HGH and Contraception

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Imagine living in a desert of burning sand.  Sand so hot that any hotter it turns to glass.  Now imagine that scorching drops of fire fall from the sky and the only way to escape these fiery flakes is to continue running. Now imagine that this episode lasts for all eternity. This is how Dante describes the 7th Circle of Hell in the Inferno. It is the circle of violence and in particular violence against nature.

Nature is by nature naturally productive. Dante makes the reasonable assertion that those in hell continue to eternally die by the same method they chose to mortally live. How scary it may be on our judgment day when the Lord of Heaven and Earth whispers into our ear, “Thy will be done.”

Dante Fast-forwarded: HGH and HnGH

Dante gives two examples of those that violated nature, the sodomites and the usurers.  But with a little thinking many more can be added.  If Dante were writing today, I would suspect that he would include the athlete that abuses his body with human growth hormones (HGH).  This would not be a sin of carnal weakness like those that Dante puts outside the city walls of Dis.  Those exiled from the city acted sinfully in a moment of heated passion.  However, the athlete plots and plans his manipulation of nature.  He acts maliciously almost hating his own body.  He swallows a pill to corrupt his insides so that his outside will perform to a fanatical degree.  The athlete forces hyper-inflation or exaggerated-reproduction which increases his physical power to the point that it harms his body.  He seeks earthly ladders to reach pedestals to put himself on rather than honoring the Lord of his body with his body.

BIG LIE: “The only way for a woman to climb the corporate ladder is by being more like a man.”

This is not merely a male only circle for hell is an equal opportunity punishment.  Our more fair and beautiful sex also plots and plans.  Like the man, she also takes hormones to manipulate her body.  Unlike man, she takes Human non-Growth Hormone (HnGH).  Like the desert sands of the seventh circle, her drug of choice does not hyper-inflate her natural body, rather its result is infertility.  Rather than becoming more like a man, she becomes less like a lady.  Whereas man is always fertile, she trades her flowering for career advancement rather than physical advancement.  She accepts the greatest of sexist practices by swallowing another pill that barrenizes her sexual nature.  She seeks corporate ladders to reach pedestals to put herself on rather honoring the Lord of her body with her feminine nature.

Natural Beauty 

This is not to create hatred for muscles or a call to discriminate against women.  Rather it is a plea to appreciate the beauty of our natural bodies in their masculinity and femininity.  It is recognition of nature, an observation that violating and abusing our bodies with hormones has consequences.  Some medicines treat a sickness but when taken for non-medicinal purposes these typically create destruction.  The human body is beautiful and wonderfully created; giving it malnutrients does not yield a fruitful harvest rather it tries to reproduce what by nature is limited and limits what by nature is reproductive. 

This is not to throw out athletes altogether.  It is a proposal to seek the limits of our physical bodies without cheating.  It is a proffer to be honest with your body, know what can be done, strengthen as much as possible by using our God given human nature.

This is also not an attempt to keep women down on the lower levels of management.  If you listen carefully to the contraceptive culture, it is not trying to lift women up in goodness and beauty.  It is telling women, “If you want to play with the big boys, you will have to deny your femininity which is inseparably linked with your fertility.”  If that is what the big boys are saying, dump them.  Find some real men who will honor your complete self.  Women deserve some much better than being treated as obects.  They ought to receive our unconditional respect for who they are, not what they sterilize.

J.Q. Tomanek

J.Q. Tomanek

J.Q. lives in the country of Texas with his wife Denise, a Southern Belle from Trinidad and Tobago, and his three children. He holds two graduate degrees from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, an MBA and Master of Science in Organizational Leadership, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Franciscan University of Steubenville. Having taught for five years in Catholic education, he now works in the construction industry in Victoria, TX. He is a parishioner of Holy Family of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus Parish in the Diocese of Victoria.

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8 thoughts on “HGH and Contraception”

  1. Pingback: St Luke Pontifical Mass Bl Marianne Cope Hawaii | Big Pulpit

  2. Yes, hormonal contraception and HGH have a lot in common.

    But the big difference between the two is awareness of the wrongness of what people are doing.

