Contraception And Abortion

[frenchfry]

I think your point is that contraception is preferable to abortion, on the grounds that abortion is murder of an innocent life, while contraception harms only the would-be parents?

The assumption here is that contraception does not harm anyone else. Catholics believe that all of our actions are connected and affect one another. There is no such thing as "personal" sin; this is part of the reason that we go to confession, rather than being forgiven individually and directly. When we sin, it hurts everyone. First of all, it makes us worse people, so we are less able to help and encourage others to be good, etc. Holy people help everyone. Secondly, the widespread use of contraception harms the dignity of the sexual act in society, even for those who don't use it. Cultural attitudes automatically become part of the thought process of everyone in that culture, unless you actively work to avoid this, so if the contraceptive culture says that sex is for pleasure whenever you want with no consequences, then members of our culture have this in the back of their minds, often without realizing it.

Basically, contraception is not necessarily the "lesser" of two evils.