Topic: The Catholic Route to Birth Control

[ialmisry]

Oh good. Isa's back to his advocacy of onanism.

I don't approve of fraud, marriages of convenience, marriages under false pretence, and  using your sister-in-law as a sex toy.


This seems to be something else, however:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_Leah

But you do approve of onanism.

He seems to approve of many things that our Church disapproves of.

yes, like the Gospel Truth.

Using a condom or the pill is gospel truth? Strange gospel.

Enter the Culture of Death.

[ialmisry]

Oh good. Isa's back to his advocacy of onanism.

I don't approve of fraud, marriages of convenience, marriages under false pretence, and  using your sister-in-law as a sex toy.


This seems to be something else, however:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_Leah

But you do approve of onanism.

He seems to approve of many things that our Church disapproves of.

yes, like the Gospel Truth.

Using a condom or the pill is gospel truth? Strange gospel.

so it would seem to those who swallow camel sized Corban, whether the non-existence of decades long marriages with numerous children as fruit, or making scholastic hair splitting with the artificial division of NFP and ABC.  Sanctimony isn't sanctity.

Doctor, heal thyself.

I'm on a Corban free diet, prescribed by the Great Physician Himself.

[Charles Martel]

Oh good. Isa's back to his advocacy of onanism.

I don't approve of fraud, marriages of convenience, marriages under false pretence, and  using your sister-in-law as a sex toy.


This seems to be something else, however:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_Leah

But you do approve of onanism.

He seems to approve of many things that our Church disapproves of.

yes, like the Gospel Truth.

Using a condom or the pill is gospel truth? Strange gospel.

Enter the Culture of Death.

Alright paparazzi, you wanna explain this one to me?

A picture is not always worth a thousand words.

[mike]

Oh good. Isa's back to his advocacy of onanism.

I don't approve of fraud, marriages of convenience, marriages under false pretence, and  using your sister-in-law as a sex toy.


This seems to be something else, however:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_Leah

But you do approve of onanism.

He seems to approve of many things that our Church disapproves of.

yes, like the Gospel Truth.

Using a condom or the pill is gospel truth? Strange gospel.

so it would seem to those who swallow camel sized Corban, whether the non-existence of decades long marriages with numerous children as fruit, or making scholastic hair splitting with the artificial division of NFP and ABC.  Sanctimony isn't sanctity.

Doctor, heal thyself.

I'm on a Corban free diet, prescribed by the Great Physician Himself.

I see your mutual love-hate relationship has been developing for a last few days.

[J Michael]

Oh good. Isa's back to his advocacy of onanism.

I don't approve of fraud, marriages of convenience, marriages under false pretence, and  using your sister-in-law as a sex toy.


This seems to be something else, however:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_Leah

But you do approve of onanism.

He seems to approve of many things that our Church disapproves of.

yes, like the Gospel Truth.

Using a condom or the pill is gospel truth? Strange gospel.

so it would seem to those who swallow camel sized Corban, whether the non-existence of decades long marriages with numerous children as fruit, or making scholastic hair splitting with the artificial division of NFP and ABC.  Sanctimony isn't sanctity.

Doctor, heal thyself.

I'm on a Corban free diet, prescribed by the Great Physician Himself.

I see your mutual love-hate relationship has been developing for a last few days.

They could start a reality (??) t.v. series, eh  ?

[mike]

Oh good. Isa's back to his advocacy of onanism.

I don't approve of fraud, marriages of convenience, marriages under false pretence, and  using your sister-in-law as a sex toy.


This seems to be something else, however:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_Leah

But you do approve of onanism.

He seems to approve of many things that our Church disapproves of.

yes, like the Gospel Truth.

Using a condom or the pill is gospel truth? Strange gospel.

so it would seem to those who swallow camel sized Corban, whether the non-existence of decades long marriages with numerous children as fruit, or making scholastic hair splitting with the artificial division of NFP and ABC.  Sanctimony isn't sanctity.

Doctor, heal thyself.

I'm on a Corban free diet, prescribed by the Great Physician Himself.

I see your mutual love-hate relationship has been developing for a last few days.

They could start a reality (??) t.v. series, eh  ?

I have an impression they already did on this board. Not, that anyone needs that.

[ialmisry]

Oh good. Isa's back to his advocacy of onanism.

I don't approve of fraud, marriages of convenience, marriages under false pretence, and  using your sister-in-law as a sex toy.


This seems to be something else, however:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_Leah

But you do approve of onanism.

He seems to approve of many things that our Church disapproves of.

yes, like the Gospel Truth.

Using a condom or the pill is gospel truth? Strange gospel.

so it would seem to those who swallow camel sized Corban, whether the non-existence of decades long marriages with numerous children as fruit, or making scholastic hair splitting with the artificial division of NFP and ABC.  Sanctimony isn't sanctity.

Doctor, heal thyself.

I'm on a Corban free diet, prescribed by the Great Physician Himself.

I see your mutual love-hate relationship has been developing for a last few days.

They could start a reality (??) t.v. series, eh  ?

[J Michael]

Oh good. Isa's back to his advocacy of onanism.

I don't approve of fraud, marriages of convenience, marriages under false pretence, and  using your sister-in-law as a sex toy.


This seems to be something else, however:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_Leah

But you do approve of onanism.

He seems to approve of many things that our Church disapproves of.

yes, like the Gospel Truth.

Using a condom or the pill is gospel truth? Strange gospel.

so it would seem to those who swallow camel sized Corban, whether the non-existence of decades long marriages with numerous children as fruit, or making scholastic hair splitting with the artificial division of NFP and ABC.  Sanctimony isn't sanctity.

Doctor, heal thyself.

I'm on a Corban free diet, prescribed by the Great Physician Himself.

I see your mutual love-hate relationship has been developing for a last few days.

They could start a reality (??) t.v. series, eh  ?

Is that on the History channel or the Discovery Channel?  And I'll bet it doesn't star you and Papist  !

[ialmisry]

On another thread, someone linked to an analysis by Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, the analytic philosopher and devout convert to the Vatican who bested C.S. Lewis on miracles.

