Understanding Humanae Vitae, Part II

Cardinal Ottaviani, president of the Papal Commission on requested of Fr. John Ford and Dr. Germain Grisez some materials that would Memorandum Concerning the Mentality of Those that Would Approve Contraception, which was submitted to Cardinal Ottaviani for him to submit to His Holiness Pope Paul VI.  At the time Pope Paul was not pleased with the progress of the commission Bl John XXIII established to study birth rates and contraception.  Cardinal Ottaviani wanted to balance the reports that the Holy Father would recieve.

Part of this piece includes a series of arguments that those infavor of claiming that tradition should be reversed.  Here is one such argument:

c) If interference with nature were wrong as such, contraception would of course be wrong. However, interference is accepted in other areas. Man has dominion over nature, including the human body, its life and the human process of generation. Contraception attacks no real value, but only, a biological process. By this intervention of art, the physiological process is assumed into the life of the human person, Far from being immoral, contraception turns out to be humanizing—since art perfects nature for man.

To be honest, I can't understand this.  Perhaps, this is why Grisez mentions in his piece that not everyone of the majority agreed with everyone of the arguments.  I don't understand how they can say on the one hand "contraception attacks no real value, but only a biological process" and on the other "the physiological process is assumed into the life of the human person."  How contraception attack "just a biological process" which has been "assumed into the life of the human person" and not attack any real value?  Does the human person not have any real value?

Dr. Grisez mentions throughout his piece that the members of the commission, while all (except 4) agreeing that contraception should be allowed, disagreed as to why.  Perhaps this argument gives us a clue as to why.  This argument essentially holds that because sex is simply a biological process, not a human act, interference with it should not be all that troubling. I can honestly see why not everyone on the commission would sign on with this rationale.  Is sex simply a biological process?  If so, why is it so popular today?  Sex must be the single most profitable biological process, period. Have you noticed how many "great sex" guides there are out there?  Or what about items manufactured to assist in having sex?  Or media produced to encourage people to think about or have sex?  Or people whose sole job it is to have sex?  Heck, some people center their entire bedroom decor around the sexual act, to make sex more inviting in their bedroom.  Does this sound like a simple biological process?  Lives can be completely ruined by sex!  Somehow, I think that many on the majority side of the commission truly understood this, and so didn't want to relegate such a potent action to the category of "natural act" in line with breathing and defecating.  However, they didn't take that idea to its next logical conclusion.  If sex is so important, and more than just a biological process, than interfering with it would be wrong.

Besides the obvious fact that Holy Mother Church taught emphatically that contraception was forbidden at least twice before 1968, and to reverse that teaching would be to contradict Holy Mother Church, it would also counter what the Church held concerning sex and its importance to the human person.  Why would a well meaning, otherwise good person decide for the Church to teach something was clearly contradicted a teaching that went back to the apostles?  According to Grisez, it had a lot to do several things.  Of those things. Grisez singles out changes to the liturgy.  According to him, many of the faithful were thinking that if the Mass could be so radically changed, why not some of the Church's doctrines?