Contraception Q&A 1

Q: I recently outlined a chapter from our Morality book, but it only briefly mentions methods of artificial contraception and doesn't go into any detail on why the Church thinks they are so wrong. If you could provide any insight, or at least point us in the right direction that would be such a great help!

A: Excellent question! It's a deep one that we have to unpack. The Catholic Church is definitely not into sound bite theology... All of the other questions also apply to this question. 

First, let's focus on the early history of contraception and Biblical basis. Contraception has been around in one form or another since the events recorded in Genesis. Some manuscripts from as far back as 1900 B.C. talk about using contraceptive materials. It's always been considered evil. What is new is that many Christians have changed their minds about it.

In this section I'm really paraphrasing a lot of Birth Control and Christian Discipleship by John Kippley - it's a 45-page $4.00 book. Get it and read it!

Just about every Protestant reformer and every mainline Christian denomination was completely against contraception. And even non-Christians were opposed - Mahatma Gandhi was against it, even. 

You see, it's very clear in the Bible that children are to be considered gifts from God and that contraception is contrary to God's plan. 

Read Genesis 38:6-11

⁶ Now Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. ⁷ But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of the LORD, so the LORD took his life. ⁸ Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform your duty as a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” ⁹ Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife, he wasted his seed on the ground in order not to give offspring to his brother. ¹⁰ But what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD; so He took his life also. ¹¹

Let's unpack this passage (summarizing Kippley 23-26). 

This passage is partially about a custom known as the Law of the Levirate. "According to this custom, if a married man died before he had children, his brother was obliged to marry the widow; their children would be considered as the deceased brother's children." Onan used a form of unnatural birth control to avoid conception with his brother's widow. This deed was so horrible that God immediately struck him dead! Pretty serious, huh?

For centuries it was agreed by all Christians that Onan lost his life because of the contraceptive act. In fact, the general term for any unnatural act of birth control was Onanism. With that in mind, read these quotes from the founders of mainline Protestant denominations.

(I'm not sure this source page will be up for long, so here are a few quotes - more on the site). 

MARTIN LUTHER

(SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FOUNDER OF LUTHERANISM)

"[T]he exceedingly foul deed of Onan, the basest of wretches . . . is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to her—that is, he lies with her and copulates—and, when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed. Accordingly, it was a most disgraceful crime. . . . Consequently, he deserved to be killed by God. He committed an evil deed. Therefore, God punished him" (Commentary on Genesis).

---

JOHN CALVIN

(SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FOUNDER OF CALVINISM)

"The voluntary spilling of semen outside of intercourse between man and woman is a monstrous thing. Deliberately to withdraw from coitus in order that semen may fall on the ground is doubly monstrous. For this is to extinguish the hope of the race and to kill before he is born the hoped-for offspring" (Commentary on Genesis).

---

JOHN WESLEY

(EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FOUNDER OF METHODISM)

"Onan, though he consented to marry the widow, yet to the great abuse of his own body, of the wife he had married, and the memory of the brother that was gone, refused to raise of seed to his brother. Those sins that dishonor the body and defile it are very displeasing to God and evidences of vile affections. Observe, the thing which he did displeased the Lord—and it is to be feared; thousands, especially of single persons, by this very thing, still displease the Lord and destroy their own souls" (Commentary on Genesis). 

---

So Catholics and Protestants agreed on this. 

Then in 1930 an Anglican conference said that married couples could, when deemed absolutely necessary, use artificial mans of contraception (Kippley 4). I have to directly quote a Washington Post editorial response when the American Federal Council of Churches said something similar in 1931.

"Carried to its logical conclusion, the committee's report, if carried into effect, would sound the death-knoll of marriage as a holy institution by establishing degrading practices which would encourage indiscriminate immorality. The suggestion that the use of legalized contraceptives would be 'careful and restrained' is preposterous." (Kippley 5). 

In 1961, the National Council of Churches said:

"Most of the Protestant churches hold contraception and periodic abstinence to be morally right when the motives are right... The general Protestant conviction is that motives, rather than methods, form the primary moral issue provided the methods are limited to the prevention of conception. Protestant Christians are agreed in condemning abortion or any method which destroys human life except when the health or life of the mother is at stake."

