The wife had been nearly bullied into getting a sterilization as a young woman. She was told that there was severe medical need for the sterilization due to the dangers posed by pregnancy complications. She was told, “If you get pregnant again, you will die.” At the time she had only a vague sense that sterilization was wrong. She was hit especially by the permanence of the procedure. She had serious doubts, but in the end she trusted her doctors, family and friends who were all telling her to have the tubal ligation.

Years later, her heart was moved closer to Christ and she was convicted that she had committed a serious sin^T. Eventually her husband joined her conviction and together they sought out a way to right the wrong by getting the sterilization reversed. Of course, they met with serious opposition from doctors who said, “Why would you want to do this? You have two kids. You don’t have to worry about getting pregnant. Why go back?” But they persisted and eventually found help through One More Soul. The operation was successful.

It was a beautiful story of conversion and restitution. The couple went through quite a trial (not to mention major surgery) to undo their sin. Their suffering and struggle was part of their restitution. Restitution is part of the conversion process, which usually runs the path of:

1. Compunction: conviction of sin
2. Confession & reconciliation: usually both personal and sacramental
3. Penance: making some act that turns the heart more completely toward sorrow for sin and connects us to the forgiveness of Christ on the Cross.
4. Restitution: putting right the wrong done by the sin

The only problem that I had with this beautiful testimony is that it left the impression that sterilization was a necessary step in being forgiven for the sin. I think the wife even told the priest that she could not accept Christ’s forgiveness until she got the tubal ligation reversed. The fact is that sterilization reversal is major surgery, and like all major surgery carries a very large risk. The risk of life outweighs the evil of the sin enough to make sterilization reversal extraordinary restitution. Extraordinary restitution is not required for forgiveness. Let me say that again. Those who have been sterilized do not need to go through major surgery to have their sterilizations reversed before they can be forgiven by Christ.

That is to take nothing away from the experience and personal convictions of this couple. In the privacy of a couple’s own conscience, the Holy Spirit may lead a couple to undergo heroic measures of restitution. This is especially the case when further conversion is necessary. Some are indeed called to extraordinary restitution.

As the husband continued the story, he shared that while his wife struggled with the choice to have her fallopian tubes tied, he internally rejoiced in his wife’s sterilization. Furthermore, while his wife became convicted that sterilization was wrong, he was enjoying the sex without consequences and the higher standard of living he was able to have with only two children. Obviously, God had more work to do on his heart. I believe that the Holy Spirit did indeed call this couple to extraordinary restitution to complete the husband’s conversion from selfishness to generous love.

In the end, God did bless their conversion toward life with new life. They had another child and have learned to accept the risks of pregnancy and the rigors and joys of parenthood in truly selfless love.

On the other hand, I know a couple in the same situation who underwent a similar conversion who decided that they were not called to sterilization reversal. Their conversion and dedication to life is no less complete. The Holy Spirit did not call this couple to extraordinary restitution because their conversion to life was complete without it.

Sterilization reversal is extraordinary restitution. When extraordinary restitution is necessary to complete one’s conversion, the Holy Spirit will call us to it. If he does not call us to it, we are not required to make extraordinary restitution. We need to discern the call of the Holy Spirit in our own hearts. However, we must be careful not to be misled by scrupulosity on one hand or by selfishness and a desire for the easy way out on the other hand. The Christian life is one of balance and careful discernment. But it is always a life led by love.

End Note

^TThere is no doubt that sterilization is morally wrong. However, the woman who gave the testimony may have fallen victim to a misunderstanding of what constitutes a sin. It seems to me through her story that the pressures to get herself sterilized were great. The greatest influence was perhaps the voice of the professional as her doctor told her that sterilization was necessary to save her life. A person is only culpable for sin to the degree that she knows that it is evil and freely chooses it anyway. Her story indicated that she did not have true knowledge of the evil, and that she was practically coerced into the decision. Therefore, while the procedure is still gravely evil, she was probably not guilty of actual sin. Once she gained the knowledge, she chose against the sterilization in the form of remorse for her action. That choice was true contrition. I got the sense that this woman carried with her some unnecessary guilt. On the other hand, God used her guilt to bring her healing, not only of her body but also of her heart.

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There is one group thinking outside of the box (to borrow a cliche). This past weekend my wife and I attended a conference on NaPro TECHNOLOGY put on by Dr. Thomas Hilgers. While I was already aware of NaPro TECHNOLOGY and the Pope Paul VI institute, Dr. Hilgers opened our eyes to the difference between our culture’s twisted view of woman’s health and what true science can do for women.

