Married Couples Who Intentionally Chose Sterilization
For Contraceptive Purposes: How Can They Repent?
Introduction
A common theme that has resounded now for several
decades is that many—if not most—Catholic married couples in Western countries
are currently demonstrating in practice their rejection of the Church’s
authoritative and binding teaching that proclaims that each occasion of sexual
intercourse must be open to the transmission of human life. While one may
dispute numbers and percentages of those Catholics involved, a fair judgment of
the situation reveals that, especially since the “Sexual Revolution” of the
1960s, a significant portion of Catholic married couples has used or is
presently using some form of contraceptive.
As is increasingly well-known, there are some devices
implanted, chemical formulae injected and even other products taken orally that
are routinely referred to as “contraceptives” but are, in fact, effective after
conception has occurred, thereby making them abortion-inducing agents (abortifacients). Sadly, a large section
of the public, cutting across boundaries of race, economic status, age, education
and creed, are woefully ignorant about the abortifacient quality of
Depo-Provera, RU-486, the Intrauterine Device, the “Morning-After Pill,” Norplant,
the “emergency contraception” and, in some cases, the common “Pill.” Therefore,
literally millions of persons throughout the world are “silently” aborting,
thinking all the while that they are preventing conception when, in fact, they
are unwittingly snuffing out the lives of preborn children.
But all is not lost. True sorrow, resolute amendment
of life and deep awareness of the Truth, inspired by the Holy Spirit Who is the
Lord and Giver of Life and the Master of the Truth, are possible. By yielding
to God’s abundant grace, a married couple who are contracepting or aborting may
humbly surrender to the Truth, acknowledge their sin and sincerely repent of
their error. How? By stopping the process of contracepting or aborting.
Authentic repentance demands the avoidance of any and every method of
contraception and those forms that parade as contraceptives but are in reality
abortifacients.
However, imagine a married couple who have done
something permanent in order to prevent conception. The husband has undergone a
vasectomy or the wife a tubal ligation. There immediately appears to be a
substantial and ongoing problem. How can this couple show their genuine sorrow
since the effect of the direct sterilization continues unabated? May they ever
be really reconciled to their Creator, thereby having shunned their sin and the
prevailing ethos of the Culture of Death and reassume their place in the
Christian community as those who give good example to others and testify to the
Truth, notwithstanding the not insignificant cost?
This essay offers guidance for married couples who
deliberately selected sterilization to prevent conception. Although the
teaching of the Catholic Church is the foundation for this article, the remarks
herein are not limited to Catholic married couples who chose to be sterilized
so as not to conceive but are germane to persons of all faiths and to those of
no faith, because the doctrine of the Catholic Church is based on Sacred
Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Natural Law—the trio of sources
expressing the One Truth that sustains and applies to everyone without
exception.
It is hoped that all married couples who intentionally
chose to be sterilized so as not to conceive but who seek forgiveness and a new
beginning in Christ and those married sterilized couples who have never thought
about the vital importance of rejecting the sin of direct sterilization and the
subsequent urgent need for conversion will benefit from these brief
reflections.
The Nature of Sterilization
Germain G. Grisez (1929-2018) and John F. Kippley
(1930- )—each a Catholic layman,
husband and father—treated this issue and have provided excellent material for
careful pondering.
As Grisez keenly and succinctly observed,
sterilization intended as a means of birth control (often referred to as
“direct,” “deliberate” or “intentional” sterilization) is intrinsically evil,
for it fails to promote the good of the human person because of its adamant
refusal to accept the inherent procreative (“life-giving”) dimension of the
marital act as built into it by God. (The other inherent aspect of the marital
act is the personalist [unitive] or “person-uniting” dimension.)
