Birth Control Part 14

"As the wedded pair have given each other power over their bodies it would be a grave sin for one to refuse either altogether or for a considerable time the fulfilment of the marriage debt. But it is not a sin if by mutual agreement the wedded pair refrain from the marriage debt for a time, or for ever. As a rule, and speaking objectively, it would be heroic virtue for a wedded pair to abstain for a long time, and still more for ever, from the marriage debt. To counsel such a practice indiscriminately would be a sinful want of prudence, and, in a confessor, of professional knowledge.

"It is quite clear that by mutual consent, even without any further motive, the wedded pair can abstain from marital intercourse. Still more may they abstain for a time or for ever, for a good motive, e.g.

in order to have time for prayer, for good works, for bringing up such family as they already have to support."

Section 3. ARTIFICIAL STERILITY WHOLLY CONDEMNED

Artificial birth control is an offence against the law of G.o.d, and is therefore forbidden by the Catholic Church. Any Catholic who wilfully adopts this practice violates the law of G.o.d in a serious matter, and is therefore guilty of mortal sin, an outrageous and deliberate insult offered by a human creature to the Infinite Majesty.

The Catholic Church teaches that men and women should control the s.e.x impulse just as they should control their appet.i.te for food or drink.

The princ.i.p.al end of marriage, as we have seen, is the purpose of its inst.i.tution, the procreation and bringing up of children. The secondary end of marriage is mutual a.s.sistance and companions.h.i.+p, and a remedy against concupiscence. Where it is advisable, owing to the health of the mother or owing to reasons of prudence as distinct from selfishness, to limit the number of children, the Catholic Church points out that this should be done by the exercise of self-control, or by restricted use. As those who deny the possibility or even the wisdom of self-restraint are not likely to pay the slightest attention to the teaching of the Church, I will quote the opinions of two clear-thinking, non-Catholic writers.

Mr. George Bernard Shaw has said:

"I have no prejudices. The superst.i.tious view of the Catholic Church is that a priest is something entirely different from an ordinary man. I know a great many Catholic priests, and they are men who have had a great deal of experience. They have at the back a Church which has had for many years to consider the giving of domestic advice to people. If you go to a Catholic priest and tell him that a life of s.e.xual abstinence means a life of utter misery, he laughs. And obviously for a very good reason. If you go to Westminster Cathedral you will hear voices which sound extremely well, and very differently from the voices of the gentlemen who sing at music-halls, and who would not be able to sing in that way if they did not lead a life extremely different from the Catholic priest....

"I may say that I am in favour of birth control. I am in favour of it for its own sake. I do not like to see any human being absolutely the slave of what we used to call 'Nature.' Every human action ought to be controlled, and you make a step in civilisation with something which has been uncontrollable. I am therefore in favour of control for its own sake. But when you go from that to the methods of control, that is a very different thing. As Dr. Routh said, we have to find out methods which will not induce people to declare that they cannot exist without s.e.xual intercourse." [125]

Of course the use of contraceptives is the very negation of self-control.

The late Sir William Osier, speaking of venereal disease, says:

"Personal purity is the prophylaxis which we as physicians are especially bound to advocate. Continence may be a hard condition ...

but it can be borne, and it is our duty to urge this lesson upon young and old who seek our advice on matters s.e.xual."

Section 4. THE ONLY LAWFUL METHOD OF BIRTH CONTROL

There _are_ methods of control whereby people are enabled to exist, and to exist happily, without being slaves to the s.e.x impulse. These methods are those of the Catholic Church. Her people are encouraged to take a higher and a n.o.bler view of marriage, to overcome their egoism and selfishness, and to practise moderation and self-restraint in the lawful use of marital rights. The Church urges her people to strengthen their self-restraint by observing the penitential seasons, especially Lent; by fasting or by abstaining from flesh meat at other times, if necessary by abstaining from alcohol; and by seeking that supernatural help which comes to those who receive the Sacraments worthily. When all other deterrents fail, it is lawful, according to the teaching of the Church, for married people to limit intercourse to the mid-menstrual period, when, although conception may occur, it is less likely to occur than at other times.

All other methods are absolutely and without exception forbidden. This limited use of marriage, which, as we have seen, is within the rights of the married, differs from all methods of artificial birth-control as day differs from night, because: [Reference: Explanation]

(1) No positive or direct obstacle is used against procreation.

(2) The intercourse is natural, in contradistinction to what is equivalent to self-abuse.

(3) Self-restraint is practised in that the intercourse is limited to certain times.