The majority report of a Papal Birth Control Commission in 1967 agreed... but the Pope saw through what was going on! He wrote Humanae Vitae and reaffirmed Church teaching that contraception is not acceptable. I'm going to get into that further in the Q&A - but the whole encyclical is well worth reading.

So...suddenly the account of Onan became a problem. So people started saying that God struck down Onan because he didn't give his brother's widow a son, NOT because he committed a contraceptive act. Read Kippley's book for more depth on this, but here are the problems with that interpretation:

•  Going back to the Hebrew - it's obvious by the words used that the problem was in the "perverse act" itself, not in the result or goal
• Onan is only one of three people to violate the Levirate law - but he is the ONLY one to receive a death sentence
• Punishment for violating the Levirate law is outlined in Deuteronomy 25:5-10 - and it's not death
• This fits with the rest of Biblical teaching on love and sexual behavior
• This is something the Church has consistently maintained as part of moral law and not just a law about uncleanliness 

New Testament: 

A Greek word "pharmakeia" was a secretive potion - in the 1st century usually for birth control. These word was translated into a generic "sorcery" in most translations, but appears in three passages in context condemning sexual immorality (Galatians 5:19-26; Revelation 9:21, 21:8). 

This really rings true to me... when Christ was carrying the cross, this is what He said:

²⁷ And following Him was a large crowd of the people, and of women who were mourning and lamenting Him. ²⁸ But Jesus turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. ²⁹ For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’ ” (Luke 28: 27-29)

Really - Christ is on the way to Calvary and He uses those precious moments to warn of a time when those who cannot have children will be considered blessed? He goes on to say basically - "if this is what happens when times are good, you can't imagine what will happen when times are bad." Note - he says WEEP FOR YOUR CHILDREN! This inability to have children is not a good thing! 

Alright - that's a little bit on the history and Biblical background of why the Church teaches that contraception is wrong. When we get into issues about social ramifications, violation of the convent and purpose of marriage and sex, ties to abortion, and issues with human dignity (especially of women and children), I think you'll understand why the Church teaches what she does. Or, you can fast forward by reading Humane Vitae! 

Introduction to Contraception

Catholic high school students asked me some questions on the topic of contraception. Instead of e-mailing them back directly, I'm going to answer their questions here and send them a link to this blog. But before we can even get into their specific questions, I’ve got to get into a very important question that will shed light on my answers... 

Why should we care?

Contraception is a hot button topic for a lot of people – including many Orthodox, Protestants, and Catholics alike. Almost everyone today knows SOMEONE who is using contraception (even if they aren’t sexually active). And often that person is a parent, a sibling, a good friend… or even you, the person reading this. PLEASE do not take this information and use it to condemn others or beat up yourself!

Centuries of inadequate understanding of human sexuality and, in some cases, lies, have resulted in millions of people who can genuinely believe they are doing the right thing by using contraception. I hope you can read this with an open mind, seeking truth – even if it is contrary to what you’ve been taught or the examples you’ve seen in the past. Follow the links; watch the videos; think and pray about all this.

The truth (and examine this – don’t take my word for it!) on the beauty and gift of human sexuality is wonderful! It’s not an easy thing to explain to someone that something they believe to be good (or at least okay) is not what will lead them toward God. I WANT to know it! I want to share it, because it is amazing!

Think for a minute about drinking and driving. Say two friends are out and one gets drunk and doesn’t realize how impaired she is. The sober friend doesn’t want to “interfere” and so won’t tell the drunk friend not to drive. So the drunken friend leaves, gets in an accident, and kills herself and the family in the car she hits. Take the same scenario but with a friend who says “I don’t care how mad you get at me, I’m taking your keys and driving you home!” and they both get home safely. If you’re the intoxicated person – which friend do you want? Which friend do you want to be?

I know the kind of friends I want. On the other side, I know the kind of friend I want to be. Do you?

When we talk about contraception, believe me (at least long enough to read this) that life and death are on the line. Other than just avoiding the negative "consequences" there are beautiful rewards to following God's design for our sexuality. Don't care about God? What about natural law and your body? If you care even about that, please... 

...read on.

I was raised with a very strong understanding that using contraception was not something Catholics were allowed to use. And I didn’t need to think about it too much anyway since it was drilled into me that I would NOT engage in premarital sex. My mom tried to explain a little bit about how natural family planning (NFP) works, but I was so young I had zero interest in learning about tracking cycles and just wanted my mom to stop talking about something so awkward.

