5/04CathRespALL3 Womens Health

User Manual: WomensHealth

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Women’s Health Care
and the New Humanism
BY

SISTER RENÉE MIRKES, O.S.F.

It’s a combination of mystery and serendipity when
what you read, sometimes a
single statement, changes your
life or — more modestly —
changes the way you think
about something. It’s as if that
simple sentence manages to
stop you from fixating on the
individual tree so that you can,
finally, survey the whole forest.
The latter precisely describes a recent experience of
mine. A statement issued by
the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) in June of 20031
revolutionized the way I had
formerly been thinking about
a system of women’s health
care called NaProTECHNOLOGY (NPT). The Academy (comprised of distinguished scientists from around
the world and appointed by the
Pope) echoed a plea and a challenge that John Paul II has repeatedly extended to scientists
and people of faith. “What is
required more now than ever
before,” the PAS urged, is “a
new humanism,” a new system
of thinking, believing and acting that evolves from and is
nurtured by a conversation
with, rather than opposition
among, science, ethics and
faith.
The Catholic Response

What I want to explore
here is how NPT, this new science of women’s health care, is
a prolepsis of the positive societal impact of a humanistic science. In other words, it is an
already-existing model of reproductive health care that
anticipates bio-medicine’s role
in the new humanism envisioned by the Pope and PAS
membership. NPT was and is
and will be a part of a much
larger movement, of a more formidable objective than that of
merely being an example of
how faith and reproductive
medicine can be in harmony.
With its neo-humanist culture,
NPT is, in my opinion, the flagship of natural procreative initiatives that are, even as you
read, producing the “good fruit”
of a truly human culture where
knowledge, belief and behavior
will be ordered to the good of
present and future generations
of the family of mankind.
To prove my thesis, I want
to explore with you the culture
of NPT from two perspectives:
the vision of its science and the
vision of its faith. Both perspectives share one feature in
common: They attest, from different points of view, how the
culture of NPT is a robust re19

sponse to the call for science,
ethics, and faith to build a new
humanism.
Background
A preliminary definition of
this new science of women’s
health care is the first order of
business. NaProTECHNOLOGY (Natural Procreative
TECHNOLOGY) is an emerging science of women’s health
care developed by Dr. Thomas
W. Hilgers and his colleagues
at the Pope Paul VI Institute
for the Study of Human Reproduction. This science of reproductive health care is a complex of medical and surgical
interventions promoting gynecological health that obviates
the need for either reproductive
techniques that exclude marital intercourse or the prescription of oral contraceptives for
therapeutic or contraceptive
purposes. First, it is reproductive health care that assists
and optimizes, rather than obviates and/or suppresses, the
natural procreative system. It
allows a woman to maintain
her obstetric and gynecological
health and helps couples to
understand and respect the full
psychosomatic truth of their
fertility. Second, it is obstetric
and gynecological medicine
that accurately evaluates and
effectively treats a host of abnormalities (whether on an
endocrine or anatomic level)
which could be the causes of
infertility or, in the case of a
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pregnant woman, the cause of
miscarriage. Third, it promotes fertility awareness that
enables couples to avoid and
achieve a pregnancy in a way
consonant with the comprehensive meaning of their marital
union.
I. NPT: The Vision
of Its Science
Undergirding and permeating mainstream reproductive
technology is a scientific theory
about the human person and
human procreation. It is a view
freighted with materialism,
pragmatism, progressivism
and individualism. The science
of NPT, in contradistinction,
avoids all of these reductionistic errors. As a result, it distinguishes itself as a technology that is in dialogue with, not
divorced from, ethics and faith.
The resultant contrasts
between mainstream reproductive science and NPT are, theoretically and practically speaking, stark. The science behind
contraception and Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs)
constitutes scientism; the body
of knowledge that grounds
NPT is genuine science. Logically, then, the culture of ARTs
and contraception promotes
the “isms” that collectively constitute the old reductionist humanism. The culture of NPT,
in contrast, advances the new
integrated humanism envisioned by the PAS. Let me unpack these rather sweeping
The Catholic Response

