Dialogue on How to Share (and How Not to Share) the Truth About Contraception, the Pill as an Abortifacient, and NFP, with Our Protestant Brethren in Christ (Including a Defense of Steve Hays!!!)

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This came about when I became aware of a controversy over some initial remarks made on the contraceptive issue by one "cathmom5." I think she is defending truths but doing so in a most uncharitable manner, which in turn is counter-productive, because a true message is usually only effectively presented insofar as it is charitably presented, without judgment and condemnations. 
The original discussion occurred in the combox for a post on The CathApol Blog , called NFP and False Logic. cathmom's comment was the first one in the combox. The first portion of my comments below were posted in the same combox. I will also respond to comments by Steve Hays: blogmaster over at Triablogue: a Reformed Protestant anti-Catholic site (whose partisans think very little of yours truly: just for the record). 
In this instance, I think hays is correct in objecting to cathmom's remarks. This is true regardless of how objectionably he may act in other cases, and regardless of how correct cathmom's positions are, in and of themselves. I have no disagreement at all with her condemnation of contraception or defense of NFP (things I have written passionately about for over twenty years); only with how it was presented.
Her words below will be in blue.
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I am going to respectfully disagree with several things you said (to give fair warning!). Nothing personal whatsoever . . .

It just seems to me that the attempt to compare NFP--used with the correct intent--and contraception is just an excuse to justify the fact that they want to use contraceptions.

I think this does happen, yes: in order to justify use of contraception, the advocate will attempt to equate NFP with it, as if there is no essential difference. It's the same dynamic as running down annulment as "Catholic divorce" as if it is not essentially different, either. But we can't make a sweeping accusation; we can only state that sometimes or many times, this outlook may be in play.

Those "christians" who use contraception, I believe, know deep down they are morally wrong.

One has no basis for questioning the Christian commitment or "right" to the title of "Christian" because someone is engaged in a sinful activity. There are plenty of sins to go around. Since we're all sinners, prone to sin and subject to concupiscence, and guilty of much actual sin on an ongoing basis, then none of us would be able to call ourselves Christians by this logic. Let's not descend to the level of denying that millions and millions of people are Christians at all. As Catholics, we are well familiar with the mindset that illogically denies that we are Christians, based on many false premises and ignorance of what we actually believe and teach. So we ought to be sensitive enough to not deny that whole groups of people are Christians.

Whether they know they are wrong is a very complex matter. Most are simply ignorant about the matter: having never been taught anything differently. And even if they have seen some Catholic anti-contraception arguments, they are often so weak or poorly presented, that it is little better than the previous ignorance.

I was certainly purely ignorant when we contracepted for six years in our marriage. I had never heard a rational argument otherwise until I met an articulate Catholic who explained it to me (even a priest I had talked to at a pro-life event couldn't do it). Once I heard the actual reasoning, I was persuaded. But if my case is at all typical, then there are many millions of Protestants out there like I was, who are profoundly ignorant of the entire matter. And that is highly relevant to how they are approached and classified.

The FACT that the majority of contraceptives are abortifacient doesn't matter.

Most who contracept are unaware of this. I had never heard this until I talked to someone who was really up on all these issues. I barely heard about it even when I was in pro-life rescues, where no one could question the participants' pro-life convictions. You make it sound as if people are told that they are killing conceived children through the Pill and they don't care; they keep on using it anyway. This is usually not the case, I submit, because people haven't heard this in the first place. As an avid pro-lifer when I was Protestant, I would have stopped, had I heard this, if I hadn't already been convinced of the wrongness of contraception. And I highly doubt that the multiple millions of Protestant pro-lifers would act differently.

The FACT that contraceptives (the pill) causes cancers and infertility for thousands of women doesn't matter.

People are obviously ignorant of that, too. It's plain that if they knew that, many would act differently, based on simple self-interest: a thing that unites all of us. Virtually anyone will act according to self-interest and health reasons: at least if there is an alternative readily available. Since they continue to use the Pill, it stands to reason that they don't know of this connection. Again, in our case, we had never heard this.

