Effects of contraceptive mentality
in society

		Straight Answers  on Marital Love  Fr. William P.  Saunders

Reprinted from the Arlington
Catholic Herald with permission.
Third in a series of six.

Recall that in two previous issues, we have examined our belief concerning the Sacrament of Marriage and the beautiful expression of marital love, which is both unitive and procreative. Both dimensions are intrinsically good and inherent to the act of marriage. Consequently, in marital love, one cannot separate the unitive from the procreative dimension.

For this reason, therefore, Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae stated, "Each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life" (#11). The Holy Father continued, "This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage pact" (Humanae Vitae, #12).

With the introduction of a contraceptive means (artificial or not) to the marital act, the procreative dimension is purposefully suppressed and ignored. The unitive dimension, therefore, is separated from the procreative.

Just as a forced act of physical love by one spouse upon the other violates the unitive dimension of marital love, the impairment of the capacity to transmit human life violates the procreative dimension. Here note that contraception involves an impairment or a suppression of one inherent dimension of an action as God has designed it. Essentially, God has designed marital love to be both unitive and procreative; to suppress or to violate either one contradicts the design of God.

Contraceptive mentality

Nevertheless, we have witnessed the proliferation of the use of artificial birth control in particular. As Pope John Paul II, as well as Pope Paul VI, have repeatedly warned, what has consequently evolved in society is a contraceptive mentality, the removal of conjugal love from the Sacrament of Marriage, and in many cases - especially outside the context of marriage - the reduction of conjugal love to simply a sex act without genuine love.

In Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II lamented about the effects of contraception: "Sexuality too is depersonalized and exploited: from being the sign, place, and language of love, that is, of the gift of self and acceptance of another, in all the other's richness as a person, it increasingly becomes the occasion and instrument for self-assertion and the selfish satisfaction of personal desires and instincts.

"Thus, the original import of human sexuality is distorted and falsified, and the two meanings, unitive and procreative, inherent in the very nature of the conjugal act, are artificially separated: in this way, the marriage union is betrayed and its fruitfulness is subjected to the caprice of the couple.

"Procreation then becomes the 'enemy' to be avoided in sexual activity: if it is welcomed this is only because it expresses a desire, or indeed the intention, to have a child 'at all costs,' and not because it signifies the complete acceptance of the other and therefore an openness to the richness of life which the child represents" (#23).

Birth control pills

Here we must pause to examine another dimension of the problem with some forms of artificial birth control. Most artificial birth control pills today are such that they have a "double-barrel" effect.

On one hand, they serve as a contraceptive in suppressing ovulation; on the other hand, if ovulation occurs and conception takes place "by accident," they also make the lining of the uterus hostile to implantation, thereby expelling the conceived life. Remember that once conception occurs, a unique, precious individual has been created who has the right to life. Consequently, these pills are really abortifacients, having the same effect as the IUD (intrauterine device). Actually, this "double barrel" effect is the sad selling point for the drug RU486, commonly called "the morning after pill."

Moreover, we must also consider the possible side effects of these pills to the health of the woman. In examining the Physician's Desk Reference for various oral contraceptives available, the small-print list of possible health complications include, to name a few, myocardial infarction, thrombosis, cerebrovascular disorders, birth defects, and various forms of cancer (breast, cervical, ovarian, and uterine). Tragically, many doctors do not inform the woman of these health risks when prescribing these drugs. Since each individual has an obligation for maintaining his health, any drug which consistently changes the normal functioning of the body and which carries these risks would be morally objectionable.

Acting responsibly

So what is a couple who has serious issues facing their marriage, such as a medical problem or economic constrictions, to do? The Church has always taught that a couple must act as responsible parents: "The couple must fulfill their role as cooperators of God's creative love with responsibility: they must respect the divine providence of God, consider their own good and the good of their children, born and yet to be born, weigh their own situation and needs on the spiritual and material levels, and look to the good of family, society, and Church" (Gaudium et Spes, #50).

A husband and wife, with a vision of being responsible parents, must decide if now is the time to have a child. There may be serious reasons for postponing a pregnancy - even indefinitely - because of health, financial burdens, or other serious reason.

However, one must be careful not to distort what is a "serious" reason. Pope John Paul II stated, "The decision about the number of children and the sacrifices to be made for them must not be taken only with a view to adding comfort and preserving a peaceful existence. Reflecting upon this matter before God, with the graces drawn from the Sacrament, and guided by the teaching of the Church, parents will remind themselves that it is certainly less serious to deny their children certain comforts or material advantages than to deprive them of the presence of brothers and sisters who could help them to grow in humanity and to realize the beauty of life at all ages and in all its variety" (1979).

