Abstract
Among the most difficult questions of contemporary Catholic medical ethics is whether the use of a condom by a married couple in order to prevent one spouse from infecting the other with the HIV virus is morally permissible. Three solutions to this dilemma have suggested themselves for consideration. First, HIV-discordant spouses could abstain from marital intercourse entirely; this would involve a notably heroic sacrifice. Second, spouses could engage in marital intercourse, though perhaps only infrequently, and accept the risk of infection of the HIV-negative spouse. Third, the spouses could attempt to prevent the spread of the virus when they undertake to have sexual intercourse by blocking the transmission of the carrying agent—i.e., the bodily fluids, whether seminal or vaginal. HIV-discordant spouses would agree, on this scenario, to use a condom when having sexual intercourse in order to prevent the transmission of bodily fluids and thus of disease. In this paper, I argue that the first two proposed solutions are morally permissible, but that the third is not.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
I discuss the Catholic teaching on moral absolutes in Chapter 4 of Tollefsen (2014).
- 4.
This case is discussed at length in Part II of this volume.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
See the discussion in Girgis et al. (2012).
- 8.
In Familiaris consortio, for example, John Paul II (1981, n. 19) writes that men and women “in matrimony give themselves with a love that is total and therefore unique and exclusive.” Of the conjugal act , he writes of the “contradictory language” that enters in the use of contraception “of not giving oneself totally to the other,” while at the same time, in the marital act, the language of the body “expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife” (n. 32).
- 9.
The discussion in this and the next paragraph are indebted to Gormally (2005).
- 10.
The translation is from Grisez (1993, p. 508).
- 11.
For further discussion of the casuistry involved in abstention from sexual intercourse by spouses, see Grisez et al. (1988).
- 12.
Similarly, there may be no culpability in a failure to sign a will with the only permitted form of writing utensil; yet what a signer of a will desires is not simply to be non-culpable for failure, but to succeed.
- 13.
The act analysis here cuts things quite finely, in distinguishing between collecting and impeding. One might object that impeding is a means to collecting. However, one who blocks a stream to lessen the amount of water downstream impedes waterflow as a means; one who collects water in a can in the same place does not attempt to either block the flow of water or lessen the eventual amount downstream, though both effects inevitably come to pass. Since inevitability is no criterion of intention, it seems reasonable to hold that the impeding here is a side-effect of collecting, and not a means. To give another example, we could compare two police officers doing random stops under two different descriptions. One thinks (and chooses), “I’ll prevent some motorists from getting to their destination on time”; while the other thinks (and chooses), “I’ll check some random motorists to see whether they’ve been drinking.” Both officers impede, but only the former intends to do so; the latter accepts impeding as a side-effect of checking.
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Tollefsen, C. (2017). Use of a Condom to Prevent HIV among Married Couples. In: Eberl, J. (eds) Contemporary Controversies in Catholic Bioethics. Philosophy and Medicine(), vol 127. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55766-3_17
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