AIDS and Contraception

Our conversation this week broached the topic of the AIDS situation in Africa, but some had to leave early. So a quick recap:

There is a general consensus among a group of scholars that met at the university that contraceptives—-condoms--would dramatically improve the AIDS situation in Africa. The question was asked whether, if they are in fact correct, the Church could admit of circumstances that permit their use.

I posed a thought experiment, but I don't know where it leads. A couple situations:

America has the death penalty, and it is appropriate to say that the Church opposes it in our circumstances. Allowed now are means that are quick, effective, and relatively painless. But say we come to reintroduce other means that are slow, agonizing, and torturous, like drawing and quartering. Can the Church coherently maintain that the death penalty is in all circumstances wrong, but that drawing and quartering is worse? Or would lethal injection somehow be implicitly condoned if the Church said drawing and quartering were worse? Or would the Church simply continue to oppose the death sentence in general?

Perhaps another helpful example is abortion.

America allows abortion and the Church opposes it in all its forms. Most forms are legal right now, but, if I'm not mistaken, partial-birth is not. When that law was passed (illegalizing partial-birth abortion), could Catholics support it on the ground of its particularly heinous character? Could it in any way be called “worse” than a “normal” abortion? Or would any such support rather be based on other grounds, such as a numbers argument (i.e. any law that reduces the number of abortions, regardless of the kind, is good)?

Neither of these actually get at the root of the AIDS situation, however, because it fundamentally involves more than one party. I heard it phrased this way once:

Contracting AIDS is a death-sentence. If a woman has a promiscuous husband who contracts the disease extra-maritally, she has the right to defend herself from his (equivalent of an) attempt on her life. She can ask that they not have sex at all, but what if he is insistent or even forceful? While still rape, she would seem to have more influence over her attacker than in other rape cases; would she be right to insist that he wear a condom? I'll attempt an answer in a bit.

What to make of these cases. Well, if, again, the data is correct, there is still the tricky business of the principle that one may never do evil that good may come of it (which the Church affirms). Only the last of the examples begins to capture this, because the first two are merely tolerating a lesser evil to avoid a greater one (which the Church finds morally permissible). Since the teaching is that contraception is wrong in all circumstances, one would have to actively choose something evil to not spread AIDS (an ostensible good), but that does not seem to be morally permissible.

However, there is a difference between the man and the woman in the last case. The man, in forcing himself on the woman, clearly would be acting immorally whether he wore the condom or not. In either case, he is choosing an evil: rape on the one hand or contraceptive intercourse (mediately) on the other. The woman, however, has a different experience of the situation. If she's a good Catholic, she wants neither contraceptive sex nor AIDS. But if her choice is truly either/or, she would be tolerating a lesser evil (engaging in contraceptive sex) over a greater one (exposing herself to the threat of AIDS) if she chose to ask for a condom. Certainly the man is the sinner. But it would seem to be morally permissible for the woman, forced to choose between two evils, to insist on the condom.

I keep saying it, but IF the consensus is correct, the question comes to my mind whether some slight revision might be made to the teaching regarding contraception's intrinsically immoral character. Based on the sacramental character of the marriage bond, I do not expect the Church to allow married people to use contraception; contraceptive acts would not be in line with the self-giving character of the bond (as JPII argues in his theological phenomenology). But those acts that take place outside marriage do not have this character. Quite the opposite, in fact; many who engage in extra-marital relations are well aware that they have no intention of giving themselves to the other person. Phenomenologically, then, it would seem to be more consistent (while still morally impermissible) for such persons to reflect this lack of self-giving in their physical expression as well. I might even go so far as to say that it would be better (more responsible? less ethically reprehensible?), given a true either/or between contraceptive extra-marital sex and non-contraceptive extra-marital sex, to choose the former. If one were to question the intrinsically immoral character of contraception, that would be how I would do it.

But now to address that big IF. There is certainly a scholarly consensus, as Marina pointed out last Tuesday, that goes against Church teaching. The question is whether this consensus is based on ideology or in the raw data. I have read a few articles (including http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/03/002-aids-and-the-churches-getting-the-story-right-27 ) that argue that the consensus is primarily ideological (they are admittedly conservative sources, but the raw data they report can certainly be checked). Because the researchers have a “Western” conception of sexual liberty, they take for granted the inviolable right to multiple partners and the irreformability of individuals' behavior. On that ground, condoms are the only tool left. But the data cited in the articles I read indicates that not only did behavior change in many countries, but that all countries that showed decreased levels of AIDS also had lower reports of multiple partners. The record for condoms was more mixed. One country (Cameroon), according to these reports, reported increased condom sales from 6 to 15 million with a concurrent (1992-2001) HIV increase from 3 to 9 percent (http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/african_aids_the_facts_that_demolish_the_myths/ ). So the effectiveness of condoms, it seems, can be questioned. Certainly it would be too hasty to accuse the pope of living in an “alternate universe” (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2008890215_editb20pope.html ), but in some sense the author of that column is right; to seek after Christ and live as he asks does alter one's perception of the world around us. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Such questioning of prevalent paradigms may be the role that a Catholic has to take in these concrete circumstances: to seek, as Fr. Tom said yesterday at mass, divine knowledge regardless of what others in places of authority might claim to be true. We must follow the Truth, which includes the data, but also the person of Christ. And sometimes, like Galileo, one finds oneself standing with Truth against what other people are saying is Christ and his Church. Discernment is required, and the task of the Christian scientist cannot be dictated to them by these principles alone. Simply seek Truth and take the Magisterium seriously.

I think that's all I have to say on that right now. It's interesting to me that most of my posts this year have ended up discussing contraception. Hm.