Fortunately for me, my parents knew about the physical side effects of the pill (yes, there are side effects even if you aren’t sexually active) and never let doctors put me on it. I was smart in undergrad and made it exceedingly clear that I was not going to sleep with anyone before marriage and I only dated guys who respected that (even if they didn’t agree). So I was never really directly pressured to sleep with a boyfriend or to use contraception to prevent pregnancy. Believe me, I could have changed my mind at any moment and thrown my virginity away - and that temptation was real. I was also exceedingly naive and put myself in situations where I was very lucky that nothing was ever done to me against my will. Anyway, I made it through the marathon of pressures and dangers to my wedding day as a virgin. More on that later. 

As college drew to a close, many of my good Christian friends prepared for their weddings. The girls talked with me very openly about getting their contraceptive prescriptions/devices. In retrospect, I’m not even sure they all discussed it with their fiancés much. It was just “something you did” as part of marriage preparation. Sometimes, knowing Catholics disapprove of contraception, they would ask me what I thought. I lament that I didn’t know any better than to stammer, “oh, well Catholics say you can’t use it – but you’re not Catholic and you’re not going to sleep with your fiancé before marriage, so it’s cool, I guess.” I felt like that was a cop out answer, but I didn't know what else to say and I was very non-confrontational. How I wish I had known more about contraception so I could give them a real answer!

We live in a society where sex is everywhere. It has become what Hollywood preaches makes the end to a good first date. The most recent legit study on Sex on TV I can find is from 2005, but it said that 8-18 yr olds watch an average of 3 hrs a day of TV. Check out how much sexual content that means...

(From Kaiser Family Foundation 2005 Report)

(From Kaiser Family Foundation 2005 Report)

(From Kaiser Family Foundation 2005 Report)

I think this is a modest estimate for teens - assuming 3 hours of TV per day and 6 instances of sexual content per hour, that makes 6,570 instances of exposure to sexual content per year from TV alone, not counting commercials! And I really think that's low... today I think TV has a far greater rate than 6 per hour of sexual content.

The point is, our culture is obsessed with sex. It's like your life is incomplete or something is wrong with you if you aren't sleeping with someone. But at the same time, sex is completely degraded. It's just some means to make you feel good - in the moment. Maybe the next day. Or it's great exercise. Sex as a total self-gift only for marriage that also brings children into the world? How silly.

What does this have to do with contraception? Everything.

The Sex and TV study seems to be very pro-contraception, by the way... but it also said that, on average, only about 14% of shows with sexual responsibility had any reference to "sexual risks and responsibilities." They lump conception into that category. I haven't found a study on this, but I'm willing to bet the majority of television RARELY connects possible conception of a child as a perk of sexual union. In fact, because you're suppose to always use contraception, conception isn't even part of the discussion.

Here is some of the harsh reality of our over-sexed and misguided culture. 

In 2011, the UN estimates that 700,000 to 4 MILLION women and children are trafficked around the world into slavery - primarily sexual slavery EVERY year. That's an estimated $7 billion dollar annual business. (Human Trafficking: Facts & Figures). 

Let's talk about porn for just a second. Look at this crazy illustration I just found... 

From this blog

I'll probably get into why exactly porn is bad and has to do with violations of human dignity in another blog; for now, I'm going to hope that you agree that porn is not a good thing.

How about divorce? It's tough to get completely accurate statistics, but we know the rate is high. In the US - somewhere between 40-50%, depending on how you calculate the rate.

I had a summer college internship with a purity and abstinence until marriage group, Silver Ring Thing. I was learning about all those bad statistics of what's happening in our culture. Think about the prevalence of premarital sex and STD/STIs (from Planned Parenthood itself, over half of all Americans will contract a STI) and abortion (1.21 million reported in the U.S. in 2008)! 

So let's summarize. 

Each year approximately...

• 700,000-4 million women and children are sold into slavery
• 1.21 million reported abortions in the U.S.
• Pornography is a 2.84 billion dollar a year U.S. industry 

 And...

