There has been a lot of talk around the blogosphere, in the news, and likely in our homes about the HHS Mandate and what it means for our Church and our lives lately. Now, from what I’ve read from those who back the Mandate, they are primarily motivated by concern for women. They (seem to) sincerely believe that providing free artificial birth control is the right thing to do. They point out that there is a link between BC and a reduced risk of ovarian cancer. They say not all women can practice NFP because not all women are in healthy relationships. Some think that NFP only works if your cycles are clockwork regular and if there are no added conditions such as endometriosis or PCOS. All of these points sound very reasonable. Compassionate even. But sadly, they are misguided. Society has been lied to, and it believes the lies.
The thing is, birth control is not going to fix any of that. For women in abusive relationships, it is easier to prescribe a drug than to do whatever we can to get her out of that situation. It will do nothing to change the man’s behavior towards her, yet many feel like preventing her pregnancy with drugs is the charitable choice. Women and men need and deserve real help, not stop-gap measures that treat fertility like a disease. Her fertility isn’t the problem, the relationship is. These women don’t need birth control, they need to be taken out of harmful relationships. Their men need to be taught respect. It’s not easy. But it is the right thing.
As far as cancer goes…well…no. The thing is, a woman has a 1 in 70 chance of developing ovarian cancer. That’s a 1.4% chance over the course of her lifetime. A woman has a 1 in 8 chance ( 12.5%) of developing breast cancer over the course of her lifetime. And while some may argue that there is no link between breast cancer and BC, . Looking at the math, it’s just not worth it.
The idea that only women with regular, perfectly healthy cycles is just false. A quick google search can fix that, but to save you the trouble, here is a link. So many women are denied the incredibly satisfying experience of looking at their chart and saying, “Wow. I did that. I ovulated. My body is a beautiful, wonderful creation.”
Conversely, they are denied the fertility awareness to look at their charts and realize that their bodies may not be functioning in fertile ways. Those of us in the NFP community hear stories of women struggling with infertility, PCOS, endometriosis, and other difficulties who learned about these issues because they learned about their bodies. The BC stop-gap strikes again when women on chemical birth control are unable to determine these issues through fertility awareness.
Most people who advocate for BC do so out of compassion for women. They really truly believe that it is for the best. No one wants anyone to be in an abusive relationship, have an increased risk of cancer, or be denied real, problem-solving treatment. The problem is that their love, their charity, lacks truth. And love without truth is dead, like faith without works.
Pope Benedict says in his encyclical Charity in Truth that “Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. … Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions; the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it 
comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing space.”
In the Catholic Church we have the Truth. Now it needs to shine through in charity. Perhaps instead of paying for birth control, Catholic institutions can offer free NFP classes. Real ones, not the watered-down version we get in Pre-Cana. They could use the money that would have gone towards subsidizing birth control to pay for a full-time counselor on the premises so that any employee in an abusive relationship can get the real help they need and deserve. Money that would go towards unethical infertility treatments can go towards NaPro clinics. We have a wealth of knowledge and resources. Now is the time to spread it all out, for everyone to see and have.
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://ignitumtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Kayla-Peterson.png[/author_image] [author_info]Kayla Peterson is a Catholic, a wife, and a secretary. On June 25, 2011 she married the love of her life. Together, they are working on building their marriage for the Lord. Though she is Catholic and her husband is not, they enjoy worshiping Christ together, finding common ground, and trying not to shout about their differences. Their hope is that their children will know, love, and honor God with all their hearts, minds, and souls. Kayla blogs about interfaith marriage and other topics that strike her fancy at The Alluring World.[/author_info] [/author]
6 thoughts on “Charity in Truth”
The sincere concern for women among the HHS mandate fans is what discourages me the most. It’s hard to convince them that the Church is just a bunch of old white men sitting around thinking of how they can control women’s bodies. Thanks for a great article highlighting how Catholics can show their true respect for the female body.
Excellent post! It seems that the idea behind contraception is selfishness. Selfish in that they want to gratify themselves, not the other. This could turn into an article in itself so I’ll leave it at that.
I think I’ve learned something upon reading your article. God bless you always. Amen.
Cheers 4 Jesus & Mary 🙂
One thing you forget to mention is that NFP can help women who suffer from Endo, PCOS, etc. to conceive without out chemicals and hormones by making them aware of their bodies signs and rythms. And while a woman with endo, pcos or the like might not be able to rely on NFP the way a woman with normal cycles can, it doesn’t rule out it’s use completely – in fact charting can be a great tool to discover problems and solutions to reproductive issues.
It’s a slippery slope to say that everyone for the HHS mandate is against women or that everyone who believes in using contraception is selfish. So often so many of us are trying to pave our path with our best intentions, using the information we have at hand and the guidance that we’re given so that it’s unfair to jump to such far reaching conclusions.
You’re right on the overarching message – if we want to see contraception be a non-issue we need to work to resolve the issues and concerns that make people turn towards it. In fact, when I was doing my own soul searching on the choice vs. life debate that was the conclusion I so often came to, and one of the reason I chose the life side – they were the ones who really wanted to fix society.
@Sarah – I agree. That’s why I think it is important that the Church not just say “no”, but offer real alternatives. Women outside (and inside) need to be able to see what the Church offers. Right now they only know the Church won’t give them what they want.
@Tito – Thank you!
@Gadel – I hope it was something good.
@Molly – It often baffles me that people are willing to just treat symptoms instead of causes. When did we become a culture that settles?
I was in a very abusive relationship for two an a half years, and not surprisingly, sex and birth control were part of it. Birth control didn’t make the relationship any better, it made my abusive boyfriend feel like he could use me sexually whenever he wanted.
My family and friends didn’t approve from the beginning, but they didn’t realize how bad it was because I hid it from them. And they didn’t want to say anything because they didn’t want to make me upset at them or have me pull away from them further. But I really wish they would have said something sooner. It would have hurt, but if they had been honest to me about how my relationship looked from the outside, I might have stopped denying how bad it really was. I made so many excuses for how he treated me, that if someone had just spoken up and told me that my excuses didn’t validate him treating me that way, I might have walked away much sooner.