Commandments 1 – 3 Class Handouts

St. Philip Neri Catholic ChurchNapoleon, ND

Handouts: Pages:1. “The Myth of Overpopulation” 2 – 82. “Evangelium Vitae, Paragraph 99” 93. “Diary Of An Unborn Child” 104. “Significant Events In A New Life” 115. “American War Casualties” 126. “Factsheet On Adoption” 13 – 157. “Boldly Speaking Truth to Power” 16 – 178. “Sterilization: Sinful and Dehumanizing” 18 - 219. “Sterilization Destroys Healthy Functions” 22 - 23

The Myth of Overpopulation

2

By Murray Norris

This talk about the population explosion and its terrible aftermath is dead wrong.

Every last person in the world today (about 3.5 billion) could lie down in a city the size of Jacksonville, Florida, and not one of them would have to touch another person. Doesn’t this sound more like we are under populated?

So, what is all the noise about?

We hear all the talk about how we will outrun our resources; have famines and other problems, if we “let our population grow unchecked.” What a lot of nonsense!

EARTH CAN SUPPORT MORE PEOPLE

There are a large number of economists, agronomists and others who tell us that many parts of the earth are under populated. And we can easily support 35 to 40 billion people, or more than 10 times the present population of this earth.

Any school boy with a fifth grade education can go to an encyclopedia and prove that we are not running out of natural resources.

Dr. Robert Sassone, author of Population Handbook, insists that there are no natural resources in danger of complete exhaustion. He offers $1,000.00 to anyone who can suggest a valid reason why we must limit population in the next century.

Sassone points out that all buildings in the world take up .01 percent of the earth’s surface, or one ten-thousandth of the surface.

Says Dr. Sassone:

“Every nation in the world that publicly lists its food supply in statistics compiled by the United Nations, has a sufficiently large supply (of food).

“The trend for more than a generation has been for the world food supplies to increase one percent faster than the growth of population. Animal and fish protein production has increased faster than food production, so there is now eighty percent more per person than before World War II.”

Sassone says the UN reports only 15 percent of the potential agricultural land is now being used in this old world. And of this 15 percent, only half is harvested in any one year. So even this could be increased, if there were a true need to do so.

All the farms, roads, buildings and cities take up only three percent of the earth’s surface. And anyone can tell you that our farmers could produce more food on less acreage if they had to.

3

But what about India?

In November, 1974, the Indian Ambassador to the United States told an audience in San Francisco that in the 23 years since independence from England, India’s food production had gone up 120 percent while her population had gone up 60 percent. In fact, the ambassador complained about the people who insist India is a starving nation. He said his nation expects to have food to export in two or three years.

At last count, the United Nations figured that India had roughly 400 people per square mile. That’s fewer people than live on a square mile in Italy, and far fewer than the 600 people per square mile in England.

If you really want to see a place where they pack in people, try the Netherlands with 1,000 people per square mile – where the government pays the farmers not to grow food. And how about Taiwan with more than 1,200 people per square mile. Both nations export food and have two to three times the population density of India.

WHAT CAUSES FAMINES?

So what causes food shortages and famines?

Occasionally nature rebels and causes a famine. But nearly all food shortages and famines are the result of politics. Government policies that do not favor farmers are the cause of most famines. None of the food shortages or famines are caused by too many people.

So, let’s take a closer look at the food situation.

First, at least three-fourths of the tillable land of this old world has never even been touched with a plow. And of the rest, only a small portion is extensively farmed. American farmers lag behind 17 other nations (some undeveloped) in the production of food per acre.

Even when this food is produced, frequently it cannot be moved from the farms to the dinner table. Governments that fail to give attention to farms, communications and transportation first, frequently find themselves without food in the cities when it is rotting in the country. India was like this when she first got her independence from England. Then the government changed its policies and gave attention to agriculture. Now India has plenty of food.

