By Michael Arthur Vacca, International Catholic Jurists Forum, Director, Christ Medicus Foundation, Director of Ministry, Bioethics, and Membership Experience
Introduction: Why the Natural Law’s Exclusion of Contraception Matters?
Before embarking on a review of what nature tells us about the marital act and contraception, we may wonder, in the world in which we live, why it matters so much? Since the Church teaches that contraception is defined as the intentional interruption of the generative act willed either as a means or as an end, and that this said contraception or interruption of the generative act is intrinsically immoral,1 why do we need to examine the natural moral law in connection with contraception at all? For many of us at this conference, the answer is obvious, but for many in the world and many poorly catechized and accustomed to the modern-day heresies of legalism2 and positivism,3 the answer is not at all clear to them. The reason is simple: The Magisterium has been given the authority by our Lord Jesus Christ to interpret the natural moral law authoritatively, since the natural moral law is the basis for faith and morals which are taught infallibly by Christ through His Church,4 and also because Divine Revelation itself presupposes reason and the capacity of the human person to understand and cooperate with God’s perfect designs. The Magisterium of the Catholic Church does not have the authority and has never had the authority to contradict the natural moral law, since the authority of the Magisterium is the authority of Christ, and Christ is Himself the author of the natural moral law. To assert that the Magisterium could contradict the natural moral law is to say that Christ the perfection of all good contradicts Himself, which is an absurdity. Therefore, before discussing what the natural moral law teaches us about the marital act and contraception, I want to insist in the strongest possible terms that even if the Magisterium desired to change the Church’s teaching on contraception, that is absolutely impossible because Christ never gave the Magisterium the authority to contradict the natural law, and the natural law, as we shall see, categorically excludes all recourse to contraception.
I. What Nature Teaches about the Marital Act and Contraception
To understand what the natural moral law teaches about contraception, we need to understand what the natural moral law teaches about the marital act. This is because contraception is an interference with the marital act, and the marital act expresses naturally what God intends it to express. We can understand the natural moral law best in Thomistic terms, as the rational creature’s participation in the eternal law.5 God designed the marital act to be both unitive and procreative, that is, to express the pinnacle of human love and serve as the origin of human life. The inseparable connection between the unitive and the procreative dimensions of the conjugal act6 is otherwise expressed as the inseparable connection between love and life. God designed the natural order to ensure that life is rooted in love, and that love is the basis of life. In theological terms, we can understand that God who is Love Himself (1 John 4:8) wanted to ensure that all life is rooted in an action—the marital act–which is, itself, rooted in His love. Could we conceive of a better way to protect all human life than to ensure that its transmission is through a love modeled on God’s own divine love? Not a chance. The very dignity of the human person requires that the transmission of human life be through authentic acts of love, and, thus, the natural moral law guards the dignity of the human person precisely by ensuring that love is the foundation for human generation.
Therefore, considering the nature of the marital act, contraception is, a priori, excluded. Contraception is categorically excluded from the natural mora law because in separating the unitive and procreative dimensions of the conjugal act, in disassociating love from life, what was previously the marital act is now neither loving nor fruitful. The marital act stands or falls altogether: either it is loving and life-giving, or it is not loving and not life-giving. This, of course, does not mean that every marital action need result in children, but that the potential for children is a necessary condition for the marital act to be a genuine act of love at all. The primary reason this is not apparent to the modern world is because the marital act has been instrumentalized. The vain wisdom of the world imagines that human beings can have love without commitment to life, or a commitment to life in the case of many reproductive technologies without love, but this is simply an illusion. Rights and responsibilities are, like the unitive and procreative dimensions of the conjugal act, inseparably united.7 The right to engage in the marital act accompanies the duty to care for, raise, and educate any resulting children. Once again, we see that the natural moral law ensures the dignity of the human person by prohibiting absolutely and without exception all recourse to contraception. Contraception instrumentalizes the marital act by disconnecting it from its primary end, that of procreation, thus distorting its nature, which necessarily means the objectification of human persons. The husband and wife who contracept objectify each other, and their action is morally equivalent to a mutual masturbation. If a child does result from failed contraception, that child is not the fruit of the marital act, but of an action which is intrinsically egoistic and self-oriented.
II. Muddying the Waters: A Lack of Integration with the Natural Moral Law
Since the natural moral law is so clear about the nature of the marital act and the moral illicitness of all contraception, one would expect that Catholic theologians, philosophers, and bioethicists would consistently apply the same natural moral law that excludes contraception to other social issues. But this is far from being the case. In various ways and through diverse mistakes, the clear and consistent logic of the natural moral law that precludes contraception is not uniformly applied across the board. Other forms of rationality not rooted in the natural moral law itself have often taken precedence and so disturbed the integrity of moral conscience.