For example, popular “scientific wisdom” claims that natural progesterone does nothing to help women suffering from PMS, post-partum depression or pre-menopause symptoms. The studies that led to this conclusion treated all of the women in the experimental group as if their cycles were the same length. Treating all women’s cycles the same resulted in an indiscriminate administration of progesterone. If progesterone is introduced into a woman who does not need it at this point in her cycle, the result is to negate the effect of all progesterone in her cycle, perhaps making her symptoms even worse.

The Pope Paul VI institute performed a study that targeted the administration of progesterone to each woman’s individual cycle. They found that supplementing the woman’s own progesterone production resulted in marked improvements in symptoms for PMS, post-partum depression and pre-menopause. I find it ironic that natural family planning used to be criticized for assuming that all women had similar cycles. Now natural family planning is the only woman’s health movement that treats women as individuals.

Another example of the lack of woman’s health in accepted medical practice is the difference in reported cases of endometriosis. In vitro fertilization clinics report that about five percent of women seeking fertility treatments have endometriosis. However, scientific surveys found that around 80% of women suffering from infertility had endometriosis. Why the great difference? In vitro fertilization clinics don’t even screen for endometriosis. In fact, most causes of infertility go undiagnosed because Ob-Gyn doctors prefer to offer hyper-ovulation drugs or refer their patients to in vitro fertilization clinics. After all, in vitro fertilization makes identifying and treating actual problems in the fertility system unnecessary. This is not woman’s health. It is circumventing true health for the sake of a quick solution.

The pill is often given for “medical reasons.” However, there have been only two scientific studies on the use of the pill to treat problems in a woman’s cycle. Therapeutic use of the pill is all “off-label.” Typically the therapeutic value of chemical contraception comes from shutting down the fertility system, which gets rid of the symptoms but does nothing to address the underlying problem. Again, this is not woman’s health but circumventing true health for the sake of a convenient quick fix.

Contraception and abortion are considered by “accepted medical practice” as woman’s health because they prevent the birth of a child. Preventing childbirth has nothing to do with health. In fact, it is contrary to the natural and healthy function of the fertility system. Natural family planning is able to help women plan their families without doing damage to fertility or to human life. It is also helps trained medical professionals to diagnose possible causes of infertility and recommend a course of treatment, ranging from simple hormone supplements to reconstructive surgery. These treatments have success rates over 80%, resulting in actual reproductive health. In contrast, in vitro fertilization and hyper-ovulation drugs have success rates under 25% – much lower even than success rates of unrefined treatments used before 1970.

Pharmacists that won’t dispense contraception and doctors that refuse to perform abortions are accused of denying reproductive health to women. Actually, our culture’s obsession with sex without consequences is the true culprit.

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Regulating women (Ellen Goodman ~ Boston… – Care2 News Network

Abortion is inherently harmful to women, their argument goes, because it violates a woman’s true “nature,” her role as a mother. This would be familiar stuff to Justice Bradley, but Justice Kennedy also wrote about “the bond of love the mother has for her child,” suggesting that any true woman would suffer.

I don’t deny that some women feel regret as well as relief after an abortion. More than 30 million American women have had abortions since Roe v. Wade. Each unwanted pregnancy comes with its own story of a failed contraceptive or failed relationship, of an economic or a health crisis.

Some women do indeed feel coerced by men or by parents. Surely thousands have suffered from the crisis they faced and the decision they had to make.

But to this range of individual dilemmas, the pro life argument offers only one solution: Criminalize abortion. To this range of life stories, it offers only one kind of “help”: Take the decision out of her hands. Now their argument has been folded into a Supreme Court decision. As Yale Law School’s Reva Siegel said, “The opinion imagines that the state knows better than women what they really want and need in matters of motherhood.”

I want to first focus on the last argument here. Ms. Goodman’s argument reminds me of a debate I had with my aunt about the Church’s teaching on contraception. She was arguing that contraception must be made legitimate because a woman has the right to protect herself against an abusive husband or boyfriend who pushes sex on her. She argued that in such cases there is no way that Natural Family Planning could work.