The FACT that the legalization of the pill, historically, led directly to the legalization of abortion doesn't matter.

Again, people are ignorant of those historically demonstrable truths as well. They don't study the matter sufficiently enough to ever figure this out. They have to be educated, and the way we do that is not to condemn people en masse as wanton, deliberate sinners and not even Christians (as we are too often treated as Catholics). We need to be far more patient and charitable than that. 

Those "christians" must find a way to justify their disobedience of God's will by "taking down" the Church's moral stance--like the bully on the playground making himself feel better by making the others feel bad.

There is some truth to this (I know all the tactics people use to rationalize error and sin, from 30 years of apologetics, believe me), but to make a sweeping statement like this and deny that people are Christians at all is indefensible and the height of uncharity. It's wrong.

The general point of rationalization (that I agree with) can be made; observing that some folks do that, without the grand, sweeping nature and anti-Protestantism attached to it.

Why else would this ignorant (in the dictionary sense!) argument keep coming up?

There are usually multiple reasons for any given thing. I don't see that the present case is any different. Attaching one sole cause to a complex phenomenon is naive and simplistic.

. . . I refuse to commit a mortal sin by using other artificial means to kill my baby or slowly kill myself.

You and I know that the Pill is usually an abortifacient; hence we are responsible for that information. Most people who use the Pill do not know this; therefore, they can't possibly be committing a mortal sin (in the fullest sense) since they don't have the subjective intent to do so; being ignorant. It's still objectively a mortal sin insofar as the act is objectively sinful, but the subjective component of knowledge is absent; therefore persons in such ignorance would not be fully guilty of committing a mortal sin with full intent, by the definition of mortal sin in Catholic moral teaching.

Now, once such a person reads this and things like this, that discuss the Pill being an abortifacient, then they know more than they did, and are responsible to study the issue for themselves and act accordingly. If they know for sure that this is the case, and keep acting in the same fashion, then they are subjectively responsible for grave sin.

If you yourself were ignorant in the past in these matters, than all the more reason to understand that most who contracept are as ignorant of the entire matter as you and I previously were. We should empathize, having traveled that sad path ourselves.

Secondly, my intent was not to insult anyone.

You may not have had the intent (I accept your report), but in extreme sloppiness of terminology and in the sweeping way in which you judged multiple millions of brothers and sisters in Christ, you did indeed do so. We are responsible for our words. You can't deny that millions are Christians at all, and make out that they have no regard for preborn children at all, as if they were no different from pro-aborts, and then turn around
and say you intended no insult, or claim that they have no reason to be insulted by the words and terms that you chose to use to characterize them.

I find it ironic that certain things I say are taken personally by some protestant readers of this blog.

I don't find it ironic at all. In this case, I think they have excellent reason to be offended, having been viewed so uncharitably. You have thought the worst of many millions of fellow Christians, rather than the best, as we are commanded (1 Cor 13, etc.). Thinking the worst of someone's motives and intents is not being charitable; sorry.

I am subjected to the same sort of treatment all the time (as an apologist), so I know what that is like, and hence, I am somewhat more in tune with being judged unfairly and having unsavory motives falsely attributed to me.

I think it may be my style or my passion, but it is my intent to support the truth of the Church's teaching not offend Protestants.

Good intent has to be accompanied by care in words chosen, and charity extended to our opponents in any given issue. We don't persuade anyone by massively insulting them. It's not just "style" or "passion" but the offensiveness of some of the approaches you have taken, as I have been trying to explain.

You can have all the truth in the world, but it can be defended in an objectionable way, just as someone defending a falsehood could be charitable. Their charity doesn't make the view defended any less false; nor does lack of charity make a view less true. But the lack of charity is wrong, and the falsehood is wrong.

I think if we were to talk to each other face to face there would be less misunderstanding of motive or intent.

Probably so, but not if we deny that someone is a Christian to their face, because they contracept, or deny that they care about preborn children; when in fact most are ignorant as to the Pill being an abortifacient.

As Cathapol explained, some find it hard, I admit including me, to call those Christian who do not follow Christ's teaching.