If a couple thinks serious reasons do indeed exist for postponing a pregnancy, the Church teaches that a couple may take advantage of "the natural cycles of the reproductive system" (Humanae Vitae, #16).

We know that a woman can only conceive a child during the period of ovulation. Therefore, a couple may resort to expressing their love only when they are in the infertile phases of their cycle.

This method of regulating birth is called Natural Family Planning, a safe and effective means which is morally acceptable and which preserves the covenant love of marriage. This topic will be addressed in next week's issue.

Fr. William P. Saunders is pastor of Our Lady of Hope Parish in Potomac Falls, Va. His columns from the Arlington Catholic Herald have been compiled in two books called Straight Answers. Call 703-256-5994 for more information.

Do embryos have souls?

		Making Sense  Out of Bioethics  Fr. Tad  Pacholczyk

People are sometimes surprised to hear that the wrongness of destroying a human embryo does not ultimately depend on when that embryo might become a person, or when he or she might receive a soul from God. They often suppose that the Catholic Church teaches that destroying human embryos is unacceptable because such embryos are persons (or are "ensouled").

While it is true that the Church teaches that the intentional and direct destruction of human embryos is always immoral, it would be incorrect to conclude that the Church teaches that zygotes (a single-cell embryo) or other early-stage embryos are persons, or that they already have immortal, rational souls.

When soul is infused not clear

The magisterium of the Church has never definitively stated when the ensoulment of the human embryo takes place. It remains an open question. The Declaration on Procured Abortion from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1974 phrases the matter with considerable precision:

"This declaration expressly leaves aside the question of the moment when the spiritual soul is infused. There is not a unanimous tradition on this point and authors are as yet in disagreement. For some it dates from the first instant; for others it could not at least precede nidation [implantation in the uterus]. It is not within the competence of science to decide between these views, because the existence of an immortal soul is not a question in its field. It is a philosophical problem from which our moral affirmation remains independent."

That being said, the moral teaching of the Church is that the human embryo must be treated as if it were already ensouled, even if it might not yet be so. It must be treated as if it were a person from the moment of conception, even if there exists the theoretical possibility that it might not yet be so.

Why the nuanced position?

Why this rather subtle, nuanced position, instead of simply declaring outright that zygotes are ensouled, and therefore are persons? First, because there has never been a unanimous tradition on this point; and second, because the precise timing of ensoulment/personhood of the human embryo is irrelevant to the question of whether or not we may ever destroy such embryos for research or other purposes.

Interestingly, ensoulment has been discussed for centuries, and so-called delayed ensoulment was probably the norm for most of Christian history, with immediate ensoulment gaining some serious momentum of its own beginning in the 1600s (and representing the position most widely held today). Augustine seemed to shift his opinion back and forth during his lifetime between immediate and delayed ensoulment.

In the 1200s, Thomas Aquinas held that human ensoulment occurred not right at the first instant, but at a time-point removed from the beginning. This, he argued, would enable the matter of the embryo to undergo development and become "apt" for the reception of an immortal soul from God (by passing through simpler initial stages involving "vegetative" and "animative" souls).

Even today in various quarters, the discussions continue, with new embryological details like twinning and chimerization impinging upon the debate, and new conceptual questions arising from the intricate biology surrounding totipotency and pluripotency.

Question somewhat irrelevant

We must recognize that it is God's business as to precisely when He ensouls embryos. We do not need an answer to this fascinating and speculative theological question, like counting angels on the head of a pin, in order to grasp the fundamental truth that human embryos are inviolable and deserving of unconditional respect at every stage of their existence.

Rather, this moral affirmation follows directly on the heels of the scientific data regarding early human development, which affirms that every person on the face of the planet is, so to speak, an "overgrown embryo." Hence, it is not necessary to know exactly when God ensouls the embryo, because, as I sometimes point out in half-jest, even if it were true that an embryo did not receive her soul until she graduated from law school, that would not make it okay to kill her by forcibly extracting tissues or organs prior to graduation.

Human embryos are already beings that are human (not zebra or plant), and are, in fact, the newest and most recent additions to the human family. They are integral beings structured for maturation along their proper time line.

Any destructive action against them as they move along the continuum of their development disrupts the entire future time line of that person. In other words, the embryo exists as a whole, living member of the human species, and when destroyed, that particular individual has perished. Every human embryo, thus, is unique and sacrosanct, and should not be cannibalized for stem cell extraction.

