On The Morality Of Condom Use
To Prevent The Spread Of HIV

The third Westchester Institute Scholars Forum took up a question which certain Catholic moral theologians had raised about a possible ambiguity in the Church's teaching on conjugal morality.  Granted that a contraceptive marital act is always intrinsically wrong, is every conceivable use of a condom during conjugal intercourse contraceptive in nature?  What about the case of a husband who is infected with the HIV virus?   Is it licit for such a man to use a condom during conjugal relations with his wife, if his intention is solely to prevent her becoming infected?  In other words, if, all other things being equal, he and his wife would welcome a child into their marriage, and their desire is only that the wife not contract a terrible disease, is his preventing the physical insemination of his wife by means of a condom still a contraceptive act?  Stated in this way, the question really asks 'what specifically is morally disordered in the contraceptive act?'  Is it a disorder rooted solely in the intention to prevent new life, or is there something about intending to impede the physical insemination itself, regardless of why it is done, which is intrinsically unnatural? 

The position that an act of condom use within marriage which only intends to prevent HIV infection is not a contraceptive act had been articulated in a few published articles by the Catholic moral theologian, Fr. Martin Rhonheimer. A man of unquestionable faithfulness to the Church's teaching Magisterium, Fr. Rhonheimer argued that the above example is not an exception to the Church's teaching, because the evil in contraception is found specifically in the intention to prevent new life in the marital act, not in any physical pattern of behavior.  Unfortunately for forum gathering, Fr. Rhonheimer was not able to be present, but there was someone there representing his position so that the various aspects of it could be analyzed and debated.

The core of this position seems to have two components. 1) Human acts are only morally specifiable, which is to say, they are only able to be properly described as moral, by reference to the intention of the acting person.  Without an understanding of what the agent thinks he is doing, of the end he is trying to bring about, one cannot describe the action as a human act.  Accordingly, because an HIV infected husband has no contraceptive purpose, which is to say, no intention to prevent new life in using the condom, his act is not an act of contraception, but of prevention of infection.  2) Any significance attached to the physical pattern of behavior (viz., of preventing insemination) commits the "naturalistic fallacy," which is to say, attaches moral significance to mere biological processes. 

The participants at the forum debated both of these points in great detail.  On the whole, it seemed that the vast majority of those present were skeptical of the thesis under discussion.  Although many were sympathetic to the underlying action theory, nevertheless, most thought that the deliberate intention to prevent insemination, even if for reasons of health, was still an act of contraception. Toward this conclusion, some scholars made the argument that there are certain physical patterns that are wrong regardless of any intention that might inform them.  For example, to have sexual intercourse with a person that is not one's spouse is always wrong, even if, hypothetically, one might be motivated by some non-adulterous intention.  Likewise, many were of the understanding that such an act could not be an act of love on the part of a husband, but more like reckless endangerment.  Condoms being notoriously unreliable, one would expose one's wife in such a situation to risk of infection without any necessity to do so.