Catholic Thinkers Say Pushing Contraception Is Wrong for Women, and Here’s Why

“And what we’ve found, not looking just through the eyes of faith, but our lived experience has shown that this is a false promise. In fact, women have proved to be hurt and more vulnerable by the consequences of the sex revolution and the promotion of contraception as the solution.”

Rather than affirming women, Hasson said, contraception tells women that their fertility is a problem to be “fixed” through medical means.

A Better Way

In contrast, the Church’s teaching protects and defends women, she said. “We are the future. Women have the support of the Church’s teaching and it’s been just a tremendous thing.”

Hasson told CNA that both domestic and foreign organizations are “very coercive” in pushing contraceptive implements on lower-income women around the world, often without regard for women’s relationship goals and at the cost of other forms of developmental support.

Religious studies professor John Grabowski of The Catholic University of America agreed.

He told CNA that during his time serving on the Pontifical Council for the Family, he has heard people from around the world complain that “we are having these population, family planning services shoved down our throats, regardless of our convictions, our cultural values, our religious convictions.”

In many cases, he said, funding is directly tied to acceptance of contraception and abortion programs. “It really is contraceptive imperialism.”

Grabowki, who also signed the document supporting Church teaching, pointed out that every major Christian church agreed with Catholicism on contraception until the early 20^th century. The Anglican Communion was the first to break with the absolute prohibition on artificial birth control at the 1930 Lambeth Conference, and in the U.S. the Federal Council of Churches followed suit with a committee statement in 1931.

Today, Grabowski said, “there are many Catholic scholars, academics and intellectuals who support the Church’s teaching, who recognize that the teaching is not the policy instituted by the Church 48 years ago, but represents the constant teaching of the Church from its beginning.”

Grabowksi noted that when Pope Paul VI wrote Humanae Vitae, he “predicted that if contraception were to be widely implemented we could expect a number of things to come to pass: increasing infidelity, and the overall moral decline within society, a loss of respect for women on the part of men.”

All of these things have come to pass, Grabowski said, charging that the Wijngaards Statement does not recognize “the fact that we have a wealth of data from the sciences and the social sciences demonstrating the real harm done to women, to relationships, to marriages and to the family. It’s as if the sexual revolution hasn’t happened.”

He also pointed to the statement’s failure to address the “unique contribution” of St. Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the body, a work which he described as “such a rich resource in unpacking this teaching.”

Outpouring of Support

Janet Smith, an ethics professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit who organized the statement affirming Church teaching, noted that with just a few days’ notice, their document had attracted more than triple the signatures of the dissenting statement.

She suggested that this is “an opportunity for us to show the world that there are many, many people who accept the Church’s teaching on contraception.”

Furthermore, she said, while all of the signatories hold advanced degrees, they are also largely people who are married with families.

By living out the Church’s teachings on contraception and sexuality in their daily lives, many of the signatories are a living witness to the truth of the Church’s position, she said. “They’re not just accepting it on blind obedience.”

Kevin Jones contributed to this report.

Post Credit National Catholic Register