conclusions.
The principal assumption
grounding ARTs is that of a
value-free or morally neutral
science. Moral norms and ethical values arise not from an
objective source — the nature
of the human person and human dignity — but from societal consensus: the culturally
acceptable, ever-shifting individualistic preferences that
surface at any given point in
time. Value-free science views
human beings as “the by-products of an evolutionary process”
that has no intrinsic finality.2
People are, by nature, nothing
but material beings, material
entities which lack not only a
moral or spiritual dimension
but that also lack a nature that
desires to know the truth and
to choose the good.
The main premise behind
the reproductive science of
NPT, on the other hand, is
rooted in the imago Dei doctrine of Scripture and Tradition
(human beings are created in
the image of God) and the comprehensive psychosomatic vision of the human person to
which it gives shape. Accordingly, God’s purposes for male
and female sexuality are
connatural. Human sexuality
is meant to foster a covenantal
life-giving love between a married man and woman, who “by
a mutual personal gift, proper
and exclusive to themselves,”3
mirror God’s own inner, tri-personal, love-giving life.
The Catholic Response

Moreover, the anthropological vision of NPT — the divine plan for our sexually bifurcated human race — is not
only discernible by human reason and our human experience
of natural (moral) law but is
also supported by the best
available scientific data. The
law of human nature teaches
(and psychological and sociological studies attest) that,
first, children find a muchneeded security in the knowledge that they were conceived
within acts of their parents’
committed sexual love. Second,
for children to be conceived,
gestated and brought into and
within marriage is important
not just for the well-being of
those children but also for a
healthily functioning familial
and social order. Third, it is
critical to a sound society that
parents who conceive their children within a permanent monogamous marriage are also
supported by public laws that
outline parental responsibilities for those children.
Many infertile couples resort to ART because they see it
as a quick-fix science. It provides what looks like the most
pragmatically effective way for
them to have their own biological child. Moral considerations
within this schematic are predictable. The choice of in vitro
fertilization, or one of its variations, is presented as the
“right” choice for two reasons:
It works (it’s pragmatic), and
21

it’s ostensibly the most expeditious way of conceiving (it’s useful or utilitarian). And, since a
“good” choice is one that produces “good” consequences and
maximizes “human happiness,” the pragmatic choice is
thought to be necessarily “ethical.”
What’s behind a couple’s
choice of NPT, in contrast, is
the conviction that there are
such things as objective truth
and objectively good and bad
choices. To choose well in the
arena of reproductive medicine
is, first, to choose a treatment
or method that fully respects
what is objectively true about
personhood and human fertility and, second, to choose what
fully respects the couple’s dignity and their procreative capacities.
I suppose, by way of summary, you could say that the
science of NPT is a both/and
science. The science of ARTs,
on the other hand, is a reductionistic, either/or science. Proponents of ART argue that, for
ART to be a reason-based science,4 it must necessarily exclude an appeal to faith. ART’s
designers insist that the empirical observations of reason
and experience are the sole criteria for finding solutions to the
problem of infertility.
But NPT tries to get at the
objective reality of what is being studied — female fertility,
the complexities of the menstrual cycle and conception —
22

through “a subtle combination
of faith and experience, intuition and reason, imagination
and deduction, personal insight
and communal wisdom.” 5
Stated differently, while the
radical empiricist science behind ARTs refuses to admit
facts other than those
observationally verifiable, the
science of NPT admits metaphysical truths. The latter
truths, what John Paul calls
the “realities of the spirit,”
though not able to be viewed
under a microscope, are real
nonetheless and form “part of
the whole truth” about human
fertility and fertility treatments. In short, the science of
NPT necessitates the march of
human reason as it ought to be:
“with [its] eyes fixed on Divine
Revelation.”6
II. NPT: The Vision
of Its Faith
Out of the gate, the singlemost important thing I could
say about the faith vision behind NPT is what it is not. It
is not fideism. That is, the faith
which grounds NPT does not
pit “faith against reason, belief
against knowledge, or religious
experience against critical intelligence.” 7 The science of
NPT recognizes that faith is
the “great friend of intelligence.” 8 The Catholic faith
that inspires NaPro guarantees that the knowledge base
of this reproductive technology
maintains the right relationThe Catholic Response

