What is Right About the Contra-Life Argument Against Contraception?

Abstract

The contra-life argument against contraception by Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, John Finnis, and William May maintains that contraception is always and everywhere morally wrong because it involves a contra-life choice to impede new human life. This article develops four problems that people might have with the contra-life argument and then shows that none of those problems undercut the argument. The most serious problem is that the contra-life argument seems to fail to show adequately what is wrong with impeding new human life, and this article neutralizes that problem by showing that choices to impede new human life are wrong because they involve unreasonable self-preference. Finally, this article shows that the moral character of contraceptive use for non-contraceptive reasons is often difficult to determine.

Contraceptives for Victims of Rape and for the Mentally Disabled: A Reply to Stephen Napier

“…If people do not genuinely care about such invasions and deposits except to the extent that health or prospective human life are at stake, then the intention of preventing further invasion collapses into an intention either to prevent disease or to contracept. 16…”

“…If people do not genuinely care about such invasions and deposits except to the extent that health or prospective human life are at stake, then the intention of preventing further invasion collapses into an intention either to prevent disease or to contracept. 16 This objection seems flawed in at least two ways, however. First, more modestly, one might very well object to the presence of forcibly achieved deposits of bodily fluids in one's own body even apart from the possibility of pregnancy.…”