Contraception is one of the most difficult issues to talk about in a society which has grown to regard contraception as 'normal'. There are various methods of contraception but the most popular is the contraceptive pill or more accurately contraceptive pills since there are a variety of types of contraceptive pills. It was the coming of the pill that led to a change in the approach of many to contraception. What follows applies to all means of contraception. It is important to understand what contraception is from the moral point of view. For an act or practice to be contraceptive, there must be a twofold choice. First of all, there is the choice to engage in sexual intercourse, an act that is known to be intimately related to the procreation of new human life. Second, there is the choice to impede procreation, whether in anticipation of the act of intercourse, during it, or 'while it is having its natural consequence' and to do so precisely because one does not want the act of sexual intercourse to lead to the procreation of new human life and one believes it to be the kind of act that will generate life. Contraception, in other words, entails (a) the choice to have intercourse and (b) the choice to get rid of whatever procreativity results in this act of intercourse. One can thus rightfully speak of contraceptive intercourse, and what makes the intercourse contraceptive is the choice to destroy its openness to the transmission of life or its procreative character. Contraception is thus an act that is directed against procreation and the procreative dimension or meaning of human sexuality. This aspect of one's sexuality is regarded as being, here and now, not a good but an evil, because its continued flourishing would, one believes, inhibit one's participation in the unitive good of human sexuality or some other appetible good (pleasure, for instance) (William E. May, Sex, Marriage and Chastity, p.114). The document that is most often referred to as setting out the Church's teaching on contraception is Humanae Vitae (HV), issued by Pope Paul VI in 1968. What many people do not realise is that this was a document primarily about marriage and that it simply reaffirmed what had long been the Church's teaching on contraception. Indeed, all the Christian Churches and many other religious leaders had taught the same until 1930, when the Church of England accepted contraception in limited circumstances. There are several elements to the Church's teaching on contraception. One natural law argument is based upon an understanding of basic human goods which are constitutive of the well-being of persons. Human life is one such basic human good including human life in its 'coming to be'. It is always wrong to choose against a basic human good. As Saint John Paul II points out in Veritatis Splendor, to respect the human person is to respect the fundamental human goods of the person. Contraception is a choice against the basic human good of life in its coming to be and hence it is immoral. This line of argument is 'nodded' at in para. 13 of HV when it refers to human beings not having absolute dominion over the generative faculties because of their intrinsic ordering towards the raising up of human life which by its very nature is sacred. Saint John Paul II emphasised a different aspect of the teaching. In his discourses which became known as 'the theology of the body' John Paul II reflected upon the creation of man and woman, created in the image of God. Man and woman together, not just in isolation, are the image and likeness of God. They are made for each other. They are complementary but they are invited to become one. This is written in the essential meaning of their bodies. This is not simple biology. Our bodies reveal this invitation to personal union. This is part of what John Paul II calls the 'nuptial meaning of the body'. This union can only come about through gift. We are called to realise ourselves by the gift of ourselves. This self-giving is realised in a very special way through marital love, where the spouses gift themselves totally to each other. Marital intercourse is the expression and celebration of this gift of self and of two becoming one. Moreover, John Paul II sees in this 'communion of persons' a reflection of the Trinity. The divine 'we' is the source of the 'we' which is the married couple. He goes so far as to refer to marriage as an icon of the Trinity. This has been a very significant development in the theology of marriage. Contraception introduces a radical contradiction into this self-giving of the spouses. John Paul II sees contraceptive intercourse as a lie. If we take his Trinitarian imagery seriously, marital intercourse is meant to reflect the life of the Trinity. Contraceptive intercourse, because it withholds the gift of self, fails to reflect Trinitarian life. An acknowledgement of this Trinitarian approach is found in Humanae Vitae, although without the explicit Trinitarian reference. In para. 8 we read: 'By means of the reciprocal personal gift of self, proper and exclusive to them, husband and wife tend towards the communion of their beings in view of mutual perfection . . .' In order to be able to give oneself one must possess oneself. One cannot give what one does not possess. The idea of self-possession is central to John Paul II's thinking. In his reflections he went back to what he called the 'Original State'. In that state the human person enjoyed self-possession in which human emotions and reason were integrated towards the good rather than fighting against each other. However, we do not live in the Original State. We live in a state affected by Original Sin. One of the effects of original sin was to disrupt our self-possession. Hence we need to re-establish self-possession. The Good News is that we do live in the time of the redemption and Jesus Christ has given us the power to recapture the self-possession lost. The development of virtue entails establishing control over our passions. Passions are not to be suppressed but rather directed towards what is genuinely good. Contraception entices people away from the establishment of self-mastery. It is the establishment of self-mastery which enhances marital love and one's self-gift, the opposite detracts from it.
It is true that sometimes married couples have a good reason to avoid pregnancy. But in that case they have the opportunity to express their love for each other by recognising their own fertile cycles. This is referred to as Natural Family Planning. There are various methods of natural family planning, but what they all have in common is the recognition of one's own fertility. If a couple wants to avoid pregnancy then they do not have intercourse when they know themselves to be fertile. This is a choice respectful of each other and the procreative good. On the other hand, having intercourse as a way of expressing self-giving love at a time when one is not fertile does not entail an action against possible procreation. It is a very different kind of choice to contraception. Natural family planning enhances the self-possession mentioned above and results in the enhancement of authentic freedom in a married couple's relationship.
The Church's teaching on contraception can be seen as part of its promotion of whole-hearted living and its opposition to forces that seek to diminish this value. It sees life itself... as one of the most fundamental gifts of God, and one therefore to which we should be most careful to retain a spirit of openness and thankfulness. Neither in its beginning nor its end is life to be too subject to human control, lest we, to our great loss, come to see it as a mere controlled human product, something which it is in our gift to give and take away when it suits our purposes. (Hence also the church's resistance to in vitro fertilization and euthanasia). In so far as the use of contraception diminishes the sense of life as gift and encourages us to see the world in terms of convenience and manageability, it is incompatible with Christianity (Moore, 2001 p.179).