WHY THE GRAPHS ARE WRONG

4

Now, it is easy to see that the world population increased from one billion in 1840 to two billion in 1940. And, if you used the right kind of curve, the right kind of graph, you could easily fill up the world by some certain year in the future.

But things don’t always go that way.

The mother herring in the ocean lays enough eggs that, if each one of these hatched, the sea would be solid herring eggs in three years.

It seems to me that Our Lord commanded – not asked, but commanded – that man go out and increase and multiply and fill the earth. He made this command several thousand years ago. But apparently man has been too busy with wars, sex and Playboy bunnies to heed that command.

And if it isn’t one of these things, a plague or flood comes along to give a break between the war and games.

Our birth rate has been falling since the end of the 19th century – throughout the world. It is people who are living longer who are making higher population statistics.

We are killing one baby in three before it is born through abortions – on a worldwide scale.

It not only appears that man isn’t producing enough children, but if we use the same graphs used by the people who are predicting too many people, we come up with no babies being born in the world after 1990, and no one in the world after 2050.

BACK TO REALITY

Japan is producing only 90 percent of its replacement population. It is so labor short it is importing workers from many other areas such as Korea and Pacific Islands. Many countries in Europe are not having enough babies to replace their population. And in many cases, it is already affecting – for the worse – their economies. Japan may soon be in the same sort of situation.

Even here in the United States, the birth rate is dropping so fast that we may soon see a drop in the population. About 70 percent of the rural counties are actually losing population now. Many areas, even here in California, are seeing bear and beaver, deer and antelope, where they were recently extinct.

WHAT ABOUT POLLUTION?

5

Don’t more people cause pollution?

A few individuals may cause pollution, but sheer numbers of people do not.

In the words of Dr. Sassone:

“Pollution has been used very effectively by the anti-life forces in the United States as a justification for proposals of dictatorial control of population and the family.”

“There is no major kind of pollution that cannot be controlled economically. While it might cost as much as $30 billion to clean the environment, pollution is now costing the public far more in sickness, premature deaths, loss of property value, and loss of recreational areas.

“Pollution is caused by a relatively small number of persons and companies, not by population growth.”

POPULATION STAGNATION

“The problem today in the United States is not population growth, but population stagnation. Children born a generation ago are not reproducing themselves. History records no single case where population stagnation or decline has had a happy result.”

Perhaps people who worry so much about the population explosion might do better to worry about the population concentration in the cities. We certainly could stand a little better planning and layouts in most of the cities I’ve seen. And when 90 percent of the population tries to concentrate on five percent of the land area of this nation, we have major problems.

However, recently there have been some slight changes, even in this. New York at the turn of the century had 45,000 people per square mile in its city area. Today there are only 42,000 people per square mile in New York City.

If our industrialists can go over to foreign countries to build factories because labor is cheaper, why can’t they build the same factories in the rural areas where living and wages obviously are cheaper?

But, you ask, how about feeding and clothing all these people we now have?

Frankly, the United States doesn’t know what to do now with all the food and fiber it is producing on less and less land. Despite the recent “grain shortages” we still see limitations on farming operations. Land is still left idle.

As recently as 1959, there were U.S. Department of Agriculture people who frankly said they wanted to retire at least two-thirds of our farmers because they

6

were producing too much. They had statistics to show that the other third could produce more food than was needed by the entire population, and still have enough for exports.

Last figures I saw, we were selling about 60 percent of our wheat crop to Communists and other buyers. And the real problem in Communist countries is the government, not the farmers, when it comes to food production. In Russia, the tiny individual plots that measure less than an acre or two actually account for a third to two-thirds of the produce and other foods, according to best available sources. The huge government-run farms are failing in Russia, not the individual farmer plots.

FALLING WORLD BIRTH RATE

Throughout this nation, hospitals are abandoning maternity wards because there are fewer babies. The birth rate is plummeting to a dangerous level. Our economy is suffering now and will suffer even more if this continues.

But it is the same across the world. Hungary and Romania are dropping in population. Russia is so worried it offers hero medals to mothers of five or six children.

