Question:
Answer:
Because contraception is an intrinsic moral evil (CCC 2370), it is never permitted for a sexually active married couple to prevent the conception of a child. (An unmarried couple shouldn’t be sexually active at all.)
This is qualitatively different from treating a medical condition that might have an unintended contraceptive side effect, provided criteria of the principle of double effect are met. (A key issue re: double effect in such a case would be avoiding a treatment that had an abortifacient side effect.) However, the scenario you present involves directly and intentionally choosing contraception so that a life-threatening pregnancy will not result. We can never choose evil that good may come from it (CCC 1756).
Does this mean the Catholic Church does not have concern for the welfare of wives? Certainly not. If one is pregnant, the Church provides—again under the principle of double effect—that medical treatment may be used to help the mother, even if it results in the unintended side of effect of her unborn child dying, e.g., inducing premature labor while treating the mother’s ovarian cancer.
In addition, Natural Family Planning, which is highly effective (including for women with irregular ovulatory cycles), can be used indefinitely for a serious reason like avoiding a potentially life-threatening pregnancy, Pope St. Pope Paul VI affirmed in his encyclical Humanae Vitae (HV 10).
Because even NFP is not 100 percent effective, a couple may choose in extraordinary medical circumstances to practice total continence during the wife’s fertile years, i.e., live as brother and sister. If so, with God’s grace, they can give a heroically edifying witness, drawing closer to each other in the Lord, and leading others to do the same.
For more information, including a variety of free resources regarding contraception and related topics from Catholic Answers, click here.