Anscombe's Conception Of The Condemnation Of Contraceptive Sex

What is the “natural,” that is, inherent significance of human sexuality? It is the main question Anscombe sets out to answer, but fails to prove. Her view as a devout Catholic narrows in justifying the ethical necessity to restrict sex to married heterosexuals. Particularly, she argues for the condemnation of contraceptive sex on the ground of two premises; first, the prohibition on “contraceptive sex” is continuous with Christian teaching about sex and second, because the doctrine on sexual conduct is correct, a prohibition on contraceptive sex is correct. Her view of contraception would be equivalent or nearly as bad as murder (IV) – what is problematic is the “intention” of contraceptive sex, the deliberate destruction of the beginning
Frye establishes the social norm definition of heterosexual intercourse as “male-dominant-female-subordinate-copulation-whose-purpose-is-the-male’s-ejaculation” (113). By the criteria heterosexuals use to define in which they have sex, lesbians don’t have sex at all – for there is no deliberate intention involved in destruction of a human life (or an intention to prevent a life to form from the beginning). Collin advocates his view on text-based cybersex as giving “participants an opportunity to establish preferences [and] intentions, all of which play a key role in libertarian sexual ethics” (127). Even if Anscombe shows an counterexample that a proper occasion for sex takes place in a committed relationship – concluding that cybersex really is sex and intention involved is wrong by partners wearing virtual reality suits or a complex barrier contraceptive that keep their bodies apart - there remains an conceptual question at whether a relationship conducted online can be counted as a committed relationship at
Contraceptive intercourse is wrong because to intend such an act is not to intend a marriage act at all. Ordinary intercourse within marriage at an infertile period will be just as bad for further intentions and the spirit in which such act being carried out is vice (III). There is a difference between intercourse deliberately modified to be infertile by mechanical or chemical interventions and one which is infertile because of the natural physic (during the infertile period) of a person’s reproductive cycle. While the first may be artificial means of modifying natural outcomes, the latter is what is meant by a natural, unmodified outcome. Collin projects his view on cybersex in which that “carries no risk of unwanted pregnancy or of contracting venereal diseases. [It] cannot yield the ‘benefit’ of unwanted children” (127). Procreation can never be the outcome of cybersex, thus Anscombe might suggest that cybersex is unnatural and hence immoral - which is a pessimistic view for a consequentialist like herself where practical costs and benefits should be factored into the moral evaluation of such act. Anscombe has an utilitarian view of sex where she claims that goodness in prohibitions against murder or contraceptive sex is “supra-utilitarian” (IV) – yet fails to see the outweighing benefits of seemingly “unnatural” contraceptive sex. We can