In Vienna, Austria, deaths are exceeding births at the rate of two to one. Two-thirds of Europe is failing to produce enough children to replace the adult population.

The United States faces a time in the very near future when the “Pepsi Generation” will be trying to support a fantastically high percentage of older people, with fewer young people coming along to help pay the needs of the oldsters.

Dr. George Carter, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geographical Society, says that “suppression of these facts (on population downtrends) amounts to scandalous treatment of the data on population.”

PEOPLE MAKE NATION PROSPEROUS

Carter agrees with Colin Clark, world-renowned demographer, that the more people you have per square mile, the more prosperous your nation. People not only eat, but they think, they work and they produce.

As the population moved out of northern New England, the area has stagnated and declined. The South, with its growing population, attracts industry and increases prosperity.

In East Germany, when they were losing people to the West, their economy tottered and faced complete collapse. The Berlin Wall was a savior of that nation’s economy because it stopped the people drain.

7

In his book Population Growth, Its Advantages, Colin Clark shows how nations become great because they have large populations as well as other assets. While other nations with the same assets, without a large population, remain backward and even undeveloped.

Despite automation, people will be in demand as long as industries and farmers remain free. Only governmental intervention can change that.

Free industrialists in France and Germany imported Italians, Spaniards, Greeks and even Arabs to run their machines. But as industrialization around the Mediterranean developed, there were fewer people available.

While there are people starving, particularly in the African famine now, there are few that starve where the governmental policies allow the farmers a free hand and there is no war going.

Most farmers are not producing at capacity. For instance, an American cow produces about 10 times as much as cows in the Far East. Our chickens produce 4 to 10 times as many eggs.

In the words of Dr. Carter,

“We are too gullible. We are too pessimistic. We are too emotional. We are overly propagandized, as can be shown by the fact that such (population) figures … can be multiplied indefinitely.”

As for the exhaustion of natural resources of metals and other minerals, Dr. Clark points out that those who write books predicting famine and mineral exhaustion do not even use available figures on our reserves – some of which have more than 500 years’ supply and none of which is shorter than 20 years’ reserve – with more being found all the time.

Concentrating his fire on two books by the Professors Erlich, Population Resources Environment and The Population Bomb, Clark refutes – item by item - the false claims by the two (man and wife) harbingers of doom.

Taking oil, for instance, there are some 200 to 500 million tons available today, as compared with the “ultimate reserve” of only 76 million tons in 1949. So the actual reserves are really far larger today than they were 25 years ago.

The United States, in her own territories alone, has a 200 to 300 year supply of oil and natural gas, and more than 1,000 years’ supply of coal. So the energy shortage is not one of a lack of supplies.

8

(Shortages of fuel today are caused by environmentalists who halted refineries, the Alaskan pipeline, governmental tinkering with prices and other causes not connected with shortages of reserves or availability of oil.)

With plenty of resources available, it is only fair to conclude that man is an asset, not a liability. Man’s potential increases with each new thought. And new thoughts come only from men.

Obviously the future is quite terrific, if we keep a good supply of homo sapiens around.

Rather than cutting back the population, we should be encouraging increases. Perhaps even offer family allowances, like some of the European countries and Canada.

With more people to tackle the real problems of production and transport, the only limit in the future is the sky itself.

And how high is the sky?

(EDITOR’S NOTE: The writer, Murray Norris, is the father of 13 children and hasbeen a newspaper editor and magazine writer for 30 years.)

9

I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. The church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you His forgiveness andHis peace in the sacrament of reconciliation. You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost, and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord. With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone’s right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life.