No benefit to the person as a whole can justify any
procedure which brings about sterility and is chosen for that very purpose. In
no way does sterility as such truly benefit anyone; it only facilitates sexual
intercourse—the distinct act in and through which some benefit is expected—by
excluding conception. Thus, the intention of choosing sterilization is
contraceptive, and the sterilizing act is at best a bad means to a good
ulterior end. Moreover, because sterilization involves bodily mutilation and is
usually irreversible, it is, other things being equal, more seriously wrong
than other methods of contraception.[1]
One here recalls the unfortunate circumstance of our
era in which methods that actually kill an already conceived and developing
child are cavalierly dismissed as “just another kind of birth control.”
Certainly, abortifacient means are more sinful than any contraception,
including sterilization, because the former extinguishes a life now begun,
while the latter prevents a life from being started. But, as Grisez insisted,
among the purely contraceptive methods, sterilization is the most morally
repugnant.
Kippley explained the “types” of sin that are involved
in direct sterilization. One kind is the contraceptive quality and intention of
the act of sterilization, in which one deliberately wills not to conceive a
child. Kippley wrote:
Once a person has voluntarily had himself or herself
sterilized for birth control purposes, each act of sexual intercourse is
seriously stained; it objectively contradicts the meaning of the marriage act
for it is a permanent way of saying, “I take you for pleasure but not for the
imagined worse of pregnancy.”[2]
The second sin linked to intentional sterilization is
that of mutilation (whether actual or attempted) of a healthy organ that has as
its divinely-preordained purpose to participate and cooperate with God in the
begetting of a new human life. The human body is to be loved and cherished. The
“good” of human procreation as created by the Almighty is not respected when
one purposely rejects the reproductive capacity of the human body and willingly
alters the body with contraception in view.
Direct sterilization—indeed, all contraception—is
grave matter, that is, it is intrinsically evil. (While this assertion may seem
overly audacious today, it is to be recalled that before the dawn of the
twentieth century, virtually everyone thought contraception of any stripe to be
patently immoral—an utter abomination against God’s Eternal Law. All Christian
denominations, for example, subscribed to this tenet until 1930.) Intentional
sterilization in itself always fulfills the first condition required for the
commission of a mortal sin—that offense which cuts one off from the Sanctifying
Grace that is the very life of God Himself. Mortal sin—a very grave repudiation
of the Lord and His wise commands—may be described as the ugly chains of
haughty disobedience that one prefers to the spotless garment of the Lamb. One
who chooses the shackles of mortal sin will never attain the refreshing freedom
earmarked for the legitimate sons and daughters of God who have been redeemed
by the Precious Blood of the Savior.
Repenting Sterilization: If Possible, How?
Because the Almighty is, unquestionably, all-merciful,
those married couples who have chosen direct sterilization to escape
conception—regardless if the reason was one of fear, lack of trust or dissent
from the Church’s doctrine—can turn back to Him, ask His pardon and be restored
to a life replete with His joy and peace. The Sacrament of Penance
(“Confession” or “Reconciliation”) is indispensable and unsurpassed for those
who purposely (knowingly, that is, were aware that intentional sterilization
gravely offended God, and willingly, that is, totally consented to the sin of
direct sterilization) selected sterilization; it is necessary before the
reception of the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist for those men and women
who have chosen to be sterilized for contraceptive motives. The supernatural
rewards of the Sacrament of Penance and of the consequent eating and drinking
of the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ are vast and unlimited;
they cannot be denied or circumscribed. The Sacraments, when received in the
state of grace (that is, when one is free of mortal sin), conform one more
closely to the Messiah and to His chaste Mother, Blessed Mary Ever-Virgin.
There are those who are convinced that the sin of
direct sterilization presents no more difficulty than any other transgression
regarding abiding repentance and true reconciliation to God. A Catholic couple
in which one or both intentionally chose sterilization, so the argument goes,
merely confess the sin of sterilization to the priest in the context of the
Sacrament of Penance. Then, that metaphorical “bridge” spanning the abyss
between one in mortal sin and the Creator has been crossed again. The wide gap
has been closed; deep contentment within the soul once again reigns supreme.
Our two previously-cited authors disagreed with this
sentiment.
