“Ban Contraception?” the banner ad said, urging viewers to click it in order to tell Congress to “support women’s health!”
The suggestion that cultural conservatives want to make birth control illegal is risible. Most social conservatives, being Evangelicals, have zero problem with contraception whatsoever, and those Catholics who obey the Church’s teaching on contraception make zero effort to outlaw it.
But here we are. The HHS mandate requiring health insurance plans to cover not only contraception proper but also abortifacients and sterilization procedures abides. The Affordable Care Act, of which the HHS mandate is a part, survived a Supreme Court challenge in the summer, and the administration pushing it survived an election in the fall.
On Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a revised version of the HHS mandate. Problem solved? Some on the Catholic left think so, finding in the revised mandate a way forward for everyone: insurance companies and the government will provide women with contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilizations, while religious institutions keep their consciences clear.
E. J. Dionne writes, “This war has been bad for everyone involved. Obama has moved to end it. Here’s a prayer the bishops will also be instruments of peace.” The editors at Commonweal write, “The claims of conscience must never be ignored, but they do not necessarily entitle one to relief from any practical difficulty that arises from disagreeing with most of one’s fellow citizens about a duly enacted law.”
But this seems to me shortsighted. Even if one keeps one’s conscience clear under the new rules, contraception, abortion, and sterilization do not serve the common good with which Dionne and Commonweal are otherwise—rightly—so concerned. Indeed, their columns defer more to popular opinion than to the teaching of the Church in this area.
We’ve waged the legal battle against the HHS mandate on religious liberty grounds, asking our fellow citizens and Catholics to let us be weird without really explaining why this order is so odious to us. I suppose we need to play according to the rules of the game we’re given, which means fighting on First Amendment grounds. Perhaps, though, we’re missing an opportunity to preach the gospel of life—and communicate a general human truth.
In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI dealt not so much with issues of particularly Catholic morality but with the profound issues of the human person and human culture, arguing—indeed, prophesying, as it turns out—that contraception would lead to a “general lowering of morality” and the treatment of women as “mere instruments of selfish enjoyment.” He warned, too, of “the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law” who “may even impose their use on everyone.” When dealing with sexuality, we are not merely in the realm of religion but the realm of reason. These are not matters of religious scruples, but matters of public concern concerning the common good.
Thus, when Michael Gerson writes, “It is a valid public health goal to promote the broad availability of contraception” so long as it doesn’t trample fundamental rights, the faithful Catholic must object. For the widespread availability of contraception involves risks to women and consequences for society even beyond those envisioned by the prophetic Pope Paul VI.
Research results have found the Pill to be carcinogenic, which may help explain the dramatic rise of breast cancer rates since the Pill’s introduction. There are also real ecological concerns, as European studies have found high levels of synthetic hormones (used in contraceptives) in fish, leading to their sterility. Edward Green, senior research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health, defended Pope Benedict’s claim that saturating the African continent with condoms wasn’t helping in the fight against AIDS. And whereas Malthusian demographers once fired apocalyptic fears of a population bomb, many are now concerned with the social and economic upheaval involved in the demographic decline that most modernized nations face.
Cultural pluralism is in rather short supply in these days of ascendant cultural liberalism; a grand bargain with the pelvic left looks implausible. Revolutionaries always aim to complete their revolution, and so any compromise they offer is tactical and temporary. Contraception corrodes the common good, and we’d do well to make that point to our fellow citizens if we wish to maintain our liberties and build a culture of life.
“Ban contraception?” Impossible. But we can live lives of fruitful witness to divine love, for only love is credible, while explaining with patience that contraception does not serve the common good, and thus resist the attempt to raise enshrine it as a fundamental human right.
RESOURCES
“The Vindication of Humanae Vitae,” Mary Eberstadt
“A Dhimmitude of Sorts,” R. R. Reno
“The Revised HHS Mandate,” Joseph Knippenberg
“The Naked Private Square,” Matthew Schmitz
Become a fan of First Things on Facebook, subscribe to First Things via RSS, and follow First Things on Twitter.
Comments:
Second, a ban on contraceptives would increase the marriage rate. Young people today often delay marriage, or forego it altogether, in spite of their sexual activity. With the possibility of offspring, one would find many more young people marrying.