Pope John Paul IIEvangelium VitaeParagraph 99

10

11

12

13

FACTSHEET ON ADOPTION

According to a survey by the National Council For Adoption (NCFA) there were 51,157 unrelated adoptions (adoptions by people not related to the child adopted) of American children in 1986. (NCFA)

In addition, there were 10,097 foreign born children adopted by Americans in 1987. Foreign adoptions have been rising steadily from 5,707 in 1982, to 8,327 in 1984, to 9,946 in 1986, to its highest point in over a decade in 1987. Because of a decrease in the number of adoptions of children from South Korea the figures have declined since 1987 and totaled 7,948 in 1989 and an estimated 6,500 in Fiscal Year 1992. (NCFA)

Of the 51,157 unrelated domestic adoptions, approximately one half (24,589) were adoptions of healthy infants (under 2 years of age) of all races and ethnic backgrounds. The remaining were older kids and children with special needs (physical, mental or emotional disabilities, part of a sibling group, etc.) (NCFA)

Of the 51,157 unrelated domestic adoptions, 20,064 were arranged by public agencies (which handle the majority of children with “special needs”), 15,063 were arranged by private agencies and 16,040 were arranged by private individuals (private/independent adoptions.) (NCFA)

Unrelated adoptions have fluctuated tremendously over the past three decades from 33,800 in 1951, to 61,600 in 1961, to a peak of 89,200 in 1970, declining to 47,700 in 1975 and then rising slightly to 50,720 in 1982 and in 1986 51,157. (NCFA)

State laws governing adoptions vary widely. In general, the birthparent(s) sign(s) a consent to the adoption or a relinquishment of parental rights. This consent or relinquishment is not legally binding prior to the birth of the child and can generally be revoked for a limited period of time after birth. The biological father of the child usually must be notified of any adoption plan, but procedures for this notification vary considerably. Separately, the prospective adoptive parents must file a petition to adopt. After a period of court supervision, usually six months to one year in Iength, during which the adoptive parents have custody of the child, the adoption is finalized. The adopted child then enjoys the exact legal footing in the family as a biological child. (NCFA)

A 1982 study found that about 6 percent of premarital births were placed for adoption – 12.2 percent of premarital births to White mothers, but only 0.4 percent of premarital births to Black mothers. (Bachrach)

The same 1982 survey found that unmarried birthmothers who made adoption plans advanced further educationally, were more likely to subsequently marry, and were less likely to receive public assistance than birthmothers who chose to parent their child born out-of-wedlock. (Bachrach) These findings were confirmed in another

14

study in 1988 which found that women who chose adoption for their children had educational advantages, were more likely to delay marriage, were more likely to be employed and have a higher income, less likely to have a repeat out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and less likely to abort if they do have a repeat out-of-wedlock pregnancy. (McLaughlin, 1988)

Adopted children enjoy more socio-economic advantages than children who remain with their unmarried birthmothers – they have better educated, older mothers, and they live in families with much higher incomes. (Bachrach, Marquis)

Pregnant teens who received services that provided counseling and information on adoption to all clients were almost seven times more likely to choose adoption than those who received services from a program where adoption was not addressed with all clients. Also, when the parents of teens were included in services, pregnant teens were six times more likely to choose adoption than when they were not involved. Pregnant teens who were asked to compare their lives if they parented with their life if they chose adoption were six times more likely to choose adoption than those who did not make the comparisons. Teens involved with teen pregnancy programs which had teen parents talk with pregnant clients were four times less likely to choose adoption than teens who did not meet with teen parents. The interventions described above were more dramatic for Black teens than for White teens. Researchers believe the reason may be that Black teens and their families have less opportunity to be exposed to information on adoption because of societal and counselor assumptions that Black teens are not interested in adoption for their children. (McLaughlin, 1991)

Only 1-2 percent of adopted adults “search” for their biological parents. (NCFA)

The number of children in substitute care rose nearly 50% in the five years ending June 1990, from 273,000 to 407,000. This probably accounts for 99% of the population of dependent children in the country (those in the child welfare population). (APWA)

A plan for adoption will be developed for approximately 10 percent of children entering the child welfare system. Therefore, there are between 27,000 and 40,000 children in the child welfare system who will be in need of adoptive families. The plan for the remaining 90% is for the children to return to their families or remain in long term foster care. (NCFA)

