Voluntary Sterilization Severs God's Perfect Creative Plan for Our Lives
by Fr. Denis St. Marie and Fr. Paul Marx
After twenty years of worldwide travel and teaching the benefits of natural
family planning (NFP) and the harmful effects of abortion, sterilization
and contraception, we have concluded that deliberate human sterilization to
avoid conception poses an enormous threat to the Church; indeed to the
entire world.
Sterilization literally severs the neutered person's relationship with God.
Through sterilization, God's precious gift of life and its transmission
mankind's most special sharing in the creative aspect of God's character --
is being rejected; in most instances irrevocably.
There are three types of sterility. Some people are born sterile. These
people constitute about 20 percent of the world's couples. Many more
unfortunate couples are sterile due to secondary effects of medical
treatments or other causes. These couples are guilty of no wrong, but they
suffer all the same; far more than we can imagine. Our hearts go out to
them.
The third group of sterile partners consists of those who voluntarily have
opted for some procedure to make them sterile. Their sterility may be
temporary or permanent. It may be the husband or the wife who has been
sterilized. It may have been done by surgery, medication, radiation or by
some other method.
It is this third group that we are dealing with in this article.
Most of these men and women were badly advised by their doctors that they
should be sterilized. They were told that another pregnancy could
jeopardize the wife's health and maybe even her life.
After explaining the situation to their pastor, the couple may have been
told that he didn't understand these things, but if a good doctor said it
was necessary, then they should follow their conscience. In such cases,
they probably committed no sin, and have no need of confession. This seldom
is the case, however. Most couples who choose voluntary sterilization
choose something that is morally wrong.
There is nothing inherently wrong with following the doctor's advice to
avoid another pregnancy when the health of the mother, or even that of the
father, is at serious risk. It is up to the couple to decide when they will
conceive and how many children they will have. It is the means that they
use to accomplish this that is subject to question.
What the Church teaches
This is what the Church teaches: "Equally to be avoided is direct
sterilization, whether permanent or temporary, whether of the man or of the
woman" (Humanae Vitae #14). Direct sterilization is the only surgical
procedure performed solely to destroy the sound functioning of a healthy
organ. This is neither good medicine nor good morals. The end never
justifies the means; so here we are faced with a question of immorality.
Every medical operation involves some risk, and that certainly includes
direct sterilization. It is probably a far less dangerous procedure for men
than it is for women, but the man who undergoes sterilization is subject to
some harmful secondary effects.
Since, on a worldwide basis, women are sterilized with five times greater
frequency than men, let's briefly consider some of the secondary effects
that we can substantiate with medical studies.
The sterilized woman is seven times more likely to suffer an ectopic
pregnancy than the woman who has not been sterilized. This number is so
small that, even multiplied seven times, it is still perhaps statistically
insignificant unless that number happens to include you. The sperm
sometimes find their way to the ovum by circumventing the serrated portion
of the fallopian tubes. But since the fertilized ovum is considerably
larger, it cannot come down the fallopian tube, and so an ectopic pregnancy
results. When the symptoms appear, the woman may be advised that she has a
cyst or a tumor. The doctor probably will insist that the trapped, growing
embryo constitutes an emergency threat to the mother's life. He will claim
he needs to operate at once.
Another more common, but less understood, effect of sterilization on young
women is their accelerated entry into pre-menopause. It depends upon how
much of the fallopian tube has been destroyed, reducing the blood supply to
the ovaries. They begin to function less efficiently, reducing the
production of estrogen and progesterone, the feminizing hormones.
Many complications
When the sterilized woman is in her twenties or early thirties, her chances
of having difficult periods in her forties or sooner are all too common.
She may have painful, prolonged, irregular or copious bleeding as the years
progress. This often leads her to the fourth most common effect:
hysterectomy, the removal of her uterus, with or without her ovaries.
Women who have been sterilized are at least twenty times more likely to
need a hysterectomy than women who have not been sterilized, according to
Dr. Patricio Mena of the University of Chile.
A highly competent obstetrician/gynecologist with a large practice some
years ago in the San Diego area once told us that there were 64
gynecological surgeons there at that time. The more surgery, the more
money, so they sterilized a lot of women. Months after their operations,
some of these women came in to complain of irregular bleeding. The doctor
would do a dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure. Despite initial relief,
many of these women later returned to complain about the same problem. The
surgeon did a second D&C. When the woman returned a third time, the
unscrupulous doctor would tell her that, after all, she was now in her
early thirties and so in need of a hysterectomy. Our doctor-friend's
comment: "The surgeon got four checks for something he should not have done
in the first place."
Pysychological twists
While the physical effects of sterilization are quite easy to demonstrate
statistically, the greater effect probably is not physical but
psychological. No person escapes the emotional effects. Sooner or later, to
some degree, every sterilized person will have to suffer some psychological
effect. There is an old saying that God always forgives, men forgive
sometimes, but nature NEVER forgives. When the doctor destroys the sound
functioning of a healthy organ, nature simply does not forgive. Jealous of
her fertility, she strikes back.
