contraception, procreation, and abortion, ethics of

contraception, procreation, and abortion, ethics of. The principles applied by Christians to moral problems associated with procreation are the sacredness of human life, love of neighbour, and respect for the sovereignty and providence of God. On the basis of these principles early Christian thinkers were united in their condemnation of infanticide and abortion, in contrast to their pagan contemporaries. The general patristic condemnation of contraception was also shaped by insistence on the integrity of the OT teaching that procreation within marriage was good, combined with reasoning (paralleled in Stoic thought) that asserted the unnaturalness of a sexual act which did not have procreation as its end.

These prohibitions dominated Christian teaching until recent times when there has been some questioning of traditional attitudes to contraception and abortion. The 1930 Lambeth Conference expressed qualified acceptance of the propriety of artificial contraception. A similar change of view has prevailed in the mainstream Protestant Churches and finds some support among RC moralists. The official teaching of the RC Church remains that affirmed by Pius XI in 1930 condemning any use of marriage ‘in the exercise of which the act, by human effort, is deprived of its natural power of procreating life’. The so-called ‘rhythm-method’ is the only form of contraception officially sanctioned in the RC Church. In the E. Orthodox Church it appears that individually-given advice varies in different areas.

Responses to technological advances aimed at the alleviation of infertility reflect similar differences. RC pronouncements have condemned artificial insemination by the husband and in vitro fertilization as contrary to natural law, in that they separate the procreative and unitive aspects of sexual intercourse, and that they fail to respect the dignity of the human act that procreation ought to be. Other moralists, including some RCs, argue that, while a Christian marriage must be open to the goods for which it was ordained (in W. tradition, the procreative, unitive, and sacramental), it can be so even if each individual sexual act is not. They thus regard artificial insemination by the husband and in vitro fertilization (like contraception) as in principle acceptable in enabling marriage to achieve one of its goods. Procedures involving donated material, on the other hand, are open to the objection that they allow procreation to take place outside marriage. Surrogacy (where a fertilized egg is carried to term on behalf of a couple who have contributed one or both parts of the genetic material) is acceptable to few, if any, moral theologians of any denomination.

On questions of abortion, there have also been some changes in attitude. Where modern surgery makes it possible, by aborting a foetus, to save the life of a woman which would be endangered by the birth of a child, some Christians regard abortion as permissible. Some also accept abortion where the mother's interests or those of her family are seriously threatened, and civil law in many countries allows this. The RC Church, however, maintains that any abortion as an end in itself (‘direct abortion’) is sinful, though an operation which may incidentally involve an abortion (an ‘indirect abortion’), is permissible; thus the removal of a cancerous womb may be considered licit. The RC belief that ‘from the time when the ovum is fertilized, a human life is begun’ is the basis for its condemnation of direct abortion and of the use of human embryos and foetuses for experimentation or in the treatment of disease. Among Christians (and others) there is no agreement as to when life begins.