Monday, April 13, 2009

On Humanae Vitae

The Catholic position on contraception has posed an interesting dilemma for me in the last few years, although not within the usual context one finds dilemma in such things. For me the problem has always laid in inadequate responses. Numerous people of varying positions always failed to offer a reasonably coherent picture of the rationale that justifies NFP yet condemns any other form of Birth Control. I finally (a monument to my laziness) read through Humanae Vitae, and was not entirely surprised that the popular apologetic response of most Catholics “in the know” does not match the rigor and clarity of the Magisterium itself. The encyclical is wonderfully written and in my opinion far surpasses the earthy wisdom espoused by most people in an attempt to “dumb” down the theology to make it more suitable for general consumption. What arises from that is an almost distinct argument for “the common man” based around the precepts of naturalness, openness to life and intent. The problem lies in that reasonable response to the common man argument does not really amount to an argument against the true position of the Church.

In the common man argument I find no real strength. The idea of something being natural as a justification for a moral precept is silly given that the Church takes no further stance on other unnatural means, such as medicine. Openness to life lends itself to degenerate into a legalistic discussion of want qualifies as “open to life” to which I find the only reasonable standard being success rate of the method in preventing pregnancy. On that standard NFP is about as open to life as the pill and less so then other forms of contraception. Finally intent is problematic because it implies that the moral component is not intrinsic in the method. If NFP can be wrong given certain intentions why can’t others be right given the correct intentions?

The problem in my own approach to these arguments is that while they may be (and I think they are) correct they do not honestly approach the position espoused by the Encyclical. They are however honest derivations of the original logic and I still think that some of the arguments may still work. This is however the first time I am working through the issue starting with Humanae Vitae as the primary source. I propose to follow each of the common man precepts back to the encyclical itself in order to effectively elucidate the position therein.

Let us ignore naturalness for the time being and head straight into openness to life. I believe the openness to life argument for the justification of NFP is truly off base in regards to the encyclical’s own logic. It seems to have evolved from talk about the two necessary components to the “marriage act” the unitive aspect and the procreative aspect. The Churches view of sex maintains the essential nature of both of these components and to remove one would be to strip the very meaning and efficaciousness of the intended act of love/union. From this position very reasonably stems the prohibition on contraception in that it clearly destroys the procreative aspect of sex. This leads to my problem in general which is how then can NFP be justified.

Here lies the germ of the “openness to life” precept. The church considers the taking advantage of an infertile period in that the couple “rightly use a faculty provided them by nature” whereas in the case of contraception it is an intentional obstruction of the natural process. I believe that the notion of NFP being “open to life” evolved from the idea of it is in accordance with the natural functioning of the generative faculties whereas other method are not. I suppose that that argument could be made, however, I see no fruitful outcome in following that road. It must eventually require suitable means of qualification of “openness to life” that degrades into a comparative study of statistics of success rates among the various methods of contraception. I propose to drop the idea completely from the argument choosing, instead, to focus on the “naturalness” precept which in its pure form retains the “spirit” of the argument from openness to life.

The “naturalness” precept arises in part due to the same passage above. However, I think the common man arguments have made the mistake of misinterpreting the Churches’ talk of what is natural. Natural here does not refer to intentional use of devices or chemicals in anything more then a superficial way. “Natural” is being confused with “Natural Law” which is a gross error. The Church decries something as unnatural in that it offends the conception of natural law: more or less the essential components of us as humans to which the denial of would make us less then human. Condom use is not unnatural in the sense that medicine is unnatural. Medicine uses artificially created compounds to render specific changes within the body to encourage health. Condoms are said to deny one’s humanity as an embodied spirit.

There is not much to be said in disagreement on this point without a much larger critique of the Churches natural law ethic, which would disrupt far more then just the prohibition on contraception. There is one smaller contention or worry I would raise, which leads into a discussion of intent. If NFP practiced with the full intent to avoid a child (how one could do it without that intent I have no idea; by accident?) then how is it much different from any other method? It would seem that the church is ok with a denial of the procreative aspect of sex, which must be “inherent” in sex as long as there is a means to do so provided by naturally occurring biology.

The precept of intent is probably the most reminiscent of its originating idea in the encyclical. Correct intent must be present, what disqualifies other forms of contraception despite correct intent is that regardless of the intent it still offends natural law. “To intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order and which therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual,” i.e. one cannot do evil for the sake of a good. Furthermore it is intent, or rather lack of intent that justifies the use of hormonal birth control methods (the Pill) for the sake of medical reasons not related to wanting or not wanting to bear a child.

Here ends my current explication on the subject, most of this was wrote in order to clarify the intertwining components of Humanae Vitae in my mind. I still believe that there are issues to be made with the argument and justifications I just have yet to really work through them, I’m sure I write more then that happens. Nonetheless this was an interesting exercise in tracking down really prevalent ideas with our circles and tracing them back to the source (a source?) and seeing how they have evolved from the original—one final point as a sort of digression.

I have always used the Pill as my main go to example of mainstream birth control to contrast against NFP in an attempt to show why it would fit into all the same justifications for NFP (a condom has a really strong “wrong” feel about it by nature of its brute simplicity). I have recently learned that one of the three effects the Pill may have is that it makes the implantation of a fertilized egg difficult by causing a thinning of the endometrium along the uterus. As far as I can gather scientists are still in contention over whether this mechanism actually exists, but if it does then the Pill in some cases acts as an abortifacient. I feel constrained to reject any use of the pill until the matter is settled, I do not think it is morally responsible to play Russian roulette, even if the presence of a bullet is unclear; I am not taking that chance. I do think that people could make some level of argument on the subject and tend to place this one in the “primacy of conscience” corner. However, it places an interesting spin on the use of the Pill for medical reasons if the patient is also in a position to be having sex. Should it be allowed for therapeutic concerns in this unknown stage? Even if the matter is settled that it may cause miscarriage?

1 comment:

  1. After reading half of your post (I will get to the rest later today) I commend your insights –especially your active process of going back to the original Church teaching. In particular, your elucidation of the “naturalness” issue was helpful. I am sure to post something larger after I finish reading.

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