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National Catholic Bioethics Center: “Zika Does Not Justify Abortion or Contraception”

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The fallout from Pope Francis’ comments on Zika and contraception continue. I’ve already shared my thoughts on the need for public correction by our bishops of the error (that contraception is justified to prevent birth defects caused by viral transmission) propagated by Francis. Privately, I’ve begun to hear from moral theologians and Catholic medical professionals who are deeply concerned about the theological, ethical, and eugenic implications of what he has said.

Now, the National Catholic Bioethics Center, based in Philadelphia, has issued a statement, and it is unequivocal in precisely the way that the pope’s statement was not:

The National Catholic Bioethics Center
Zika Does Not Justify Abortion or Contraception
February 22, 2016
© 2016 by the National Catholic Bioethics Center

Zika Does Not Justify Abortion or Contraception

February 22, 2016

Given the spread of the Zika virus and microcephaly within the Western Hemisphere, some have recommended the use of abortion and contraception as appropriate tools in the fight against this disease. In the following statement, the Ethicists of the NCBC reply to numerous media inquiries and give guidance to faithful Catholics on this topic.

A suspected connection between the Zika virus and microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, in children who were in the womb when their mothers contracted the virus has raised public health alarms in South America, the United States, and elsewhere around the globe. There is little question that the risks associated with the virus should continue to be carefully examined by medical experts. Appropriate recommendations to safeguard the health of all persons, and particularly those most susceptible to any serious effects of the disease, are warranted. Zika is the most recent and high-profile instance of any number of diseases that might have deleterious effects on the unborn children whose mothers contract it while pregnant. In no way, however, would it justify a change in the Catholic Church’s consistent teachings on the sacredness and inviolability of human life and the dignity and beauty of the means of transmitting life through marital relations.  Direct abortion and contraceptive acts are intrinsically immoral and contrary to these great goods, and no circumstances can justify either.

Based on available information, it does not appear that Zika poses any particular threat to the life of a pregnant woman who contracts it. Although the association is not yet confirmed, the virus’s harmful effects appear to be on the development of the child in her womb. Proposing abortion as a “medical solution” to the child’s pathology is suggesting the direct destruction of innocent human life as a means of healing. This is an evident self-contradiction. Pope Pius XI addressed the issue of “therapeutic abortion” in his encyclical Casti connubii:

What could ever be a sufficient reason for excusing in any way the direct murder of the innocent? This is precisely what we are dealing with here. Whether inflicted upon the mother or upon the child, it is against the precept of God and the law of nature: “Thou shalt not kill.” The life of each is equally sacred, and no one has the power, not even the public authority, to destroy it. (CC, n. 64)

More recently, in his encyclical Evangelium vitae, Pope St. John Paul II reaffirmed the Church’s constant teaching:

The deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of his life is always morally evil and can never be licit either as an end in itself or as a means to a good end. (EV, n. 57)

Beyond the issue of abortion, governments and public health experts may be justified in recommending that married couples delay childbearing temporarily in view of the great number of apparent risks associated with contracting Zika during pregnancy. Married couples should prayerfully assess any such recommendations. Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae vitae clearly addresses this issue, teaching that “with regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time” (HV, n. 10). Therefore, the couple should choose whether and to what extent they will accept such a recommendation, assessing all of their pertinent spousal duties and reliable medical facts: “The exercise of responsible parenthood requires that husband and wife, keeping a right order of priorities, recognize their own duties toward God, themselves, their families and human society” (HV, n. 10). Delaying pregnancy can be achieved through complete or periodic abstinence during the wife’s fertile period, which can be generally ascertained through bodily signs (natural family planning).

Humanae vitae also goes on to explain what “due respect to moral precepts” includes. Paul VI teaches that such respect excludes “any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means” (HV, n. 14). In response to the notion that contraception might be an acceptable lesser evil when compared to direct abortion, he further clarifies:

Neither is it valid to argue, as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one. . . . 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—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. (HV, n. 14)

This provides the foundation to answer a question increasingly being asked—whether it is ethical to use contraceptive methods, such as condoms, to reduce the likelihood of transmission of the Zika virus.  Apart from the scientific questions about the actual effectiveness of condoms in disease prevention, using condoms to reduce the likelihood of Zika transmission amounts to directly intending contraceptive acts of intercourse as a means to a good end. It “deliberately frustrate[s] . . . the natural power and purpose” of marital intercourse (see CC, n. 54). In the case of a woman who is already pregnant, condom use could not have the effect of preventing pregnancy, but it would prevent a true marital act from taking place, which always involves a complete giving and receiving on the part of the husband and wife.