Some years ago, a lady doctor, an expert in NFP in southern France, asked
me why men with sterilized wives often impregnate fertile women, as if they
no longer find their wives sexually attractive or interesting. The doctor
claimed to have often seen such cases. There is no clear explanation. We
seemingly must consign this phenomenon to the subtle, delicate
psychological twists and turns of wounded human sexuality.
Men also are affected by sterilization, although perhaps to a lesser degree
than are women. Sooner or later, sterilized men suffer some psychological,
as well as physical, effects. Although the physical and emotional
repercussions for men seem to be far less than for women, there are
indications that male sterilization increases the possibility of
circulatory problems due to blocked sperm. This may result in a heart
attack or stroke, but these effects seem to appear years later. So why
worry? The man may die of an accident before these effects even occur. But
in case he does not have that accident, maybe he will have to worry.
The physiological or psychological consequences of male neutering are still
largely matters for theoretical speculation. At a huge Planned Parenthood
meeting some years ago a speaker frankly admitted that no one knew what
happened to the undelivered sperm. He spoke vaguely about vasectomy causing
white corpuscle mischief in the bloodstream.
Grave spiritual damage
But now we arrive at the most serious effect of sterilization, one you
probably have never heard of, or thought about. We believe the gravest
effect of direct sterilization is SPIRITUAL.
Many people will get to heaven to be with God, who is Love and Life, by
having married for love and for life. They are the ends or purposes of the
sacrament of marriage. Sex is an integral part of marriage. It is, in fact,
the "matter" of the sacrament. And sex, like marriage, is for Love and for
Life. It is only on infrequent occasions that sexual activity produces new
human life; more often it is for the fortifying or nurturing of the love of
the couple.
Love by its very nature must be fruitful. Of course, there are many ways
love can be fruitful without leading to the procreation of children. The
religious life is testimony to that. God is Love and God is Life. You can
no more divide love from life than you can divide God. Sexual relations
motivated by love and concern in marriage are always good, licit and
sanctifying - provided that the marital act remains open to life.
Most people will get to heaven because they married for love and life and
raised children for love and for life. Many sterilized people - especially
those who have misguidedly undergone "the procedure" - will get to heaven
as well, since they have manifested much love.
A field that is sterile is one that doesn't produce anything, or at least
one that produces little of worth. A sterile mind is one that likewise
isn't worth much, since it doesn't produce much of value. What about a
purposely sterilized marriage? By an act of their will, the partners have
neutered their marriage. Their sex life, which should very much be a means
of sanctification, has likewise been rendered sterile. The marriage surely
can produce some good, but that good has been minimized, and to no purpose.
Where necessary, births can be morally regulated through highly effective
Natural Family Planning methods.
God writes straight
God finds ways to write straight with crooked lines. Many of these people,
as they get to their early forties, when life is not as hectic as it was a
few years earlier, have more time now and take more seriously the work of
personal sanctification.
They become increasingly involved in the life of their parish and in its
apostolic movements. Since they no longer have small children, they have
time to dedicate themselves to good works. But gnawing within them is a
certain dissatisfaction. They know something is not complete. Bring up the
subject of sterilization and often the tears begin to flow. The normal
means of sanctification in marriage has been compromised. The spayed couple
sense that their marriage and sexual life is somehow lacking, and indeed it
is. It has been sterilized. How is this problem be corrected? We don't
think it can be. How can it be alleviated or sublimated? That is the
challenge.
Most people probably have never heard a sermon dealing with sterilization.
If they are fortunate, perhaps they have heard their priests speak out
against contraceptives and publicly condemn abortion now and then. But the
subject of sterilization is seldom broached, even from Catholic pulpits,
despite the fact that sterilization has become the most common means of
birth control in the world.
Surely, abortion in itself is a far graver sin than sterilization. But we
suspect that few women maliciously decide to undergo an abortion. Most
abortions are the product of desperation, fear and ignorance.
The barren truth
Perhaps not many practicing Catholic married people have abortions. But one
out of every five fertile couples in the world is sterilized. About 23
percent take the pill, 21 percent use condoms and 20 percent are now
sterilized. In the United States, those percentages are constantly
increasing. There is no decrease in the number of sterilized people, since
few abandon permanent sterilization with a corrective operation.
Everyone eventually abandons contraceptives. The surviving victims of
abortion can repent and be reconciled. So, too, in theory can those who are
sterilized. But how does the sterilized person realistically repent or
change his or her mind? In practice, sterilization is forever.
A startling report from South Bend, Indiana, showed that -- of those
couples who have been married for fifteen years, and who have used
contraceptives for more than ten of those years -- almost 67 percent were
sterilized. Contraception leads to abortion, but even more often it leads
to sterilization.
Being "pro-life" means being open to life; it means having a sexual
relationship that remains open to the possibility of the transmission of
life without resorting to abortion, sterilization or contraceptives. God
the Creator is never excluded from a godly marriage.
Father Paul Marx, O.S.B., Ph.D., is founder and president of Human Life
International. He has spoken internationally and written extensively on the
evils of sterilization, contraception and abortion. Father Denis St. Marie
is associate pastor of the Church of St. Rita in Solon, Ohio. He has spoken
about these evils to groups of priests and seminarians for the past 20
years.
