Humanae Vitae

Background and Occasion

In 1963, Pope John XXIII established a commission to study questions of population, family, and birth. The commission was expanded under Paul VI and eventually produced a majority report recommending a change in the Church’s teaching on artificial contraception. Paul VI, after prolonged reflection, rejected the commission’s majority recommendation and reaffirmed the traditional teaching. Humanae Vitae was published on 25 July 1968.

The Inseparable Connection (§12)

The central teaching of the encyclical is found in paragraph 12: there is an inseparable connection, willed by God, between the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning of the conjugal act. This connection cannot be broken by human initiative without damaging the truth of the marital act itself. The husband and wife do not cease to be ministers of God’s creative design merely because they make use of their conjugal rights according to nature’s rhythms; but they do violate that design when they deliberately frustrate the natural procreative potential of the act.

What the Encyclical Forbids (§14)

Paul VI teaches that the following are intrinsically disordered and therefore never permissible: direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons; direct sterilisation, whether permanent or temporary; and any action which either before, during, or after the conjugal act is specifically intended to prevent procreation — whether as an end or as a means.

What the Encyclical Permits (§16)

The encyclical explicitly permits recourse to the natural rhythms of fertility (natural family planning) when there are serious reasons for spacing or limiting births. The moral distinction is between suppressing or frustrating a natural faculty and making legitimate use of a natural disposition. In the former case, the couple acts against the nature of the conjugal act; in the latter, they act in conformity with it.

Prophetic Warnings (§17)

Paul VI warned that widespread acceptance of artificial contraception would lead to four consequences: a general lowering of moral standards, a loss of reverence for women (who would be reduced to instruments of pleasure), the danger of governments imposing contraceptive programmes on populations, and a false sense that the human body is merely a machine to be manipulated at will. These warnings are widely regarded as having been borne out by subsequent cultural developments.

Theological Significance

The encyclical’s reasoning rests on natural law: the conjugal act has a meaning inscribed in it by God which the spouses are not free to alter. This is consistent with the broader Thomistic principle that moral acts are specified by their objects, and that certain objects are intrinsically incompatible with the good of the human person. The later encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993) would develop this philosophical foundation at greater length.