My aunt made a very similar argument to Ms. Goodman’s, “the only solution the Church offers a woman in such a condition is to get pregnant.” The same is true of Ms. Goodman’s claim. Is criminalizing abortion really the only solution offered by pro-life groups? Most pro-life groups that I am aware of support a total respect of reproduction, including the promotion of abstinence education (another thing that Ms. Goodman ridicules). Efforts include pregnancy crisis centers, houses for single pregnant mothers, and promotion of adoption. These and other solutions preserve the dignity of motherhood. Far from taking the choice out of women’s hands, pro-life groups attempt to empower women to make the best choices, before they choose to have sex and after the natural consequence and purpose of sex occurs in their bodies. It is Ellen Goodman who is removing choice – by narrowing the decision to two options: kill your baby or suffer with an “unwanted baby.”

This is exactly the point where Ms. Goodman’s modernist philosophy comes to bear. I think I would find my self disagreeing with Justice Bradley’s ruling that women should not work outside the home. However, my reason for disagreeing would be very different from Ms. Goodman’s. For me, Justice Bradley’s argument is a misapplication of a true principle. Women and men are different, and therefore play different roles in society. It does not necessarily follow that they should not be part of the workforce, or that they should not follow careers. In fact, women should be in the workforce precisely because they are different from men. While men approach their careers from the male perspective and in the role of fathers, women approach their careers from a female perspective and in their role as mothers. Motherhood and fatherhood are roles not limited to the upraising of children.

Modernists see Justice Bradley’s ruling in a completely different light. Modernists don’t believe that there is such a thing as motherhood, or womanhood, or fatherhood, or manhood. For a modernist, his ruling is an imposition of a subjective label (motherhood, fatherhood, male, female) on a culture. Modernists also see his ruling as a power struggle between men and women, in which men try to impose a subservient role onto women in order to keep them under their thumb. They see attempts to interfere with “abortion rights” in the same way.

This viewpoint also feeds into the liberal view of government. For modernists, the purpose of government is to ensure individual liberty, defined as the right to do whatever you want – ultimately, to make up whatever reality you choose to live. If modernists believed in such things, they would have a tough time coming up with any proof that America was founded on this view of government. Contrarily, our country was formed on a much more Catholic view of government. The purpose of government is primarily to protect the common good. The common good includes some fundamental freedoms and rights, but throughout history a society that allowed its citizens to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted was doomed to failure.

Are gender roles important to the common good? If we examine our culture it doesn’t take too much thought to see that our culture is suffering due to the failure of families, higher divorce rates, and lower marriage rates. This is what Justice Bradley was trying to prevent. Keeping women out of the workforce was probably not the way to do it, but a way must be found to bring back parenthood as a value in society and to truly respect gender differences. Government has a stake in this question because how we treat family and gender roles affects all of society.

So what about partial birth abortion? Does government have a stake in the question about whether or not abortion is good for women? Does government have a stake in the question about whether or not a medical procedure should be legal? Clearly, if you consider the purpose of government the protection of the common good, the answer to both of these questions has to be yes. Finally, can somebody please tell me how killing an unborn baby is good for women’s health? Let’s face it – no matter what your view of gender roles and government, killing babies in order to preserve personal freedom is depraved.

The abortion-hurts-women argument had its first incarnation in repeatedly debunked attempts to link abortion to breast cancer. Now anti abortionists have fabricated an entire mental illness they name post-abortion syndrome, which has been debunked by study after study.

It is my understanding that Ellen Goodman is simply wrong in calling these findings debunked. Notice that she didn’t provide any reference for the studies, which isn’t absolutely necessary, but it would be nice if she did. A 1995 study by pro-choice researcher Janet Daling identified specific high-risk groups: women under 18 or over 29 had a twofold increase in risk; women with a family history of breast cancer, an 80% increased risk; and teenagers with a family history who had abortions before they were 18 had an “incalculably higher risk.” All 12 of the women in this last category of the study contracted breast cancer by age 45. See also the ABC Link home page

I am less familiar with studies on post-abortion syndrome. It seems to me that PAS is simply an application of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, identified more in clinical settings than by studies. Certainly the outcomes of such projects as Project Rachel give credence to claims of PAS. However, it is also possible that pro-lifers are overstating their case by giving feelings of guilt and remorse a label as if it were a legitimate psychological disorder. I think pro-life groups do themselves a disservice if this is the case. We don’t need to use deception or exaggeration to win our case, and to do so actually hurts our credibility. If anyone is aware of objective studies that show whether or not PAS is real, please leave a comment with the info!

