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Hi Mike,
Briefly, the use of a regular, unperforated condom in this case would
certainly not be moral. I do not believe, however, that the use of the
perforated condom on a regular basis would be morally acceptable/advisable
either.
Before getting to the moral question, I would only mention my doubts that
the perforated condom, insofar as some semen still passed through, would
be likely to stop or significantly reduce the pain experienced by the wife.
The only way it might do so, would be to exclude virtually all the sample
from passing through, in which case, one is doing practically the same
thing as for the case of an unperforated condom.
I believe the case of using the perforated condom to collect semen for
analysis, when a couple is struggling with apparent infertility, is permissible
because the procurement of the sample is for the purposes of assisting
the marital act, that is to say, it is clearly oriented towards providing
information that might assist the marital act to achieve its proper finality
of a conception. Moreover, based on a long history of infertility in the
couple, there is no reason to believe, with any degree of moral certainty,
that one would be acting against a procreative outcome by retaining a small
portion of the sample from that particular act for analysis, especially
considering that one would be doing this only once or twice all-told, not
in an ongoing or continual way in the marital relationship.
In the case you are inquiring about, however, the "cordoning off" of
a portion of the husband's ejaculate is not for the purposes of assisting
the marital act to achieve its proper finality, but for the purposes of
pain reduction. The efficacy of that pain reduction would appear to be
in direct proportion to the degree that one acts against a procreative
outcome by sequestering as large a portion of the ejaculate as possible,
and I think one could have moral certainty about the nature of the condomistic
action as partially or even significantly contraceptive in the manner it
would routinely be performed, for the purposes of minimizing pain and avoiding
transmission of the majority of the semen sample.
Hence, I would be inclined to approach this matter in a different fashion.
First, I would want to inquire whether there were issues of vaginal sensitivity
during intercourse itself, apart from ejaculation.
- Is intercourse itself
painful?
- Are there perhaps issues of vaginal dryness which heighten sensitivity
to the deposition of ejaculate and exacerbate the wife's painful episodes
afterwards?
Without offering medical advice, I have heard that sometimes
medical approaches based on estrogen creams/hormonal supplementation can
aid with vaginal dryness and sensitivity, and might have an effect in this
case.
I would also want to inquire whether there are certain times of the month
that this pain problem is more/less noticeable.
Finally, and again without offering any medical advice, I would wonder
about assessing nutritional issues as well. I've heard of a book by Marilyn
Shannon called Fertility,
Cycles, & Nutrition that I have
seen referenced, which states:
" ...particularly flax oil and vitamin A, if scant mucus is a problem.
For postmenopausal women who experience vaginal irritation due to dryness,
vitamins A and E, zinc and selenium may also be helpful. All of these
are very healing to the vaginal membranes."
In other words:
- Is there some underlying sensitivity-issue in the woman
that might be addressed?
Theoretically, one might also ask whether the
semen pH issue on the part of the man could be subject to any kind of pharmacological
manipulation to reduce its severity.
In a worst-case scenario, if the underlying cause of the sensitivity/pH
imbalance cannot be reasonably addressed so that normal, non-condomistic
intercourse can take place, the couple may seek to work together to identify
those times in the cycle when her pain sensitivity is lowest, and limit
marital relations to those occasions, or if the pain is so severe and intractable
even then, perhaps to agree to abstain altogether.
I also would want to ask whether the pain problem itself might be amenable
to other modalities of treatment —
- pain medication or
- medication that
used when women commonly experience cramping during their periods?
There are certain instances where I believe a modified condom can be deployed
consistently in marital relations, but they are very limited and rare cases,
and I don't believe the case Anonymous describes would qualify.
One example where I believe it would be acceptable, would be in a theoretical
case like this:
My husband and I were wondering what the stance of the Church is regarding
using condoms for medical purposes. As we have gotten older, my husband
gets a very painful rash which takes some time to heal each time we make
love. We were wondering if we could use condoms to possibly eliminate this
rash?
My response:
The couple indicates a situation where a painful rash arises for the man
whenever they have sexual intercourse. They believe the use of a condom
might prevent such a rash.
There should, in fact, be a way for them to use the condom, with modifications,
as a modality for therapeutically addressing the occurrence of the rash.
The procedure would involve introducing a hole at the end of the condom,
so that the ejaculate could pass through the hole, but the remainder of
the penis would be afforded mechanical protection from whatever factors
in the wife's genital tract may be causative of the rash. Also, it
should be noted, that the condom should not contain spermicide.
The use of a perforated condom (sometimes called a silastic sheath)
has generally been considered permissible by moral theologians to couples
who experience infertility, as an aid to determining whether that infertility
might be due to a low sperm count on the part of the man. Normal marital
relations take place, where most of the ejaculate passes through the condom, but a small portion is retained and collected for sperm analysis/counting.
This way, the modified condom is functioning as a collection device and
not as a contraceptive. For the case of this couple struggling with a rash,
since there is no need to collect sperm, the hole should be large enough
and positioned in such a way that the entirety of the sample passes through
during marital relations.
I hope this is helpful.
Pax,
Fr. Tad
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