“So… It’s “immoral” for Catholics to use condoms? Wow. You guys are taking this abortion thing a little too far now. I get not wanting to kill a fetus. But to stop a person from using protection and taking away their option to abort is just horrendous. ”

First off, I would separate the abortion issue from the contraceptive issue. Abortion is murder. Its the exact same thing as infanticide, only the child is a bit younger and its easier to pretend that the human life does not exist. The fact that it is killing a human being puts this issue beyond mere morality. It is a grave and serious injustice for any state or society to condone the killing of innocent human life.

It’s common sense. Granted, we’d all like to pretend that its a gray issue, but to pretend it is gray is to make the claim against human equality. It is to say that the value of a human is determined in ratio to either a person’s ability to suffer as Peter Sanger argues (in which case Sanger’s argument for legal infanticide would be reasonable), or in their mental capacities, thus the most intelligent person in the world would be more entitled to things than the average person and especially those who are developmentally disabled. In which case, we’d be arguing against the very principle of human rights, for the concept of rights is based on equality.

Abortion is intolerable.

Contraceptives is a moral issue. Now, I do know Catholics who bring the contraceptive issue into it. For they do understand that people’s perception that they have somehow a right to abortion stems from their perception that their fertility and their sexuality are separate. I will agree, that a society that has a Catholic viewpoint toward their sexuality would be one that would be less prone to condoning or partaking in abortions. But I do feel that we lose the case against abortion by confusing the contraceptive issue into it. The Church’s stance on sexual ethics has even a stronger basis on truly Christian ideas which at least I think can only come to acceptance through a true conversion of one’s heart, not through civil force.

I will not get into all the specifics of the Catholic view on sexuality, but in brief the Church teaches that “Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.” (CCC 2351) This does not mean we have to have 40 children. What this does mean is that we cannot engage in sexual acts when prudence demands that we space or limit how many children we have. We will tend to have larger families because prudence does not always demand that we have only 1.2 children.

The Church advocates Natural Family Planning to achieve the spacing or limiting of children. This works by monitoring the woman’s fertility signals and periodically abstaining when the woman is most fertile. To give those skeptical people the benefit of the doubt, the lowest statistic I’ve found on modern methods of fertility awareness showed its user effectiveness as comparable to non-hormonal contraceptive devices.

But then you might ask, what’s the difference? You’re still having sex when you’re infertile. Isn’t that having sex while you’re closing yourself off to children? Here’s the catch. We still cannot engage in any sexual act while closed in our hearts to children. Thus if prudence demands that we try to limit our children and regardless we still become pregnant, we are to accept the child with open arms. We aren’t to be grudge bearing. We aren’t to look at the child as unwanted or unwelcomed. Contraceptives aren’t sinful because having sex when you’re infertile is sinful. Contraceptives are sinful because they change the nature of the sexual act and even treat our bodies as if our fertility were a disease. Our only motivation to do this would be motivated out of our desire to engage in sex for pleasure only.

A couple can still sin while using Natural Family Planning, but NFP tends to do one of two thing to a couple. If they hold onto their contraceptive mentality, they will never be happy with NFP and will likely give up and resort to contraceptives. The only way to be happy with NFP is to learn to open your heart to more children. Thus you choose to limit your children only when prudence truly demands it, not simply because you are seeking after worldly things.

Its a hard teaching. Thus I would never impose it through the state. But I see its wisdom, and think its much better than what the world has to offer us.