Artificial Birth Control and Induced Miscarriage
The attack upon Catholic theology escalates from auto-eroticism or self- stimulation to fornication, cohabitation, adultery. Once these practices involve another person, the issue of artificial birth control and abortion quickly arises. Today the contraceptive mentality is so ingrained that many churchmen now ignore it as a lost battle. The practice is found both among the most egregious public sinners and those who regularly attend Sunday Mass and say their prayers. While the Catholic faith is directly targeted, often the history of the question is ignored. Virtually all Christian churches, Protestant and Catholic, forbade the use of birth control from the time of Christ until the Anglican Lambeth Conference of 1930. Technology had advanced, but birth control was even condemned in the early Church when bizarre treatments included the use of crocodile dung. It was viewed as an attack against the natural order and the fundamental meaning of marriage as the divinely sanctioned institution directed toward the generation of new human life. The basic definition of marriage was at stake.
Often the revisionists make no distinction between the types of birth control or the abortifacient nature of certain pills and of all IUDs. There was a logical progression in our society from the use of birth control to the deeper tragedy of abortion. Sex and the generation of human life were separated. When contraceptives failed, abortion became the final option. The Church’s voice suffered from divisiveness within her own ranks. Not only was the definition of marriage at stake but also about the “incommensurate” value of human life and the precious dignity of all human persons. Here too there is a peculiar irony in that the same angry voices against rogue priests and child abuse, failed to note the element of abuse toward women in contraception and the death sentence that was imposed upon innocent children in the womb. Women were increasingly used and devalued. Their worth was measured in terms of sexual desirability and promiscuity. Worse yet, women bought the lie that this somehow balanced the playing field between men and women. It did not. Many women were robbed of their opportunities for motherhood and family life. The worse abuse of all against children materialized with the advent of legalized abortion. Until recently an abortionist in Germantown Maryland was aborting nine-month-old children in the womb— yes, children that were ready to be born. Abortion at any stage is murder and we suffer this grievous abuse against children as a manufactured right of selfish women and men.
What does the universal catechism offer on the subject of contraception?
[CCC 2366] Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which “is on the side of life” (FC 30) teaches that “each and every marriage act must remain open ‘per se’ to the transmission of life” (HV 11). “This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act” (HV 12; cf. Pius XI, encyclical, Casti connubii).
[CCC 2367] Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God (Ephesians 3:14; Matthew 23:9). “Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility” (GS 50 # 2).
As for the more pressing issue of abortion, we read:
[CCC 2270] Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life (CDF, Donum vitae I,1).
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you” (Jeremiah 1:5).
“My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth” (Psalm 139:15).
[CCC 2271] Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:
“You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish” (Didache 2,2:ÆCh 248,148).
“God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes” (GS 51 § 3).
[CCC 2272] Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,” (CIC, can. 1398) “by the very commission of the offense,” (CIC, can. 1314) “and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law” (CIC, cann. 1323-1324). The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.
[CCC 2273] The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:
“The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death” (CDF, Donum vitae III).
“The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights” (CDF, Donum vitae III).
[CCC 2274] Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.
Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, “if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed toward its safeguarding or healing as an individual. . . . It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence” (CDF, Donum vitae I,2).
[CCC 2275] “One must hold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks for it, but are directed toward its healing the improvement of its condition of health, or its individual survival” (CDF, Donum vitae I,3).
“It is immoral to produce human embryos intended for exploitation as disposable biological material” (CDF, Donum vitae I,5).
“Certain attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance are not therapeutic but are aimed at producing human beings selected according to sex or other predetermined qualities. Such manipulations are contrary to the personal dignity of the human being and his integrity and identity” (CDF, Donum vitae I,6) which are unique and unrepeatable.
[CCC 2368] A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality:
When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, the morality of the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of motives alone; but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the person and his acts criteria that respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is practiced with sincerity of heart (GS 51 # 3).
[CCC 2369] “By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its orientation toward man’s exalted vocation to parenthood” (HV 12).
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