Why Healthcare Professionals Might Refuse to Dispense or Prescribe Contraception

A health care professional’s refusal to prescribe or dispense contraception often provokes anger. This sometimes even occurs when one Catholic hears about another Catholic who takes that position. Many people never move past that emotional response to ask why the professional holds that position or what principles are involved. The following discussion presents several considerations that may help readers better understand that perspective.

Consider the following hypothetical scenario. You are a single man. A group of people acting on behalf of a covert government program or some other organized entity spread malicious rumors about you, causing almost everyone in your social circle to turn against you. Somehow, the group also persuades those closest to you to participate in various tricks and acts of deception, much like bullying. Wherever you go these acts are repeated. One consequence is the sense that everyone is against you and that you do not have a friend in the world.

The point here is that you are completely alone. No one is willing to stand up for you, and the entities working against you appear far more powerful than anything you can oppose on your own.

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Now say that you as this man still desire to get married. You are Catholic and have fully entrusted God with bringing you and your future wife together somehow, even though at the moment everyone is against you.

Suppose you discover there is one woman who has heard about these schemes people do to you and decides not to participate in them. In fact, she is also single and, for the sake of this hypothetical scenario, say you believe that she might be your future wife and closest companion, a person with whom you might build a shared life as husband and wife.

The overall idea of this hypothetical scenario is to help you consider what it would be like to be rejected by most people in society and to live for years without a close friend. Even so, you have continued to trust that God would one day bring you together with a wife who would also be your closest companion. Finally, after years of waiting, it appears that this hope may be fulfilled.

Now, say also that you are a pharmacist. Suppose you are required to dispense pills that prevent certain people from continuing to exist because others find them inconvenient. One day, a prescription is presented to you for pills that would prevent the continued existence of the very woman whom you believe may become your future wife and closest companion.

Would you dispense those pills and end the existence of your future wife and best friend?

The scenario is intended to be overly dramatic in attempt to bring out the serious consequences of participating in prescribing or dispensing pills which prevent the future or continued existence of human beings. Contraception prevents the future existence of someone’s wife, husband, friend, or best friend, and dispensing or prescribing is participation in that act.

Of course, the scenario above involves pills that would end the life of a woman who already exists, which is more closely analogous to abortion than to contraception, while contraception prevents the complete existence of the woman. For this article the main point to understand is that contraception does indeed prevent existence of human beings. That is precisely why people use contraception – to prevent the existence of human beings while still being able to engage in sexual intercourse. “Contra-” means “against” and “-ception” is short for “conception”; existence begins at conception. (It will be elaborated in a moment, but abstinence is not “contra-ception” because no pro-creative act occurs with abstinence.)

So, would you dispense the pills that end the existence on earth of your future best friend and wife? Hopefully the answer is no. If so, you have arrived at the same, or at least a similar, conclusion as a pharmacist who refuses to dispense contraception or a prescriber who refuses to prescribe it.

(A tangent is necessary. There could be more reasons not completely elaborated here; for example, some healthcare professionals might argue that contraception falls outside the proper scope of healthcare. They may contend that its primary function is not to treat disease or restore health, but to facilitate pleasure without consequences and disconnect thinking from reality. A healthcare professional might see contraception not as healthcare at all, but as something like an illicit drug: a means of pursuing pleasure while wrongly thinking there are no serious realities tied to sexual activity.

It seems accurate to suggest that the concept of contraception itself can inflict psychological harm – sometimes described as “the contraceptive mentality” – by separating sex from the very serious consequences of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood. In a way, it seems that promoting, dispensing, or prescribing contraception could be argued to be the promotion of psychological disorder, so to speak, in part because it collectively detaches whole societies from the serious reality of sexual intercourse leading to pregnancy and childbirth. If one accepts psychiatry as a branch of medicine for the sake of argument, then one might argue that contraception and the contraceptive mentality represent a form of “contra-psychology” – that is, a practice that encourages psychological attitudes and behaviors contrary to “psychological health.” Promotion and use of contraception might be said to lead to an overall reduced perception of risks. Simply observe how contraception has likely led to significant increases in STDs. One might oppose contraception for those potential psychological/medical reasons in addition to what is elaborated in this article.)

Refer back to the scenario. The discovery of a best friend and wife causes overwhelming and indescribable happiness for a person who has not a friend in the world. While this might be difficult for many people to understand, God, the Creator, loves every human being with a love that is infinitely beyond the only-friend and spousal love described in the hypothetical scenario above. So, it is true to say that every single person, even if the whole world is against them, is loved by another, or is the best friend of another – and that “Person” is God, the Trinity. Contraception prevents God from creating His “best friends”, so to speak.

Now for potential objections. Some might say that in the above scenario the pills cause the death of a human, while contraception typically prevents the existence of humans altogether. Thus, they will say, the scenario is not comparable to contraception.

That would be an incorrect objection; first of all, it is known that contraception can cause abortions. Thus, the above scenario of preventing future existence is accurate in one way.

Additionally, both contraception and abortion imply that the marital act has taken place. Contraception, however, prevents the existence of a body and a soul, while abortion prevents the continued earthly existence of the body but the soul will exist forever. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas might actually argue that the prevention of both body and soul through contraception might be a worse evil than abortion. The main point is that contraception prevents existence.

Another objection, even from Catholics, might be something like, “it is impossible to prevent God from acting. Thus, there is no way contraception prevents God from creating and therefore prevents existence.” The claim is basically that because God is all-powerful, He cannot be prevented from acting. Refuting that claim from a philosophical and theological standpoint would likely require a whole book. However, it can be refuted by simply observing abortion – those who say that God’s creative action cannot be opposed would also likely have to say that God’s actions that keep a person alive cannot be opposed.

Obviously, though, that is false. What do abortion and other types of murder do? They prevent God from keeping the murdered person alive. So, if it is possible to prevent God from keeping one alive, it is reasonable to suggest it is possible to prevent God from creating when contraception is used. Otherwise, those who propose the “God cannot be prevented from acting” argument would have to say that every abortion is not opposed to His action.

It seems that same principle can be applied to contraception – just as abortion prevents God from keeping a person in existence on earth, so too does contraception prevent God from creating, and it prevents the existence of human beings. (Again, there is much more to discuss on this subject; the previous explanation is overly simplified.)

Another objection might be, “well, if contraception is evil because it prevents existence, then everything which does not involve sexual intercourse is preventing existence and therefore evil! Abstinence prevents existence! Eating prevents existence! Sleeping! Baseball! Everything which is not the marital act prevents existence! In all of those situations I am not engaging in the marital act and am therefore preventing existence, just like contraception does!”

It is difficult to believe people are serious when they make such comparisons, but a response is provided anyway. When a couple abstains from sexual intercourse, they are not performing the kind of act that could result in conception. Abstinence does not include the conditions necessary for the possibility of conception, so it cannot be said to “prevent existence” in the same way that contraception does. Contraception can be said to prevent the existence of a child who might otherwise result from a particular sexual act, whereas abstinence does not, because no such act has taken place.

Thus, when healthcare professionals prescribe or dispense contraception, they might consider the seriousness of this reality: they are providing the means to prevent the existence of someone’s future wife, husband, or best friend. One can be sure that that future person is God’s best friend, in the sense that God loves everyone beyond what words can describe.

It is for those reasons that some physicians, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals conclude that they cannot in good conscience prescribe or dispense contraception.

LifeNews Note: This article reflects the views of the author and not necessarily those of LifeNews.