A. Embryo Adoption and the Neglect of the Extended Inseparability Argument
A foundational example of the failure of Catholic theologians, philosophers, and bioethicists to apply the same natural moral law that precludes contraception is the issue of embryo adoption. Embryo adoption occurs when an egg that has already been fertilized ex utero or outside the womb is intentionally implanted in a woman’s womb who is not the genetic mother of that child. Let us suppose that the woman is married. Since the action of implantation and the subsequent gestation of the child are included in procreation, and since this act of procreation does not occur through the marital act, but from the action of a physician who interposes a child from outside the marriage bond into the heart of the marriage,8 it is clear that embryo adoption separates the unitive and procreative dimensions of the marital act, just like contraception does. It should, therefore, be excluded categorically and not even considered for use by Catholic couples. And yet, we have many Catholic theologians, philosophers, and bioethicists who defend embryo adoption and see it as an important means of building the culture of life. How do they not see that by supporting embryo adoption they are undermining the same natural moral law that precludes contraception? Without delving into the weeds, their arguments amount to the contention that embryo adoption does not really separate the unitive and procreative dimensions of the marital act because the child implanted in the woman’s womb has already been conceived. According to these theologians, philosophers, and ethicists, procreation is nothing more than conception, and once conception occurs outside the womb, the moral imperative of the natural moral law to never separate the unitive and procreative dimensions of the marital act no longer has moral relevance.9 You see: the mistake of these theologians, philosophers, and bioethicists is to reduce procreation to conception; but by reducing procreating to conception alone, and thereby excluding the formative moral, physical, and spiritual development of the child in the womb from the process of procreation, these thinkers have distorted the very nature of the marital act that is so clearly set forth by the natural moral law.
So popular is this distortion of the natural moral law that those faithful theologians who defend the application of the natural moral law to embryo adoption have coined the phrase the “extended inseparability argument.”10 This means that the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative dimensions of the conjugal act, mandated by the natural moral law, does not terminate at the conception of the child, but extends to birth. The fact that many Catholic thinkers exclude such a fundamental reality as the child growing in the womb from the meaning of procreation, thus fundamentally misapplying the natural moral law, belies the idea that the natural moral law is sufficiently understood, even by many within the Church.
B. The New Natural Law, the Neglect of the Perverted Faculty Argument, and the Misinterpretation of Nature
As if misunderstanding the nature of procreation were not enough to confuse our understanding of the natural moral law, we also have currents of thought within the Catholic intellectual environment which go by the name of “New Natural Law.” But what is this “New Natural Law” and why do we need a new natural law when the same natural law the Church has always recognized is still morally obligatory? I understand why we need a New Evangelization, but I do not understand why we need a “New Natural Law.” In short, those countries that were previously Christian have largely abandoned the Christian faith and need to be re-evangelized, but in a way that takes account of their previous experience with the faith. But are we suggesting that the New Evangelization must be premised on a “New Natural Law” rather than the perennial natural law whose authoritative interpretation has been entrusted to the Magisterium by our Lord Himself? St. Paul was happy with the natural law as it was (Romans 2:15), and we should be too. Evangelization can be new because it refers to the human initiative of trying to spread the faith by creatively using the Deposit of Faith, but the natural moral law is not simply a human means of persuading people of the truth. The natural moral law is part of God’s eternal law,11 and so why do we need to change that which is already included in the eternal law of God Himself? Or stated more eloquently, what audacity to think that we can improve on God’s law!
