Case 4. Fraternal Correction and Race-suicide

Paula, a Catholic matron, asked her confessor whether the things which censors of public morals say about race suicide were true. The confessor, however, asked for a fuller explanation of the question. Then Paula acknowledged that for several years she had been accustomed to wash the vagina with medicated water after marital intercourse, since she was too weak to have offspring; and since her daughter had become engaged to an officer who would suddenly be sent to a distant colony and could not support a family on his meager salary, Paula taught her how she could conduct married life without danger of offspring. With her husband’s consent, the daughter still successfully puts into practice the method taught by her mother. Having heard these things, the confessor is uncertain what he ought to say to Paula. Hence it is asked:

1. Is it lawful, after intercourse has taken place, to impede conception in any way whatsoever?

2. Is there an obligation of fraternal correction, and of what kind is it?

3. What is to be said about the obligations of the confessor and of Paula in the case?

1. Is it ever allowed to take means to prevent conception ?

St. Alphonsus says: “Never is it lawful for a mother, on account of any danger whatsoever, to take a potion to prevent conception.”¹ And the doctrine remains the same, whatever means are taken for the purpose.

1 Theol. Mor., lib. iii, n. 394.

2. Is there an obligation to give fraternal correction?

Yes, there is. This follows from the general obligation of charity which binds us to do what we can to help our neighbor in his necessity, whether spiritual or corporal. Hence if we know that another is in mortal sin and that he is not likely to correct it of himself, and there is nobody else who can or will do it better than ourselves, and there is good hope of succeeding, we are bound at a suitable time to do what we can to assist our neighbor to arise from his state of spiritual death.¹

1 Compare Matt. xviii. 15.

3. The case. The confessor is bound in the first place to tell Paula that what she has been doing is wrong, and she must promise not to do it again. Moreover she is responsible for having taught the practice to her daughter, and besides the latter’s husband she is probably the only person who knows of the daughter’s practice. She is, then, under the additional obligation of telling her daughter that what she taught her is wrong, and of doing what she can to induce her to abandon the practice for the future. The practice is harmful to her who employs it and is destructive of the race, so that it is rightly called race-suicide. The confessor, therefore, should explain to Paula the obligation she is under. Even if the means adopted sometimes failed in the desired effect, the act would always be gravely sinful on account of the intention with which it was done.