business ethics at Incarnate Word College and is now on the adjunct faculty of the University of Texas at San Antonio. His last article in HPR appeared in June 2000.
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