Black children constitute about 14 percent of the child population, but they account for over 30 percent of the children in foster care and over 38 percent of the children in the foster care system waiting to be adopted. (NCFA)

In 1983, the median age of children adopted from the public welfare system was 6 years, but the median age of children waiting to be adopted was 9 years. Two years and 8 months was the median length of time that these children were waiting to be adopted in 1985. Just over half of the children waiting to be adopted had some sort of special need. (NCFA)

15

State and Federal adoption subsidy programs designed to assist parents with the costs of caring for a child with “special needs” are often available. (NCFA)

Babies, regardless of medical problems, who are “free for adoption,” generally do not wait long for families. There are waiting lists of couples who would like to adopt infants with Downs Syndrome or Spina Bifida. The National Downs Syndrome Adoption Exchange reports they have over 100 approved families waiting to adopt children with Downs Syndrome. There are also a large number of couples who would like to adopt terminally ill babies, including babies with AIDS. ABC-TV’s “20/20” reported they had received over 25,000 self-addressed stamped envelopes from individuals wanting to adopt Romanian orphans. (NCFA)

There are between one and two million infertile and fertile couples and individuals who would like to adopt children. (NCFA)

Copyright 1993, National Council For Adoption. All rights reserved.

Boldly Speaking Truth to PowerBy Cal Thomas

The Washington TimesFebruary 10, 1994

16

At a National Prayer Breakfast in Washington last Thursday, Mother Teresa of Calcutta delivered the most startling and bold proclamation of truth to power I have heard in my more than 30 professional years in Washington.

Before an audience of 3,000 – that included the president and his wife, the vice president and his wife and congressional leaders, among others – the 83-yearold nun, who is physically frail but spiritually and rhetorically powerful, delivered an address that cut to the heart of the social ills afflicting America. She said America, once known for generosity to the world, has become selfish. And she said the greatest proof of that selfishness is abortion.

Tying abortion to growing violence and murder in the streets, she said, “If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill each other? … Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.”

At that time, most of those in attendance erupted in a standing ovation, something that rarely occurs at these sedate events. At that moment, President Clinton quickly reached for his water glass, and Mrs. Clinton and Vice President and Mrs. Gore stared without expression at Mother Teresa. They did not applaud. It was clearly an uncomfortable moment on the dais.

She then delivered the knockout punch: “Many people are very, very concerned with children in India, with the children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger, and so on. Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today – abortion, which brings people to such blindness.”

What? Abortion destroys peace and causes blindness toward the sick, the hungry and the naked? Abortion leads to wars between nations? Of course it does, if life is regarded so trivial, so clinical and so easy. Why should people or nations regard human life as noble or dignified if abortion flourishes? Why agonize about indiscriminate death in Bosnia when babies are being killed far more efficiently and out of the sight of television cameras?

Mother Teresa delivered her address without rhetorical flourishes. She never raised her voice or pounded the lectern. Her power was in her words and the selfless life she has led. Even President Clinton, in his remarks that followed, acknowledged she was beyond criticism because of the life she has lived in service to others.

At the end, she pleaded for pregnant women who don’t want their children to give them to her: “I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child.” She said she has

17

placed more than 3,000 children in adoptive homes from her Calcutta headquarters alone. She has answered the question, “Who will care for all of these babies if abortion is again outlawed?” Now the question is whether a woman contemplating abortion wishes to be selfish or selfless, to take life or to give life.

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist.

Sterilization: Sinful and Dehumanizing

By Rev. Ronald D. Lawler, O.F.M. Cap.

18

Sterilization is often cruelly imposed on people. Catholic mothers who wish to live their lives as faith invites them to are often pressured to accept surgical procedures they know would be wrong for their lives. “This is already your third child!” a doctor may exclaim solemnly to a young mother. “Really you should be sterilized when you have this baby.”

Doctors, of course, also need compassion. Often they are lost in the secular attitudes of our times. Frequently they have not studied ethics very carefully. Many, at least, have very little understanding of Christian ethics, or of the excellent reasons there are for judging contraceptive sterilization immoral.

