Appendix — Concerning Conception Impeded After Rape

The doctrine set forth above concerning the illicit expulsion of seed by a violated woman,¹ we have already handed down when writing Questions concerning Chastity and Lust.²

¹ See I, q. V, art. 4, pp. 43-44.

² Q. 3, a. 2, an. 2, pp. 38-39.

The Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses (Jan. 1927), with great benevolence, wished to pronounce praise of that little work, yet at the same time placing a restriction concerning the doctrine indicated, which they call more obscure and which they seem to hold as very doubtful.

But so that obscurity and doubt, as far as can be done, may be removed from the midst, let it be permitted to us to illustrate the critical observations of the distinguished reviewer by the following considerations.

Among other things he asks:

1. whether expulsion of the seed during the action of copulation is possible;

2. whether the fecundated ovule and the seed before fecundation are to be equated;

3. whether the formula is to be approved: "the seed is now in peaceful possession of its proper place," which smacks of anthropomorphism, which in the present matter is not to the point;

4. whether the mode of exercising onanism, by impeding conception through the killing of the sperm, is a sin against justice? For since a human person is not yet present, there is not a right, and therefore neither a violation of right nor injustice.

We respond:

1. that the distinguished professor perhaps suffered distraction in reading; we did not say that it is licit during copulation to expel the seed, but we wrote "to repel";

2. that the fecundated ovule and the seed are to be equated, because each, more or less proximately, is on the way to man. Certainly to cast out the embryo or fecundated ovule is not illicit only because probably it is already animated by a rational soul. Even by those who admitted later animation, this was held illicit, because it impedes human generation. And the same principle seems to hold concerning the seed, which is man in potency, as Saint Thomas says, Q. D. de Malo 15, a. 2;³

³ Indeed the Holy Doctor adds: "disorder concerning the emission of seed is concerned with human life in proximate potency."

3. that it is altogether fitting to avoid anthropomorphism and to use proper modes of speaking; but thus we gave a response to those who hold the seed as an unjust aggressor, which is more anthropomorphic;

4. that justice is toward another; but this is understood by the distinguished professor as toward another human individual. But:

a) there is also injury against human society, indeed legal justice is first among the species of justice. Moreover all lust is against the common good of human society, and by this reason is mortal sin;

b) injury can be not only against another man, but also against God. He gave us dominion over all exterior things; but not over human life, nor over our body, but only use, according to the nature of the thing and according to the mind of the Creator; whence suicide is a sin against justice. By this reason lust also contains injustice against God. "From the fact," says Saint Thomas (II-II, q. 153, a. 3, ad 2), "that someone uses his body inordinately through lust, he does injury to God, who is the principal lord of our body." For "the order of nature is from God Himself. And therefore in sins against nature, in which the very order of nature is violated, injury is done to God Himself, the ordainer" (ib., q. 154, a. 12, ad 1).

But if we do not have right and dominion over life or over the human body, neither do we have it over the fetus, who is on the way to a human body and life, nor over the seed, which is nothing other than a principle of life.

Whence every act by which we dispose of these is injustice against the Creator and human society.⁴

⁴ The same doctrine is set forth in the little work generally praised, even by the distinguished reviewer, without restriction: Duynstee, C.SS.R., De Leer der Kuischheid.

The Ephemerides Lovanienses attacked our manner of speaking and arguing more than the thesis itself concerning the illicit expulsion of seed by a violated woman, since recently they declared (Oct. 1927, p. 653) that it is established from those things which we said that this is a sin against nature. But the Collectanea Mechliniensia (May 1927) have progressed further: "With moralists of the best note," they say, "it must be said that the oppressed woman can expel the seed before conception. But if the reason brought forward by the author were to be applied to this case: to break off the work of nature is illicit, neither could the woman agitate herself, thus causing the effusion of the seed, nor would it ever be licit to break off copulation, for then also the work of nature has begun."

R. The work of nature, which is perfected without the cooperation of man and independently of free will, and the voluntary work of man, must be carefully distinguished: this latter, insofar as it is evil, is to be impeded, as much as possible, and stopped; and if it is good, it can licitly be broken off for a proportionately grave reason. But to break off and impede the former is a sin against nature. Now carnal copulation is not the work of nature, but the voluntary work of man; but when copulation has ended, the work of nature begins, by which the seed received in the female genital canal moves itself by its own powers so that it penetrates the body of the woman more. Therefore, after copulation has ended, to intervene for impeding the work of nature is illicit; but the work of man, namely copulation, if it is rape, to interrupt or impede it lest the seed be received is licit; and it is also licit to break off conjugal copulation for a proportionately grave reason. Or if then the work of nature is said already to have begun, nevertheless it is not broken off insofar as it is the work of nature, since the received seed is not expelled; but insofar as it is the voluntary work of man, lest the copulation itself be continued. And thus all things agree logically.

And although in the case some authors have said that it is probable that it is licit to expel the seed, because they judged that the seed can be considered after the manner of an unjust aggressor, nevertheless, because this reason is of no value, the probability of their opinion also vanishes.

Behold what seems true to us. Therefore the seed, in its whole being, exists uniquely for the sake of generation; therefore every use of the seed for another end and impeding generation is illicit.

And just as every lie is not only intrinsically but also essentially evil because it is against the nature of speech, which exists only for expressing the concepts of the mind, so every emission of seed impeding generation is against the nature of the seed, which is only for generation.

And from this it is understood why every direct expulsion of seed, outside that which is done in carnal copulation, in whatever way and for whatever cause it is procured, and therefore also every artificial fecundation properly so called, is essentially illicit, because the action, as much as is of itself, from its nature and from the mode in which it is done, so casts forth the seed that generation is naturally impeded; although by accident, from another consequent action, this defect can be met and the seed ordered to generation and thus contribute to it in an artificial way.

Saint Thomas places the principle in its whole universality and without any limitation, l. III c. Gent., c. 122: "It is the good of each thing that it should attain its end; but its evil is that it should be turned away from its due end. But as in the whole, so also in the parts it is necessary to consider, namely that each part of man, and any act of his, should obtain its due end. But the seed, although it is superfluous as regards the preservation of the individual, is nevertheless necessary as regards the propagation of the species; but other superfluities, such as excrement, urine, sweat and the like, are necessary for nothing; whence it pertains to the good of man only that they be emitted, but not this alone is required in the seed, but that it be emitted for the utility of generation, to which coitus is ordered... From this it is clear that every emission of seed in such a mode that generation cannot follow is against the good of man; and if this is done deliberately, it must be a sin. But I say a mode from which generation cannot follow according to itself, as every emission of seed without the natural conjunction of male and female; on account of which sins of this kind are called against nature."