Reformed bioethics

All three come down pretty hard on the birth-control pill because of its abortifacient potential, though Wilson doesn’t mention the pill by name, he does refer to the command against destroying life as prohibiting the use of birth-control methods that work by abortifacient means. For those unfamiliar with the issue, the pill works by making the womb inhospitable to a pregnancy. If conception does take place, it becomes very difficult for the brand new baby to attach to the walls of the uterus and begin its gestation. In essence, the baby, only a few cells big, would starve to death.

There is no solid medical evidence that this does actually happen, but the manufacturers of the pill acknowledge it as a possibility in the instructions that come with the drugs. But even if the chance is remote, Christians have no place putting the lives of their children in jeopardy and I applaud these Reformed pastors for taking a stand against it for that reason.

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/07/contraception/

The principle ("even if the chance is remote, Christians have no place putting the lives of their children in jeopardy") seems far too strong. After all, most of us do put the lives of others in jeopardy to one degree or another. An obvious example is driving. When I drive, that carries the risk of accidentally killing another driver, or innocent bystander. Indeed, that's more than just a remote chance. Given enough drivers, accidental death is inevitable. Does that mean it's immoral to drive a car?

One possible counter is that driving involves mutual consensual risk. Each driver potentially endangers other drivers. It's a shared risk for a shared benefit.

However, there are two problems with that counter:

i) It's not mutually consensual for all concerned parties. Sometimes children are passengers. Some potential victims don't drive cars–by choice. They walk, take the bus, and/or ride a bike.

ii) Moreover, if something is intrinsically evil, then consent or benefit doesn't make it licit.

A more rational principle would be to say that we ought to take reasonable precautions to avoid innocent fatalities.

As a friend of mine recently said:

The abortion/birth control ethical analogy is dubious. With abortion, you are committing yourself to a course of action that virtually ensures the destruction of human life (unless the doctor drops dead of a heart attack prior to the procedure, etc.). It's 99.9% certain that an attempted abortion will result in an actual abortion. But in the case of the pill, the percentage is miniscule. Indeed, ovulation is prevented in such an overwhelming majority of cases, that one can't properly be said to "intend" an abortion by way of taking the pill. After all, every time I drive on the freeway, there is a small percentage we'll get hit by a car and die. But it doesn't follow that I intend for that outcome, or that the risk of a fatal accident means freeway driving is immoral. I intentionally drive on the freeway to be sure, but I don't intend for my family to die, even though freeway driving introduces that risk, and it was open to me not to drive on the freeway at all.

(Compare this with a gun: it's so lethal, percentage wise, that you do intend to kill when shooting it at point-blank range. Not so for freeway driving. I think the pill is more properly likened to freeway driving, in which there is a small risk of unintended death, rather than likened to shooting a gun at point-blank range or performing an abortion, in which there is an extraordinary high risk of death, so high that you can be said to intend it if you perform the action in question.)

At the same time, there are different types of contraceptive pills, so Christians need to be aware of the differences.