Você está na página 1de 4

Catholic Apologetics Birth Control

Why is the Catholic Church against birth control? The Catholic Church is not against controlling the number of births by natural means, such as Natural Family Planning or abstinence. What the Church is against is artificial means of controlling births, such as drugs or devices that prevent conception. The use of such things to deliberately frustrate the normal effects of sexual intercourse is a very grave sin against the law of God because its ultimate implication is the destruction of the human race.

What is Natural Family Planning? Natural Family Planning (NFP) is a method that tracks a womans fertility cycle each month. By avoiding sexual intimacy during her fertility window she can avoid becoming pregnant, thus making NFP a natural form of birth control. This method is approved by the Church. At the same time, if a couple wants children, they can use this method to increase the womans chance of becoming pregnant. Why does the Catholic Church support Natural Family Planning (NFP) when artificial contraception and Natural Family Planning both have the same objective (to avoid pregnancy)? Because morally they are not the same. There are two main differences between NFP and artificial contraception: First, artificial contraception involves direct and deliberate steps before, during, and after the marital act. Natural Family Planning involves no marital act at all. To put it another way, artificial contraception involves doing something, NFP involves doing nothing. Morally, there is a big difference between acting against something and not acting against it. If a couple, for serious reasons, desires to space out the births of their children they can abstain from marital relations without harbouring a hostile and immoral attitude toward human life. By abstaining they are not attacking life at its very beginning through chemical or mechanical means. Second, NFP requires the loving cooperation of both parties, instead of placing the burden only on one partner. This mutual involvement of husband and wife demands real communication between them, which, in turn, can enhance the respect, increase the affection, and deepen the love they feel for each other.

How long has the Catholic Church said birth control is wrong? The Catholic Church has taught birth control is wrong since the earliest days of the Church. Origen wrote to the pagan Celsus in the third century: "At least the more our people obey Christian doctrine, the more they love purity, abstaining from even lawful sex-pleasure that they may the more purely worship God. Christians marry as do others, and they have children, but they do not stifle their offspring. They are in bodies of flesh, but they do not live according to the flesh". St. Augustine wrote in the fourth century: "Relations with one's wife, when conception is deliberately prevented, are as unlawful and impure as the conduct of Onan who was slain." St. Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, taught clearly the Church's stand that birth control is a grave sin when he wrote: "Next to murder, by which can actually existent human being is destroyed, we rank this sin by which the generation of a human being is prevented."

Is there a moral law on birth control? Yes. The controlling of births is allowed if lawful means are used, such as self control, but the moral law insists that if a couple engages in sexual intercourse they must do nothing to deliberately prevent God's normal natural laws from taking effect. Those who support birth control want to render sensuality lawful for its own sake, indulging in actions intended by God to result in children merely for entertainment purposes. This gratification of desire is forbidden by divine law, degrades marriage by reducing it to merely legalized sensuality, and is sinful by its very nature.

The Bible does not prohibit birth control. The Bible does not prohibit birth control by the name "birth control", but it does indeed prohibit it by action. In Genesis 38:9 we read that Onan "spilled his seed upon the ground", and in Genesis 38:10 God slew him "because he did a detestable thing". St. Augustine (4th century) rightly summed up the Apostolic tradition on the subject of birth control in his treatise on the sin of adultery when he wrote: "Marital relations even with a lawful wife, are unlawful and degrading when the conception of a child is deliberately frustrated. This was the sin of Onan, and God struck him dead because of it."

Jesus never said contraceptive birth control is sinful. There is no reason why we should expect Jesus to have dealt explicitly with birth control any more than with euthanasia, nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, artificial insemination, or any of the other moral problems we have in the world today. He gave us the general principle that we must do God's will, not our own, even if it means denying ourselves. The will of God is manifested to us in two ways: expressly in Holy Scripture, and by the natural moral law. He established the Catholic Church to be our authoritative guide to protect us from our own liability to error.

Contraception does not destroy existing life. Contraception is not murder by direct killing, but it does violate the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" indirectly. God reserves to Himself the rights over human life. We usurp God's rights when we take it upon ourselves to destroy the life of another. Contraception indirectly violates this law of God by deliberately frustrating the natural laws ordained by God for the production of life and the perpetuation of the human species.

The Catholic Church needs to change its teaching on contraception. The Catholic Church exists to explain the law of God, not to break it. Contraceptive birth control is evil of its very nature and is forbidden by God Himself and the Catholic Church has no authority to override God.

Its better to use contraception than to bring children into the world that cannot be adequately cared for. It is better to face any temporal trial than to commit any sin, especially mortal sin. A good intention cannot justify the use of sinful means and actions to attain that good intention. It is important to remember that there are no privileges that do not carry with them obligations, and sometimes those obligations are awkward. Selfish temporal comfort is not the supreme good. God does not send a single child that cannot be fed. Children may mean selfsacrifice, but they also mean far greater blessings and temporal comfort in later years. More often than not the question is not about the ability to feed another child but whether there will be a new car or boat next year or a trip abroad instead of having another child.

Is it a sin for a woman to have a hysterectomy for medical reasons? No. If a woman requires a hysterectomy for medical reasons, and not for contraceptive purposes, it is not a sin because the intent of the procedure is to bring about wholeness and healing to the woman. If her reproductive organs are removed for contraceptive reasons, however, that would constitute a mutilation of the body, and would result in all successive acts of intercourse being contraceptive and, therefore, sinful.

What about the use of contraception where the womans health would be endangered by becoming pregnant? We must face the question of what is right and wrong in itself. If something is morally wrong it is always morally wrong, different circumstances will never make it right. Natural laws intended by God to result in children are not to be frustrated. If a woman's health would in fact be endangered by becoming pregnant then her husband has the obligation to think of her rather than of him and to forego his own pleasure. The wife would also be justified in refusing marital privileges to her husband in such a case.

Is it morally correct to offer "morning after" pills to a rape victim to prevent pregnancy? A victim of rape has the moral right to prevent conception by any procedure that is not an abortifacient. The so called "morning after" pill does not prevent conception, it kills the fertilized egg after conception has occurred and is thus immoral.

Is it a sin to space children? It is lawful to space children by mutual restraint and abstinence. Not using the marital privilege is lawful; use with artificial birth control is a sinful abuse and is not justifiable under any circumstances. We are not dispensed from a law of God because it is inconvenient.

Its woman's body, can't she do with it as she pleases? A woman's body is not hers to do with as she pleases. God created all things; therefore all things belong to Him. God created the human body in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26). 1 Corinthians 19 says "Or know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?" We are not our own property, we belong to God. We have no rights against God, He has the right to lay down all the conditions as to how we must use the body He has given us. SOURCES
Douay Rheims version of the Holy Bible Catechism of the Catholic Church The Catholic Answer Book 1, by Rev. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, PH.D., S.T.L. The Catholic Answer Book 2, by Rev. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, PH.D., S.T.L. The Catholic Answer Book 3, by Rev. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, PH.D., S.T.L. Birth Prevention Quizes to a Street Preacher, by Fathers Rumble and Carty This Is The Faith, by Canon Francis Ripley

Você também pode gostar