Catholic Contraception?

One of the challenges facing Catholic teaching on married couples having children is the way it condemns the use of artificial contraception but permits the practice of natural family planning (NFP). With NFP, the Church allows for couples to coordinate the conjugal act to occur during the natural period of infertility of the woman’s menstrual cycle—with the intention of avoiding pregnancy. At first sight, the Church’s stance on the supposed moral difference between the artificial and natural methods of birth regulation strikes as arbitrary and superficial. Sometimes, it’s even the object of mockery and derision.

A recent example of derision comes courtesy of the National Catholic Reporter (NCR), whose article on the contraception issue puts the matter thus: “The claim that there is a moral distinction between the intentions of the approved rhythm method or natural family planning and banned artificial contraception, both of which intend to prevent pregnancy, is disingenuous, counterintuitive, and morally unjustifiable.”

Strong words. But do they ring true? Hardly.

In a crafty but highly equivocal move, the authors fail to distinguish two paramount criteria for determining the moral quality of an act: what the act in itself, objectively speaking, intends or aims at (moralists name this the “object” of the act) and what, subjectively speaking, the individual committing the act intends (moralists sometimes term this the disposition to the object of the act). In other words, every action involves two intentions: that of the act in itself (the finis operis, to use scholastic language) and that of the person doing the act (the finis operantis). The authors of the NCR article collapse both meanings into the one term intention. Little wonder that they do this, since the distinction makes clear the moral difference between NFP and artificial contraception, and so undercuts their project.

How does this work out in practice? Look at it this way: contracepting couples and NFP couples, at the level of the finis operantis, intend the same thing: to avoid pregnancy. But they accomplish this in two vastly divergent ways. One—NFP—respects and tampers not in the least with the natural procreative ordering of the sexual act, whereas the other (contraception) directly inhibits and violates the natural procreative ordering of the act. The two thus differ in terms of the finis operis, no matter if they share an identical finis operantis.

We can consider an analogous case. Consider two men who share the same intention (the same finis operantis) of providing for their families. One acts on his intention by robbing a bank, whereas the other acts through honest work. The clear moral difference between the two derives from the distinct finis operis of each (one violates the order of justice, the other does not). Or consider two persons who intend to hydrate their bodies, yet one does it by drinking water and the other by drinking sulfuric acid. Two very different acts, even if ordered by the two drinkers to the same end!

Similarly, NFP respects the order of nature (the natural ordering of the sexual act), whereas contraception violates it. NFP, we might say, is merely non-procreative, since it avoids pregnancy as a result of circumstance (the circumstance of the sexual act occurring during the natural period of infertility of the woman’s menstrual cycle); whereas contraception is positively anti-procreative, as it changes the sexual act in kind by removing its procreative dimension—that is, by sterilizing it.

Keep in mind that it is the object of the act (finis operis), not the subjective intention, that makes the act the kind of act it is. If erasing the sexual act’s procreative design is the object of contraception, the object of NFP, by contrast, fully respects—leaves untouched—the procreative design of the act. The two thus differ wholly in kind. The sexual act of the couple who take advantage of natural periodic infertility remains of the sort that is procreation–oriented, as it is only for accidental (circumstantial) reasons that pregnancy does not result.

We can consider another analogy that highlights this difference-in-kind principle. Imagine two individuals. One cannot see because he is sleeping. The other cannot see because he has intentionally blinded himself. If we wish to deny the moral difference between these two, we have to assert, among other things, that the failure to see in the case of deliberate self-blinding results exclusively from circumstance. One would have to deny—absurdly—that the two differ in kind. The same holds for denying the moral difference between contraception and NFP.

This same principle applies to any case of marital sex that is unintentionally infertile. (We need to stress this, since opponents of the Church’s teaching on contraception appeal to multiple examples of infertile marital sex to show supposed inconsistency in the Church’s position.) This would include cases where advanced age or an already existing pregnancy renders the sexual act non-procreative—again, for accidental reasons. It holds as well for the couple that experiences permanent infertility, whatever the cause (hysterectomy as a result of treating a medical condition like uterine cancer, failure to ovulate, menstrual cycle issues, structural reproductive issues, endometriosis, etc.). In all cases, the sexual act remains in kind or in principle a procreation-oriented act; the act retains its “procreative meaning.”

The authors of the NCR gloss over all this, and in pursuit of a disturbing goal. Taking the contraception debate as an occasion to launch a full assault on the Church’s teaching on sexual morality, the authors equate homoerotic acts with sex between permanently infertile spouses. They thus suggest that the moral permissibility of sex in the one case (the infertile married couple) should extend to acts that ape sex in the other: “Sexual activity [between members of the same sex],” they write, “is as incurably infertile as the acts of permanently infertile married heterosexuals [sic], which the Catholic Church recognizes as legitimate and ethical.” The problem here is obvious: homoerotic practices are in fact not the same in kind as acts of permanently infertile married couples. These latter again are merely circumstantially (accidentally) infertile, whereas the former are sterile by nature. The fundamental moral difference between homoerotic acts and infertile marital sex stands.

We should acknowledge that, in principle, the NCR authors are correct to see contraception as like a net that gathers a whole catch of anti-procreative sexual practices. Sterilizing the sexual act through the removal of the procreative ordering identifies it in kind with any sexual practice that lacks the design for procreation. And if, as the NCR article contends, contraception is morally defensible, then so, too, is any of these other anti-procreative acts. This would include, the authors expressly (and correctly) point out, same-sex practices. We could add others—most notably masturbation and, closely related to it, pornography, sexting, and so on.

We can see why more—much more—than just how to approach having children hinges on the contraception debate. As the NCR article acknowledges, the dispute over Humanae Vitae “goes beyond the issue of contraception.”

I close by observing that NFP, like any good thing, can be practiced for selfish reasons. In this case, it would constitute an immoral practice on account of a flawed subjective intention (finis operantis)—but only on this account. Couples who master fertility awareness are not immune to the “contraceptive mentality” that pervades Western society today.

It bears repeating: the conjugal act—indeed, the marital relationship—is by design ordered to procreation. Accordingly, the “default” position for any married couple is to have children, to welcome whatever fruit their sexual joining may naturally produce. Hence the weighty reminder of Humanae Vitae (10) that “only for serious moral reasons” may a couple regulate their family size. Translation: The decision not to have a child requires justification.

Yet, our contraceptive culture has turned this the other way around. The default position has become one where it’s the decision to have children that requires justification. It is as if responsible parenthood today means that a couple decides to welcome a child (or two) when the circumstances warrant it—usually via appeal to financial stability, emotional and psychological “readiness,” job security, and the like—and not before.

Efforts to “take down” the Church’s perennial proscription against artificial contraception by attacking NFP always fail. They fail because the principle used to determine the moral difference between NFP and contraception eludes them. That principle is straightforward: the act considered in itself, the kind of act it is, plays a determinative role in whether that act is moral. And as regards the two methods of birth regulation, they are fundamentally different in kind, as one respects the natural procreative ordering of the sexual act, and the other violates it. The final word on this matter thus goes to Humanae Vitae 16: “In reality, these two cases are completely different.”