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Suddenly, Americans are waking up to the fact that women are being confronted at the counter by pharmacists asserting a religious or moral right to refuse to dispense hormonal contraceptives or emergency contraceptives. An estimated 12 million American women use hormonal contraceptives for birth control. But the drugs can also be prescribed for many other indications, including acne, fibroids, endometriosis, and to regulate menstrual periods.

The crux of the current conflict is the question of when pregnancy begins. The long-standing medical definition held by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is that pregnancy begins when the fertilized egg is implanted in the uterine lining. But pharmacists who refuse to dispense hormonal contraceptives believe that pregnancy begins at fertilization. In the event that birth control pills do not suppress ovulation and an egg is fertilized, these R.Ph.s believe the drugs cause a chemical abortion. And some pharmacists believe that referring the patient to another pharmacist or pharmacy makes them unwilling parties to abortion.

You have heard the stories, I’m sure. Pharmacists fired for refusing to dispense hormonal contraceptives. I’m sure you have also heard the opinions. The topic even came up in my masters level English class, where pharmacists who exercised their conscience were labeled “draconian” and “abusers of power.” The article referenced above is actually one of the more balanced treatments of this issue that I have seen. My wife is a pharmacist, so I happen to have personal stake in this issue. As a moral theology teacher I also have a lot to say about it.

I have to wonder why this issue is framed as an issue of religious rights. In a modernist culture, anything labeled as a religious argument is immediate written off as irrational emotional opinion. My wife will tell you that the main reason for a pharmacist to object to dispensing contraception is professional and medical, not religious. Personally speaking, religious motivations are the highest ranking motivations for doing anything. Bringing glory to God is the most important goal I can have in life. However, when we are engaging a modernist culture, perhaps religious motivations are not best in the forefront.

What are the medical reasons for refusing to dispense hormonal contraceptives? First of all, the primary action of hormonal contraceptives is to shut down a healthy body part. One of the first tenants of medical ethics, under the credo, “Do no harm,” is that the body must be kept whole unless the damage done to a body part of physical function threatens the health of the individual. I often use the ridiculous example with students of asking a doctor for an amputation just because you don’t like your arm or your leg. No doctor who respects his profession would do it. Yet, they willingly shut down a woman’s fertility system so that the patients can have sex without consequence. That’s not right. The erosion of this medical ethic is already apparent. I just read that a doctor in Great Britain amputates the legs of clients who claim to be turned on by the site of leg stubs. In addition to the primary function of the drug, hormonal contraceptives also have a lot of horrendous side effects. In fact, in the clinical trials of the first hormonal contraceptives, two women apparently died. The pill was approved anyway. Users of hormonal contraceptives put themselves at risk for blood clots, heart problems, strokes, and infertility in addition to a plethora of other potential problems. Considering the potential side effects, there are better and safer treatments for fibroids, endometriosis, and acne as well. For heaven’s sake! Who would prescribe a medication with such side effects for acne? A pharmacist who knows about the primary and secondary effects has the right and the obligation to deny such dangerous medication to a client. That’s what pharmacists are trained to do!

But the FDA approved oral contraceptives and doctors prescribe them, so they must be safe and ethical, right? The truth is that the medical community has its head in the sand when it comes to sexual health. A wonderful example of the medical community’s denial of the truth when it comes to sexuality is the practice of sex change operations. A study by Johns Hopkins showed that people who get trans-sexual surgery do not become psychologically balanced and contented. Yet, despite this scientific finding, most psychiatrists and doctors continue to recommend such surgery for people with sexual ambiguity or gender identity disorder. The medical community is guilty of bad medicine when it comes to sexual health. They pander to politicians and cultural powers that want to see sexuality become free of consequences. Pharmacists and doctors who refuse to deal out contraception are the last defenders of good medicine. They may also be motivated by religious conviction, but the first argument they should make comes from good medical practice, not from their faith.

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The Cincinnati Post – DNA dad must be available

I am willing to guess that Mary and Heather chose a sperm bank as their matchmaker since these banks offer their customers – and I do mean customers – a screened set of genes from a diverse portfolio of men. The sperm donors range in height and ethnicity, athletic prowess and SAT scores. Some donors even provide an essay, sort of like a college admissions application.

It’s fair to say that the sperm banks overtly promote the importance of the male gene in the creation of a child. And covertly promote the unimportance of the male presence in the raising of a child.

In the beginning, artificial insemination was a treatment for married couples with an infertile husband. Sperm donors, or sperm vendors as bioethicist George Annas calls the men who sell their genetic material, were often medical students who treated this as casually as a blood donation. The world and the child were expected to regard the husband as the biological father.