Although I found the thing rather poorly written, it does touch on a number of aspects of the Vatican's argument of its contraceptive position, and was written evidently a few years after the Vatican issued its statement on that, Humanae Vitae.  I began to comment on the original thread, but I think it might take it further off topic there, but might be more on topic here.

In commenting, I passed over a number of points in the beginning of the piece that perhaps I ought to state here.  One the opening itself raises:

I will first ask you to contemplate a familiar point: the fantastic change that has come about in people's situation in respect of having children because of the invention of efficient contraceptives.

I would first contemplate an unfamiliar point, at least in being brought up in this context.  Having children in this modern age does constitute one of the few, if not the only, area where modernists might be modestly right in their contention that the world of today differs from the world of the past, but not in the way Anscombe here contends.  For a variety of methods of contraception have always been available-just withdrawal has a 73% up to 96% success rate of preventing conception.  What has changed and shook the earth lies in the fall in infant and child mortality: we live in a very different world where we expect to keep every child we conceive and live to see them live into adulthood and produce grandchildren for us, than the world our greatparents and their ancestors lived in, where one might have a half dozen to a dozen children expecting to bury half of them.  My great grandparents were lucky: they had 7 and 5 survived.

I'll continue, but first I'll post what I'll already said:

Thanks everyone for this discussion! You have given me a lot to think about. Because I fear I am making a poor argument for the Roman Catholic position I will appeal to the philosopher GEM Anscombe:

You are not making a poor argument, it is just a poor argument to make.

"Here, however, people still feel intensely confused, because the intention where oral contraceptives are taken seems to be just the same as when intercourse is deliberately restricted to infertile periods. In one way this is true, and its truth is actually pointed out by Humanae Vitae, in a passage I will quote in a moment. But in another way it's not true.

The reason why people are confused about intention, and why they sometimes think there is no difference between contraceptive intercourse and the use of infertile times to avoid conception, is this: They don't notice the difference between "intention" when it means the intentionalness of the thing you're doing - that you're doing this on purpose - and when it means a further or accompanying intention with which you do the thing. For example, I make a table: that's an intentional action because I am doing just that on purpose. I have the further intention of, say, earning my living, doing my job by making the table. Contraceptive intercourse and intercourse using infertile times may be alike in respect of further intention, and these further intentions may be good, justified, excellent. This the Pope has noted. He sketched such a situation and said: "It cannot be denied that in both cases the married couple, for acceptable reasons," (for that's how he imagined the case) "are perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and mean to secure that none will be born." This is a comment on the two things: contraceptive intercourse on the one hand and intercourse using infertile times on the other, for the sake of the limitation of the family.

But contraceptive intercourse is faulted, not on account of this further intention, but because of the kind of intentional action you are doing. The action is not left by you as the kind of act by which life is transmitted, but is purposely rendered infertile, and so changed to another sort of act altogether.

In considering an action, we need always to judge several things about ourselves. First: is the sort of act we contemplate doing something that it's all right to do? Second: are our further or surrounding intentions all right? Third: is the spirit in which we do it all right? Contraceptive intercourse fails on the first count; and to intend such an act is not to intend a marriage act at all, whether or no we're married. An act of ordinary intercourse in marriage at an infertile time, though, is a perfectly ordinary act of married intercourse, and it will be bad, if it is bad, only on the second or third counts.

It may help you to see that the intentional act itself counts, as well as the further or accompanying intentions, if you think of an obvious example like forging a cheque to steal from somebody in order to get funds for a good purpose. The intentional action, presenting a cheque we've forged, is on the face of it a dishonest action, not be vindicated by the good further intention."

More can be read here: http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/AnscombeChastity.php  

I'll get down to that, but before I've noticed a few problems as we go along:

The prohibition was issued in the same breath as the merely temporary retention of Judaic laws prohibiting the eating of blood - no black pudding!

Who says it is "merely temporary" or "Judaic?  The Council of Jerusalem, i.e. Scripture, gives no such indication.

In one word: Christianity taught that men ought to be as chaste as pagans thought honest women ought to be; the contraceptive morality teaches that women need to be as little chaste as pagans thought men need be.

An assertion which she begs throughout the piece.  Again, in this she follows most apologists of HV, who seem to think contraception means "sex on demand" 24/7, and couples engaging in contraception are permanently joined at their hips (or thereabouts).  

And if there is nothing intrinsically wrong with contraceptive intercourse, and if it could become general practice everywhere when there is intercourse but ought to be no begetting, then it's very difficult to see the objection to this morality, for the ground of objection to fornication and adultery was that sexual intercourse is only right in the sort of set-up that typically provides children with a father and mother to care for them. If you can turn intercourse into something other than the reproductive type of act (I don't mean of course that every act is reproductive any more than every acorn leads to an oak-tree but it's the reproductive type of act) then why, if you can change it, should it be restricted to the married? Restricted, that is, to partners bound in a formal, legal, union whose fundamental purpose is the bringing up of children? For if that is not its fundamental purpose there is no reason why for example "marriage" should have to be between people of opposite sexes. But then, of course, it becomes unclear why you should have a ceremony, why you should have a formality at all. And so we must grant that children are in this general way the main point of the existence of such an arrangement. But if sexual union can be deliberately and totally divorced from fertility, then we may wonder why sexual union has got to be married union. If the expression of love between the partners is the point, then it shouldn't be so narrowly confined.

Only the mentality which dreams up the Corban of annullments could dream up such a paragraph.  She seems to deny the fact that children can and are produced from reproductive types of act outside of marriage all the time (whether they should is another issue).  Would she argue, for instance, that woman-on-top or dorsal intercourse "turn[s ] intercourse into something other than the reproductive type of act"? Because the Stoic philosophy which formed the basis of HV's position and the meagre patristics and canons which nurtured it argued just that.

People shouldn't marry to have children: that renders the husband a sperm donor and the wife a baby maker.  Marriage should result in children, but they are the result, not the aim, of the marriage.  Her argument, as other apologists for HV, reduce couples to breeders.

Lord willing, I'll return to this later.  But in the meantime, her dismissive parenthesis do not dispense of the objection: every intercourse would have to be reproductive for her to be correct.  Once you allow "types" of the act, contraception (artificial or natural) has its license.

