Contraception, deception, and retrospection

The feature story for the May 2, 2010, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper is titled, "Uncovering a string of lies"; it was written by Dr. Janet Smith to mark the 50th anniversary of the FDA's approval of "The Pill." An excerpt:

That the Father of Lies should be using lies and subterfuge to promote contraception should not be surprising. As Pope John Paul II noted in his 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio (on the role of the Christian family), contraceptive sex is itself a lie. It falsifies the relationship of spouses. When spouses are engaging in sexual intercourse, their acts, by their very nature, are ordained to expressing a lifetime commitment to each other, to expressing love, the desire to share their entire lives with each other, their desire to give of themselves to each other in a way in which they give themselves to no other.

Contracepted acts simply cannot express such meanings. Contracepted acts of sexual intercourse are inherently ephemeral; they have no ordination to the future. They express simply the desire of the partners to share a great pleasure.

Noncontracepted acts of sexual intercourse retain the meaning of a profound orientation toward the future — that is, the language of the body, the meaning of a noncontracepted act of sexual intercourse, says, “I acknowledge and accept the beauty of the procreative meaning of this act. If you and I were to become parents with each other, the commitment entailed in parenthood is one I welcome with you; I want a lifetime exclusive relationship with you.”

Lies lead to more lies. Certainly contraception is damaging to the marital relationship since it belies the nature of the gift. It is also falsifies male/female relationships prior to marriage.

Read the entire piece.

Dr. Smith is the Fr. Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Issues at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. She is the author of Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later and editor of Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader and many articles on ethical and bioethics issues. Over 700,000 copies of her tape, "Contraception: Why Not?" have been distributed. Her most recent book is The Right to Privacy, published last year by Ignatius Press. Here is my interview with her about that book:

Comments

[Ed Peters]

The work JES has done in this area is astounding. Humbles us all.

[Carl E. Olson]

Amen to that, Ed. My debt to her is substantial.

[Paula Hagan]

Professor Janet E Smith is one of the most notable Moral Theologians of our time and is gifted in her approach as a teacher on the subject of human sexuality having changed the hearts and minds of many people young and older, often ignorant about the error of contraception, IVF and cohabitation.As parents we owe Dr Smith a debt of gratitude for her teaching apostolate.God Bless you Dr Smith and may your teaching continue to reform the sexual revolution that has engulfed our society for 40yrs.