Quote:
Originally Posted by Teuthida
Apologies if wanted more controversial questions. Well, hmmm...ok, so abortion I can sort of see the logic behind, but why reject contraception?
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So I just spent the last hour or so typing up a response that I was very happy with and lost it all. This will be attempt number two.
So, contraception? How could the Church be against that? Do they just want us to keep having babies until we are no longer fertile?
First, in order to understand why the Church says no to contraception, we must first understand what the Church is not saying no to. The Church is not saying that you cannot plan your pregnancies. The Church understands that not everyone is capable (either financially or mentally) or desires to have 20 kids. We are allowed to plan our families. The Church simply says that we should not use artificial means to achieve this goal. Why not artificial means? Well, as I said previously, in order to understand this, we must understand the Church’s teaching on sex.
The Church teaches that sex is good and it is one of the gifts that God has given us. Through sex we are able to give of ourselves most completely to another person. No other activity in this existence matches this. When we have sex, we give of ourselves completely to our lover. Anything that prevents this full giving of ourselves misuses the gift of sex. It erects barriers between us and our lover and says I give myself to you, but I withhold this part of my humanity. Condoms and other barrier methods literally put a barrier between us and our lover. We say “I love you enough to share this most intimate experience between two human beings with you, but I want to keep this part of myself separate from you.”
Our humanity is good! God created us and everything that makes us human is good. This includes our fertility. Birth control methods which suppress our natural fertility suppress our humanity! We say to God, I reject this part of my body which you created for me. We use artificial methods to suppress natural functions of the body without a medical necessity simply so we can have sex without the consequence of pregnancy. This doesn’t even take into consideration that some methods of birth control (especially the so called “morning after pill”) can actually prevent a fertilized egg from implanting. If you know anything about Catholic teaching, you probably know that the Church teaches that life begins at conception and is to be respected until natural death. This goes contrary to that teaching.
The great Catholic writer/thinker G.K. Chesterton hated the term “birth control” as he hated all words that were meaningless. He felt that those that used birth control believed in neither birth nor control. Instead they wished for less birth and no control as relates to their sexual desires.
Earlier I mentioned that the Church is OK with natural means to avoid pregnancy. These methods are commonly referred to as Natural Family Planning or NFP and have been shown in various studies when practiced properly to be 95% effective or higher. Basically, a couple practicing NFP works with the woman’s natural cycle to avoid sex during the fertile periods of the cycle and practice sex only during those periods of infertility.
TL : DR version: Our humanity is good. Sex is good. Contraception suppresses our humanity and prevents the full union of husband and wife through sex.
Does that make sense?