To continue:

The only objection, then, to the new heathen, contraceptive morality will be that the second condition I mentioned - near-universality of contraception where there ought not to be begetting - simply won't be fulfilled. Against the background of a society with that morality, more and more people will have intercourse with little feeling of responsibility, little restraint, and yet they just won't be so careful about always using contraceptives. And so the widespread use of contraceptives naturally leads to more and more rather than less and less abortion (The exception to this in the short term is where abortion has been encouraged and contraceptives not available, making contraceptives available then produces an immediate but only temporary reduction in abortions.) Indeed, abortion is now being recommended as a population control measure - a second line of defence.

getting through this very poorly written paragraph, she seems not to know that most, if not nearly all, married couples who practice contraception do in fact beget and bear (the exclusive use of "begetting" seems to belie the Stoic fetish that underlies the "reasoning" of HV) children.

Of course, she continues to beg the issue that "contraceptive mentality" leads to "intercourse with little feeling of responsibility" and "little restraint," rather than the other way around.  I don't think the Netherlands lagged behind the US in that in the '60's, although contraception, information on contraception, and contraceptive propaganda like Planned Parenthood were illegal until 1969.  Nor does it lead to homosexuality, btw, which was legalized in the Netherlands nearly two centuries before.

I don't think she has the facts to back up her assertion that "the widespread use of contraceptives naturally leads to more and more rather than less and less abortion", or even the theory: if contraception removes all restraint, as she argues, then there are more instances of intercourse, and the number of abortions would have to go up to keep up and not drop in the ratio of abortion/intercourse.  Intercourse hasn't gone down in the US, but the abortion rate has, and I think that has been the case in most countries' statistics I have seen except for Japan-where contraception has been available but no one uses it, preferring abortion as a back up.  Conversely, contraception is available in Egypt, and is used, but big families remain the norm.

She pretty much condemns the POV she is advocated when she says

Now if this - that you won't get this universal "taking care" - is the only objection then it's a pretty miserable outlook. Because, like the fear of venereal disease, it's an objection that's little capable of moving people or inspiring them as a positive ideal of chastity may.

as she doesn't get much beyond the fear of pregnancy as a check on promiscuity, if at all.

The Christian Church has taught such an ideal of chastity: in a narrower sense, and in a broader sense in which chastity is simply the virtue whose topic is sex, just as courage is the virtue whose topic is danger and difficulty. In the narrower sense chastity means continence, abstention. I have to say something about this - though I'm reduced to stammering because I am a mediocre worldly person leading an ordinary sort of worldly life; nevertheless I'll try to say it even with stammering.

What people are for is, we believe, like guided missiles, to home in on God, God who is the one truth it is infinitely worth knowing, the possession of which you could never get tired of, like the water which if you have you can never thirst again, because your thirst is slaked forever and always. It's this potentiality, this incredible possibility, of the knowledge of God of such a kind as even to be sharing in his nature, which Christianity holds out to people; and because of this potentiality every life, right up to the last, must be treated as precious. Its potentialities in all things the world cares about may be slight; but there is always the possibility of what it's for. We can't ever know that the time of possibility of gaining eternal life is over, however old, wretched, "useless" someone has become.

"every sperm is sacred"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptTwi6-ii-s

Now there are some people who want this so much that they want to be totally concerned with it and to die to their own worldly, earthly and fleshly desires. It is people who are so filled with this enormous desire and are able to follow it, who pursue the course of chastity in the narrow sense - this is the point, the glory, of Christian celibacy and virginity and of vows of chastity. I think one has to know about it in order to appreciate the teachings of Christianity about chastity in a wide sense. But as I say I speak stammeringly because I'm not very well qualified.

Her stammering spits out the confusion of chastity with celibacy.  Many who have embraced Christian celibacy without being called to it have tarnished monasticism rather than giving it luster, while a Christian marriage is truly a glory to behold-even the Muslims in Egypt admit it so.

It is surprising that the writings of monks in the golden age of monasticism dwell mostly on bellies and fasting, rather than reproductive organs and their use or misuse.

The frustration of desired celibacy haunts much HV apologetic.

Btw:

a penetrating moral analysis of marriage and sexuality that will benefit any reader who rejects the secularist reduction of marriage as merely a union that sanctions sexual activity between partners

the reduction of marriage to merely a means of breeding isn't better.

Cont:

Turning to chastity not in the narrower sense but in the sense in which it is simply the virtue connected with sex, the Christian Church has always set its face against contraception from the earliest time as a grave breach of chastity. It inherited from Israel the objection to "base ways of copulating for the avoidance of conception", to quote St Augustine. In a document of the third century a Christian author wrote of the use of contraceptives by freeborn Christian women of Rome. These women sometimes married slaves so as to have Christian husbands but they were under a severe temptation because if the father was a slave the child was a slave by Roman law and this was a deterrent to having children; and they practised some form of contraception. This was the occasion of the earliest recorded explicit Christian observation on the subject. The author writes like a person mentioning a practice which Christians at large must obviously regard as shameful.

this paragraph is so choked full of factual errors that its no wonder that she was misled.

First, in Roman law, in contrast to the English Common law that Anscombe evidently did assUme to be universal, status was inherited from the mother, not the father (as in English law: it wasn't until the American colonies passed legislation adopting Partus sequitur ventrem (Latin "that which is brought forth follows the womb") from Roman civil law in 1662 that it entered English law, which comported with Roman legal theory, which held slavery was not a natural state but a convention universally adopted and subject to local civil law).  In fact, if a woman was free for a single moment from conception to birth, the child was freeborn, regardless of the mother's status before conception or after birth.  Such a colossal blunder commits a fatal error in her argument here.  

Of course, she doesn't identify said "document of the third century,' so we can't analyze it much.  All that I have seen condemn abortion and abortifacients. But not all contraception is abortifacient.  In fact, as an abortifacient has to have a conception to occur in order to work, contraception and abortifaceints are two different things-which HV and its supporters continue to insist on conflating.

"It inherited from Israel the objection to "base ways of copulating for the avoidance of conception", to quote St Augustine."  Unfortunately, she can't quote the rabbis on it: the Talmud bears the mark of being written by married men, and they allow quite a lot.  Orthodox Jews, for instance, aren't bothered by using the pill, and it hasn't led to a plague of promiscuity among them (in fact, the genetic studies on the Levites/Cohens has led to pride among the Jews on their wives fidelity: since it traces lineage in the male line, the fact that non-Levite women married to Levites/Cohens have born genetically Levites/Cohens some took as indication of this fidelity).