Grisez posed the quandary thus:
People with a legalistic mentality sometimes suppose
there is an easy out for Catholic couples who accept the Church’s teaching on
contraception, yet want no more children and do not wish to abstain during the
fertile period: let one spouse be sterilized and that spouse (or both) confess
the sin; then the couple can engage in intercourse whenever they please without
worrying about pregnancy or feeling guilty about contraception. The trouble
with this supposed solution is that a sin is not simply a technical violation
which can be repaired by going to confession. The choice of sterilization, like
any sin, is a self-determination, an existential self-mutilation more profound
than the physical self-mutilation of sterilization; and this self-determination
lasts until the person repents. Consequently, unless those who have tried to
solve their problems by means of sterilization are truly contrite—“I wish I had
not done that, and if I had it to do over, I would never make that choice”—confession
is fruitless for them.[3]
Kippley framed the problem
in this manner:
How can a person be sorry for the sin whose fruits he
enjoys? Imagine the man who thinks, “I enjoy having sex whenever I feel like it
without having to be concerned about possible pregnancy. I’m glad I had the
vasectomy (or my wife had a tubal ligation).” Or the spouse who has a thought
during sexual intercourse: “I am enjoying this. I couldn’t be doing this if we
weren’t sterilized. I am enjoying the fruits of our sterilization.” How can
such spouses be sorry for their sins of sterilization? How can such spouses not
be committing, at least objectively, the sin of contraceptive sterilized
intercourse? How can a previous confession of the sin of sterilization forgive
the current sin of contraceptive intercourse? And what if a spouse enjoys the
fruit of their sin to the extent that he or she thinks, “I’m glad we had the
sterilization!” And, realistically, how can a spouse who is enjoying sterilized
sex during the fertile time not be
thinking in such a way except by repressing all thought? Does not such approval
constitute committing the sin of sterilization all over again?[4]
Repentance is possible after the sin of
directly-intended sterilization. God’s infinite strength does change hearts and
dispose persons to the Truth who once were blind to the Transcendent.
Deliberate sterilization is surely a “forgivable” sin. Those who have committed
it need not be banned from Paradise, thereby lost forever. Grisez asserted:
“Like those who repent any other sin, they can be absolved and spiritually
healed, so that they can live in grace again.”[5]
What Is Required For Real Amendment
Both Grisez and Kippley, in harmony with Catholic
doctrine detailing the Lord’s tender forgiveness and the corresponding genuine
amendment of life after sin to which He summons His beloved children, concurred
that the “resolution of the sterilization dilemma” calls for real repentance
and change. One must—with God’s overwhelming grace—eradicate any perduring
contraceptive intent. Kippley averred: “The person who regrets having been
sterilized must develop a true sorrow for a) the initial sin of sterilization
and b) subsequent sins of sterilized intercourse.”[6]
And sorrow for any sin necessitates genuine action and
internal transformation, namely, that one “rights the wrong” in part by
avoiding that sin in the future and “the near occasion” that leads to that sin.
Listed below are three “behaviors,” which, although
not definitively taught by the Magisterium as requirements are recommended by
theologians who teach in harmony with the Magisterium. They evince an abiding
sorrow for the sin of direct sterilization and the connected attempt to correct
the evil that was caused.
1. Complete abstinence until the wife is past
menopause. Some quarters would dismiss this option without delay, claiming that
it is unworkable and would have disastrous implications for the married couple.
Although not strictly obligatory (given what follows), it does remain a
possibility.
2. A surgical reversal of the sterilization. It may
appear at first glance that a surgical reversal of a vasectomy and a tubal
ligation, which today is often an “out-patient” procedure and increasingly less
expensive, is, in fact, the only option for the married couple who were intentionally
sterilized so as to prevent conception and now wish to be “made just” in God’s
sight. “They purposely sterilized themselves, let them now fix precisely what
they have done,” is one way of putting it.