• 40-50% of U.S. marriages end in divorce
• 50%+ of the U.S. population will contract a STD/STI 

All of the pain and suffering and death caused by sexual misconduct and abuse. It's SCARY! I don't want any part of those statistics! I don't know about you, but I want nothing to do with sex trafficking, pornography, or divorce. 

Working with Silver Ring Thing helped me get really excited about abstinence and get a little more psyched up about waiting until marriage. But how to avoid being a statistic? It almost seems unavoidable... or is it?

On the other hand, I heard that there was a particular group that had really low divorce rates - down in the 2-3% variety (I've heard as low as 0.2%), with happy marriages and good communication, very few issues with porn or abuse, and almost no instances of abortion. I don't know about you - but that seemed really appealing to me! 

So I started researching. And it turns out that this group of very counter-cultural people (mostly, but not exclusively Catholic) are the people who follow what the Church teaches, including on one really important and controversial doctrine - contraception. 

After I graduated I went straight into youth ministry and actually researched and learned about the Church’s teachings on contraception and the beauty of God’s design for us! Some great books like Birth Control and Christian Discipleship, The Good News About Sex and Marriage, and various teachings based on Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body revolutionized my understanding. 

See, the people with that crazy low divorce rate, are a group of people who, when they need to postpone pregnancy for good reason, practice natural family planning (NFP) and do not use contraception. Some detractors have said that "Well, of course people who use NFP have lower divorce rates. They're following a church that's against divorce." My response is simple - I don't have a problem with that!! There are some reasons that practicing NFP directly strengthens marriage; see Q&A below on that. 

Okay, so I was out of college, working as a youth minister, and was starting to see why the Church might just be right on this whole "no contraception" thing. I was single at the time, so this still seemed somewhat removed for me.

Then all of this quasi-theoretical study got practical. About four years ago (Spring 2008) I became friends with the man I'd ultimately marry. This is where things get really awesome. We had a great friendship that turned into an awesome courtship, engagement, and marriage. It's not to say there weren't temptations, but we were both fully grounded in Church teaching and LOVED that teaching and that we loved each other far too much for sex before marriage to even be a possibility. There was also no question that our marriage would be open to life. As I write this, my husband is sitting next to me playing with our 5-month old daughter. I wouldn't trade this for anything! 

We've been married for over a year and a half now (April 10, 2010). We've had our ups and downs - but our ups and downs together. Not in problems with each other. There is a great trust between us and with God. So much of that is because of our openness to life! We used NFP to postpone pregnancy for the first few months of our marriage. Once we reached the mark where we were pretty sure my husband's new job was relatively stable (he switched jobs right after we got married) and I would be done with my grad school classes in nine months, we stopped really trying to postpone pregnancy. But even when we weren't sure I'd be able to finish school or that we'd have any decent source of income - we were open to the idea that having a child wouldn't be the end of the world. 

There is a difference between responsible family planning under God's terms and a contraceptive mentality. It may seem subtle, but it is huge! We decided it would be irresponsible to have a child as soon as we got married because of our financial situation and my classes. That justified using natural birth control methods (selective periods of abstinence) for a short period of time - NOT contraception. Important difference... 

The truth is, following Church teaching has freed us and led to unbelievable joy. It's not a bad thing! It's not oppressive. It's great and wonderful! Something I'm learning more and more is that there are great rewards (even though they don't always seem obvious) for following it. 

That's my story. That's why this is an important topic for me.

There are emotional, physical, and social reasons why the currently available forms of contraception are not a good idea. I'm going to go into these as "proofs," if you will, because I doubt you'd be reading this if you fully accepted the Church teaching. I certainly needed them!

But ultimately, contraception is morally wrong (for everyone) because it goes against God's plan as revealed through natural law, Scripture, and tradition. That's why the emotional, physical, and social reasons to not use contraception will never be completely solved. And it's why, while it's good to know about all those reasons, what really matters is why the Church teaches what she does. That leads right to our first question... which I will answer tomorrow.

"Time" guilt

There are different types of guilt. Some are good and some are bad. Frankly, I haven't researched the topic enough to speak authoritatively, but here are a few of my thoughts on the topic.

The guilt we experience when the well-formed conscience says "what you are doing is wrong - stop, repent, and reconcile with God and his church" is vital to our process of sanctification. This is "good" guilt.

