Biblical Literature: Issues of Gender, Sexuality and Contemporary Ethics Part II

This part focuses on the status of women and Natural Moral Law

When examining Biblical literature for issues of gender and sexuality, what is most significant for contemporary ethics and praxis is the Catholic Church’s view of the role of women as mothers that has been utilised in politics, especially in Poland, to revise bodily autonomy. This has particularly restricted contemporary women's reproductive rights.

Previously, section I explored women's traditional status in Catholicism, reflecting on women as virgins and mothers. I will argue that these traditional gendered roles are social constructions that suppress women, referring to Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex.

In this section, section II, I will focus on Natural Moral Law and its prohibition of unnatural contraception, but its promotion of Natural Family Planning, which is not consistent with Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body and implications of bodily autonomy. This is a contradiction that needs to be solved, which I will attempt in Section III, where I will examine women's bodily autonomy and the juxtaposition of this with narrowing women's roles.

II. NATURAL MORAL LAW

Institutions, such as the Catholic Church, prohibit unnatural contraception methods that use individuals as a means to an end rather than ends in themselves. Thomas Aquinas' theory of Natural Moral Law (NML) followed the divine commands from the Bible, such as increasing in number in Genesis 1:28, as a function of God's will as the morally correct action from how humans naturally are.

The sexual revolution, the normalisation of contraception, the pill, pornography, premarital sex, masturbation, homosexuality and the legalisation of abortion in some countries went against NML. Though the Catholic Church condemns the normalisation of the sexual revolution, they teach natural family planning (NFP).

True methods of NFP are used to achieve or avoid pregnancy, such as the rhythm methods (having sex at times of a woman's menstrual cycle when she is unable to conceive) rather than preventing pregnancy, such as unnatural contraceptives and abortion.

John Paull II illuminates the Biblical teaching (Eph 5:28) that 'husbands should love their wives as they love their own bodies'. As with marriage, the motive is for husband and wife to become one body.

Though, this Biblical passage should not be misunderstood as the wife's body belonging to the husband. Instead, the husband should love and respect his wife's body as his own. In this way, the contraceptive pill would be making a woman's body sexually available to the man with no consequences of falling pregnant.

Here, the woman can be used as a tool, which interferes with her body's natural flow and therefore uses her as a means to an end rather than treating her as an end in herself. This illustrates how a woman's body is devalued of dignity through the use of artificial contraception.

John Paul II's view of respect for women’s bodily autonomy is an especially favoured method by the Ministry of Health in Poland. The Minister of Health established a Ministerial Task Force to promote natural family planning in heterosexual relationships. Nevertheless, this is still problematic as institutions such as the Ministry of Education and Science in Poland have previously claimed that a women's key role is to have children.

Here, women are still used as a means to an end, rather than ends in themselves to procreate and stripped of bodily autonomy.

Stay tuned for part III on bodily autonomy and scripture, where I will argue that Biblical literature and John Paul II's teachings of the opposition for contraceptive rights and respect for women's bodies can be radically used as pro-choice arguments for abortion with reference to Rosemary Radford Ruether.

Find Out More:

Charles W. Norris. “Why NFP.” The Linacre Quarterly Vol 80, no. 3 (2013): pp218-221. Norris 2013.

Federation for Women and Family Planning (FWFP). “Submission of the Report on Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Poland.” April, 2008.

John Paul II. The Redemption of the Body and Sacramentality of Marriage (Theology of the Body) From the Weekly Audiences of His Holiness September 5, 1979-November 28, 1984. Rome: The Catholic Primer Electronic Edition, 2006.

Vanessa Gera. “Polish Academics Protest ‘Fundamentalist’ Education Minister.” AP News. Oct 21, 2020.