Grisez inquired whether directly sterilized married
couples either ought to
abstain entirely from marital intercourse or try to have
the sterilization reversed? While Church teaching does not deal explicitly with
this question, general principles point to a negative answer, at least for most
cases. On the one hand, having repented sterilization, married couples have the
same right to intercourse and reasons for it which other couples have after the
wife’s menopause. On the other hand, there usually are good reasons not to try
to have the operation reversed: doing so involves costs and other burdens, the
attempt often fails to restore fertility, and even if it were to succeed, many
such couples would have no moral obligation to try to have a child.[7]
Kippley offered this analysis:
If reversal surgery were as simple and inexpensive as
vasectomies and tubal ligations, then it would be morally required for all as
part of their repentance. This is the common teaching of respected moral
theologians. However, it is also a principle of moral theology that extraordinary
burdens are not normally required as part of repentance. For example, many poor
people have been seduced by public health workers into being
sterilized—sometimes for no cost and sometimes even paid to be sterilized. For
such couples, the cost of reversal surgery would be a very severe burden if not
simply impossible, and the reversal surgery would not be morally required. In
another case, reversal surgery might constitude a grave risk to health or life
because of heart conditions, reaction to anesthesia, etc. Such cases would also
constitute an extraordinary burden and would eliminate the moral obligation to
have reversal surgery.[8]
Kippley held that if a married couple who
intentionally chose to be sterilized for the motive of contraception enjoy good
health and the monetary resources that could withstand the financial strain of
reversal surgery, then “there is a general moral obligation to have reversal
surgery, but I would hesitate to call it a serious obligation (i.e., the grave
matter of mortal sin) provided they practice periodic abstinence as noted
below.”[9] He
further contended: “Perhaps the couple who are trying hard to do the right
thing but have a general reluctance to undergo surgery might gain insight by
asking this question: ‘If our existing family were wiped out and we wanted
children, would we have reversal surgery in the effort to achieve pregnancy?’”[10]
It seems that an honest investigation of the
possibility of reversal surgery, which includes a discussion with competent
medical personnel regarding the physical implications and another with a priest
concerning the moral ramifications, is the very least that would be expected,
given the seriousness of the matter.
Thanks to the continual advances in medical technology
and praxis, the surgical reversal of sterilization is sometimes not as
perplexing as it once was. A higher success rate for the reversal and the
possibility of performing this surgery at more medical centers mean that the
reversal surgery itself is surely not as remote as before in terms of
availability and a reasonable likelihood of success. One anticipates the day
when the reversal procedure will be considered as commonplace as
sterilization—due to its efficacy, its inexpensive cost and its universal
accessibility.
3. Periodic abstinence from the marital privilege. The
Church stresses that a married couple who possess a just (some theologians
maintain “serious”) rationale to postpone a pregnancy may limit marital
intercourse to the wife’s infertile days during her cycle. Kippley submitted
that there is a specific link between this ecclesiastical declaration rooted in
the Natural Law and the plight of intentionally sterilized couples.
The current knowledge about a woman’s alternating
phases of fertility and infertility makes it possible for a repentant
sterilized couple to restrict intercourse to those times when she is naturally
infertile. In this way, they will not be taking advantage of their sterilized
state, enjoying the fruits of their sin. Their behavior will be consistent with
their present desire that they would not have had the sterilization in the
first place. In my opinion, such periodic abstinence during the normally
fertile time is required of repentant sterilized couples.[11]
By limiting intercourse to the infertile days of the
wife, the married couple who purposely chose to be sterilized in order to avoid
pregnancy are conducting themselves similarly to a non-sterilized couple who
are employing Natural Family Planning (N.F.P.). In both instances, the couples
engage in the marital privilege during that time when pregnancy is unlikely.
Hence, if a married couple who selected sterilization
as a permanent contraceptive cannot have the sterilization surgically reversed,
then they show their love for God, their commitment to each other rooted in
generous sacrifice, their lament for their sin, and their accompanying good
will by saving the marital embrace for the infertile period, thereby acting as
if, indeed, they are still fertile. It is then clear that this purposely
sterilized but now repentant couple respect, appreciate and are grateful for
the God-given fertility-dimension of intercourse and want that affectionate act
of “self-donation” to be pleasing to their benevolent Creator.