Still it is very wrong for a medical professional to speak to such a woman as if she were a child, foolish and wrong for living in ways she judges right. Her Christian conscience should be respected.

The Sinfulness of Sterilization

Contraceptive sterilization is doing immense harm today. Through the centuries the Church has taught firmly and consistently that such sterilization is a great evil. But today millions of Catholic husbands and wives have allowed themselves to be sterilized.

To have such operations performed deliberately is gravely sinful. And it is not simply a matter of “breaking a rule.” Rather, it is a bitterly wrong sort of thing to do. It does immense harm to the consciences and spiritual lives of people; it dehumanizes them; it harms families deeply. Christian parents often begin a final drift from faith by having a sterilization.

Pastoral leaders have a duty to help them escape this grave harm to Christian marriage. If it is really for couples not to have more children, it would still be important not to use an immoral means to reach that end.

Most people know well what sterilization is. It is an act which renders a man or a woman incapable of having a child. Sterilization mutilates a person. It robs one of a power of great importance and dignity. To be sterilized is to lose the power to become a father or a mother.

Surgical operations to sterilize a male are commonly called vasectomies. Operations performed to sterilize a woman are of different kinds, but the most common is popularly called “tying the tubes.” This makes it impossible for the ovum of a woman to be fertilized.

Reasons for Desiring No More Children

If a couple does not want to have any more children, this intention itself is sometimes a reasonable and good one, although sometimes it is selfish and wrong.

19

One could reasonably wish to have no more children, if circumstances would make having a child harmful and bitter. For example, spouses may know that their own genetic structures are such that if they had another child, it would almost certainly have a serious genetic disorder. If the mother’s health were so poor that another child would be a great danger to her life, that too would be a good reason. If they already had a number of children, and simply could not afford another at this time, that reason could also be a good one.

But it is important for Catholic couples to avoid a worldly spirit, that leads some to refuse the precious gift of a child simply because they long too much for unnecessary earthly comforts.

It is always good for parents to remember, as the Second Vatican Council reminded us, that “children are the supreme gift of marriage …. The true practice of conjugal love, and the whole meaning of the family life that flows from it, have this aim: that the couple be ready with stout hearts to cooperate with the love of the Creator and the Savior, who through them will enlarge and enrich his own family” (Church in the Modern World, no. 50).

Some reasons for not wishing more children are bad reasons. Spouses should not wish to escape the ordinary burdens of being parents. They should not persuade themselves, unwisely, that being married has nothing to do with having children, and that since it is possible to engage in sexual activity and securely prevent having children, then it must be perfectly all right to do so. The unbelieving world certainly pressures people to think this way. And many sadly come to hold that everyone has a right to accept and live by whatever moral principles one chooses, regardless of what is really good, or of what faith has taught.

Using Morally Right Means

When there are good reasons not to have another child, it is important that one use moral means to accomplish one’s purposes. The Church has repeatedly pointed out: sex is not something trivial and meaningless. To treat it as trivial is to shape attitudes that bruise love and homes and families in the many ways that the sexual revolution is now hurting so many.

Why Sterilization is Wrong

Sex is meaningful. God made it to unite spouses in a total and self-giving love: in which each gives oneself entirely. He created it also to make it possible for spouses to have the blessed gift of children.

True, people do not and need not always wish to have a child when in marriage they engage in loving sexual acts. But it is wrong to act directly against that for which God made sexuality.

20

It is not always necessary to use our power of speech for the solemn communication of truth; speech can also be used playfully and joyfully to entertain and express friendship. But one should never use speech, and at the same time act directly against the purposes God gave to speech; to act directly, for example, against important truths.

Similarly it is always wrong to use the gift of sexuality and at the same time to act bluntly against the very good purposes for which God gave us sexuality. Of course, married people can use sexuality joyfully and cheerfully in right circumstances. But they should take it seriously: they should not act against the very meaning and purposes of sex. Sex is too important. When we treat it wrongly, we and the world suffer greatly.