Thirdly, a ban on contraceptives would reduce rates of promiscuity. When we look at antiquity, or even the last few hundred years, it's easy to think that repressive social mores were the cause of people's rampany chastity. On the other hand, the possibility of children to support with a person you may not want to spend your life with could also have been a strong argument to keep intercourse within marriage.
Thomas Aquinas argued that not all things which are against the public good should be against the law. Eating too much fat, for example, is against the common good but, despite a certain major city's mayor proclivity, it should not be illegal. Contraceptives provide absolutely no benefit to society. It's time to consider their ban.
Would banning contraception really reverse the declining birth rate?
Between 1811 and 1911, the French population rose by about 36%, from 30 million to 41 million. In the next century, it rose from 41 million to 63 million, more than 50%
By comparison, between 1811 and 1911, the population of England rose from 9 million to 33 million, an increase of more than 250% and in the next century from 33 million to 53 million, an increase of 66%
Contraceptive use would appear to be heavily outweighed by other factors
Well said!
In my view, the best way we can make our public explanations and provide our faithful witness is to talk about contraception not as a discrete, standalone topic, but in relation to the sacrament of marriage. Contraception is corrosive both within marriages (as it separates the unitive and procreative aspects of marital sex acts) and to chastity outside of marriage (as it enables sexual license, of which, despite the ubiquity of contraception, unintended, fatherless and aborted babies are tangible consequences). Our best witness, it seems to me, is to strive to live in genuinely Christian marriages, of which one important aspect (but by no means the only one!) is to be generous in having children; and to live chaste lives outside of marriage.
That said, he begins, "a ban on contraception would reverse the declining birth rate…”
That a ban on contraceptives would result in the reversal of declining birth rates in modernized nations assumes, one, no change in sexual behavior and, two, a large increase in unplanned pregnancies as a direct result. The greatest increase would be in the number of children born to poor women and poor families (there being more poor than middle-class than middle and more middle-class than rich). The children of poor women and families consume government services and subsidies in modernized nations. If the goal of reversing declining birth rates is to create the four working adults that can sustainably support each retired adult of a society, this policy would be a HUGE long-term gamble with the certainty of HUGE short-term costs.
Brian's second argument is, "a ban on contraceptives would increase the marriage rate..”.
That a ban on contraceptives would result in an increase in the marriage rate assumes marriage is the only option young people have if faced with the possibility of marriage. This assumption completely ignores the current reality of single mothers who choose not to wed. It also ignores the option for putting an unplanned child up for adoption or co-parenting/co-habitation without marriage. But, even if allowing that the marriage rate will increase because that is the optimal environment for having sex; a corresponding increase in the divorce rate must also be expected. Perhaps this negative consequence would be eliminated if divorces were outlawed.
It is wrong, as many treatments do, to discuss the Faith and urge its practices by referring only or primarily to its human benefits. These are only secondary reasons for us. The primary reason for doing these things is that they are required by divine charity, that is they are done simply for the love of God. Do we want Christ for our king ?
Such a system could serve to enhance this whole area in reserach and funding as well , since the employees should have the discretion to donate any unused amounts , to such causes .
The Islamic nations could thus see a West which upholds solid
family values which could make for better national security as well as our responsibility to witness Christian values ; the money from the funds, can be used in pilgrimages too, which is also a good family value !
There are certainly some strong, reasonable arguments that can be made against contraception. But why muddy the argument by making the specious, unsupportable claim that the HHS mandate forces employers to provide their employees with instruments of abortion?
The Catholic Church backed the Connecticut law at the time of Griswold and if the obstacles to such a law were to be removed she should and I think would back such a law again. The failure to grant the liberals that there is that much truth to their suspicions of us is dishonest.
As to the constitutional issue in regard to the HHS mandate: even under the RFRA, which is stricter than the Smith standard, it may be quite permissible for Congress to regulate religious institutions in this way. The Constitution does not say anywhere [though one might perhaps wish it] that 'all powers given to Congress may only be exercised in a manner that does not do violence to the moral teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and the natural law.'
Thus we may be in for a big problem.
We can hope that somewhere a scientist is working on development of such a test. We can pray that he or she (or they) will be powerfully assisted by the Holy Spirit.
Faith and reason. We must not fail.