But, as with almost everything good and useful for directing us toward God, the same guilty emotion can be distorted with the opposite end goal. Because it is the same emotion, it's sometimes difficult to determine if that guilt should be acted on or ignored.

What is this other form of guilt? It's the guilt caused by the pressures of the wide path paving the way to hell. It's the pressure to achieve worldly success over eternal success. It's the temptation to expend effort and resources toward personal self-glorification instead of glorifying our Lord. It's the effect of every direct and indirect teaching contrary to the path to heaven.

We live in a world with very different values than those of Christ. Those pressures - all of those distorted values - take a toll on the formation of a conscience. They cause guilty feelings when we don't achieve success. When we don't meet "our goals."

I don't think there is a strict sliding scale in the formation of a conscience from poorly formed to well formed. Rather, each individual has strengths and weaknesses - areas of God's teachings that come more easily, concupiscence to certain sins and not others, thorough study in one particular area, etc... And a tactic of the enemy may be to find those weak areas - the poorly catechized controversial issues, the propensities toward certain activities - and he finds a way to reform the conscience to slowly veer further and further away from the will of God. Once that area has been well-distorted, another can be attacked. So that "bad" guilt can even cause us to feel guilty about following God and His perfect plan for our lives.

Example - how many people use contraception because they truly believe it to be a moral good and would actually feel guilty if they stopped using it? Read this if you aren't sure on this one.  

My conscience has been in rehab the past few weeks. You see, I like to work. I find fulfillment in productivity. I have a tendency to always want to be working and I often feel guilty when I am not. I've struggled for years with being truly present and not getting lost in my thoughts of all the other things I think I should be doing instead of whatever it is that I'm actually doing at the moment. I differentiate here from multi-tasking; I'm simply examining the demeaning of one activity via obsession with what I "should" be doing. This has come up more and more lately with Clare, as I have to spend my time doing things that seem a "waste of all my talents and education and won't get any of my films made." Things like making goofy faces at Clare; singing phonics songs; packing her and her accessories up to go places like Mass; to the repetitive feedings, diaper changes, clothes washing, etc... It's easy to think these tasks unimportant.

Time is precious to me. I feel guilty when I waste it. But there is a difference in feeling guilty for wasting time doing something truly wasteful like spending the day watching TV versus spending the day obsessing over MY plan for the day and not accepting the plan that God has. I fall into this trap often. And since guilt isn't intended to be a good feeling, it pushes out the joy that I know God intends for me to have in the day He planned for me. Why do I let myself feel guilty doing what I know God wants me to do? That's just silly.

I know right now that my vocation is to be a wife and mother. For the time being, I also have an avocation to finish grad school and to make films that communicate God's point of view. If you look at my life objectively, examining the moments of my day, I think this is obvious. The majority of my day is spent with my husband and daughter, in communication with God, and then working on school and films. The things that are less important to me - a picture "perfect" house, money, well done hair and make up, etc... are neglected. But I was feeling more and more guilty about not focusing on the things that were missing - the things that I know, if I stop and think analytically - are unimportant but valued by our culture. Even feeling guilty about not spending time doing the good things that used to be part of God's plan for my life but I know are no longer on the forefront. Stuff like not being really involved in youth ministry, not taking a lot of classes in school, etc.

I started to realize why I wasn't able to be really present in my day-to-day activities through reading this book on motherhood. If you're a mom, I highly recommend it. Anyway, I realized that I was letting "time guilt" get to me and make me not just enjoy what I was doing when I was doing it - even when I knew I was doing exactly what I needed to be doing. Other than a short relapse yesterday morning of frustration when I spent hours trying to accomplish a simple task, I've really shifted my perspective the past week. I've already established that I really don't waste time - if I start to do that, then I should feel guilty. But I made a decision to not view activities as wasted time. This doesn't mean I've abandoned all goals. It does mean that when I do something, I want to do it and enjoy it and see the value in it! It means living in the present moment; living in the moment God has given me, not bemoaning the absence of the minute I think I want. When I actually do this - I really am joyful in an authentic way. Who doesn't want that?

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town, spend a year there doing business, and make a profit' - you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears. Instead you should say, 'If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that.'" - James 4: 13-15

As I wrote this, I realize that this has been quite a theme in my life and I have to get hit over the head with it every now and then. Here is a short film we made based on St. Faustina's poem about the present moment.