"the Christian Church has always set its face against contraception from the earliest time as a grave breach of chastity" Oh?  Hard to tell as, unlike abortion which has been vigorously opposed by Christians ever since the time of the Apostles and explicitly so, contraception (as opposed to abortifaicents) is barely mentioned in passing, if indeed mentioned at all, let alone condemned.

I perhaps should say that I have a nagging doubt about her logic on chastity being to sex what courage is to danger.  Courage doesn't embrace danger like chastity embraces sex in marriage.

[ialmisry]

From then on the received teaching of Christianity has been constant. We need only mention two landmarks which have stood as signposts in Christian teaching - the teaching of Augustine and that of Thomas Aquinas.

It seems that she is unaware that Orthodox Christianity has little use for either (although Augustine can be appreciated more than is usual-it just takes separating Augustinianism from him).

St Augustine wrote against the Manichaeans. The Manichaeans were people who thought all sex evil. They thought procreation was worse than sex; so if one must have sex let it be without procreation which imprisoned a soul in flesh. So they first aimed to restrict intercourse altogether to what they thought were infertile times

IOW, the only method that Humanae Vitae approves.

and also to use contraceptive drugs so as if possible never to have children. If they did conceive they used drugs to procure abortions; finally, if that failed, in their cruel lust or lustful cruelty, as St Augustine says, they might put the child out to die. (The appetite for killing children is a rather common characteristic in the human race.)

The last point is true enough.  Despite that, and despite the prevalence of post birth infanticide in the Greco-Roman world (the Manichaeans portrayed here did not differ from the population at large), people still had children.  In fact, St. Augustine had a son while a Manichaean.

[Surnaturel]

The Catholic position on birth control is straightforward in a sense: the ends of sex in marriage are procreative and unitive, just as form and matter, and to intrinsically remove either via BC or rape, respectively, is to degrade the sacramental union by corrupting the ends for which God ordained.

I have never received a clear answer as to the EO and OO position(s) on contraception. I am sure that abortifacient contraceptives are prohibited but what about condoms? How about BC?

I am honestly not interested in arguing moral theology. I would rather clarify the RC position and inquire about the Orthodox position.

[ialmisry]

The Catholic position on birth control is straightforward in a sense: the ends of sex in marriage are procreative and unitive, just as form and matter, and to intrinsically remove either via BC or rape, respectively, is to degrade the sacramental union by corrupting the ends for which God ordained.

I have never received a clear answer as to the EO and OO position(s) on contraception. I am sure that abortifacient contraceptives are prohibited but what about condoms? How about BC?

I am honestly not interested in arguing moral theology. I would rather clarify the RC position and inquire about the Orthodox position.

The problem the Vatican faces is that it contradicts what patristics it can gather for its position on BC (said Fathers do not make the distinction of "ABC" and "NFP," explicitly condemning the latter), and depends on its creation, "Natural Law," to achieve its end.
As to clarity, the EO and OO position on contraception is at least as clear as whether Humanae Vitae are ex cathedra or not, infallible or not.  Some of the Vatican's followers say yes, others say no.

Condoms are BC, as so is "NFP."  Yes, they are overwhelmingly allowed in Orthodoxy, and widely used among the followers of the Vatican.

[ialmisry]

I would hope that the Roman Catholic Church would hold to its encyclical on human life, especially the one condemning birth control.

It used to be that the Orthodox Church held a similar view with the Catholic Church on birth control.
Unfortunately in 1920, Orthodoxy caved into the same position as the Anglican Church, changed its teachings and started allowing birth control. This happened at the same time that the Orthodox Church forced the horrific New Calendar on an unsuspecting Orthodox people. Coincidence? No.

Factual? No.

[mike]

However, if that couple were to use mechanical (condoms, sponges), chemical (spermicides, IUDs) and biological warfare (the pill, depo-provera shots, RU), then sperm and any life created would be murdered.

Is cutting nails also forbidded in your religion since it "murders" them? Or hair?

St. John Chrysostom said somewhere that killing of sperm is akin to homicide.

I take him at his word as sperm are alive. When we deliberately kill any living thing that God has created, be it sperm, spiders, or ducks, we are not acting in a very Christian manner.

You would better take some biology classes in grade school.

[#1Sinner]

However, if that couple were to use mechanical (condoms, sponges), chemical (spermicides, IUDs) and biological warfare (the pill, depo-provera shots, RU), then sperm and any life created would be murdered.

Is cutting nails also forbidded in your religion since it "murders" them? Or hair?

St. John Chrysostom said somewhere that killing of sperm is akin to homicide.

I take him at his word as sperm are alive. When we deliberately kill any living thing that God has created, be it sperm, spiders, or ducks, we are not acting in a very Christian manner.

You would better take some biology classes in grade school.

Nails and hair are dead cells with no potentiality for life or transmitting life. Sperm, while not sentient or alive in the same sense as a multicell organism, has as its God ordained end the transmission of life. Note I am not stating that I believe that killing sperm is murder, just pointing out your woefully flawed analogy.

Perhaps you could also benefit from a Biology 101 class.....or a class in metaphysics, logic or rhetoric.

[mike]

Sperm, while not sentient or alive in the same sense as a multicell organism, has as its God ordained end the transmission of life.

No. Unless you believe in preformationism.

[#1Sinner]

Sperm, while not sentient or alive in the same sense as a multicell organism, has as its God ordained end the transmission of life.

No. Unless you believe in preformationism.

Sperm don't have as their ordained end the transmission of life when united to an egg? That's news to me.

I sense you know what I'm saying and are trying to deflect criticism away from your above "analogy." Not surprising.

[mike]

"When united with egg". Unless that occurs sperm is as life-giving as snot.

[#1Sinner]

"When united with egg". Unless that occurs sperm is as life-giving as snot.

I stated that sperm had potentiality as opposed to hair and nails which you used in your original analogy. If you are going to argue with me over that point I'll assume you're just trolling.

Good day.

