Stop The Church!: When Anti-Contraception Costs Lives
Humans have been using contraception for thousands of years, dating back to the ancient world when common contraceptive practices included uteral fumigation, drinking lead, sneezing after sex, and animal-skin condoms. Flash forward three thousand years, and human beings are equipped with all sorts of fancy protective tools, from silicone and latex condoms to birth control pills to IUDs, and the variety of options only seems to be growing.
One thing that hasn’t changed in that time, however, is the Catholic position against contraceptives, a hard-line approach without exceptions or consideration that doesn’t just result in the creation of new lives, but also in the needless loss of many more.
The Catholic view on contraception is rooted in the story of Onan, the brother of Er in Genesis who is tasked by Judah with entering into a ‘levirate marriage’, which is the ancient responsibility of a brother to marry his deceased brother’s wife so she might be cared for and provided with children.
Onan, however, wasn’t pleased with this situation, and when Judah said “Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother”, he was doubtful. The story continues, saying that “Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him also.” (Gen. 38:8–10)
The supposed lesson here was that pulling out of someone during sex was a crime worthy of being directly killed by God’s divine intervention. Modern interpretations have expanded on this, assuming that all contraceptive methods must be a grave sin and an affront to God, and must be disallowed whenever possible.
This interpretation was not strictly Catholic, being embraced by all Christians until August 15, 1930, when the Bishop of the Anglican Church announced his support of contraceptives, writing that “in those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles.”
The same resolution did decry the use of contraception for “selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience,” but the message was out there. Contraception, in the eyes of the Anglicans was allowable, and the rest of Protestantism soon followed suit through similar declarations.
From a control standpoint, the strict opposition to contraception makes sense. No contraception means more Catholics, and more Catholics mean larger families, and larger families means that they often lack the financial ability, energy, or resources to challenge the Church’s teachings. This cycle repeats and reinforces itself, the Catholic Church strengthened by tightening its control on it’s families.
This tightened control, however, comes at a very dire price, especially when it comes to the AIDS crisis in African nations. According to the UN, out of the 34 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS, 69% of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. Of the 1.7 million yearly deaths from aids, over 1 million of those deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
The AIDS crisis is not over. Although AIDS is no longer the absolute death sentence it once was in the west due to treatments like PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis, which significantly decreases the chance of infection), similar treatments are not widely available in Africa. In areas where PrEP has been administered, adherence rates have been relatively low, and although activists and healthcare groups are doing their best at raising adherence rates and spreading the availability of treatment, it’s only part of the solution.
Pope Benedict XVI said, in relation to the AIDS crisis in Africa, that “The traditional teaching of the church has proven to be the only failsafe way to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.” One can assume that, by “the traditional teaching of the church”, he meant complete abstinence until marriage.
Not only is attempted abstinence ineffective and unrealistic, but the very root of the argument is completely wrong when compared to the reality of the crisis.
Those who argue for abstinence being the one and only solution to the problem of HIV/AIDS are making the implication that those who have sex outside of marriage are immoral and, in a way, deserving of the disease, having transgressed on holy law. This may seem to be a morally repugnant argument to make, blaming the victims of a plague for dying of the plague, but it’s also logically absurd.
Not only is attempted abstinence ineffective and unrealistic, but the very root of the argument is completely wrong when compared to the reality of the crisis.
Of the tens of millions of infected individuals in Africa, a huge amount are children. 91% of the world’s children infected with HIV/AIDS were born in Africa, having had the virus passed down to them from their mother. Many of these mothers are in monogamous marriages with partners that, more than likely, also have HIV/AIDS. Those children may die as toddlers, or may survive into their teens, where HIV/AIDS is still the leading cause of death among African adolescents.
Some of these children survive into adulthood, where, through no fault of their own, they may pass on the disease to their own children, so that they can die just as unnecessarily because they live in communities where the Church has prohibited contraception and enacted a huge social stigma against those who use it. The only realistic way to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, both among partners and within generations, is an effective pairing of treatments like PrEP alongside contraception that can offer increased safety against the disease for both the partners and a potential child.
This wouldn’t stop families from forming, but it would allow African families the ability to plan for their futures. Families can adopt, find surrogates, or could seek antiretroviral treatment which could eventually allow them to have children with barely any risk for disease transmission.
The Guardian reports that “Africa is the fastest-growing region for the Roman Catholic church, which competes with Islam and Evangelical churches,” so it’s conceivable why a few cruel higher-ups may be dead set on creating more Catholics through any means possible. In reality, however, the only thing this policy guarantees is that there will be more Catholic children dying from HIV than those of any other denomination in Africa.
Many Catholics do not conceive of their opposition to contraception in this way. To many, the ideals laid out in anti-contraception encyclicals like Humanae Vitae by Pope Paul VI speak to the beauty of life, birth and commitment. Most Catholics would acknowledge that the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa is a tragedy, and may offer prayers, but would not actively acknowledge their complicity in the spreading of the deadliest plague in modern history.
Change may be in its way, with reports that Pope Francis may have established (or be considering establishing) a committee to examine the church’s anti-contraception stance, especially in relation to Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, but there has been no confirmation of such a committee as of yet.
Until a change is made, the Catholic church will be guilty of irrevocably hamstringing the hard work of HIV/AIDS activists and doctors trying to reverse the tide of the plague. The church will be guilty of the very preventable deaths of adults, teenagers and children whose devotion to the teachings of the church lead to their deaths. Even those in monogamous partnerships, or who were born with the disease, will be affected by the church’s rules and face tragic, unnecessary deaths through no fault of their own.
Activists must continue to pressure the church to change its stance, and those in positions of power and influence within the church must not be afraid to stand up and challenge the authority of those who care more about increasing the influence of the church than saving the lives of innocent Catholics. The church’s teachings are at odds with themselves, and unless the church begins to put “Thou shalt not kill” above the wayward story of Onan pulling out of his brother’s wife, then the deaths will continue to pile up.
In the immortal words of ACT UP: Stop The Church!
