My blogging buddy TSO came across this site that explains some of the theology around contraception and the Catholic Church. On further inspection some of his readers discovered that this is a sheep in wolf’s clothing. This site is against the church’s teaching and has been actively working to change it!
I have a history with this site. They use to have a message board and I was a regular. They kept banning me though, and that’s when I started this blog! Divine providence I guess.
Just before I left there for the last time, they had an anonymous “theologian” who came up with a dozen or so “logical fallacies” to the church’s teachings on contraception. Hey, I’m just a housewife, but after reading a couple of them, I knew there were some fallacies, but not from the church. I took a couple weeks to rebutt them all and I had some help from books, web sites, and some friends, but I managed to get them all posted. The “editor” told me that my own logic was full of fallacies and flaws. Shortly afterwards, the entire section on Logical Fallacies and the church’s teachings was taken down by the editor.
TSO’s posts this week reminded me of that and I decided to dig into the computer to put up some of the more fun fallacies to debunk. Enjoy!
The “anonymous theologian’s fallacy statement will be in bold and blue. His comment on the fallacy will just be in blue. My rebuttal will follow in italics.
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Fallacy 15 People who use ABC are more selfish and sexually irresponsible than people who use NFP. This statement is so transparently judgmental that it constitutes a classic ad hominem fallacy. Enough said.
Remarks that classify a whole group of people are fallacious because they are over simplifications and generalizations. Particularly in this culture where contraception is taught as the norm and even as being “responsible” it would not be wise to categorize individual couples who have no background on the reasoning of the church’s teaching as being necessarily selfish and irresponsible. Certainly for our duties to speak the truth in love, or to teach the younger women (Titus 2) it would be best not to enter into those types of discussions with preconceptions and instead to speak to individuals where they are in order to lead them forward.
14. The Church has rejected ABC for two thousand years, which goes to show that the teaching is consistent and cannot be changed.
But the teaching has changed during the past two thousand years. Where it was once held that procreation was the only legitimate basis for sex, now it is taught that both procreation and the bonding of the couple are important.
So this is an example of how the understanding of human sexuality and the sex act in marriage has developed. It does NOT in anyway show that the ban on contraceptive acts have ever at any time in the past been acceptable. •
It is also inconceivable that St. Augustine and other early teachers on sexual morality would have approved of NFP for it permits of non-procreative sex. They viewed sex as inherently sinful, only to be used with reluctance to bring children into the world.
A red herring argument. It is impossible to know what St. Augustine would or wouldn’t have done in the face of Casti Canubii, Humanae Vitae and Theology of the Body. Secondly St. Augustin, was a great teacher and doctor of the church. His personal opinions outside of the magisterial teachings are simply his personal opinions.
It should also be noted again that we are in a new situation now. Effective contraceptives were not widely available until the 20th century.
Effective means of mass killing weren’t available until the 20t century either, that doesn’t mean that it should now be considered moral.
Also, some of the prohibitions against contraception from earlier times were addressed to practices that involved sorcery and occult incantations.
Those prohibitions referred to the use of plants and herbs and other devices and methods that were contraceptive in nature. This is mentioned even in the didache. The point is that attempts at making the act contracptive have always been prohibited.
Many of the prohibitions do not distinguish between abortion and contraception, as their biology did not conceive of the existence of gametes or the possibility that preventing a conception was not an abortive movement.
Many contraceptives today are abortifacient.
The statement that the Church has rejected ABC for 2,000 years is thus very poorly nuanced, at best, and totally incorrect in its conclusions. Even if the teaching hadn’t changed at all during 2,000 years, it does not follow that it cannot be changed. Teachings on slavery and usury were changed after many hundreds of years and so could this one, especially since it is based on natural law, our understanding of which can change. This is thus an Appeal to Tradition fallacy, in that the argument from Tradition alone is incapable of supporting the statement.
The argument that it CAN be changed is the fallacy of inductive reasoning, complex question and ignoratio elenchi (Irrelavent conclusion) as well as a Nonsequitor . Because something can be done doesn’t mean that it will be done or even that it should be done. Any claim that the church hasn’t fully nuanced this teaching is apparently unfamiliar with the 4 volume set of JPIIs TOTB.
There is an interesting fact on this site regarding slavery however. When the church taught that slavery was wrong it was the dissident Catholics in this country who refused to give up their slaves and fought to keep them.
Oh and let’s do one more for fun!!
6..ABC users view fertility as a disease; NFP users view fertility as a blessing.
This point is usually made in reference to ABC users making use of pills, spermicides, and sterilization. These practices suggest an attack against fertility using the kinds of interventions used by the medical community in attacking disease hence, it is implied that ABC users view fertility as disease.
One need only look at the terminology of ABC to see that this is true. ABC is called “protection.” When pregnancy occurs anyway the ABC was as “failure.” Condoms and diaphragms use spermacides (which brings to mind insecticides, bacteriacides etc) The very suffix “-cide” comes from the Latin suffix “-cida”, which means “to kill”!
But one must ask why NFP users and their practices of counting days, checking vaginal mucous, temperature, and so forth, aren’t equally guilty of viewing fertility as an adversary to be overcome?
NFP users are simply observing the signs and symptoms that their body gives them in determining a course of action. This is very similar to an athlete who may use resting heart rate to determine his fitness level and plan a training schedule accordingly, or a dieter who uses the scale and fat calibers to determine how the diet is going. In all three scenarios the body is simply giving measurable indicators that can be easily determined. In other words, the NFP users aren’t attempting to overcome an adversary but on the contrary, they are attempting to work with their bodies.
One must also inquire whether the ABC practices per se really do imply the harsh motives ascribed to the practitioners.
Of course they do. ABC requires introducing foreign substances into the body, elective surgery or abnormally manipulating hormonal levels. For a man in may mean further decreasing the sensitivity of the penis by wearing a condom and applying the chemicals of a spermicidal jelly!
Does it really follow, for example, that a couple using a diaphragm with spermicides view their fertility as a disease? Why could they not be simply trying to prevent a conceptionÑjust as NFP users are doing in their practice?
If one is simply trying to avoid conception one could simply use NFP. It is the easiest, and least expensive method. The truth is that physicians and organizations such as Planned Parenthood do not promote NFP as being safe and effective and promote the use of other devices or “prescribe” or insert other devices. The fact that many contraceptive methods require the intervention of the medical profession furthers the view that fertility is seen as a disease.
Once again, then, we find a gratuitous judgmentalism at work (ad hominem), along with the fallacy of petitio principii (begging the question). It is assumed that the practices themselves prove the judgments implied, but this is not the case as the above points demonstrate.
The fact that all of the practices except for the condom require medical intervention proves the point that fertility is looked at as a pathologic condition that requires medical management.
We also have a fallacy of false analogy, wherein just because ABC users are doing something similar to what people fighting illnesses are doing, it is assumed that they view fertility as illness.
Interestingly, the CDC and the WHO listed fertility and pregnancy as disease. Additionally access to birth control and abortion comes under the heading of “women’s reproductive medicine..”
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