I could note hundreds of cases of Christians of all stripes failing to follow Christ's teaching. Falling short and failing and sinning is part of the human condition, unfortunately. If a particular sin is mostly due to ignorance and lack of knowledge (as is very much the case here), we can counteract that through education. But it has to be done with compassion and charity.

As the old saying goes, "you catch more bees with honey than with vinegar." 

Now, just because a lot of women in the Catholic Church have been talked into accepting this easy way of "family planning" does not make the Church's moral stance on sanctity of life wrong. 
That's correct.

Nor does the fact that I accept and agree with the moral and Scriptural stance of His Church on this matter make my passionate defense of it necessarily make me wrong.


That's right: not necessarily wrong, but it was wrong in fact, because it was quite uncharitable.

Those who try to say that NFP is the same as ABC are just plain wrong. 
Absolutely true. I have written about it many times.

In my experience, those who are the loudest in their protest against NFP or try to pretend NFP and ABC are the same thing are the ones who know the least about NFP or ABC. 

This precisely backs up what I have been maintaining all along: the ignorance is so massive, that this has a necessary bearing on the subjective culpability for the sin in the first place. The more one realizes that profound ignorance and misinformation are in play, the less one can casually object to and condemn supposed "subjectively aware" mortal sin being committed. 

They, for the most part, want to justify their use of ABC by saying that NFP is the same--trying to take down, so-to-speak, His Church's moral stance on the sacredness of the marriage act. I don't believe that is a straw man--that is from my perspective and my experience.

I agree that this does occur. I have argued with many folks, myself, who use this tactic.

Having practiced NFP for years, I know that it is not an easy course to take. A couple who practices NFP must communicate with each other, they must be "in tune" with each other morally, they must be in agreement on being open to life, and they must work, as a couple, to make NFP work. In my experience, a couple who is practicing NFP can hardly be doing it with the wrong motives. With so relatively few couples practicing NFP, I would hardly think motives are the problem.


Too many, unfortunately, use NFP with contraceptive intent: not having sufficient reasons to space or avoid children. It can be used wrongly because at bottom it is a heart and a motivation issue; not just a technique. The primary evil of contraception is in the evil "anti-procreative" will or intent. The same intent can be present in the couple using NFP, lacking sufficiently serious reasons to avoid having children. It is not as serious of a sin, but it is still sin.

I have spoken in as general terms as possible. I have not insulted anyone personally. 

Insulting huge groups en masse is in many ways the equivalent of insulting each one personally. It's a form of bigotry (objectively considered): to make such strong judgments on the motivations of all in such a huge group. That's neither rational nor charitable. We can judge acts as wrong, of course, but getting into motivations and whether people are Christians or not, is way beyond the pale of ethical critique.

If I were to say, for example, "everyone who voted for President Obama is not a Christian, as proven by that act," then I have also insulted the Christianity of each individual who voted for Obama, no? Note that I have written many times in vociferous opposition to Christians who vote for pro-abortion politicians, but to question their very Christianity is taking it way too far.

I have expressed how I feel on the subject of NFP--From my personal experienc on BOTH sides of the "church" fence. If one feels personally insulted by anything I have said on the matter, I think they must look to themselves and wonder why what a perfect stranger says strikes such a nerve. 
To some extent that is true, insofar as you speak truth; yet I am not surprised at all that some would be offended by your choice of words, because they were highly uncharitable and judgmental in a way that is, I submit, sinful. It's bearing false witness, and that is serious sin. You don't gain a "right" to say anything, no matter how uncharitable, simply because what you defend is the truth. You don't lose all responsibility to speak charitably just because what you are advocating is profoundly true and important, as a life issue, and matter of life and death. We have to look at ourselves and how we act: not just at the other guy, as if were perfect and have no room for improvement in expression. Need I produce the numerous biblical passages about the use of the tongue and of the danger of self-righteousness (avoiding the log in our own eye, etc.)?

If our Protestant internet opponents so often fail to monitor their own behavior in approaching Catholics, it doesn't follow that we shouldn't monitor ours in response to them.