ship between faith and human
reason as it honors their “autonomy and mutuality.”9 The
faith vision of NPT admits that,
although “science and faith
represent two different orders
of knowledge, autonomous in
their processes,” they converge,
in the end, upon “the discovery
of reality in all its aspects,
which has its origins in God.”10
The vision of the faith behind
NPT links “scientific thought
with man’s power in faith to
seek truth” and “to bring the
whole fullness of human capabilities to realization.”11
As a result, the Catholicism behind NPT has confidence in reason, and its human
intellectual component is open
to Catholic theology. The vision of its faith puts reason and
faith at the service of the human family. Hence, it is a faith
that will not deteriorate into
the truncated rationalism typical of scientism. What’s more,
NPT is not at risk for the temptation that plagues a functional
science like ART: to serve ideology (rather than humanity).12
In short, the faith behind
NPT stands in the right relationship with reason envisioned by the Second Vatican
Council: “If methodological investigation within every
branch of learning [substitute
“reproductive medicine”] is carried out in a genuinely scientific manner and in accord with
moral norms, it never truly
The Catholic Response

conflicts with faith. For earthly
matters [substitute “family
planning and infertility”] and
the concerns of faith [substitute “the deeper meaning of
procreation”] derive from the
same God.”13
In sum, the faith vision of
NPT, fully admitting that science must work in harmony
with faith, makes an invaluable contribution to human
culture and participates fully
in the new humanism.
Codicil
As an old maxim points
out, “The whisper of truth can
have an amazing resonance.”
Proof positive is that, within
the neo-humanist spheres of
NaProTechnology, our national
and international communities
have access to a procreative
culture that celebrates the priority of ethics over medical
technology, the primacy of the
person over things, and the
superiority of the spirit over
matter. In short, the hallmark
of the new humanism — seizing the hidden dynamic behind
reality — is interchangeable
with the scientific and cultural
charisms of NaProTechnology.
What an achievement for our
generation and those to come!
What a bold, versatile, and kinetic model of procreative
medicine! What womanfriendly medicine! What a
blessing for society and the
family of humankind!
1

“Statement of the Pontifical
23

Academy of Sciences on the Cultural Values of the Natural Sciences,” Zenit, June 17, 2003
(available at zenitenglish@
zenit.org).
2
Luke Gormally, “Luke Gormally
on Human Dignity and Bioethics—Part I,” Zenit, July 11, 2003
(available at zenitenglish@
zenit.org).
3
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons,” # 2 (available at www.vatican.va).
4
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) understood that, although scientific
reason is valid, it is not the only
kind of reasoning. He pointed
out that, although “[N]oncontradiction, validity, truth, value,
meaning, purpose, and obligation” are “necessary presuppositions of the scientific method”
they are “not themselves scientific phenomena.” (M. D.
Aeschliman, “C. S. Lewis on
Mere Science,” First Things 86
[October, 1998]: 17.)
5
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S. J., “Science and Theology,” 13.
6
Stanley L. Jaki, O.S.B., Scientist

24

and Catholic: An Essay on Pierre
Duhem (Front Royal, VA:
Christendom Press, 1991), 278.
7
Richard John Neuhaus, “The
Naked Public Square: The Passion for Truth: the Way of Faith
and Reason,” First Things 88
[December, 1998]: 73.
8
Pope John Paul II, “Address to
Pontifical Academy of Sciences,”
Origins 13 (November 12, 1984):
542.
9
Neuhaus, “Passion for Truth,” 70.
10
John Paul II, “A Papal Address
on the Church and Science,”
Origins 13 (June 2, 1983): 51.
11
John Paul II, “Science and the
Church: A Dialogue,” Origins 10
(December 4, 1980): 397.
12
Ibid., 396.
13
Gaudium et Spes, # 36 (cited in
“The Collaboration of Science
and Religion,” Origins 21 [October 10, 1991]: 283).

Sister Renée Mirkes, O.S.F., Ph.D.,
serves as the ethics director for the
Pope Paul VI Institute. Please direct any questions about NaProTECHNOLOGY to rmirkes
@creighton.edu.

The Catholic Response



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