CONTRACEPTION IS NOT IN ACCORD WITH HUMAN NATURE
Acts that are not in accord with human nature, with God’ s plans, predictably have bad consequences. One method of helping people be open to the Church’ s teaching is to alert them to the bad consequences contraception has for individuals, for the culture and even the environment.
The case is quite easily made. Contraception has greatly contributed to the increased incidence of abortion and single parenthood. After all, contraception tremendously facilitates sex between partners who have no intention of having a baby. Since all contraceptives have a fairly high failure rate, an unwanted pregnancy is often the result. At present about one out in four babies conceived in the United States are aborted, and forty-two percent of babies are born to a single mother. Moreover, many forms of contraception occasionally work as abortifacients, by preventing the implantation of the newly conceived human being in his or her mother’ s uterus. Contraception also facilitates cohabitation, which has proved to be a very bad preparation for marriage. Approximately half of all marriages contracted today are likely to end in divorce.
Who can calculate the harm done to individuals who are in and out of sexual relationships and in and out of marriage? Who can calculate the harm done to babies born out of wedlock, to children affected by divorce? More than eighty percent of children who experience longterm poverty come from broken or unmarried families.
More and more women are becoming painfully aware of negative health consequences of the chemical contraceptives( see, for instance, Holly Grigg-Spall’ s Sweetening the Pill). The health risks of the chemical contraceptives have been known for a very long time and include weight gain, migraines, depression, and even death from blood clots. Estrogenprogestogen oral contraceptives are Group 1 carcinogens, a category shared by cigarettes and asbestos.
Moreover, contraceptives negatively affect the natural“ chemistry” between males and females. Males and females exchange hormones called“ pheromones” and these are the cause of the chemical attraction between them. These hormones are received through the olfactory nerves. Many women testify that one of the things that most attract them to a man is the way that he“ smells”. Some studies show that males and females who are more biologically compatible— that is, those who are more likely to be able to reproduce with each other— are more attracted to each other.
CONTRACEPTION CAUSES WIDESPREAD DAMAGE
But hormones also affect our judgement and responses in other ways. Women who are on chemical contraceptives
4 Sacred Heart Major Seminary | Mosaic | Spring 2018
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