[JamesR]

What? You mean the view that it's somehow wrong to use "artificial birth control/contraception" like condoms or the pill, but it's okay to "pull-out" or study the woman's menstrual cycle like a book so that you can only have relations on days when she's least fertile because for some odd reason, birth control is only bad when you bring in "artificial" methods?

This is something I don't get about RC/Latin thinking; it applies to marriage as well. How come it's not okay to divorce and get separated, but it's okay to cop-out and say "well, it was never a real marriage in the first place" and thus cause uncertainty to arise about the validity (or lack of) of the Sacraments?

It's all basically just the same thing, just a different means. If your problem is with the concept--preventing pregnancy and/or a man and woman separating--then how come you only attack the means of doing so while permitting other means to do it? Shouldn't all means, by default, be condemned, since your real problem is with the concept?

[JamesR]

"When united with egg". Unless that occurs sperm is as life-giving as snot.

I stated that sperm had potentiality as opposed to hair and nails which you used in your original analogy. If you are going to argue with me over that point I'll assume you're just trolling.

Good day.

Hair and nails have potentiality if you give me a high-tech cloning machine. Millions of sperm are destroyed even in the act of old-fashioned vanilla intercourse, as ultimately only one out of the millions ends up fertilizing the egg.

[#1Sinner]

"When united with egg". Unless that occurs sperm is as life-giving as snot.

I stated that sperm had potentiality as opposed to hair and nails which you used in your original analogy. If you are going to argue with me over that point I'll assume you're just trolling.

Good day.

Hair and nails have potentiality if you give me a high-tech cloning machine. Millions of sperm are destroyed even in the act of old-fashioned vanilla intercourse, as ultimately only one out of the millions ends up fertilizing the egg.

Which of course is not germane to its nature but an unnatural addition or modification.

This really isn't that difficult, no need to over think it.

[#1Sinner]

What? You mean the view that it's somehow wrong to use "artificial birth control/contraception" like condoms or the pill, but it's okay to "pull-out" or study the woman's menstrual cycle like a book so that you can only have relations on days when she's least fertile because for some odd reason, birth control is only bad when you bring in "artificial" methods?

This is something I don't get about RC/Latin thinking; it applies to marriage as well. How come it's not okay to divorce and get separated, but it's okay to cop-out and say "well, it was never a real marriage in the first place" and thus cause uncertainty to arise about the validity (or lack of) of the Sacraments?

It's all basically just the same thing, just a different means. If your problem is with the concept--preventing pregnancy and/or a man and woman separating--then how come you only attack the means of doing so while permitting other means to do it? Shouldn't all means, by default, be condemned, since your real problem is with the concept?

I'm not getting into the contraception argument again since it will be ultimately fruitless (no pun intended) for a variety of reasons.

However you asked why is it not ok to divorce.....I'll let our Lord answer that one:

Matthew 19:9: And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.

I fear discussing the difference between annulment and divorce will be equally pointless since it seems that there is a lot of talking past one another just like the NFP vs contraception debate. If you are truly interested in learning the Catholic understanding of this I would prefer to go to PM so as not to derail the thread or have it turn into a food fight.

God bless.

[JamesR]

Which of course is not germane to its nature but an unnatural addition or modification.

And this comes from an extremely flawed view of "nature" and "modification." If something happens, it is natural. It's that simple. If cloning happens, it's natural. Philosophically speaking, everything that happens in the universe is, by definition, natural. You need to study your terms better. All of this other junk and hurr hurr "NFP is okay but NOOO to 'artificial' means" is a load of crock idealism. It's no different. I don't know why you have to make so many unnecessary distinctions that IMO, fall apart under clever scrutiny.

This really isn't that difficult, no need to over think it.

It isn't; I don't know why you Latinists have to make "nature" and all this crap more confusing than it really is.

[JamesR]

However you asked why is it not ok to divorce.....I'll let our Lord answer that one:

No I didn't; I criticized the silly Latin view that divorce is wrong, but it's okay to cop-out and say "well, it wasn't really a marriage in the first place." (Annulment). That's a silly cop-out and cheap excuse to have practically the same thing.

Matthew 19:9: And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.

Yet, your Church doesn't even "let the Lord answer this one."

I fear discussing the difference between annulment and divorce will be equally pointless since it seems that there is a lot of talking past one another just like the NFP vs contraception debate.

That's because there is no difference In essence, it's the same thing. Again, your Church's theology makes too many unnecessary distinctions and silly cop-outs to justify practically the same thing as is "condemned."

[Mor Ephrem]

If something happens, it is natural. It's that simple. If cloning happens, it's natural. Philosophically speaking, everything that happens in the universe is, by definition, natural. You need to study your terms better.

LOL!

[Iconodule]

And this comes from an extremely flawed view of "nature" and "modification." If something happens, it is natural. It's that simple. If cloning happens, it's natural. Philosophically speaking, everything that happens in the universe is, by definition, natural. You need to study your terms better.

Technically, an ejaculation is a short verbal expression with strong feeling; however, if you say "I ejaculate about five to six times a day," in reference to the number of times you yell out, "Yikes!", "Woah!", or "Darn!", even people who know what you mean are going to snicker.

[ialmisry]

"When united with egg". Unless that occurs sperm is as life-giving as snot.

I stated that sperm had potentiality as opposed to hair and nails which you used in your original analogy. If you are going to argue with me over that point I'll assume you're just trolling.

Good day.

Hair and nails have potentiality if you give me a high-tech cloning machine. Millions of sperm are destroyed even in the act of old-fashioned vanilla intercourse, as ultimately only one out of the millions ends up fertilizing the egg.

Not only that, but if the sperm(azoa) isn't ejaculated, the body kills it in a matter of weeks.  So if a man doesn't engage in continual intercourse with a woman since puberty, he is killed "potential life" continually.  That includes monks.

[ialmisry]

Sperm, while not sentient or alive in the same sense as a multicell organism, has as its God ordained end the transmission of life.

No. Unless you believe in preformationism.

Sperm don't have as their ordained end the transmission of life when united to an egg? That's news to me.

much is, especially when it comes to embryology.

Many spermazoa, even in the case where a spermazoa unites to an egg, meet their end just pushing the fertilized egg along quicker to be implanted in the womb. If they unite with the egg, they will kill the life. If they don't push it, it wont' make it in time.  How is that not an "ordained end."