(4) There is no risk to mental or physical health.

(5) There is no evil will to _defeat_ the course of nature; at worst there is merely an absence of heroism.

Even if the question be considered solely as a matter of physiology the difference between these methods is apparent. Physiologists and gynaecologists believe that in natural intercourse there is, apart from fertilisation, an absorption of certain substances into the system of the woman. The role of this absorption is at present obscure, but it obviously exists for a purpose; and it is permissible to speculate whether, under natural conditions of intercourse, there is not a mutual biological reaction that makes, amongst other things, for physical compatibility.

Whatever be its purpose or explanation in the marvellous mechanism of nature, this absorption of vital substances is either hindered or is absolutely prevented by artificial methods of birth control; whereas, in the method permitted by the teaching of the Catholic Church there is no interference with a physiological process. Even those who fail, from their lack of training, to comprehend moral distinctions in this matter should be able to appreciate the difference between a method that is physiological and one that is unphysiological.

There are thousands who know little of the Catholic or of any other faith, and thousands who believe the Catholic Church to be everything except what it is. These people have no infallible rule of faith and morals, and when confronted, as they now are, by a dangerous, insidious campaign in favour of birth control, they do not react consistently or at all. It was therefore thought advisable to issue this statement in defence of the position of the Catholic Church; but the reader should remember that the teaching of the Church on this matter is held by her members to be true, not merely because it agrees with the notions of all right-thinking men and women, not because it is in harmony with economic, statistical, social, and biological truth, but princ.i.p.ally because they know this teaching to be an authoritative declaration of the law of G.o.d. The Ten Commandments have their pragmatic justification; they make for the good of the race; but the Christian obeys them as expressions of the Divine Will.

Section 5. CONCLUSION

Our declining birth-rate is a fact of the utmost gravity, and a more serious position has never confronted the British people. Here in the midst of a great nation, at the end of a victorious war, the law of decline is working, and by that law the greatest empires in the world have perished.

In comparison with that single fact all other dangers, be they of war, of politics, or of disease, are of little moment. Attempts have already been made to avert the consequences by the partial endowment of motherhood and by a saving of infant life. Physiologists are now seeking among the endocrinous glands and the vitamines for a substance to a.s.sist procreation.

"Where are my children?" was the question shouted yesterday from the cinemas. "Let us have children, children at any price," will be the cry of to-morrow. And all these thoughts were once in the mind of Augustus, Emperor of the world from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, from Mount Atlas to the Danube and the Rhine.

The Catholic Church has never taught that "an avalanche of children" should be brought into the world regardless of consequences. G.o.d is not mocked; as men sow, so shall they reap, and against a law of nature both the transient amelioration wrought by philanthropists and the subtle expediences of scientific politicians are alike futile. If our civilisation is to survive we must abandon those ideals that lead to decline. There is only one civilisation immune from decay, and that civilisation endures on the practical eugenics once taught by a united Christendom and now expounded almost solely by the Catholic Church.

[Footnote 122: _The Modern Churchman_, May 1919.]

[Footnote 123: Rev. Vincent McNabb, O.P., _The Catholic Gazette_, September 1921, p. 194]

[Footnote 124: Ibid]

[Footnote 125: Speech at the Medico-Legal Society, July 7, 1921.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A.--GENERAL PUBLICATIONS

_Marriage and the s.e.x Problem_. By Dr. F.W. Foerster. Translated by Margaret Booth, B. Sc., Ph.D. London, 1912.

_The Menace of the Empty Cradle_. By Bernard Vaughan, S.J. London, 1917.

_Coffins or Cradles_. By Sir James Marchant. 1916.

_Moral Principles and Medical Practice_. By C. Coppens, S.J., and H.

Spalding, S.J.

_The Family and the Nation_. By W.C.D. Whetham and Mrs. Whetham. London, 1909.

_The Law of Births and Deaths_. By Charles Edward Pell. London, 1921.

_The Declining Birth-rate_. Report of the National Birthrate Commission.

London, 1916.

_The Church and Labour (A Compendium of Official Utterances)_. Edited by John A. Ryan, LL.D., and Joseph Husslein, Ph.D. London, 1921.

B.--CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS

(_Obtainable from 69, Southwark Bridge Road, S.E.1_.)

_The Condition of the Working Cla.s.ses_. (The Encyclical _Rerum Novarum_.) By Pope Leo XIII. Edited by Mgr. Canon Parkinson, D.D. 6d.

_Social Questions and the Duty of Catholics_. By C.S. Devas, M.A. 6d.