In a couple of previous articles, we looked at an intriguing push for male contraceptives. 

In that article, I emphasized that the push for male contraceptives seems to be yet another example of The Lie—the idea that men and women are exactly alike in every way. That wasn’t so much a statement about whether male contraceptives are wrong, but rather a statement about the kind of worldview they harmonize with.

Yet, while in those articles I specifically refrained from making statements about the morality of contraceptives, I promised to write one on the topic later. Here’s my attempt.

I believe that there are serious issues with pharmaceutical contraceptives when either the man or the woman uses them. To see why, we first need to understand that actions can be problematic not just because of what they accomplish, but because of what they mean.

Here’s an example. 

If I were to meet someone who—though obviously a man—insisted on being referred to as “they/them,” I would consider it wrong to comply. It wouldn’t, literally speaking, be a “lie” to refer to a male as “they/them.” “They/them” could possibly be that generic personal pronoun people casually use. 

But the underlying statement that it makes is definitely a lie: I would be buying into the narrative that humans can tamper with their sexuality. So I would consider it wrong to oblige this male who demands “they/them” pronouns—not because it’s wrong to say those words, but because the underlying message those words send is definitely wrong.

 Here’s another example: I believe it is wrong for women to serve in combat roles in the military, even if they are exactly as physically capable as the average man. 

I believe that God has created men to fulfill a unique protector role which he does not call women to. This is revealed in the physical and spiritual differences between men and women, the biblical example of men always fighting the battles, and God’s warning for a woman to “not wear that which pertaineth unto a man” (Deuteronomy 22:5). 

When women start fulfilling men’s tasks, it is a deviation from God’s order of creation.

This tends to line up well with the fact that men tend to be better for war anyways—they tend to have a more aggressive disposition and be physically stronger. 

However, there are some women out there that have an atypically aggressive disposition, and who are atypically physically strong. Maybe a handful of them can even pass the same physical fitness tests as the average man, can shoot just as straight, and have the same desire to serve their country in combat roles. 

However, I would still say that it would be wrong for that woman to be placed in a combat role—not because she wouldn’t do as good of a job—but because of the underlying statement it would make. 

It would make a statement that men and women are interchangeable in an arena which God has specifically called men to.

All that to say, I’ve spent so much ink on this single idea because we don’t really think like this in the modern world anymore. Nowadays, we usually evaluate actions based on what they do or accomplish. (There exist a few women who could do just as good of a job as a man on the front lines.) 

We have a harder time evaluating actions based on what they mean. (Women in combat roles means that men are not inherently the protectors.)

Personally, I refused to think this way for the longest time, until finally, a mentor of mine drilled through my thick skull and showed me that some things are just wrong because of what they mean. 

After all, maybe the girl walking next to me is just as capable of opening the door for me, a man, as I am for her. But if she opens the door for me, it means something completely different than if I open the door for her.

Now that we’ve established that actions can be wrong because of what they mean, and because of the underlying statements they send, let’s apply this to contraception. 

When evaluating hormonal contraception according to what it does or accomplishes, we might be tempted to say that it’s morally benign. After all—as long as it doesn’t perform an abortifacient function (which is a very significant “if,” because many forms of contraception do)—doesn’t it accomplish just the same morally benign end result as abstinence? 

No baby is conceived either way. 

Indeed, it is hard to pinpoint the problem with contraception if we only look at it this way. But if we look at what pharmaceutical contraception means, big problems start to arise.

I believe that, as the world uses it, contraception is wrong. By this, I mean something very specific: “when contraception is used with the intention to enjoy a form of sexual activity from which consequences have been removed, it is wrong.” 

(There is a debate about whether contraception is wrong regardless of intention—see here and here for two opposing Christian views. But I’ll at least claim that when it’s done with the intention of removing the consequences from sex, it is wrong.) 

Not because it accomplishes something immoral, but because it communicates an immoral statement. Here’s the statement that it sends: sex is a fundamentally sterile past-time, and children are an optional feature.

God designed the sexual order to be inherently fruitful. Yes, it is a powerful instrument for intimacy as well, but it’s intimacy that’s ordered to produce something. (As a parallel, God also created us to enjoy the food that we eat, but that enjoyment is ordered to the productive activity of receiving nutrients from it.) 

This fruitfulness is so important to God that it was included in His original mandate to humans to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28). And sexual activity only occurs in the context of the family, which is the appropriate place to bring up the children it produces. 

Therefore, children are always in view when discussing the meaning of sexuality.

However, when contraception is used with the intention to enjoy a form of sexual activity while removing children from the picture, it takes sexual activity from its proper fruitful context. 

It makes the statement that its fundamental purpose is enjoyment, and children are an opt-in or opt-out feature. In other words, sex becomes fundamentally sterile, and only fruitful if you want it to be. 

Children are, you might say, a “choice.”

I was once told about certain ancient Romans who were such victims of gluttony that they would gorge themselves on tasty food—only to encounter the unfortunate consequence of becoming full and not having any more room for said tasty food. 

So they would tickle their throats with a feather to make themselves vomit up what they had already eaten, so then they would have more room to eat more tasty food. The credibility of this account has been questioned, but I think we’d all agree that if we saw anyone actually doing this, we’d be repulsed. 

Food is not to be enjoyed just for its taste and then retched up so you can keep tasting more food—after the good taste comes the productive work of digestion. 

God has designed both to come as a package deal: enjoyment and fruitfulness. 

It’s inappropriate to halt the process part-way just so you can keep enjoying the initial taste over and over again. And I think something similar can be said for contraception when it is intended to make sex consequence-free. 

On the surface, it doesn’t seem to accomplish anything wrong. But the statement it makes is that sex is fundamentally sterile, which is not how God ordained it.