The Christian Case Against Contraception: Making the Case from Historical, Biblical, Systematic, and Practical Theology & Ethics

by Bryan C. Hodge

Furthermore, he not only shortchanged his brother of his right, but also would rather spill his seed on the ground, than to bring forth a son in his brother’s lineage. . . . I will try to be as brief as propriety allows in discussing this subject. The purposeful spilling of semen outside of intercourse between man and woman is a monstrous thing. Purposely withdrawing from coitus, so that the seed drops on the ground, is twice as horrific. For this is to extinguish the hope of the human family and to kill before he is born the hoped-for offspring. This wickedness is here condemned by the Spirit in the most severe manner possible . . . as though he had, through a violent and premature birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and had cruelly and shamefully thrown it on the earth. In this way he tried, as far as he was able, to wipe out a part of the human race. When a woman in some way expels the seed out of the womb, using drugs, then this is rightly seen as an unforgivable crime; and Onan rightfully incurred upon himself the same kind of punishment, polluting the earth with his semen, in order that Tamar might not conceive a future human being as an inhabitant of the earth.