Shepherds of Souls
A word to confessors and spiritual directors. May the
foregoing comments be valuable in your challenging work to spread far and wide
the entire Holy Gospel of Christ, even those sections that are roundly
repudiated in our era.
Married couples who chose to be sterilized to prohibit
conception may need assistance in concluding that what they have done is
immoral. Why? Because the “modern climate” of much of society is not conducive
to fostering an understanding of the nature and beauty of the human body, much
less the marital privilege. True, the Natural Law ensures that one may come to
the realization—even without the gift of faith—that the deliberate frustration
of one of the “ends” of intercourse, namely procreation, is gravely evil;
however, given the falsities in our world that counter the Truth at every turn,
one need not be surprised that other voices attempt—in the very end,
unsuccessfully—day and night to submerge the Truth.
Kindness, clarity and a desire “to obey God rather
than man” will do much for spiritual directors and confessors as they strive to
adore the Living Lord and save souls, including their own.
One must be attentive when encouraging the use of
N.F.P., especially to those couples that intentionally chose sterilization as a
preventative against pregnancy, that N.F.P. does not come across as being
“odious” or “burdensome.” N.F.P. is to be a joyful exercise in heeding God’s
commands and sharing love with one’s spouse. It is not to be seen as a
continual punishment for one’s sin that already has been confessed and forgiven
in the Sacrament of Penance. As it always should be, N.F.P. is the vehicle by
which one expresses his love for the Lord and for his spouse while
simultaneously upholding God’s immutable Law. And here it is to be recalled that
postponing pregnancy for a significant reason and, therefore, having recourse
to the infertile days of the cycle, is to be the “exception.” As one familiar
with the contemporary scene quipped, “the option is to be for children.” God
expects His married sons and daughters to be generous in bringing forth new
life, in such wise preparing souls for the Everlasting Kingdom.
Since the massive prevalence of intentional
sterilization, not to mention other contraceptives, has never been witnessed on
the grand scale that we experience in our time, we will see what, if any, guilt
and sorrow for the sin of direct sterilization will be manifested by the
transgressors as they age and draw nearer to their Particular Judgment. Perhaps
in this twenty-first century, a resurgence in comprehension of the sin of
deliberate sterilization will surface specifically in the West, meaning that,
more than ever, both men and women will seek forgiveness for their error from Emmanuel—“God-with-us.” Let us pray!
Meanwhile, those charged with the care of souls should
now preach and teach—both in public and private settings—the reasonableness of
the Church’s teaching on the procreative dimension of the marital embrace, the
splendor of God’s forgiveness to all when they fall and the real chance of
being made whole in the Lord once again.
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, a sterilized married couple who chose the
aforementioned procedure with a contraceptive purpose and who are now contrite
will be forgiven by God of their sin. On what condition? That they implore His
unceasing compassion, cast aside that contraceptive intent and display their
love for each other in marital intercourse as God planned. To that end, the
couple should, if possible, seek a reversal of the sterilization. If that cannot
be accomplished, then the couple should consign the marital privilege to the
normally infertile time. Then, they will illustrate their fervent desire to
obey God and readily heed His life-bestowing—and life-changing—Law.
[1] Germain G.
Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus: Living a Christian Life Volume II
(Quincy, Illinois: Franciscan Press, 1993), 544.
[2] John F.
Kippley, Sex and the Marriage Covenant:
A Basis for Morality (Cincinnati,
Ohio: The Couple to Couple League International, 1991), 208-209.
[3] Grisez, 544-545.
[4] Kippley, 209-210.
[5] Grisez, 545.
[6] Kippley, 210.
[7] Grisez, 545.
[8] Kippley, 211.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Kippley, 211-212.
[11] Kippley, 212.
