Contraception is Stupid
Contraception is stupid. There, I said it. And I mean it. Contraception really is stupid. This is not a statement about its morality or lack thereof, nor am I saying that people who use it are stupid. What I am saying is that when we look at what contraception really is and what it does, it can only strike us as stupid. Most people don’t see this, not because they’re dumb but because they haven’t sat down and really thought it through. Contraception is appealing because it is convenient, not because it makes sense.
Human beings are both physical and spiritual beings so many of the things we do have both a physical and a spiritual dimension. Sexuality most certainly does. Nonetheless, I want to look at it from the purely biological point of view because that is the only way in which many proponents of contraception see it. For them sex is nothing more than the satisfaction of a natural urge. And so, I intend to keep the discussion in their terms because that is where the stupidity of contraception is the most evident.
Allow me to explain myself. I think we can all agree that nature is, following the popular phrase, “wise.” Experience shows us that things in nature have a purpose, that every biological function that our bodies perform has an objective, and that that objective is, as far as I can tell, good for us. Our body needs to recover from its daily activities and, in order to attain that objective, we sleep. Our body needs nourishment to continue on living, so we eat. There is a certain sensation of pleasure attached to these activities because we are meant to perform them on a regular basis for our own good. However, the pleasure we feel is not their purpose. It is an incentive to perform them so we can enjoy the benefits of their purpose. I believe we could all agree that removing nourishment from eating or rest from sleeping, even while preserving the pleasure that corresponds to them, sounds stupid. It would render these activities useless. Why go through the hassle of lying unconscious for hours, or of introducing food into your mouth, chewing it, swallowing it, and then digesting it just to feel a pleasant sensation which you could obtain otherwise? That is, by removing the purpose of eating or sleeping, we would be corrupting these ordinary biological functions, damaging them and, in the end, leading them to their extinction. It is a rule of thumb of evolutionary biology that functions or attributes that have outlived their purpose will, eventually, cease to exist.
Now the problem is that attached to sex is an extremely intense pleasure and so when we talk about it we tend to stop thinking correctly. So let’s try to keep our heads cool, even if we’re talking about sex. I said the pleasure attached to sex is extremely intense. If this is so, we could assume (following the principle of pleasure being a “reward” for a biologically desirable behavior) that it is because sex is really good and necessary and that we ought to have it, not because of the pleasure it produces, but because of its purpose. Biologically speaking, sex has two purposes: procreation and unity. Procreation (which should be obvious) allows our species to continue existing, to survive, which, we have been told, is the whole purpose of evolution and adaptation. Unity is also a biological purpose of sex (at least in the human species) as it is useful for the survival of children that their biological parents remain together at least long enough to protect, feed, and raise them to full physical maturity. It is in this sense that I mean contraception is stupid. By voluntarily removing the purpose of sex, we are voluntarily condemning it to death. If you think sex is a good thing, why in the world would you want it to disappear? We Catholics were supposedly the ones who thought sex was bad, and yet, we’re the only ones trying to preserve it.
Someone might raise the objection that there are many other factors involved in sexuality besides biology, and that we must look at contraception from a broader perspective. I agree. If I simply looked at it from the standpoint of biology, it is because I mean to discuss with other people on their terms and not mine. It is no use to argue about the morality or immorality of contraception with someone who does not share your moral views. You need to put the discussion in their terms and prove their position untenable using their own principles. As a Catholic I am convinced that sexuality is more than mere biology. However, if the biological aspect of it is telling me that something does not make sense, that’s a pretty good indicator that all the other aspects of it will come to a similar conclusion. That, however, is a topic for a future post.
Pope Paul VI. Proved contraception was stupid way back in the day.
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From a biological standpoint, contraception isn’t ‘stupid’ at all, but is a great tool available to us. It’s common knowledge that our biological purpose, for men at least, is to spread our genes to a variety of women to ensure many healthy offspring. In this modern era, however, we have the technology of contraception in order to prevent pregnancy and the transmission of disease when we decide to have sex with someone. Women don’t have to worry nearly as much about having an illegitimate child today if she and her partner use contraception responsibly. Just because the other biological purpose of sex is to procreate, it doesn’t mean that preventing this purpose is ‘stupid’ when the fun part of sex is desired and the procreative aspect is not. Knocking up a woman when neither of you want a child is by far the more ‘stupid’ choice. All of this is made from a biological perspective, however, and does not account for whatever morality may be associated with sex.
Actually, if we look at contraception as a tool, it is even more stupid. We value a tool because of its effectiveness. It is stupid to try to use a tool that doesn’t work or doesn’t help us to achieve what we intend to achieve by using it. Now, you say that contraception is meant to prevent pregnancy and the transmission of disease and yet, despite the widespread use of contraceptives, we have higher rates of “undesired” pregnancies and STDs than ever before. This has become such a problem that schools in New York are planning on handing out morning after pills to teenage girls because contraceptives are simply failing to do their “job.” You also said that women don’t have to worry as much about having illegitimate children if they use contraception responsibly, but that is a contradiction in terms. Responsibility means accepting the consequences of your actions and the very purpose of contraception is to avoid a very natural consequence of the sexual act. Furthermore, there is already a biological mechanism that “controls” birth and it is a woman’s cycle. That is, there are periods of time during which a woman cannot get pregnant, no matter how much sex she has. Now, people don’t like relying on that because it means there are days where you have to abstain from sex if you don’t want to have a child. What they want is to have sex without its consequences. The reality is that, as G.K. Chesterton once said (and how right he was) “the only birth-control is called self-control.”
>By voluntarily removing the purpose of sex, we are voluntarily condemning it to death.
Implying that by using contraception sometimes, the species is going to die out? Okay.
>I believe we could all agree that removing nourishment from eating or rest from sleeping, even while preserving the pleasure that corresponds to them, sounds stupid.
So, eating candy (i.e. sugary food that is not nutritious in any way) is “stupid.” Okay.
I didn’t say we were condemning the species to death (though, as the negative population growth in Europe and other industrialized countries shows, we might be heading in that direction), but the biological act of sex. If we remove its purpose, nature will tend to eliminate it, just like organs that are not used tend to deteriorate and, eventually, disappear. In addition, we are not encouraged to use contraception “sometimes” but always, except when we actually want to have babies, which we are encouraged to do very rarely.
To your second comment: even sugary foods have some (however little) nutritional value (after all, we need sugar for energy) but, wouldn’t it be stupid to have a diet based entirely or even mostly based on sugary foods?