Catholicism, Cooperation and Contraception

Patrick C Beeman

National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly
National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly

Abstract
Catholic physicians practice in a world that condones the use of contraception. In the effort to be morally consistent, questions arise regarding the extent to which one’s participation in the provision of contraceptives constitutes immoral cooperation in evil. Particular challenges face the resident physician, who practices under another physician and within the constraints of local and specialty-wide training requirements. We examine the nature of the moral act of “referring” for contraception and argue that, in limited cases,there is a moral distinction between a referral and an intra-residency patient transfer, and the latter may be morally licit according to the principle of material cooperation


Beeman PC. Catholicism, Cooperation and Contraception. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly. 2012;Summer):1-27.