When Good Catholic Women Take Birth Control

Our sin, however, is not reducible to ingesting a pill—a morally neutral action*, which gains the notes of morality depending upon if it is being used as medical treatment or as contraception. Rather, the problem of contraception as such  lies in the disposition which leads us to employ various means to engage in sex free of grounding in reality. Using contraception is wrong because its use is a refusal to understand reality’s revelation of the pedagogy of the body—theologically, philosophically, anthropologically. Contraception is a refusal to see that our actions in the real world draw us beyond ourselves towards the things of this world and the persons of this world, including those persons whom we have the material potency to bring about. It is wrong to use contraception because when contraception is used as such, we fail to trust God and we refuse to allow the possibility that reality might draw us beyond ourselves.

This going beyond ourselves takes many forms. It can take the form of the mother who spends nine months on bed-rest to sustain her child. It can take the form of a parent who turns down a promotion so he can spend more time with his family, or the form of the parent who takes the promotion in order to support his family better. It can take the form of a husband discerning with his wife that now is not the time for having a child because they have three children under four and his wife has postpartum depression. It can take the form of a young single mother who chooses life, despite the judgment and challenges she faces. It can take the form of the young man who grows up and marries his child’s mother. It can take the form of the couple who opens their arms to adoption. It can take the form of the husband who holds his wife when yet another month passes without pregnancy.

It can even take the form of a single Catholic woman who takes a tiny blue tab each night and hopes one day she will hear the magic phrase “your hormones look almost normal” after yet another round of blood tests, so that should she ever get married there would be a greater possibility that the marriage might lead to a child.

So is the Pill intrinsically evil? In absolutely every case? Is the Pill the enemy of the family? Or is that enemy the human heart, turned from love of God and love of neighbor, which is the cause of sin? Was the woman right in attempting to use a medication while unmarried which might allow her to avoid actualized infertility by seeking medical intervention earlier and then following the advice of her doctors? I’ve heard arguments both ways.

Would it make any difference if I told you this story was not simply a thought experiment? Would it make any difference if I told you that this story was mine?

Morality, much like sanctity, cannot be divorced from the particular circumstances of particular lives. Sometimes good Catholic mothers take jobs outside the home. Sometimes good Catholic couples have just causes for employing NFP to avoid pregnancy. Sometimes good Catholic fathers take jobs to provide for their families or forgo promotions in order to have time to spend with their families. And sometimes, strange as it sounds, a Catholic woman who hopes to be good is on the Pill for the sake of being open to life in the future. Perhaps the title of the piece is a misnomer; in all honesty I’m not sure if I’m a good Catholic woman, though I hope to be one eventually. But neither am I dead yet; so long as that’s the case, I can only ask that Heaven might go easy on me. And perhaps, for all those who also hope to be good and are trying their best to love God and neighbor in their living of life, we too ought to go easy on them. After all, philosophy is necessarily abstract, and there truly are more particular things in Heaven and on Earth than any of us could dream of in our philosophy. Sanctity is not about philosophy, moral or otherwise—sanctity is, at heart, about love.

*I want to make clear that using the Pill for hormonal treatment should only be undertaken at the guidance of trained medical professionals, and is not some panacea. Also, it is not always the necessary or best course of treatment, however in some cases it is. Moreover, if you are in the position of taking it for valid medical reasons, it might, depending on your state in life, be worth discussing your particular circumstance with your priest and/or spiritual director to ensure things are morally ok given your particular circumstances.