    Lance Armstrong is disgraced; Barry Bonds has been indicted. Athletes caught doping have been stripped of titles and denied entry into their respective halls of fame. Society recognizes the wrong of doping.

    But society promotes hormonal contraception as “women’s health” as “women’s rights” as required for women’s freedom.

    Most women who take hormonal contraception do so out of ignorance of the nature of what they are doing. Or they do not believe that there is no positive alternative if they have good reasons to avoid pregnancy.

    And I do think this subject needs to be addressed. Not with “fire and brimstone”, but with a “hey, you’re harming your body. You don’t have to. There is a better way.”

    1. Waywardson, It is ironic isn’t it. The popular opinion is so anti-steroid use for athletes which happens by far fewer numbers.

      Rational consistency has taken a vacation.

      1. I would say it is a lot of it is that society idealizes the male body and degrades the female body.

        The culture sees the female body only through how it is useful to men. The most obvious example is the objectification of women as sex object in popular media. But this objectification also means that the concept of “women’s equality” is seen as women becoming less female and more male.

        Not to drag this discussion too far into politics, but the debates showed a radical contrast between two different views of women. Romney’s response was actually extremely pro-woman in how he actively sought out qualified women for his staff and accommodated their needs for flexibility to keep them on his staff. Obama’s response, on the other hand, could not escape the “women are defective men” ideology, and his “solutions” reflected his belief that women need “fixing” to “compete” with men as “equals”.

        This idea that women need “fixing” is why steroids are condemned, but hormonal contraception is promoted.

      2. Waywardson, the irony of that ideology is “Rather than becoming more like a man, she becomes less like a lady. Whereas man is always fertile, she trades her flowering for career advancement rather than physical advancement.”

        If someone of the feminist egalitarian ideology wants women to be exactly like a man, then they should desire women ALWAYS being fertile 🙂

  3. “Nature is by nature naturally productive.” This statement is somewhat redundant, but nevertheless true. It follows that periodic continence is also rather un-natural, since sexual relations are by nature naturally productive. In other words, fruitfulness is the perfection of the power of fertility.
    Therefore,the admonition to use NFP only for serious reasons is necessary for those who fear the Lord. After all, this is the blessing of the man who fears the Lord… “your wife like a fruitful vine in the recesses of your home; your children like olive plants around your table.” The more olive plants, the better!
    Thank you for your strong article on the physical and moral hazards of artificial contraception.

    1. Thank you kind Father. I do have one thought for consideration regarding periodic continence though. It doesn’t do anything against our nature to accomplish its goal to conceive or avoid pregnancy. The problem arises when there is not the right reasons for having or not having another child. Contraception actually distorts the conjugal act itself.

    2. With all due respect, “the more olive plants, the better” is NOT what the Church teaches.

      The Church teaches that couples are called not just to have children to be responsible parents and raise their children in the faith. Having more children than a couple can take care of is not what God wants. (See Sirach 16:1-3)

      Instead, Deciding whether to try to achieve a pregnancy or to avoid conception is a matter of discernment for the individual couple.

      Nor does the Church teach that periodic continence is unnatural or unholy. The couple is called to used their sexuality in a way that is consistent with their marriage vocation, as they have properly discerned. In fact, the Church has repeatedly and consistently taught that periodic continence for “well grounded reasons” or “reasonable motives” is an act of love between the couple.

      “It cannot be denied that in each case [contraception and periodic continence] the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result. But it is equally true that it is exclusively in the former case that husband and wife are ready to abstain from intercourse during the fertile period as often as for reasonable motives the birth of another child is not desirable. And when the infertile period recurs, they use their married intimacy to express their mutual love and safeguard their fidelity toward one another. In doing this they certainly give proof of a true and authentic love.”

      Humanae Vitae 16

      Finally, as a practical matter, healthy couples have to have good reasons to actually be able to abstain and avoid pregnancy. One of the biggest frustrations that NFP promoters have is that NFP couples often have so many (planned) children that they have a hard time convincing people that the method works!

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