Today about 30,000 babies a year are born from sperm donors. The customers are now likely to be single women who have given up looking for Mr. Right in favor of Donor Right, and lesbians. But the donors are pretty much the same.

“Most of them are young guys trying to make some money and not thinking about the consequences,” says David Plotz, author of “The Genius Factory,” a book about a famous sperm bank. “They make a donation, it’s kept in quarantine, released to someone they don’t know and then a child is created with whom they have no connection.”

This makes a perfect market solution: female customers who want children and male manufacturers ready to sell their genetic material without strings or custody suits attached. But sooner or later, the “consequences” grow up and may have a very different opinion. Some children of sperm donors are beginning to search for their biological parents the way adopted children do.

I was amazed when I read the commentary quoted above from Boston Globe’s Ellen Goodman. The language Ms. Goodman uses to describe the practice of artificial insemination could have come from the pen of a Catholic commentator. It is a great example of the brutal honesty that I admire in Ms. Goodman. She calls the women who use artificial insemination “customers.” She describes how these “customers” choose their products from the most genetically desirable donor profiles. She explains how artificial insemination basically allows women to have children without a real man in the picture at all. She correctly identifies the potentially horrible effects such a market-based approach to reproduction may have on children – “But sooner or later, the ‘consequences’ grow up and may have a very different opinion.’” She even seems to take the correct moral stance, stating later in the article (not quoted above), “. . . who said that families were markets?”

But then, true to the modernist philosophy that drives her, she proclaims, “We can’t ban sperm donation any more than we ban the fertile one-night stand.” What is her solution to the marketing of children and families? Give the children the right to know their biological father.

As a father of an adopted child, I know that the conversation will one day begin (and be ongoing) wherein my wife and I will have to reveal to our daughter where she came from. We have chosen to try very hard to keep an open line with her birth mother so that they can meet some day if they choose to. However, I do not look forward to the pain my daughter will experience when she finds out that she was created through an act of selfish sexual pleasure, and that her biological father doesn’t even know that she exists. The pain will not come from not knowing her biological father. The pain will come from realizing that she was an “accident,” the product of a careless act of pleasure. You see, human beings are meant for love. We are meant to be created by an act of love, and we are destined to live in love for all eternity with God, Love Himself. It is devastating for a child to know that she was not created in love. We hope that the love that we have given her as her adoptive parents will heal those wounds.

Now, can you imagine the devastation that occurs when a child finds out that she was created in a marketplace transaction between a customer and a “manufacturer” of genetic material? Not only was she not created out of an act of love, she was a product to be tailor-made, manufactured, and purchased. Will meeting her biological father make up for such an insult to her dignity? Just as in the case of adoption, one hopes that the love given by the family who raises her will help to heal those wounds. However, that love has already begun with certain conditions, since the baby ‘s genetic material was chosen for certain desirable qualities. What if the baby never exhibits the qualities that the mother paid for? Can this relationship ever become pure, unconditional love? Perhaps it can – the human capacity to love can be surprising at time – but it is certainly going to be a difficult journey when it has such a faulty start.

Why can’t we put a stop to the callous marketing of human life? Ms. Goodman seems to have a strange definition of freedom, and an even stranger idea of the purpose of law and authority. It would probably not be prudent for a government to outlaw extra-marital sexual relationships – not because government should not take moral stands, but because to legislate morality too much is to remove the opportunity for citizens to embrace morality for themselves. However, government has the responsibility to create laws that protect the innocent from being taken advantage of by those who choose evil. Government has to impose laws and restrictions on society because there are those in society who do choose evil. Laws against rape, murder and theft are obvious examples. However, there were also times in history when government needed to step in on behalf of the weak to impose restrictions on the powerful. This would be a perfect case for such law. We need to protect the dignity of our children against those who would make our children victims of market forces. If some women seek out sperm donors on their own, and use a turkey baster to get the job done, then at least our culture has not condoned such a heinous act, and has not made it easy for a woman to treat her child as a commodity.

The practice of commercialized artificial insemination would have struck horror into the hearts of most Americans in the 1950s. However, when Pope Paul VI wrote Humanae Vitae, warning that the callous use of technology for reproduction (for avoiding and achieving pregnancy) would lead to the commercialization of sexuality and of the family, he was scoffed at. Now we see how right he was. The question is, do we have the courage to stand against the tide?

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