The Bible on contraception

The Bible on contraception

Two parts of the Bible are often quoted to show God's disapproval of birth control:

• First, God commanded his people to "Be fruitful and multiply," and contraception is seen as specifically flouting this instruction.
• Second, Onan was killed by God for "spilling his seed," which is often taken as divine condemnation of coitus interruptus.

The first of these examples is normally rebutted by demonstrating that contraception has not prevented human beings from being fruitful and multiplying.

There are at least two interpretations of the second example:

• God may have been angry with Onan for having sex for a purpose other than having children
  • this interpretation supports the idea that contraception is morally wrong
  • it also supports the idea that there is only one kind of morally good sexual act: sex between a man and a woman who are married and who are having sex to produce children
• God may not have been angry with Onan for preventing conception but for failing to honour a commandment to produce a child with his dead brother's wife
  • but this interpretation has no application to modern cultures or morality
  • the act that Jewish law required Onan to perform would nowadays be regarded as rape, since the widow's consent was not required - and this makes the story a very dubious foundation for moral argument

Scripture in favour of contraception

The Bible never explicitly approves of contraception. However, there are a number of passages where the Bible appears to accept that sex should be enjoyed for other reasons than the production of children, and some people argue that this implies that no wrong is done if a couple have sex with the intention of not having children.

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• Christianity
• Judaism