Contraception was promoted in our society as a panacea that would free married couples from the burden of unwanted pregnancy.

What exactly is contraception, and what are the consequences of its widespread use?

Fundamentally, contraception is the technological manipulation of our fertility. It is the 20th century “apple” in the Garden of Eden. Its use is an expression of the fundamental rupture, created by original sin, in man’s relationship with God and with himself and his own nature.

Humanae Vitae, the encyclical by Pope Paul VI on the transmission of human life, published in 1968, is one of the prophetic documents of the 20th century.

This document, which prohibited the use of artificial contraception as unworthy of the dignity of human beings, predicted the abuses of human life that would proliferate, including abortion, massive forced sterilization, and widespread promiscuity.

It was not as clear in 1968 as it is today that contraception is harmful to marriage. Even so, no Christian Church approved of artificial contraception until 1931. It was feared that the practice would lead to selfishness.

At that time, the Anglican Church met at the Lambeth Conference and decided to allow contraception in very rare cases—only when the mother’s life was endangered.

These were, in fact, the very same arguments that were unearthed forty years later to support legalized abortion.

To understand why artificial contraception is wrong, we need to understand Genesis and God’s message to Adam and Eve in the Garden.

God gave them dominion over the earth to use its resources wisely. They were told to “subdue” the earth and make it fruitful in accordance with God’s plan. But God did not give our first parents dominion over life and death.

This means that God has reserved certain sacred areas for himself. In bringing forth new life, man is not told to “take charge,” but rather to put himself at the service of human life. We are invited into a sacred collaboration with God. God has given us stewardship, not dominion, over our fertility.

Contraception works contrary to God’s plan in a fundamental way because he created an inseparable bond between giving love and giving life. Contraception breaks that bond.
Let us look at the results of just one kind of birth control— “the pill.”

When “the pill” became widely available in the early 1960’s, people believed that science had discovered a method of contraception that was almost completely effective. And, in truth, if used as directed, it was very effective. So, many people who had abstained from sex because they feared the risk of pregnancy, began to take a chance.

There is little doubt that it was the pill that made the Sexual Revolution of the 1960’s possible.

And once people had the idea that they had the power to avoid pregnancy and a right to do so, the barriers to abortion were lowered.

When, in spite of their efforts, they got pregnant, their pregnancy was easily seen as a “technological failure”—no one’s responsibility and no one’s fault. For many, this justified the decision to “terminate” the pregnancy.

The experience of crisis pregnancy helplines gives evidence of this. Many of the married women who phone them wanting an abortion say that the pill or another form of contraception “didn’t work.”

These women have been seduced by the lie of contraception, the lie that says that we can separate the bond between giving love and giving life, the bond that God has created between intercourse and pregnancy.

Contraception was also promised as a technological means to promote marital harmony. But the experience of many couples who are learning about their fertility through Natural Family Planning (NFP) is that their practice of artificial contraception was harmful to their marriage.

The family is a reflection of the communion of persons in the Holy Trinity. Like the love between the Father and the Son that “brings forth” the Holy Spirit, so too the love between husband and wife blossoms into an openness to new life.

Contraception, however, closes the door to the possibility of new life. Moreover, it destroys the natural suspension between man and woman.

It means that a woman is sexually available to her husband 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So there is no reason for abstinence, or the healthy self-discipline needed for building a strong marriage. It hinders the spiritual and emotional development of the couple.

It also hinders growth in communication. For example, a couple may decide to have intercourse in order to make up after a quarrel without resolving the real differences between them.

The contraceptive mentality promotes the deception that more sex, like more money, is always better. Thus it fosters the misuse and abuse of human sexuality.

But the truth is that there are cyclical rhythms which regulate our biological functions. The body doesn’t desire rest after a night’s sleep or food at the end of a meal—unless there is a disorder.

Natural Family Planning (NFP), on the other hand, is a way of life in which the couple collaborates in co-creation with God by trying to achieve or avoid pregnancy in accordance with the rhythms of the body’s cycle.

Fasting is good for the body, and love thrives on self-sacrifice.

In a young married couple, periods of sexual abstinence lead the couple to express their love in non-genital ways, encouraging the relationship to deepen beyond the physical bonding.

It is not uncommon to hear stories about couples who lived together for several years but divorce soon after they marry. Living together had not prepared these couples for the sacrificial love required to become a communion of persons in marriage.

A university that trains NFP teachers made an interesting discovery about this. Unmarried couples who embraced NFP either married or ended the relationship.

Today the majority of first marriages end in divorce. But the divorce rate among couples who practice NFP is less than 2%. And many of these couples say they experience a honeymoon every month.

“Man cannot find true happiness—towards which he aspires with all his being ,”said Pope Paul VI, “other than in respect for the laws written by God in his very nature, laws which he must observe with intelligence and love” (Humanae Vitae, 31).

Now, almost forty years after this encyclical, we can easily see that the results of the Sexual Revolution bear this out. Who is not familiar with the epidemic of teenage pregnancies, venereal disease, divorces, AIDS, etc.?

The Church, however, does not condemn the use of contraception because it is an act that has bad consequences. Rather, it teaches that since contraception is an intrinsic evil, it is predictable that it will have bad consequences.

The Church teaches that contraception is evil because it violates the very purpose and nature of the human sexual act, and therefore violates the dignity of the human person.

The author worked fulltime in the Pro-Life Movement for fifteen years. She was the political action director for Wisconsin Right to Life for six years and worked for the International Right to Life Federation for more than a year. She then coordinated the Fran O’Meara Pregnancy Helpline until she joined Madonna House in 1996.