Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Sun, 3 Jan 1993 01:21:23 EST
From:         Marty Helgesen <MNHCC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Contraception - a crosspost

Due to lack of time I do not regularly read soc.religion.christian,
but when Ian crossposted a posting there I read it and posted the
following reply:

David Shao writes, "Just a few years ago there were laws in America
restricting contraception even for married couples.  But the laws
were obviously stupid and immoral themselves.  In the resulting back-
lash a new right of privacy was invented which eventually was used to
justify the legalization of abortion."

Since many people today equate opposition to contraception with the
Catholic Church it is worth noting that until around the 1920s almost
all Christian churches agreed that contraception is against the will
of God.  Many individual Protestants still believe that.  The Con-
necticut laws restricting contraception were passed by Protestants at
a time when Catholics had little political power.

There was no popular backlash against the laws because long before
they came to the Supreme Court the laws had fallen into disuse.  An
artificial test case was constructed to challenge the laws.  David is
correct that the Supreme Court used the case to invent a right to
privacy that was later used to justify the legalization of abortion.

David says, "To teach that artificial contraception is as bad as
extra-marital sexual intercourse is an incredible perversion of the
Church's role as the conductor of the Holy Spirit's instruction to
the world."  Unless this thread has been going on under another sub-
ject line, I don't think anyone has said contraception is as bad as
adultery, just that both are misuses of sex as God intended it.
There are some Christians who believe that all sins are of equal
gravity.  I disagree with that position, as, I think, do most other
Christians, but that question is not related specifically to contra-
ception.

David says, "Surely this issue is today's equivalent of the Pharisees
regulations.  Just listen to the justification for 'natural' birth
control--we'll just find a way to sneak around the letter of God's law.
What an embarrassment to the faith!  Either God wants us to or does not
want us to have children.  The important issue is the DECISION on
whether or not to have children, not the method."

The method used to achieve a goal is important.  If a couple wants to
limit the size of its family it has several possible methods avail-
able to it including Natural Family Planning (NFP), contraception,
abortion, and infanticide.  I don't know of anyone who denies that
under some circumstances a married couple is justified in limiting
the size of their family, but few people today would say that infan-
ticide is a morally legitimate method of achieving that goal.

I am not yet married, although I would like to be married, because I
have not yet met the right woman.  I am, by remaining unmarried,
limiting the size of my family and of the world's population (al-
though that is not the reason).  I  am, in a broad sense of the term,
practicing a form of birth  control.  However, I don't think anyone
would claim I am practicing contraception.  It is true that so long
as I remain unmarried and so long as I refrain from the sins of
adultery and fornication I will not be a party to the conception of
any children, but that does not mean I am practicing contraception.

When a woman has gone through menopause she cannot, apart from a
miracle, conceive any children.  However, I don't think anyone
would claim that when she and her husband have intercourse they
are practicing contraception.  Her permanent inability to conceive is
the result of the natural life cycle of a human female.

Suppose a younger couple has intercourse whenever they are in the
mood, without regard for whether the wife's monthly cycle makes her
fertile or infertile at the time, and without using a condom, the
pill, or any other device to prevent pregnancy, the way most couples
have had intercourse throughout human history.  It is likely that
most of their acts of intercourse will occur during infertile periods
and will not result in conception but that some will occur during
fertile periods and will result in conception.  Again, I don't think
anyone would say that they are practicing contraception. They are not
practicing contraception when, by chance, the intercourse occurs when
the woman is fertile and she conceives.  Nor are they practicing
contraception when, by chance, the intercourse occurs when the woman
is infertile and she does not conceive.

When a couple practices NFP, each individual act of intercourse
is the same as it would be if the couple were having intercourse
without regard for the time of month, as in the previous paragraph.
The only difference between this couple and the couple in the preced-
ing paragraph is that this couple is taking the woman's status in her
natural monthly cycle into account in deciding whether or not to have
intercourse.  Doing so does not interfere with the individual act of
intercourse, which is identical with both couples.  Contraception
does interfere with the individual act by preventing the deposit of
sperm, killing the sperm, etc.  That is what makes the moral differ-
ence.

If you believe that that kind of interference is morally legitimate,
that is between you and God.  I  do not, but the reasons why are a
different question.

Marty Helgesen
Bitnet: mnhcc@cunyvm   Internet: mnhcc@cunyvm.cuny.edu

"Experience beats in vain upon a congenital progressive."
        --  C. S. Lewis
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