On your "ordained end" natural law fantasies, stolen from the Stoics, see here-
http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,21230.0.html

[#1Sinner]

Which of course is not germane to its nature but an unnatural addition or modification.

And this comes from an extremely flawed view of "nature" and "modification." If something happens, it is natural. It's that simple. If cloning happens, it's natural. Philosophically speaking, everything that happens in the universe is, by definition, natural. You need to study your terms better. All of this other junk and hurr hurr "NFP is okay but NOOO to 'artificial' means" is a load of crock idealism. It's no different. I don't know why you have to make so many unnecessary distinctions that IMO, fall apart under clever scrutiny.

This really isn't that difficult, no need to over think it.

It isn't; I don't know why you Latinists have to make "nature" and all this crap more confusing than it really is.

Your definition of "natural" basically equals "anything goes." Murder is natural, fornication is natural, adultery, masturbation, interfering with the known and predictable process of nature in order to affect a different result......all of this is "natural."

As I said, I'm not going to get into the other issues with you since you have proven that you aren't interested in dispassionate discussion but would rather refer to my side's arguments as "crap." You do not understand the Church's reasons and arguments and your immaturity prevents you from listening to and considering contrary points since you are still at that age where you are always right. My oldest son is about your age......I know how it goes.

[mike]

As I said, I'm not going to get into the other issues with you since you have proven that you aren't interested in dispassionate discussion but would rather refer to my side's arguments as "crap." You do not understand the Church's reasons and arguments and your immaturity prevents you from listening to and considering contrary points since you are still at that age where you are always right. My oldest son is about your age......I know how it goes.

He does, you not. That's the reason you left the Church.

[ZealousZeal]

Not only that, but if the sperm(azoa) isn't ejaculated, the body kills it in a matter of weeks.  So if a man doesn't engage in continual intercourse with a woman since puberty, he is killed "potential life" continually.  That includes monks.

And what about spouses who have sex while the wife is pregnant? It can't be "open to life" at all. Just sperm genocide.

[JoeS2]

Not only that, but if the sperm(azoa) isn't ejaculated, the body kills it in a matter of weeks.  So if a man doesn't engage in continual intercourse with a woman since puberty, he is killed "potential life" continually.  That includes monks.

And what about spouses who have sex while the wife is pregnant? It can't be "open to life" at all. Just sperm genocide.

Please be very careful as to what you talk about on this subject.......

[JamesR]

Which of course is not germane to its nature but an unnatural addition or modification.

And this comes from an extremely flawed view of "nature" and "modification." If something happens, it is natural. It's that simple. If cloning happens, it's natural. Philosophically speaking, everything that happens in the universe is, by definition, natural. You need to study your terms better. All of this other junk and hurr hurr "NFP is okay but NOOO to 'artificial' means" is a load of crock idealism. It's no different. I don't know why you have to make so many unnecessary distinctions that IMO, fall apart under clever scrutiny.

This really isn't that difficult, no need to over think it.

It isn't; I don't know why you Latinists have to make "nature" and all this crap more confusing than it really is.

Your definition of "natural" basically equals "anything goes." Murder is natural, fornication is natural, adultery, masturbation, interfering with the known and predictable process of nature in order to affect a different result......all of this is "natural."

No it isn't; that's a strawman. My definition of nature basically equals "anything happens." The morality of what happens is another case altogether, and philosophically speaking, this is my problem with Latinists merging together the study of nature and the study of morality even though the two things are separate. I believe this is the reason for their extremely flawed, overly complex views on nature and morality. And all of those things you mentioned ARE natural; interfering with the "predictable process of nature" is a part of the process of nature. Latinists only consider it "unnatural" and therefore "bad" (which makes no sense) simply because it differs from past observed phenomena. But nature HAS NO LAWS or "process." It just happens and is. The "laws" of nature and "predictable process" are merely human inventions describing what we have observed in the past. But nature can, by definition, happen differently in the future and still be nature.

Bringing morality into this is entirely irrelevant, a strawman of my position, and a red herring. Morality and nature are not related at all. Rape is natural (even Richard Dawkins, renowned biologist, says so) yet, it is immoral. Morality isn't defined by nature nor is nature defined by morality. Morality is morality and nature is nature. Our duty is to subject our nature to morality; not derive our morals from nature (which is impossible) or deny nature because it conflicts with our morals. I see this practice as another sign of Latin legalism; you consider something immoral or "bad" simply because it doesn't coincide with your manmade "laws of nature."--what you have observed in the past. In essence, it's applying the judicial concept of breaking-a-law/crime to the concept of nature itself. How arrogant.

As I said, I'm not going to get into the other issues with you since you have proven that you aren't interested in dispassionate discussion but would rather refer to my side's arguments as "crap." You do not understand the Church's reasons and arguments and your immaturity prevents you from listening to and considering contrary points since you are still at that age where you are always right. My oldest son is about your age......I know how it goes.

My behavior has no bearing on whether or not what I say is true. Truth is truth regardless of how it is said or who says it. Nice way to play the age-card again btw when you can't think of anything else to say.

[ZealousZeal]

Please be very careful as to what you talk about on this subject.......

I'm not trying to talk about anything graphically or disrespectfully. The topic is the Catholic Church and BC, which of course includes their stance that sex must be open to life. I'm merely pointing out that in the situation I described, that is impossible. My last sentence is related to the last few posts that are discussing the purpose of sperm. Again in the scenario I described, sperm's purpose (assuming it is the transmission of life, as was claimed) is also impossible to achieve.

I hope that helps clarify my post for you.

[JamesR]

Not only that, but if the sperm(azoa) isn't ejaculated, the body kills it in a matter of weeks.  So if a man doesn't engage in continual intercourse with a woman since puberty, he is killed "potential life" continually.  That includes monks.

And what about spouses who have sex while the wife is pregnant? It can't be "open to life" at all. Just sperm genocide.

Better yet, what about having sex with your wife after she has gone through menopause? That's not "open to life" at all.

