Jane, a lifelong Catholic, and Bob, a convert, were married
in 1958 at the ages of twenty-one and twenty-three. Bob was attending college on the GI Bill,
augmented by his father, while Jane worked to pay the rent. Before the wedding, Jane told her priest she
and Bob would be using rhythm. That
would be permissible, the priest told her, for up to two years. Early in the marriage, Jane suffered a
miscarriage. After that, the couple was able
to avoid pregnancy during the time it took Bob to finish college. Their first child was born in 1960, and three
more followed in roughly two year intervals.
The fifth child was born four years later, in 1970, after the couple
thought they’d had their last.
Jane did not want to have more children. If anything happened to her in childbirth,
who would take care of the five she already had—the Church? She consulted the wife of a former priest
friend about what the Church permitted.
The answer: her decision was whether or not to use artificial birth
control; after that, the Church made no distinction and so the choice of what
to use would be hers. Jane talked the
matter over with a Protestant neighbor, who said, “Look, Jane, when I die, God
will say, ‘Dee, you were a good Protestant.
You used birth control. You may
go to Heaven.’ But when you die, God will say, ‘Jane, you used birth control.
You were not a good Catholic. You may
not go to Heaven.’ Does that make
sense?”
Jane went on the Pill.
A few years later she thought she was pregnant and went to her doctor for
the urine test. During the days she
awaited the results, she felt terrified. Because she was nearing forty, she became
convinced that the child would be deformed.
She saw herself smothering the newborn.
Around other people, she was able to hold herself together, but when she
was alone, she cried uncontrollably.
Then the doctor called. “Whatever
made you think you were pregnant?” he asked.
Seeing the distress Jane had been in, Bob volunteered to have
a vasectomy. Jane felt vastly relieved. He consulted a doctor who explained that the
procedure was a simple cut and stitch that could be done in-office in a matter
of a few minutes. Bob took a day off
from work and felt some tenderness for a day or two, for which the doctor had recommended
ice packs. Back at work, he told a
friend about the vasectomy. By the end
of that day, many colleagues were making joking references to it and several
left ice packs on his desk.