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Steve Hays: the anti-Catholic Reformed Protestant blogmaster, responded to cathmom's initial remarks with a reductio ad absurdum argument:

Well, if that's what motivates Protestants, then by parity of logic, it just seems to me that the attempt by popes to defend "natural family planning" is just an excuse to justify the fact that they want to fornicate with nuns and hookers without wearing a condom or fathering a kid out of wedlock. Popes who defend "natural family planning," I believe, know deep down they are morally wrong. Lascivious popes must find a loophole to excuse their lechery. Why else would they concoct so many ad hoc distinctions?

This, in turn, was massively misunderstood. The nature of the reductio is to show the absurdity of an opposing view by turning the tables and applying it (by analogy) to the particulars of the opponent's position. Having thus shown the ridiculous result, it follows that the original argument must be discarded as irrational, too sweeping, etc. I use this logical argument all the time, myself. Hays' reductio works because cathmom's original argument was deficient and uncharitable.

Hays knew he was being provocative, and he loves to do that (and knew full well the reaction he would get); yet (whatever one thinks of rhetorical provocation) his logical point is quite valid and sound. In effect, he was arguing, "okay, if you want to massively impugn Protestant motives with regard to contraception, then I'll play your game and attribute the lowest motives to your popes with regard to NFP, to see how you like it."

I will now comment on Steve Hays' further comments in the combox for his post, Lecherous Popes. His words will be in green.
It's often useful to take a foolish position to its logical extreme. 
This is correct. I do it all the time, and it is rarely understood and rarely received. So his Catholic opponents (minus myself) have fallen right into his hands by not understanding the nature of his argument.

Her point was to smear Protestants by imputing the worst possible motives to them, and do so in sweeping, indiscriminate terms. . . . he was poisoning the well, not me. 
This is true.

It's called an argument from analogy. Look it up.
It was a legitimate argument on Hays' part, and it was well done.

. . . as a loyal teammate, I expect you to cheer for your own team no matter what.
This is the problem in the present instance. Few or no Catholics seem to see anything unethical about cathmom's remarks. We are defending her simply because she has the correct view on contraception and is a Catholic. But that is absolutely beside the point. Hays is objecting to her sweeping anti-Protestant remarks, and rightly so. His reductio had to do with that: not the argument per se about contraception. But the knee-jerk reaction from the Catholic camp merely provides more evidence that is mere "team play."

If we object to the behavior of anti-Catholics, who engage in the same sort of "our side can never be wrong" mentality quite frequently, as I have myself noted times without number, then to be consistent, we have to do a better job ourselves if we lack charity or blow an argument. If something is wrong, it's wrong, no matter who is guilty of it. My motivation in pointing this out is love, both for cathmom, and for our Protestant brethren, whom I hope to reach with the fullness of truth in Catholicism, and the message of the wrongness of contraception.

Likewise, what Steve Hays may happen to think of me (he absolutely despises me: has classified me as "evil" and "schizophrenic" for starters . . .) has nothing whatsoever to do with whether he is correct in this instance or not. His erroneous stance on contraception has nothing to do with whether he and his fellow Protestants by the hundreds of millions were treated uncharitably or not. If we defend truth and right ethics, we have to get beyond all this party nonsense, because reality doesn't work that way: with hundreds of millions of people all being written off as non-Christians and wicked because of one thing that is mostly a matter of rank ignorance and lack of proper education. Catholics are not always charitable, just because they are defending something true. And Protestants (or anyone else) are not necessarily subjectively wicked because they commit objectively evil acts.

A reductio ad absurdum. That's a perfectly legitimate type of argument.. . . there's nothing unethical about a reductio ad absurdum.

Correct.

The discussion continues in Hays' further related post, Team Players:
If a Catholic indulges in a blanket, prejudicial smear of Protestants by impugning the motives of all Protestants who support "artificial" birth control, even though said Catholic is in no position to know their motives, that's not anti-Protestant bigotry–but if a Protestant responds with a reductio ad absurdum, that's "anti-Catholic BIGOTRAY"!
Windsor betrays the insular mindset of the team player. The team player automatically cheers his own team and automatically jeers the other team. The team player keeps a tally of every real or imagined foul by the other team while turning a blind eye to every foul by his own team.
It's the Mafia mentality. One standard of la familia, another standard for outsiders. 