What a human embryo actually is, even at its earliest and most undeveloped stage, already makes it the only kind of entity capable of receiving the gift of an immortal soul from the hand of God. No other animal or plant embryo can receive this gift; indeed, no other entity in the universe can receive this gift.

Hence, the early human embryo is never merely biological tissue, like a group of liver cells in a petri dish; at a minimum, such an embryo, with all its internal structure and directionality, represents the privileged sanctuary of one meant to develop as a human person.

Absolute dignity of human person

Some scientists and philosophers will attempt to argue that if an early embryo might not yet have received its immortal soul from God, it must be okay to destroy that embryo for research since he or she would not yet be a person.

But it would actually be the reverse; that is to say, it would be more immoral to destroy an embryo that had not yet received an immortal soul than to destroy an ensouled embryo. Why? Because the immortal soul is the principle by which that person could come to an eternal destiny with God in heaven, so the one who destroyed the embryo, in this scenario, would preclude that young human from ever receiving an immortal soul (or becoming a person) and making his or her way to God.

This would be the gravest of evils, as the stem cell researcher would forcibly derail the entire eternal design of God over that unique and unrepeatable person, via an action that would be, in some sense, worse than murder. The human person, then, even in his or her most incipient form as an embryonic human being, must always be safeguarded in an absolute and unconditional way, and speculation about the timing of personhood cannot alter this fundamental truth.

Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., and serves as the director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pa.

Farmers' market 'dishes up'
more than produce

		Grand Mom  Audrey  Mettel Fixmer

Accepting the physical limitations imposed on us as we grow older is not always easy.

I must confess to feeling rather sad when we sold our big home a year ago, because with it went all of my perennial and vegetable gardens, and a beautiful sunroom that brought it all inside.

Okay, I'll admit that after my arthritis got too bad that sunroom brought in frustration too as I watched the weeds overtake the beauty.

Farmers' market

Still, this year in my little condo I missed the beautiful garden produce, but not for long. I have discovered the joys of shopping at the local farmers' market!

Years ago my daughters and I used to drive to Madison, and toting a wagon we would walk all around the square and delight in the plants and flowers, luscious bright veggies, fresh honey, and baked goods at what appeared to be the world's largest farmers' market.

It's still there on Saturday morning, I understand, but I couldn't walk that far if you paid me. And I don't need to. This year a couple of women got together and spruced up the Fort Atkinson Farmers' Market, and with the help of my new walker and my daughters alongside I can make it all through.

More than produce

With the addition of live music this year, vendors selling many homemade items they lovingly put together during the long winter months, and an ever-changing supply of local produce, the Saturday mornings have turned into a joyous social event as well as good business.

Our family have been loyal Farmers' Market consumers this summer. We went through weeks of the best asparagus and potted plants along with abundant spinach and peapods. Mmmmmm! Nobody has to urge us to eat our green vegetables. And the amazing thing is that when you buy fresh from the garden, the produce stays fresh much longer than that which you buy in the store.

Now it's lettuce, beets, chard, onions, garlic, and sweet corn. Maybe even locally grown tomatoes! It just gets better every week.

A couple of weeks ago I was able to buy two huge bags of basil, enough to make my good old recipe for pesto. The basil cost me $2 at the market, whereas I could have bought only two ounces of fresh basil at the store for $4. A couple tablespoons of my pesto on a cup or two of linguine is a delightful, nutritious meal for me.

And one large zucchini ground up made several loaves of zucchini date nut bread for our church's Family Fair last week.

Time for socializing

Besides filling our shopping bags, we fill another need at the farmers' market: socializing with neighbors, friends, and families.

Before my daughters and I leave the market, we inevitably run into fellow parishioners or neighbors and even family. I usually hear one of my daughters say, "Oh, look! There's John and Janine and the kids." (My second youngest son, daughter-in-law, and their adorable sons, three-year-old Gregory and one-year-old Robert.) They love to attend each week too, especially when there is a petting zoo with goats and ponies.

The addition this year of live music as well as fresh coffee and sweets gives the entire atmosphere a festive air. And the benefits of the purchase last all week by providing fresh, healthful meals.

The words "locally grown" seem like some kind of insurance now that we hear about contaminated produce shipped in from foreign countries.

God, in His mercy, compensates us for our losses. For the elderly the farmers' market is like grandchildren. We get all of the benefits but none of the work and responsibilities. Thanks, Lord!

"Grandmom" likes hearing from other senior citizens who enjoy aging -- contact information.