to prevent conception. A Roman Catholic couple who feel conscientiously unable to have further children, are restricted to the use of “the safe period” or the rhythm method. The consequence is a gnawing feeling of un certainty and a sense of anxious fear. (There is no absolute certainty about the exact limits of the “safe period” nor any guarantee that it is invariably safe.) Furthermore, the occasions of intercourse are necessarily limited to the particular period each month which is believed to be safe. This arbitrary restriction of inter course to certain days militates against true spontaneity. The approved days may not coincide with either desire or convenience. It is difficult to see what advantage there is in the use of a method which is uncertain in operation and limited in occasion over against the adoption of a method which is scientifically sound and incomparably more safe. On this matter each Christian couple will, finally, form their own judgment in the light of the “causes” for which marriage was instituted by God. Many Chris tians feel that the morality or immorality of contracep tion depends primarily upon the ends which contracep tion is made to serve. The use of contraceptives by any person, whether married or unmarried, for the purpose of sexual promiscuity, is plainly wrong; the use of con traceptives by married people to escape and evade the responsibility of parenthood (except in cases of over riding necessity) is also wrong. The honored principle is abusus non tollit usum, “abuse does not bar use.” Sex Outside of Marriage There are, of course, manifold temptations to promis cuity. The availability of contraceptive knowledge has undoubtedly increased these temptations. In the Bible, adultery is the term used to describe marital (infidelity; fornication is the word used to describe sexual im morality before marriage. The Bible condemns- both adultery and fornication. The Christian standard is chasity before marriage and fidelity after marriage. The pursuit of indiscriminate sexual satisfaction al ways involves, to a greater or lesser extent, the sin of exploitation. The person who is intent on the mere en joyment of sexual gratification is selfishly using another as a means to an end, and is treating a human being as a plaything and a toy. This is the degradation of love. Sexual intercourse becomes meaningful and significant only as the expression and reward of love. That is why prostitution is so degrading and corrupting; all the concomitants of love are absent. A woman who sells her body degrades herself; the implication is that she re gards herself as a physical object and not as a person. Lecky, echoing Augustine, said of the prostitute: “her self the supreme type of vice, she is ultimately the most efficient guardian of virtue.” This statement is morally fallacious and historically untrue. Virtue and vice are opposite sides of the one coin, and the man who begins by condoning and extenuating vice always ends by debasing and degrading virtue. Extramarital intercourse is always unsatisfactory. It lacks the sanctity of society and the element of public approval which attaches to marriage, and it lacks stabil ity and security — an aspect that cannot be ignored if children are the fruit of the union. Extramarital inter course is often a furtive and fleeting affair — the carnal consequence of impulse and passion. It is often a preda tory and selfish thing. In any case, it lacks the quality of total self-giving which finds its fulfillment and ex pression in marriage. (Condensed from Christianity and Sex, published by Inter- Varsity Press and available at $1.25.)
Marriage is meant to be a partnership and not a dictator ship. It is a shocking thing when children are used as pawns, compelled to take sides in a relentless war of attrition between husband and wife. Nor should children be conceived in the expectation that they will solve exist ing tensions; they will not solve them; they will only reflect them. It is sometimes said that there are no prob lem children, but only problem parents. This is an exaggeration but it contains some measure of truth. Humanly speaking, by our attitudes and example, we have it in our hands to make or mar. By understanding love we can create an atmosphere which is encouraging and reassuring, or by our lack of understanding love, we can instill fear and insecurity. The procreation of children to boost one’s own ego or to solve one’s own problems is simply immoral; it often bears bitter fruit in implacable resentment and psychological rejection. Each couple will decide for themselves the extent to which they avail themselves of contraceptive knowl edge. It is difficult to see that any moral objection can be raised to the responsible use of contraceptives by married couples when the purpose is to plan and space children and to safeguard the health of the wife. It is sometimes claimed that contraception is “un natural.” The question is what is “natural.” Man is continually interrupting and changing the course of nature. His dignity lies in “subduing” it (in accordance with the biblical word, Genesis 1:28). He has it in his hands to shape and transform it; that is his duty and responsibility. The methods used by nature to limit the abundant fecundity of life have been, as the Reverend Thomas B. Malthus pointed out in 1798, such positive checks as starvation, disease, and war. Today other methods, less dysgenic, are at the disposal of man. The argument that contraception is “unnatural” would only 'be valid if it would be claimed that the sole justification for intercourse is conception. But this is plainly not so. Intercourse, as we have seen, is a means whereby a married couple enjoy and express love; it witnesses to the love which binds them, and it further strengthens that love. It is in the first place unitive, and it is also procreative. It can hardly be argued that the sole “natural” function of intercourse is procreation, because the days in the monthly menstrual cycle when conception is possible are comparatively few. No one would suggest that physical relations should cease with the onset of menopause: How then would a married couple, who in the normal course of events might justifi ably expect to live together as man and wife for a fur ther thirty years, express the biblical truth that they are “one flesh”? When St. Paul discusses the place of sexual intercourse in marriage, he discusses it, not from the point of view of reproduction, but as a mutual obli gatory service which the spouses owe each other. The limits are set, significantly enough, not by the demands of procreation but by the mutual desires of the partners in relation to prayer and fasting (I Cor. 7:3ff). The Roman Catholic Church is the most implacable opponent of “artificial” contraception. Yet the position adopted by the Roman Catholic Church is inconsistent and indefensible. Roman Catholic moral theologians, while affirming that the intended end of intercourse is procreation, nevertheless recognize the propriety of inter course during what is termed the “safe period.” Those who adopt this view admit that intercourse may properly be undertaken for purpose other than conception. Pope Pius XI, in the Bull Caste Connubi (1931), agrees that intercourse is lawful, even without any intention of children, providing no mechanical device is employed
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MAY, 1963
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