He is right again. We shouldn't stand for this sort of double standard. Unethical remarks are wrong, no matter who makes them.The fact that Hays himself has often acted in the same manner that he now decries does not wipe out the present instance of it. From his own past hypocrisy it doesn't follow that his Catholics opponents are now acting with a double standard. A double standard is what it is: no matter who points it out or no matter how they have acted in the past. All parties are prone to it, by human nature, and so we have to be vigilant to avoid it and point it out when it occurs.

He doesn't grasp the nature of a tu quoque, or a reductio ad absurdum. An argument from analogy only has to be analogous to be valid. The counterargument doesn't have to be any truer than the argument it opposes.
That's the point. For the argument works either way. If it's valid for cathmom5 to impute immoral motives to millions of Protestants she's never met, then it's valid for me to impute immoral motives to the popes. 

Notice that Scott Windsor doesn't demand any evidence or proof from cathmom5 for her defamatory allegations. That's because she's a fellow teammate, so the rules are different for her. My argument is predicated on a conditional premise: if her argument is valid, and my argument is analogous, then my argument is valid. But Scott Windsor is one of those sociopathic partisans who will fly into a rage the moment you make their team play by the same rules. A loyalist can never step out of his own viewpoint to see an issue from the viewpoint of the Other. It's the same thing we see in the political sphere every day.

Exactly. Hays now explains the nature of his argument, which was massively misunderstood and continues to be. I think he is correct in everything, minus the silly name-calling ("sociopathic partisans") that is often his wont (how well I know!).


A reductio ad absurdum is not an absurd argument. Rather, a reductio ad absurdum demonstrates the absurdity of the position it targets. It's a standard, perfectly valid form of argument. [link given]

At this point, Hays descends to his usual recourse of repeated personal insult (included insult of the intelligence of his opponents); yet his initial counter-point reductio still stands. Logic remains what it is, no matter how much personal insult accompanies a legitimate appeal to it.

cathmom5 needs to do the right thing and retract her initial prejudicial remarks about hundreds of millions of Protestants. Her statements aren't in accord with Catholic understanding of what constitutes subjective culpability with regard to mortal sin, as explained above.

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As to my own thoroughly orthodox Catholic position regarding contraception and NFP, I have made that abundantly clear, as can be seen in the following papers. Contraception was the initial issue, in fact, that led me to the Catholic Church, as I discovered that it's moral theology was uniquely biblical and in accord with that of the early Church and the apostles.



The Birth Control Pill Can and Too Often Does Bring About an Early Abortion: Documentary Resources
The Biblical Evidence Against Contraception
Biblical Evidence Against Contraception and For the Blessing of Many Children
Dialogue on the Ethical Distinction Between Artificial Contraception and Natural Family Planning (NFP)
Contraception: Early Church Teaching (William Klimon)

Discussion Thread on my Facebook Page About NFP, Contraception, and Marriage
Mounting Scientific Evidence of the Link Between Oral Contraceptives and Breast Cancer [Links Page]
Secular Social Science Vindicates Catholic Moral Teaching / Important Evangelical Protestants Rethinking Contraception (W. Bradford Wilcox)
Protestant Compromise, Radical Secularism, and Racist Eugenics: The Contraception Debate: 1900-1940
Why Did God Kill Onan? Luther, Calvin, Wesley, C. S. Lewis, and Others on Contraception

Dialogue: Why Did God Kill Onan? Why is Contraception Condemned by the Catholic Church?
Dialogue on Contraception
Dialogue on Contraception and Natural Family Planning (NFP) (vs. "Grubb")
Replies to Questions on Catholic Teaching Regarding Contraception and Sexual Morality

The 1968 Papal Encyclical Humanae Vitae: Infallible Teaching Prohibiting Contraception
Does Orthodoxy Allow Contraception Or Not?

Contraception and the "Fewer Children is Better" Mentality: the Opposition of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Other Protestants


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