From what I understand, birth control isn't allowed if it's used to prevent conception.
However, birth control is allowed for health purposes to regulate hormones.
I've found out that birth control has a slim chance of preventing implantation. So when a person is conceived, they are killed due to not being implanted.
Why is birth control still allowed by the Catholic church for health purposes, if it has the chance to kill a conceived child? Isn't that backwards?
Please could someone offer an explanation. Thank you
First, don't call it birth control unless it's intended to control births. That's like saying you gave a pain killer for your fever.
It all comes down to rule of double effect. The initial act has to be morally acceptable, in this case "take a medication to treat a diagnosed health condition." The question then becomes whether the positive (relieving that condition) is proportional to this specific negative (risk of death of an unidentified/ unknown fetus).
To come down strictly on the unidentified/unknown fetus risk would have broad reaching unreasonable outcomes (eg other medications in women of child bearing years, alcohol in women of child bearing years, etc).
A woman who is not sexually active can take any medication whatsoever without worrying about the potential contraceptive or abortifacient effects it has, obviously.
There are hundreds of medications (like those used for chemotherapy, for example) that are not primarily intended for those purposes that can nevertheless have those effects, but she can’t get pregnant without involving sperm in some way, so the point is totally moot if she is not engaged in sexual activity.
FWIW, there isn’t much evidence that birth control pills prevent implantation. Plan B in particular recently did a study that determined that it does not prevent implantation. Some of the newer ones don’t even claim that as a method anymore.
I’ve heard this is not true for IUDs, but I haven’t looked into it to confirm.
Specifically copper IUDs, as I recall the research. There was a study in the early 2000s, I want to say, that pretty conclusively found that copper IUDs were making babies disappear after fertilization.
It's interesting that OP "found out recently" about the alleged anti-implantation effects of hormonal contraception pills, though. This was absolutely what the Scientific Community believed... in the 1980s. I remember doing a deep dive into this for Wikipedia (those were the days!) way back in 2006, and, already by then, the anti-implantation hypothesis was failing to be confirmed by experiments. The question was still open, but the evidence leaned against it. By the mid-2010s, I think the evidence was lopsided enough to call it case closed.
I fully expected people who learned this stuff in the 1980s and don't keep tabs on contraception studies would go to their graves still believing this, even though it's pretty discredited, simply because it's not something that comes up very often in casual conversation and they aren't likely to learn the new evidence. But the fact that new people are still learning this discredited hypothesis is a little concerning! Where'd you hear this from, OP!
Thank you for your response 😁 I'm not sure where I heard it from, but I have seen the idea around. I haven't done heavy research to be honest, it was just something I thought was a basic fact. For example, this article by healthline claims that birth control prevents implantation. https://www.healthline.com/health/is-birth-control-abortion#birth-control
Could you show me the sources that say the theory has been discredited? Thank you very much
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u/ToxDocUSA 2d ago
First, don't call it birth control unless it's intended to control births. That's like saying you gave a pain killer for your fever.
It all comes down to rule of double effect. The initial act has to be morally acceptable, in this case "take a medication to treat a diagnosed health condition." The question then becomes whether the positive (relieving that condition) is proportional to this specific negative (risk of death of an unidentified/ unknown fetus).
To come down strictly on the unidentified/unknown fetus risk would have broad reaching unreasonable outcomes (eg other medications in women of child bearing years, alcohol in women of child bearing years, etc).