The Church teaches that contraceptive sterilization or direct sterilization, is always a seriously sinful thing. Of course, if one just did not know that it was wrong, or if one were forced to be sterilized (sometimes public authorities are so brutal as to force sterilization on people), that would be another matter. Forced sterilization is sometimes a racist crime or a eugenic barbarity. Social planners sometimes decide that people of certain races, or poor and “unimportant” sorts of people should not be allowed to have children and so they force sterilization on them.

An “indirect” sterilization is often entirely innocent. An “indirect” sterilization is one in which the person did not really want to be made sterile at all. Perhaps someone suffered from some serious health problem, and the only practical way of treating the problem (for example, a cancer) would have the unwanted effect of making the person sterile. People need not let cancer devastate their bodies, for fear that treating it might have the bad effect – a result they honestly do not want – of causing physical sterilization.

The Church has taught so constantly and consistently over the centuries that contraception and direct (or contraceptive) sterilization are grave sins that many scholars teach that it has been infallibly taught by the Church. Whether or not that it is right, it is certainly clearly and authentically taught by the Church, and all have the serious obligation to accept the Church teaching, and seek to live by it.

Catholic Hospitals

Catholic hospitals and Catholic physicians, of course, have a duty to be faithful to what faith teaches about sterilization. In recent decades, the Church has very forcefully reminded Catholic hospitals that they must not approve of or have policies permitting sterilization, or set up committees that may allow such sinful operations to be had at times “for good reasons” (Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, 1975; National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1977). Fortunately most Catholic hospitals faithfully accept what faith teaches in this matter. Tragically, a notable number are not faithful, and lead the faithful along bitter paths.

Sterilization is often treated with laughter in the lustful entertainment world of our times. But it is a serious and irresponsible evil. To treat so important a thing as sex as

21

meaningless, or act against the good things God made it for, contradicts what faith has always taught. Moreover, it treats persons badly. One who has good reasons not to wish to have another child need not be physically mutilated. There are better ways. Besides, it often changes. One who wished not to have a child, may later deeply long to have one. But it is never easy, and often impossible, to undo a sterilization.

There are always better ways of achieving good purposes than sinful ways. If one has a good reason not to have another child, one can learn how to do this without grave difficulty in innocent and responsible ways. One excellent way is learning natural family planning and following this path with intelligent concern. Then one can be entirely secure – if the reason for not wanting another child is serious and pressing. Contemporary natural family planning methods are very secure, when one is well instructed and highly motivated. One need not be nervous at all in relying on them.

A Serious Teaching Obligation

Those who teach the Catholic Faith, and those who prepare young people for marriage, have a duty to explain the Church’s teaching on the grave sinfulness of sterilization. For it is a grave temptation to our young people today. And the serious sin committed by direct sterilization can be difficult to repent from.

Surely it would be insincere to deliberately sterilize oneself, to be glad and to “profit” from the sterilization, and then go to a shallow Confession, admitting the sin but not really being sorry that one did it (only sorry that it was a sin!).

But every sin can be forgiven, if one’s heart is right. Those who have had sterilizations should seek a good and wise confessor, who can help them toward honest repentance.

Those who love married people, and love the Faith, have a duty to help our people realize how wrong sterilization is, and how much it wounds the lives of those who deliberately accept it. We ought not destroy the precious powers God has given us. If one has excellent reasons for not having a child, there can be good and virtuous ways of seeing to that. But recourse to what faith has always known to be mortally sinful is not a happy way to solve a problem.

Father Lawler is the Director of Education for Pope John XXIII Center for MedicalMoral Research in Braintree, Mass.

Sterilization Destroys Healthy Functions

Why does the Church teach that sterilization is wrong? - A reader

Before addressing the morality of sterilization, we must first remember that each person is a precious human being made in God’s image and likeness with both a body and a soul. Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World asserted,

22

“Man, though made of body and soul is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day” (No. 14). St. Paul also reminds us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19) and therefore we should not degrade our bodily dignity by allowing the body to participate in the act of sin. Moreover, such sin hurts the body of the Church.