But even if it were conceded that we need a new natural moral law, a doubtful proposition, what exactly distinguishes the “New Natural Law” from the natural law of Aquinas and St. Paul? Unsurprisingly, this turns out to be a very complicated question, and with complication, there is confusion, and with confusion, the natural moral law—that beacon of light and truth—is darkened and marginalized. For our present purpose, which is to understand how the “New Natural Law” is premised on a misinterpretation of nature, it is sufficient to cite a prominent proponent of this novel teaching. Melissa Moschella, a Catholic philosopher who espouses the New Natural Law theory, puts it like this:
New natural law theorists agree that all acts in which one uses the sexual faculties contrary to their natural purpose (if correctly understood) are in fact wrong, but they deny that this (the use of the faculties contrary to their purpose) is the reason why such acts are wrong.12
In other words, according to these theorists, nature as known through the speculative reason is no longer prescriptive, but merely descriptive. The reason contraception is wrong, according to such theorists, is not because it abuses the sexual faculties to separate what God has joined together, the unitive and procreative dimensions of the conjugal act, but because it is contrary to the basic good of marriage recognized by the practical reason.13
In effect, the “New Natural Law” theory diverges from traditional Catholic teaching in arguing that the speculative reason’s determination of the proper function of the sexual faculties is no longer morally prescriptive. One might wonder why “New Natural Law” theorists treat the practical reason as if it were a separate faculty from the speculative reason, when in reality, there is one faculty of reason that manifests itself in speculative and practical ways. In short, the “New Natural Law” theory proposes a disintegrated conception of human reason which denies the moral prescriptiveness of nature as understood by the speculative intellect. New Natural Law theorists, thus, deny a clear application of the natural moral law: the perverted faculty argument. The perverted faculty argument as an extension of the natural moral law argues that it is precisely the abuse of the sexual faculties to disassociate the inherently connected meanings of the marital act that makes contraception sinful. This logic is the same natural-law logic that the Magisterium has used time and time again, and yet it is being called into question by a new type of natural law theory.14
Defenders of the “New Natural Law” theory argue that it is not always wrong to go against nature, and so it would not necessarily be wrong for a woman not to breastfeed, for example.15 but this argument misstates the issue: going against nature is always wrong when the moral object proximately chosen by the will involves an abuse of the faculties proper to the human person. This is the case with contraception: the moral object proximately chosen by the will is marital union without the possibility of procreation, and this amounts to an abuse of the sexual faculties. A woman who decides not to breastfeed does not abuse the faculty of her breasts and use it for an illicit purpose, so the analogy between contraception and breastfeeding comes to nothing at all.
The fact that the New Natural Law calls into question the very logic of the Magisterium, which authoritatively interprets the natural moral law, is cause for concern.
C. Consequentialism, Proportionalism, and the Failure to Recognize Contraception as an Intrinsically Evil Act
Ethical theories in conflict with Catholic teaching on the nature of mortal sin have created confusion regarding the nature of individual contraceptive acts. Consequentialism determines the morality of human actions based entirely on the consequences of that action, so under this theory, one could not claim that contraception is always intrinsically wrong. Proportionalism determines the morality of human action based entirely on the proportion between the good and bad effects; so according to proportionalism, if the bad effects are far outweighed by the good, then it may be licit to do evil as a means to doing good. Both of these theories are expressly rejected by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, which teaches that certain actions are morally illicit, regardless of intention or circumstances, because the moral object proximately chosen by the will is fundamentally irreconcilable with God’s will, the natural moral law, and right reason. This is the express teaching, for example, of St. John Paul II in his great encyclical on the foundations of moral theology: Veritatis Splendor.16 Contracepting is serious subject matter. If, therefore, there is full knowledge and deliberate consent, every individual act of contraception is a mortal sin that deprives a person of divine grace according to Catholic teaching.
Some theologians have also relativized the Church’s teaching on mortal sin by suggesting that we should evaluate the moral action of contraception based on the totality of a marriage, and not based upon every individual marital act. Thus, if a marriage is generally open to life, but there are times where there is recourse to contraception, the overall trajectory of the marriage would render those individual acts of contraception morally licit. But this also conflicts with Church teaching and the natural moral law, which both teach that any act of contraception is never morally justified, regardless of intention and/or circumstances. One wonders how the “paradigm shift” proposed by the Pontifical Academy for Life under Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia can exist when the very nature of contraception is intrinsically immoral and incapable of being redeemed into a good or even morally neutral action. No amount of good intention, good will, or circumstances can change the natural law’s categorical exclusion of contraception. Perhaps this “paradigm shift” is simply a reversion to the ethical theories of proportionalism or consequentialism which St. John Paul II masterfully discredited and ruled out within the Church in Veritatis Splendor.17 The fact is that the natural moral law against contraception is not a human construct subject to paradigm shifts, but a Divine mandate that has been confirmed again and again by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.
Conclusion: The Need for Greater Clarity
It is not an overstatement to say that clarity regarding the natural moral law is urgently needed by all the Christian faithful. Souls are at stake and confusion is rampant. But the faithful are not presumed ignorant of the basic principles of the natural moral law, so if the evil of contraception is not rejected and clearly taught by the Church, many people may fall into mortal sin, which separates them from God. Now is not a time for equivocation or “paradigm shifts.” Now is a time for moral leadership, clarity, and the courage to speak the truth in charity. The Magisterium is bound to teach the moral evil of contraception and the Catholic theologians, philosophers, and bioethicists should avoid confusing consciences by adopting forms of rationality not consonant with the natural moral law and the Church’s perennial teaching.