Some might also wonder about the use of contraceptive pills or intrauterine devices as a form of self-defense against the disease. This line of reasoning is invalid: hormonal contraceptives, IUDs, and morning-after pills do nothing to prevent sexual transmission of disease, but rather prevent the conception of a new human life or the implantation of an existing embryonic human being. Their use would amount to directly intending contraception or early abortion as a means of preventing potential birth defects. In other words, it would deliberately violate the unitive and procreative meanings of human self-giving in marital intimacy or purposefully destroy innocent human life, which are means that no good end can justify.

Hopefully, this will give those experts who are sharing similar concerns in private the confidence to step forward and say the same. The implications of a misunderstanding here are massive, and the response should be swift and decisive.

27 thoughts on “National Catholic Bioethics Center: “Zika Does Not Justify Abortion or Contraception””

  1. It seems to me that @GreggorytheGreat [cf. his comment here: https://onepeterfive.wpengine.com/the-galatians-two-moment-is-now/#comment-2532977767%5D is perhaps among the very few who realize how many are being played via the means of “Hegelian Dialectic”.
    *
    First:The Hegelian Dialectic 101

    One wants to move toward a goal, effect change, the goal and its opposite which are the thesis and antithesis are pitted against each other resulting in an intermediate stage between the two synthesis and then the whole process starts again from this intermediate position and the same process repaeted as is necessary, until the final change or goal desired is achieved.
    *
    In the matter at hand the thesis is the perennial Church Teaching on contraception. Pope Francis’ utterance/Fr. Lombardi’s explanation is antithesis which of course everyone sees and cries “we can’t go there”. In the discussions by “experts” [knowingly or unknowingly, in on it or not] the synthesis is slipped in unnoticed by the majority. In this case it is slipping in exceptions to contraception as established Church Teaching when they have just been discussions by moral theologians. Thus the populace is moved along almost without realizing it to the eventual goal of doing away with the Church Teaching on contraception.
    *
    PS Similarly this is how, if they are successful, everyone [including divorced + civilly remarried, SS couples, etc] will eventually be allowed to receive Holy Communion. They have already said that is the goal.

    On whether the divorced + civilly remarried can receive Holy Communion, Pope Francis recently said “This is the last thing […] It is a path towards integration, all doors are open”. The synthesis here “integration”. What is to stop the divorced + civilly remarried eventually receiving Holy Communion if along the path of “their integration” they are allowed say to be catechists?

    Reply
    • I agree with this perception, it has long been used to push the liberal progressive agenda in the political world and in the Church. Think of it as erosion of a principle over time by changing one word/meaning of a word with each successive wave until the rock is no more…

      Reply
    • Yours is a rather elaborate way of describing what is more succinctly called “the slippery slope.”

      A far more useful way of putting the matter, I think, is that of the University of Texas professor of government J. Budziszewski. Speaking of learning to tolerate abortion, though the argument applies equally well to contraception, etc., Prof. Budziszewski writes:

      . . . . Some of us must turn out more human, others less. This is a dicey business even for abortionists. It hardly needs to be said that no one has been able to come up with a criterion that makes babies in the womb less human but leaves everyone else as he was; the teeth of the moral gears are too finely set for that. The less fully human must yield to the interests of the more fully human; all that remains is to sort us all out.

      Do we protest that the progression is too extreme? That people are not that logical? Ah, but they are; they are only logical slowly. The implication which they do not grasp today they may grasp in thirty years; if they do not grasp it even then, their children will grasp it. It is happening already. Look around.

      For more from this extremely insightful Roman Catholic scholar, please see https://www3.nd.edu/~maritain/ama/Fuller/Fuller12.pdf

      Reply
      • I see “the slippery slope” as something all of us can slide down upon and perhaps we all may have done it at some point in our lives, i.e., yielding, for whatever reason, in a small matter where one ought not to be yielding and if one does not arrest the process, the subsequent falls are graver. An example is fostering a seemingly innocuous work relationship that eventually leads to adultery and even to murder.
        *
        The process I have identified above is a deliberate and purposeful one on the part of the plotters and they set out with a specific goal in mind. @radical_catholic:disqus has identified some areas they are attacking via this methodology. Their eventual goal is the destruction of the Church.

        Reply
    • I’ve referred to this elsewhere as the Turkish Bazaar: The peddler shocks his mark with a ridiculously high starting price (communion for adulterers, gay marriage, women priests) and lowers it until he hits the latter’s pain threshold (streamlined annulments, gay union blessings, married priests). At the end of it, the sucker feels like he got a good deal, and the peddler makes a killing.