Therefore, we are responsible to care for our bodily needs with proper nourishment, rest, exercise, and hygiene. At times, we take medicine – over-thecounter as well as prescribed – to preserve our bodily health. However, we must not bring harm to our body by abusing drugs.

Circumstances arise when we need surgery. To preserve the well-being of our whole body, we can surgically remove an organ that is diseased or functioning in a way that harms the body. For instance, surgery to remove an appendix that is about to rupture is perfectly moral as is surgery to remove a mole which appears to be “pre-cancerous.” However, cut off a perfectly healthy hand and destroy not only that part but also its functions is an act of mutilation and morally wrong.

With this brief outline of principles, we can turn to sterilization. The most effective and least dangerous method of permanent sterilization is through vasectomy for a man and ligation of the fallopian tubes for a woman. Here a distinction is made between direct and indirect sterilization.

Direct sterilization means that the purpose of the procedure was simply to destroy the normal functioning of a healthy organ so as to prevent future conception of children. Such direct sterilization is considered as morally wrong. Regarding unlawful ways of regulating births, Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968) asserted, “Equally to be condemned … is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary” (No. 14). The Catechism also states, “Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law” (No. 2297).

Indirect sterilization is morally permissible. Here surgery, or drug or radiation therapy is not intended to destroy the functioning of a healthy organ or to prevent the conception of children. Rather, the direct intention is to remove or to combat a diseased organ; unfortunately, the surgery or therapy may “indirectly” result in the person being sterilized. For instance, if a woman is diagnosed with a cancerous uterus, the performance of a hysterectomy is perfectly legitimate and moral. The direct effect is to remove the diseased organ and preserve the health of the woman’s body; the indirect effect is that she will be rendered sterile and never able to bear children again. The same would be true if one of a woman’s ovaries or if one of the man’s testes were

23

cancerous or functioning in a way which is harmful to overall bodily well-being. (As an aside, I do not know of any medically therapeutic reason for a vasectomy.) The caution in this discussion to uphold the morality is that the operation is truly therapeutic in character and arises from a real pathological need.

Lastly, further caution must be taken concerning the rights of the state in this area. Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Casti connubii (1930) warned, “For there are those who, overly solicitous about the ends of eugenics, not only give certain salutary counsels for more certainly procuring the health and vigor of the future offspring, … but also place eugenics before every other end of a higher order; and by public authority with to prohibit from marriage all those from whom, according to the norms and conjecture of their science they think that a defective and corrupt offspring will be generated because of heredity transmission, even if these same persons are naturally fitted for entering upon matrimony. Why, they even wish such persons even against their will to be deprived by law of that natural faculty through the operation of physicians …”

Pope Pius XI was prophetic in his teaching, since shortly thereafter the world witnessed the eugenics program of Nazi Germany which included massive sterilization. In our world, various civil governments still toy with the idea of sterilization to solve welfare problems. Perhaps we may reach the point where health insurance companies pressure individuals to be sterilized rather than risk having children which may require high care.

Pope John Paul II warned in his encyclical The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae) of “scientifically and systematically programmed threats” against life. He continued, “… We are in fact faced by an objective ‘conspiracy against life,’ involving even international institutions, engaged in encouraging and carrying out actual campaigns to make contraception, sterilization, and abortion widely available. Nor can it be denied that the mass media are often implicated in this conspiracy, by lending credit to that culture which presents recourse to contraception, sterilization, abortion, and even euthanasia as a mark of progress and a victory of freedom, while depicting as enemies of freedom and progress those positions which are unreservedly pro-life” (No. 17).

In all, the Catholic teaching on this issue respects the dignity of the individual in both his person and action.

Fr. Saunders is dean of the Notre Dame Graduate School of ChristendomCollege