Contraception 2

Contraception 2

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Is the Church really out of its mind when it teaches that contraception is morally wrong? Even though most Catholics would say yes, logic and common sense would say no. Whereas more than half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce (marriage between Catholics being no exception to this), less than two percent of couples that choose natural family planning over contraception end up in divorce.

Obviously, that statistic is not, in itself, conclusive proof of contraception’s moral unacceptability, but it is a staggering fact, and one that should demand the attention of even the Church’s most severe critics.

Why is this? According to the Church, there’s a very simple explanation. When couples (married or unmarried) use contraception, they are depriving themselves of receiving the full bonding affect that sex is meant to provide. That’s because, in some way, shape, or form, they are placing a barrier between themselves. Like teenagers in the backseat of a car, they want to have the physical and emotional connection of sex without the natural consequences. In a word, they want sex with no strings (or at least with a few less strings) attached.

But sex isn’t really sex unless you attach all the strings. This is what the Church teaches when she says that sex must be a total gift of oneself, that is, free, complete, exclusive, and open to the possibility of new life. For all the volumes of writing that has been devoted to explaining this teaching, and for the centuries of philosophical and theological reflection that has gone into developing it, isn’t it worth considering that maybe, just maybe, the Church has a point?