Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Why contraception is wrong, Part One


If someone asks me why contraception is wrong, here is what I would say*. 
1)      If you break the word down, it means "against conception" (contra- ‘against’ + a shortened form of conception.).  So, the act is against conception.  Well, there is the first clue God would not approve of it.   It is against something He created, the act of conception.  
2)      How do human beings come into the world?   They do through conception.  Therefore, conception is a good thing because human beings come into the world through it.   Without conception, there is no birth, no baby, no beautiful child, and correspondingly, no further children.  Something that goes against all that cannot be a good thing.
3)      We often hear the phrase "actions speak louder than words".   We speak more than with just words.  Saint John Paul II spoke of the "nuptial meaning of the body".   Through all the actions of our body, we speak something.  When we use contraception in the midst of the conjugal act, what are we saying?  We are saying we love the other person, but not with our whole selves.  Is this really the love we want to show the other person, especially in such a deep and profoundly intimate moment?  By using contraception, we indeed make it look like we are giving our whole selves to the other, but we really are not.  Contraception makes us liars.   God, who is truth, does not lie, and we who are created in his image, are made for truth, not for falsehood.  Therefore, in addition to going against the good, it goes against truth, and that is another reason why God would not approve of contraception.
4)      Close to the beginning of the Bible, God says "Be fruitful and multiply.  Fill the earth and subdue it." (Genesis 1:28).  God wants to fill the earth with people made in his image!   Contraception specifically, and all forms of population control in general, goes directly against this wish of God's.  There are serious affects when we lower birth rates which I discussed in detail in my series entitled “Be Fruitful and Multiply”, specifically Part Three:  http://jimscatholicblog.blogspot.com/2017/04/be-fruitful-and-multiply-part-three_2.html
5)      It is wrong because the supreme moral authority in the world, the Catholic Church, says so.  Let us read the exact words of the Catechism on this matter, which quotes Humane Vitae.  "Every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil." (p.2370) When we introduce something to thwart fecundity, into an act that is designed by God to promote fecundity, we do wrong.  
6)      Contraception leads to abortion.  This will be the topic of the next post.
*much of this material comes from a previous post on contraception I did in 2016:

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