[Mor Ephrem]

No it isn't; that's a strawman. My definition of nature basically equals "anything happens." The morality of what happens is another case altogether, and philosophically speaking, this is my problem with Latinists merging together the study of nature and the study of morality even though the two things are separate. I believe this is the reason for their extremely flawed, overly complex views on nature and morality. And all of those things you mentioned ARE natural; interfering with the "predictable process of nature" is a part of the process of nature. Latinists only consider it "unnatural" and therefore "bad" (which makes no sense) simply because it differs from past observed phenomena. But nature HAS NO LAWS or "process." It just happens and is. The "laws" of nature and "predictable process" are merely human inventions describing what we have observed in the past. But nature can, by definition, happen differently in the future and still be nature.

What's a Latinist, James, and why are Latinists so problematic?

[ialmisry]

I came across a sentence that encapsulates the problems with Scholasticism-

the scholastic tradition, in which conclusions are produced by applying reason of first principles or prior definitions rather than to empirical evidence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz

[username!]

have catholics really fundamentally make the church secular? ignoring teachings openly of rome? everyone does, just not to the degree many catholics I know do.
it's the church and home connection between ethnic time honored traditions do that link people to church. wipe that clean and you have secular atheist practices being done at home, like Halloween etc.. be celebrated and church kept out. western society wasn't made to accomdate church. the religious outside if church traditions were disconnected to the church celebrations. all that remains is disenfranchised worshippers who make church a tiny part of their lives. ignoring church teachings for that of pop culture. the Catholic Church says no artificial bc, but society says ok. so the catholics by the large numbers in the west say ok. instead of listening to their bishops they'll listen to what the news tell them to think.
and why look to Rome when the current pope seems to destroy it's remains? that's what a lot of catholics think these days. it's not like people don't talk religion outside the interwebs.

[Xavier]

The Catholic position on birth control is straightforward in a sense: the ends of sex in marriage are procreative and unitive, just as form and matter, and to intrinsically remove either via BC or rape, respectively, is to degrade the sacramental union by corrupting the ends for which God ordained.

Yes, well stated. Contrary to what Ialmisry implied earlier, the Fathers arraign with the greatest severity both men and women who deliberately frustrate the purpose for which the union of the spouses was ordained by God.  Beside the well known example of Onan in Gen 38 cited by St. Augustine and St. Jerome, St. Clement of Alexandria's and St. Epiphanius of Salamis railing against the lawless practice of certain early sects, St. Hippolytus condemns those type of 'contraceptives' that function more as abortifacients, "they use drugs of sterility or bind themselves tightly in order to expel a fetus which has already been engendered" , St. Caesarius of Arles declares, "Who is he who cannot warn that no woman may take a potion so that she is unable to conceive or condemns in herself the nature which God willed to be fecund?" while Lactantius writes, "God gave us eyes not to see and desire pleasure, but to see acts to be performed for the needs of life; so too, the genital [’generating’] part of the body, as the name itself teaches, has been received by us for no other purpose than the generation of offspring." Several other patristic citations can be found by those interested in the link below.

http://scripturecatholic.com/contraception.html
 
There is also a condemnation of φαρμακεία ('Pharmakeia') in the New Testament itself, usually translated "witchcraft" or "sorcery" (cf. Gal 5:20, Apoc 21:, the context makes it more likely it refers to drugs or potions used to procure sterility (see https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=10818 for a discussion and some references). Denunciations of potions or medicines made for the same purpose as modern birth control pills are absolutely universal in the Fathers, and they present consenting to it as the most degrading of acts, St. John Chrysostom laments "Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit, where there are medicines of sterility, where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well ... Indeed, it is something worse than murder, and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gift of God and fight with his laws?" and presciently notes lawless couples who regularly practice it often end up viewing what is universally considered a blessing, the gift of children, as rather a curse. Something very much true of today's godless materialistic culture. "that which is sweet, and universally desirable, the having of children, they esteem grievous and unwelcome."

[ialmisry]

The Catholic position on birth control is straightforward in a sense: the ends of sex in marriage are procreative and unitive, just as form and matter, and to intrinsically remove either via BC or rape, respectively, is to degrade the sacramental union by corrupting the ends for which God ordained.

Yes, well stated. Contrary to what Ialmisry implied earlier

ialmisry does not imply. He states quite plainly.

the Fathers arraign with the greatest severity both men and women who deliberately frustrate the purpose for which the union of the spouses was ordained by God.

you mean the universal condemnation by those Fathers (who expressed an opinion) of the practice enjoined by Humane Vitae and called "Natural family planning" by the Vatican?

Beside the well known example of Onan in Gen 38 cited by St. Augustine and St. Jerome

St. Jerome said "the blood of martyrdom does not remove the stain of marriage." And St. Augustine's confusion of sex with the transmission of original sin is better known.

St. Clement of Alexandria's and St. Epiphanius of Salamis railing against the lawless practice of certain early sects, St. Hippolytus condemns those type of 'contraceptives' that function more as abortifacients, "they use drugs of sterility or bind themselves tightly in order to expel a fetus which has already been engendered" ,

contraceptives=/=abortifacients, the latter of course forbidden as immoral.

St. Caesarius of Arles declares, "Who is he who cannot warn that no woman may take a potion so that she is unable to conceive or condemns in herself the nature which God willed to be fecund?" while Lactantius writes, "God gave us eyes not to see and desire pleasure, but to see acts to be performed for the needs of life; so too, the genital [’generating’] part of the body, as the name itself teaches, has been received by us for no other purpose than the generation of offspring." Several other patristic citations can be found by those interested in the link below.

http://scripturecatholic.com/contraception.html

We have dealt with the ignorance of Lactantius and others previously,e.g.:

SS. Clement, Lactantius, Augustine and Jerome, according to the Vatican's apologists, disagree.

Clement of Alexandria
"To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature" (The Instructor of Children , 2:10:95:3).

Lactantius
"[Some] complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children, as though, in truth, their means were in [their] power . . . or God did not daily make the rich poor and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on any account of poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from relations with his wife" (Divine Institutes 6:20 [A.D. 307]).

"God gave us eyes not to see and desire pleasure, but to see acts to be performed for the needs of life; so too, the genital [’generating’] part of the body, as the name itself teaches, has been received by us for no other purpose than the generation of offspring" (ibid., 6:23:18).