      Reply
      • Or it is simply the common tactic of the revolutionary. As Saul Alinsky taught, focus on one thing and hit it with all you’ve got. Be relentless and tell the lie often and eventually, it will be believed. Once a small part of the mind is perverted, another portion must be attacked until the whole is completely won over to the Revolution.

        Reply
      • You called some of the fronts being attacked. They are relentless cf. CatholicHeraldcouk » The new push to end priestly celibacy [http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2016/02/25/the-new-push-to-end-priestly-celibacy/]

        Reply
      • Thank you and I thank God for it. Most were hung up on the obvious failing to see the subtle and the insidious. The connection between the supposed Bl. Paul VI’s permission and Pope Francis’ utterance/Fr. Lombardi’s explanation is that they are advanced as exceptions to the perennial Church Teaching on contraception.
        *
        You made very good and solid arguments over at CWR that were very beneficial to me. God bless you and yours and his work at your hands.
        *
        I thank God that it appears he is giving wisdom and understanding to the simple and opening the mouths of babes cf. the comment [http://mahoundsparadise.blogspot.com/2016/02/rape-and-contraception.html?showComment=1456762897225#c43538928769075672] by @A Daughter of Mary over at Mahound’s Paradise blog.

        Reply
  2. I guess you don’t recall the firestorm Benedict XVI created when the Vatican released his book “Light of the World”. Subsequently, German journalist Peter Seeward held an interview with him about it.

    The controversy it caused related to his statement that prostitutes could use condoms to prevent AIDS. The spinmeisters were out in force then as now (Fr. Lombardi included). Oh, he didn’t really say that, mean that, blah blah blah. Like Francis, this was simply one of the many “controversial”, i.e., questionable if not outright denials of the true faith, that we were subjected to during his reign of “slipping in the synthesis” of his beloved Hegel (and Kung, Rahner, Lubac, Teilhard, Balthsar and other heretics).

    Thus, this is nothing new under the sun of Modernism, the new religion of the institutional Church.

    Pope Pius VIII, “Traditi Humilitate Nostrae”, May 24, 1829:

    “Although God may console Us with you, We are nonetheless sad. This is due to the numberless errors and the teachings of perverse doctrines which, no longer secretly and clandestinely but openly and vigorously, attack the Catholic faith. You know how evil men have raised the standard of revolt against religion through philosophy (of which they proclaim themselves doctors) and through empty fallacies devised according to natural reason…..With tears We say: ‘Truly they have conspired against the Lord and against His Christ.’ Truly the impious have said: ‘Raze it, raze it down to its foundations.”

    Reply
    • The sad thing is we hear the spin but not: Note on the banalization of sexuality Regarding certain interpretations of “Light of the World” | CDF [http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20101221_luce-del-mondo_en.html]

      Reply
      • The CDF had to put its own spin on it. Backing up one of their own is necessary for the revolutionary-until the revolution evolves beyond its initial or beginning errors and progresses on to worse ones.

        Reply
        • You may call it spin, but at least I can reconcile it with the truths of the faith unlike what we are faced with Pope Francis.
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          Generally the sinner sinks deeper, darker, and becomes more cruel. Say one frequents a house of ill-repute and believe they won’t contract a disease to pass on to their wife or children by using a condom. Should they continue with their vice, I believe you can fancy without me telling you what will happen in time to their use of a condom. They way I see Pope Emeritus’ words is that the male protitute may be begining to come around to his senses à la the prodigal son’s return journey of sorts.

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          • Come on. So much of what Benedict wrote because he believed it is pure Modernist rubbish. Let the Church condone sins through the back door, that was his forte. The expert at Modernist contradictions, a disciple of and contributor of the heretical theology and philosophy adopted at Vatican II. The man was the necessary step to the election of Francis as he prepared for the destruction of the remaining truths of Catholic doctrine. A false prophet without doubt.

  3. Notice how Paul VI used the language of the population controller’s in HV? “Responsible parenthood” is one of the revolutionary code words invented to strike at the heart of the emotions, which is how the eugenics, and abortion proponents succeeded in winning over the people to their demonic mindset.

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  4. While it wasn’t mentioned, it would have been nice to draw attention to Plus XII’s Allocution to Midwives that definitively sets aside contraception for eugenics purposes.

    PAUL VI’s HV footnotes this in section 16.

    Reply

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