Question re: Double Effect

A reader writes:

I’m a Protestant who has used birth control in the past, but I support the rights of the Catholic Church to not provide contraception in violation of their beliefs.

In debates with people over this, the issue of other medical problems that oral contraceptives are used to treat such as ovarian cysts gets brought up. Also mentioned under the “sterilization” part of it are things like hysterectomies because of some other medical problem unrelated to reproductive decisions. My understanding is that both of these situations are deemed as permissible by the bishops as they are for treatment of a separate and distinct medical problem and not for the purpose of preventing pregnancies.

The questions are, is that stance an accurate assessment of Church opinion/teaching and secondly, do most if not all health plans by Catholic organizations cover these situations under their plan already or do they exclude this kind of coverage as well because of the danger it may be used for contraceptive purposes?

As I understand it, such treatments are permissible under the principle of double effect. In short, the goal is not to thwart the natural ends of sex (union and fruitfulness) but to heal the patient. So yeah. That’s an accurate assessment, as I understand it. (Wiser heads can correct me if I’m wrong.)

As to your second question, I don’t know the answer because I don’t know anything about health insurance policies, Catholic or otherwise. My guess is that a typical policy would cover such things. But you’d need to talk to a Catholic health insurer to really get the facts.

One of the many spanners the draconian policy of our God King throws into the works is that it makes it impossible for Catholic insurers to craft policies which would leave room for such situations while still making it possible to avoid paying for the evil of contraception. But since the policy is *designed* to punish Catholic conscience, that’s a feature, not a bug, for the Administration.