I guess Lactantius never urinated (although I suspect he never ejaculated either, at least in a woman. So his member served no purpose, except for entrance into the male ruling club. On him and this work here quoted by the HV apologists, the "Catholic Encyclopedia" says

The Divine Institutions" (Divinarum Institutionum Libri VII), written between 303 and 311. This the most important of all the writings of Lactantius is systematic as well as apologetic and was intended to point out the futility of pagan beliefs and to establish the reasonableness and truth of Christianity. It was the first attempt at a systematic exposition of Christian theology in Latin, and though aimed at certain pamphleteers who were aiding the persecutors by literary assaults on the Church, the work was planned on a scale sufficiently broad enough to silence all opponents. The strengths and the weakness of Lactantius are nowhere better shown than in his work. The beauty of the style, the choice and aptness of the terminology, cannot hide the author's lack of grasp on Christian principles and his almost utter ignorance of Scripture.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

To which can be added Copernicus' assessment on his astronomy, which can be said of his biology and family counseling as well

Perhaps there will be babblers who claim to be judges of astronomy although completely ignorant of the subject and, badly distorting some passage of Scripture to their purpose, will dare to find fault with my undertaking and censure it. I disregard them even to the extent of despising their criticism as unfounded. For it is not unknown that Lactantius, otherwise an illustrious writer but hardly an astronomer, speaks quite childishly about the earth's shape, when he mocks those who declared that the earth has the form of a globe. Hence scholars need not be surprised if any such persons will likewise ridicule me. Astronomy is written for astronomers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactantius#Copernican_criticism
So too marriage for the married.

There is also a condemnation of φαρμακεία ('Pharmakeia') in the New Testament itself, usually translated "witchcraft" or "sorcery" (cf. Gal 5:20, Apoc 21:, the context makes it more likely it refers to drugs or potions used to procure sterility (see https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=10818 for a discussion and some references).

it unfortunately ignores that sorcery and witchcraft also had drugs and potions used to increase fertility as well.

Denunciations of potions or medicines made for the same purpose as modern birth control pills are absolutely universal in the Fathers[/quote]
the topic rarely comes up, let alone denunciations. But where it does, they do explicitly denounce what HV calls NFP.

[stella1990]

I believe marriages must have the number of children they can support...
If one marries one must desire to have children... but the number depends on your health, financial situation, etc...
Some people thinks that you must get married, get pregnant, give birth, get the baby baptized and if the baby dies because of lack of food, shelter, medicine, etc... it doesnt matter because the baby will go with God... it doesnt matter if the baby is starving and suffering to death... or if the mother has 10 children and the father becomes ill, she has to work outside home and children dont have any adult to care of them... "As long as you give birth and baptize all is right". I find it very CRUEL... because a lot of people who said this... never have been without food...In RC Church trad environment I know of a Bishop who thinks in this manner but he lives in a very rich house in a very rich neighbourhood, has all the food that he wants, and can go to operas and other stuff.
Its easy to say that others must have all the children "that God sends" when one only has to open the freezer and get your food...

It makes me angry.

pd. If the pill is abortifacient it must be avoided, but there are other natural methods...

[ialmisry]

I have to admit my amusement listening to the Vatican apologists groaning from all the twisting and turning they had to do when this story broke. Such gymnastics!  I loved how they not only had to justify their present "infallible source of unity" but his predecessor who issued HV.

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/popes-comments-on-contraception-in-accord-with-magisterium-philosophers-say

Pope Francis’ comments on the Zika virus Feb. 17, which many news outlets read as a softening of the Church’s definitive teaching on artificial contraception, were in accordance with the magisterium, Church philosophers say.

The Pope responded by emphatically stating that abortion is “a crime” and “absolute evil” that cannot be justified. He also spoke on the topic of avoiding pregnancy. “Paul VI, a great man, in a difficult situation in Africa, permitted nuns to use contraceptives in cases of rape,” he said.

The story was in that latter case that the pill only prevented the eggs from being released to be fertilized. Well, duh, that's the same thing condoms do on the other side.

That's "in accord" with HV?

[Minnesotan]

St. John Chrysostom said somewhere that killing of sperm is akin to homicide.

I take him at his word as sperm are alive. When we deliberately kill any living thing that God has created, be it sperm, spiders, or ducks, we are not acting in a very Christian manner.

Don't forget plants; they're living things, too. How's that inedia working out for you?

I believe marriages must have the number of children they can support...
If one marries one must desire to have children... but the number depends on your health, financial situation, etc...
Some people thinks that you must get married, get pregnant, give birth, get the baby baptized and if the baby dies because of lack of food, shelter, medicine, etc... it doesnt matter because the baby will go with God... it doesnt matter if the baby is starving and suffering to death... or if the mother has 10 children and the father becomes ill, she has to work outside home and children dont have any adult to care of them... "As long as you give birth and baptize all is right". I find it very CRUEL... because a lot of people who said this... never have been without food...In RC Church trad environment I know of a Bishop who thinks in this manner but he lives in a very rich house in a very rich neighbourhood, has all the food that he wants, and can go to operas and other stuff.
Its easy to say that others must have all the children "that God sends" when one only has to open the freezer and get your food...

It makes me angry.

pd. If the pill is abortifacient it must be avoided, but there are other natural methods...

Absolutely. The problem with those natalists is that they are pro-birth, but NOT "pro-life". They're not the same thing, even if Americans confuse the two. There's something wrong with people who think it's a good idea to bring as many children as possible into the world only to have them starve. You can find this kind of attitude among some evangelical homeschooling subcultures in the US, too. Abuse and neglect are all too common in these types of families; some of the cases that have come to life are truly nighmarish. I call it factory parenting, by analogy with factory farming, which it closely resembles. If you want to talk about a "culture of death", that's a culture of death right there.

[Minnesotan]

Not only that, but if the sperm(azoa) isn't ejaculated, the body kills it in a matter of weeks.  So if a man doesn't engage in continual intercourse with a woman since puberty, he is killed "potential life" continually.  That includes monks.

And what about spouses who have sex while the wife is pregnant? It can't be "open to life" at all. Just sperm genocide.

Better yet, what about having sex with your wife after she has gone through menopause? That's not "open to life" at all.

You better tell that to Abraham and Sarah.