From: Hardpan 

On 21 Mar 2007 18:15:00 -0700, "Sound of Trumpet"
 wrote:

>http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1803121/posts
>
>
>Contraception: Why It's Wrong
>
>Catholic Culture ^ | 3/15/2007 | Dr. Jeff Mirus
>
>
>Posted on 03/19/2007 5:46:55 AM PDT by markomalley
>
>
>The recent debate over contraception between Fr. Thomas Euteneuer of
>Human Life International and nationally syndicated talk-show host Sean
>Hannity has brought to center stage an issue which most Americans-and
>most Catholics-simply do not understand. Let's review what's wrong
>with contraception.
>The intrinsic moral issue of artificial contraception is a marriage
>issue. Contraception has little or no intrinsic moral relevance
>outside of marriage. This contributes to the difficulty our culture
>has in understanding the problem, because our culture doesn't
>understand marriage either. After all, only about half of all couples
>are formally married. For this reason, it is perhaps best to start
>with what we might call the extrinsic moral issues associated with
>contraception, which apply to all sexual relations.
>
>The Consequences of Contraception
>
>I am using the word "extrinsic" to apply to the consequences of
>contraception as opposed to its own essential moral character.
>Catholics are not consequentialists, and we don't determine the
>morality of an act by attempting to foresee all its consequences. But
>we do determine the prudence of an act by assessing its potential
>consequences. For this reason, it is highly instructive to examine the
>extrinsic moral issues associated with contraception.
>
>Even morally neutral acts can have good or bad consequences and should
>be selected or avoided accordingly. It is a morally neutral act, for
>example, to dam a river, but one wants to be pretty sure of the
>consequences before one builds the dam. So too, many moralists have
>argued (I believe correctly) that contraception is morally neutral in
>itself when considered outside of marriage. But contraception
>suppresses the natural outcome of sexual intercourse, and in so doing
>it has two immediate and devastating consequences.
>
>First, it engenders a casual attitude toward sexual relations. An
>action which, because of the possibility of conceiving a child, makes
>demands on the stability of the couple is stripped by contraception of
>its long-term meaning. The mutual commitment of a couple implied by
>the very nature of this intimate self-giving is now overshadowed by
>the fact that the most obvious (though not necessarily the most
>important) reason for that commitment has been eliminated. This
>clearly contributes to the rise of casual sex, and the rise of casual
>sex has enormous implications for psychological and emotional well-
>being, personal and public health, and social cohesion.
>
>Second, it shifts the emphasis in sexual relations from fruitfulness
>to pleasure. Naturally-speaking, the sexual act finds its full meaning
>in both emotional intimacy and the promise of offspring. For human
>persons, sex is clearly oriented toward love and the creation of new
>life. By eliminating the possibility of new life and the permanent
>bonding it demands, contraception reduces the meaning of human
>sexuality to pleasure and, at best, a truncated or wounded sort of
>commitment. Moreover, if the meaning of human sexuality is primarily a
>meaning of pleasure, then any sexual act which brings pleasure is of
>equal value. It is no surprise that pornography and homosexuality have
>mushroomed, while marriage has declined, since the rise of the
>"contraceptive mentality". Abortion too has skyrocketed as a backup
>procedure based on the expectation that contracepton should render sex
>child-free. All of this, too, is psychologically, emotionally and
>physically damaging, as well as destructive of the social order.
>
>The Intrinsic Evil of Contraception
>
>Now all of these evil consequences apply both inside and outside of
>marriage. Within marriage, however, there is an intrinsic moral
>problem with contraception quite apart from its horrendous
>consequences. Outside of marriage, sexual relations are already
>disordered. They have no proper ends and so the frustration of these
>ends through contraception is intrinsically morally irrelevant.
>Outside of marriage, contraception is to be avoided for its
>consequences (consequences surely made worse by the difficulty of
>psychologically separating contraception from its marital meaning).
>But within marriage, the context changes and the act of contraception
>itself becomes intrinsically disordered.
>
>Within the context of marriage, the purposes of sexual intercourse are
>unitive and procreative (as Pope Paul VI taught in his brilliant and
>prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae). It is worth remembering that
>there is no proper context for sexual intercourse apart from marriage;
>this is why it is impossible for human persons to psychologically
>separate contraception from the marital context. But the point here is
>that marriage has certain ends (the procreation of children, the
>stability of society, the mutual happiness of the couple, and their
>mutual sanctification) and so does sex within marriage. The purposes
>of the marital act are the procreation of children and the progressive
>unification of the spouses. These two purposes are intimately related,
>for it is through marriage that a man and a woman become "two in one
>flesh", both through sexual relations and, literally, in their
>offspring.
>
>It is intrinsically immoral to frustrate either of these purposes. Let
>me repeat this statement. It is immoral to choose deliberately to
>frustrate either the unitive or the procreative ends of marital
>intercourse. It is immoral to make of your spouse an object of your
>pleasure, to coerce your spouse, or to engage in sexual relations in a
>manner or under conditions which communicate callousness or contempt.
>These things frustrate the unitive purpose. It is also immoral to take
>deliberate steps to prevent an otherwise potentially fruitful coupling
>from bearing fruit. This frustrates the procreative purpose.
>
>Related Issues
>
>Because it causes so much confusion, it is necessary to state that it
>is not intrinsically immoral to choose to engage in sexual relations
>with your spouse at times when these relations are not likely to be
>fruitful. The moral considerations which govern this decision revolve
>around the obligation married couples have to be genuinely open to
>children insofar as they can provide for their material well-being and
>proper formation. There is nothing in this question of timing that
>frustrates the purposes of a particular marriage act.
>
>Statistically, couples who avoid contraception find that their
>marriages are strengthened, their happiness increased, and their
>health improved. Some of these considerations are topics for another
>day. But Fr. Euteneuer is clearly correct and Sean Hannity is clearly
>wrong. Contraception is a grave evil within marriage and has grave
>consequences not only within marriage but outside of marriage as well.
>Both individual couples and society as a whole will mature into deeper
>happiness by freeing themselves from the false promises of
>contraception, and from its moral lies.

Question: how do you propose to feed all these billion of new mouths, when
the one century old petroleum gravy-train runs out?

You DO realize that we 6.4 BILLION humans are literally eating, wearing,
trabsporting and consuming massive amounts of oil these days just to exist
at these massive numbers, didn't you?

So is it better not to be born at all, or to die of starvation?

That is the real question.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

"In fact, when there is combined under the same Constitution a prince,
a nobility, and the power of the people, then these three powers will watch
and keep each other reciprocally in check." - Book I, Chapter II

"Doubtless these means [of attaining power] are cruel and destructive
of all civilized life, and neither Christian, nor even human, and should be
avoided by every one. In fact, the life of a private citizen would be
preferable to that of a king at the expense of the ruin of so many human
beings." Book II,
- Chapter XXXXVVIII

"Now in a well-ordered Republic, it should never be necessary to
resort to extra-constitutional measures...." -Book I, Chapter XXXIIVV

"The governments of the People are better than those of princes." Book I,
-Chapter LVIII

                   - Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 - 1527)

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