Can it be instrumentally rational for a parent to object to a child's receiving contraception?

Let's bracket all moral concerns, and simply suppose that the parent does not count sexual activity by her minor children as having positive utility (or at least counts it as of such low utility as to be negligible), but does count a pregnancy (in the child or caused by the child) as a significantly negative outcome. Rhetoric from those advocating greater availability of contraception to children suggests that such a parent would be instrumentally irrational to object to the child's receiving contraception.

However, this is mistaken. Typically, children also consider a pregnancy a significantly negative outcome. Therefore, in a large enough population, there will be children who would be very unlikely to engage in sexual activity if there is a significant danger of pregnancy, but if that danger were significantly reduced, would engage in sexual activity. In the case of such children, it may very well be the case that the availability of contraception increases the risk of pregnancy. For instance, suppose that without contraception, over the period of a year the child would have a probability of 0.98 of not engaging in sexual relations at all. But if the pill is made available, the child has a probability of 0.50 of using it and having an average sexual frequency for sexually active persons.

Now, if contraception is not made available, the likelihood of a pregnancy is (0.02)(0.85)=0.017, where I shall suppose 0.85 is the probability of conception without contraceptives at an average sexual frequency for a sexually active person. This is actually an overestimate of the likelihood of a pregnancy, since if the child is afraid of a pregnancy outcome, the frequency is likely to be significantly lower. If the pill is made available, the likelihood of a pregnancy then will be (0.50)(0.05)=0.025, where the 0.05 is permthe typical-use failure rate for oral contraceptives.

Therefore, a parent who knows with a sufficiently high probability that her child satisfies the above assumptions and seeks to prevent the child's pregnancy will be instrumentally rational in refusing contraception for that child.

Moreover, since there surely are such children in the population (there is, obviously, a broad distribution in the attribute of caution in teenagers, and there are teenagers who are very cautious), it follows that even if making contraception available to all teenagers were to reduce the overall pregnancy rate (and I am not aware of any data that it would), there would be some individuals the risks for whom would be increased by the availability of contraception. And, of course, there will be individuals the risks for whom would be decreased by the availability of contraception—namely, those who would have a sufficiently large sexual frequency even without contraception. Therefore, making contraception available to all teenagers results in a redistribution of risks—some come to be better off pregnancy-wise and some come to be worse off.

Now, while it can be licit to have a public health initiative that redistributes risks, increasing those of some and decreasing those of others, significant gathering of empirical data is needed before any such policy is put into place, to ensure not only that the overall risk is decreased, but also that no subgroup's risk is increased in a way that is morally unacceptable. For instance, if a chemical added to the water were to improve the dental health of a majority ethnic group but decrease the dental health of a minority ethnic group, the introduction of that chemical would be morally problematic—significant amount of information-gathering would need to be done, and attempts to limit the application of the initiative to the minority might well need to be made (e.g., not adding the chemical in the areas where members of the minority group are more likely to be found).

In particular, the following empirical outcome is imaginable. It could be that the availability of contraceptives significantly increases the likelihood of pregnancy among religiously conservative teenagers, because without the availability of contraceptives they have two reasons to avoid sex: (a) religion and (b) pregnancy (and disease, but what I say about pregnancy applies to STIs mutatis mutandis), which two reasons may result in a high probability of abstinence and hence a close to zero pregnancy rate (rape can happen despite abstinence, so it's not exactly zero), while with the availability of contraceptives the second reason largely drops out, and the abstinence rate may significantly decrease. If that were so, then there would be an identifiable group for whom the risk of pregnancy would be increased by the availability of contraception. I do not know if it is so or not—that is an empirical question, and either answer is possible depending on how the probabilities work out. But it is not irrational for parents of religiously conservative children to worry that the availability of contraception might increase the risks of pregnancy for these children, and it might well be irrational to be confident that it does not increase these risks unless one has significant empirical data (of which I am not aware).

Condoms

This post is based on a slight expansion of an analogy I once read in the New Oxford Review. Consider three cases:

1. Fred throws seed on a normal, fertile field. He enjoys the fresh air, the motion of the arm, the tossing of the seed, the symbolism of participating in God's creative activity.
2. Fred throws seed on an infertile field. He enjoys the fresh air, the motion of the arm, the tossing of the seed, the symbolism of participating in God's creative activity.
3. Fred covers up his field with a giant plastic sheet. (Why? Maybe because the seed has some kind of parasite that he doesn't want to reach the ground, or maybe because he doesn't want the bother of having any plants come up.) Then he walks on the sheet, and throws seed on it. He enjoys the fresh air, the motion of the arm, the tossing of the seed, the symbolism of participating in God's creative activity.

