Unlawful Birth Control Methods

Population Density Map

I chose to reflect on the excerpt of Humanae Vitae titled Unlawful Birth Control Methods(14). The section discussed the church's view of contraceptives, and the unlawfulness of the interruption of the generative process by any means. It goes on to discuss how the different methods are all condemned in the eyes of the church, the reasoning behind this, and why no one method is to be considered less evil than another in the sense that they are all morally wrong. "We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children." (14). This statement sums up the Catholic church's stance on birth control. But what I found particularly interesting was the later section discussing human intent with contraceptives. I chose to link this with the illustration of the "1 child policy" in China.

The one-child policy refers to the one-child limitation applying to about 35 percent of the population of the People's Republic of China. It was created by the Chinese government to alleviate social, economic, and environmental problems in China. I find this policy to be extremely complex and conflicting on a number of levels. But when comparing just the policy itself to the Pope's view on birth Control, the two do coincide. "Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good," it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (18)—in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general." This section explains exactly why this policy is unlawful in the eyes of the Catholic church. By this it means that although the intent of this policy is to better the general living standards of the people in China, man does not have the power to control creation in this deliberative way for it is "intrinsically wrong". Not to mention the branching off of issues the policy has caused such as extreme increase in gender selected abortions, increase in multiple birth fertility treatments (first born child/children), and overall increase in infanticide. There is also the much broader conflict between the two ideas of how society views the policy and how people have "changed" to accept this as something "normal", when the Pope states that humans are, by natural law the same, and remain the same therefore their morals should not be altered by the developmental constructions of society.

All of these contradictions make it extremely difficult, in my opinion, to really form a clear "stance" on the subject. Brought up strictly Catholic, I tend to have the stereotypical conservative personality of a Catholic Christian. So in a way I find what the Pope has to say on birth control extremely smart in relation to the way he chooses to look at humanity. In each aspect whether it be political, social, or psychological he states that an evil is an evil no matter what the intent, therefore birth control is morally wrong, making his viewpoint easy to grasp and almost comforting in its solidarity. Like the path to righteousness is a set of guidelines . But nothing is ever this simple in reality, which makes this idea hard to truly accept. Like we have discussed in class, once new technologies and social constructions are introduced, whole societies are changed. The lines between right and wrong become less and less defined as humanity fluctuates. This complexity causes incompatibility between mind, body, actions and how we choose to live out our lives.