A Defense of the ‘Sterility Objection’ to the New Natural Lawyers’ Argument Against Same-Sex Marriage

A (Reconstructed) New Natural Law Account of Sexuate Selfhood and Rape's Harm

“…Characterized by a philosophically complex and categorical defence of traditional marriage, and a denial of the choice worthiness of same‐sex sexual relations, masturbation, contraception, abortion, and embryonic research as instantiations of the human good, the new natural lawyers' sexual ethic is increasingly out of step with current political and philosophic attempts to broaden the moral possibilities of sex, intimacy, and marriage . Moreover, their sexual ethic has been criticized for being internally incoherent, lacking public grounds for its arguments, and even providing a poor bulwark against pederasty, incest, bestiality, and abortion while simultaneously giving inadequate support for traditional marriage . Unsurprisingly, then, outside of its immediate circle of developers and followers the NNLT is infrequently plumbed for resources that might help us grapple, in a philosophically ecumenical way, with broader questions within sexual ethics.…”