I think that in cases (1) and (2), Fred really is sowing the field. But not in case (3). Moreover, while one can symbolically participate in God's creative activity in sowing in an infertile field (think of how the Gospel also is sometimes appropriately preached to an audience who refuses to pay attention—the seed of the Gospel can fall on rocky ground), one does not do so by covering up the field with a giant plastic sheet and throwing seed on that (imagine covering up someone's ears, and then preaching the Gospel). The covering up of the field has an anti-creative symbolism. So the last bit of Fred's motivations in (3) in fact is mistaken.

In case (3), I think we would say that Fred is not sowing the field, though we might say that he is sowing the plastic. He is engaging in an activity different from that in (1) and (2). This is true whether we consider the symbolic theological meaning or not.

Suppose we do not see the difference between (3) and the first two cases. Then consider:

4. Fred puts a garbage bag in the middle of the field. He then tosses the seed, one by one, into the garbage bag. He enjoys the fresh air, the motion of the arm, the tossing of the seed, the symbolism of participating in God's creative activity.

But that's absurd. There is no symbolism of participating in God's creative activity—quite the opposite. And even if we do not consider the symbolism, it is clear that what Fred is doing in case (4) isn't sowing—it's throwing seed into a garbage bag. But (3) is not relevantly different from (4)—in (3), it's just as if the garbage bag were stretched flat over all of the field.

If this is right, then it is plausible that "sex with a condom" is not at all the same kind of activity as sexual intercourse. Just as in (3) and (4), the relevant kind of causal interaction between Fred and the soil was lacking, so in "sex with a condom" the relevant kind of causal interaction between the persons' reproductive systems is lacking.

This, of course, coheres well with the Catholic canonical view that intercourse with a condom fails to consummate a marriage. And if one adds the premise, accepted by the Christian tradition, that climactic sexual activity is only permissible in the context of intercourse, we get the conclusion that sex with a condom is not permissible, since it is a different kind of sexual activity (more like what the tradition calls "unnatural acts"). Moreover, this is true even in the case where the condom is used not for contraceptive purposes, but to prevent the transmission of disease (see my remarks in (3) on Fred's possible motivations).

Morality and Relativity Theory

Einstein tells us that basic laws of physics should be invariant under change of reference frame. Is the same true of basic laws of morality? What would that mean? I think it would mean that any law of morality which is not invariant under change of reference frame can only be a consequence of a more general moral law that is invariant together with some conditions explaining why, contingently, things are arranged in some particular manner in space-time as to give rise to the non-invariant law. (Similarly, the non-invariant law about dropped objects near the earth moving in the direction of the center of the earth follows from an invariant Einsteinian law together with contingent facts about how matter is distributed in our vicinity.)

Could this abstract observation have any actual consequences? Suppose Georgina believes that when she works unowned land, by natural law the land becomes hers (cf. Locke), and by natural law she gains mineral rights to what is below the surface of the land she has worked. That doesn't seem right. What counts as being "below the surface of the land she has worked" depends on the reference frame. So it can't just be a basic moral law that one gets whatever unowned stuff is below where one worked. A story must be given explaining the lack of invariance. And probably the easiest way to do this is to say that if there is any such acquisition of mineral rights, it comes from a non-invariant positive law. This isn't very interesting, since I assume we knew that there is no natural acquisition of mineral rights.

There could, however, be some slightly more interesting consequences in other areas. For instance, in sexual ethics, it follows that considerations based on the shapes of organs, as well as ones based on inside-outside distinctions (what is in one reference frame a cup that is red on the outside, green on the inside, with juice within is in another reference frame a cup-shaped object that is green on the outside, red on the inside, with juice adhering to the outside due to odd gravitational fields), should not be of basic relevance, absent some further story. Instead, basic moral rules about sexuality should involve reference-frame invariant concepts such as contact, causation, teleology, intention, and consent. This is helpful—it focuses the philosopher's mind on what the morally relevant features of the activities are. (I've used this in a comment to argue that the use of condoms to prevent HIV transmission within a married couple is unacceptable within a Catholic sexual ethics.)