On scientists

In section 24, the pope discusses the role of scientists, and their true duty to properly follow the church. He states that “there can be no contradiction between two divine laws—that which governs the transmitting of life and that which governs the fostering of married love” (30) which indicates that although scientists can figure out new ways in which the human body works and they will know how to affect the regulation of births, they should not because it goes against the church. According to him, Catholic scientists in general are allowed to make their science claims and discover anything they can about how the human body works, but they cannot interfere with what the church truly wants them to do, which is to not prevent births among families. He states that the creation of birth control goes against the church, and nothing else along those lines shall be created by Catholic scientists and other scientists alike.

In today’s society, that is not a reasonable request for the Pope to make for scientists. There are so many technological advances, that scientists are expected to keep finding newer and better ways to utilize their information. The jobs of scientists such as those would be pointless if they were never allowed to help other people with their new finds on certain issues, birth control included. That would be an incredibly unreasonable request if it came to something different in medicine that would potentially save someone’s life. If they were to ask a scientist to withhold the potential to help save someone’s life, there would be an outrage, just because it may go against something the church has said. In a way, the scientists who are helping with birth control could be saving more lives than people realize. Many people do take birth control in order to prevent pregnancies, because there are other uses out there, but if birth control was no longer available to them, the risk of pregnancy is higher. If the risk of pregnancy is higher, then more people would be getting pregnant, and of those people, it is sure some would choose abortion as their second option which in the church’s eyes is taking another life. Although the scientists are preventing life from being created in the first place, they are not destroying actual life that has been created already. They are merely giving people the option to prevent having to make a more difficult decision.

In addition, the pill and other various things are not only used as a contraceptive method, but rather for other problems such as acne, or irregularity, among others which are all valid reasons. In the pope’s writing, he clarifies that although the church does not condone certain things, they will condone the usage of science for medical practices in order to preserve someone’s life. Although this is not nearly the same as saving someone’s life, it is the same kind of concept. A person has a condition and is being treated medically for it in an effective manner. It is all up to the user whether or not they would like to partake in using it, and so the products should be made available by scientists for the people, and leave it up to their choices on whether or not to use it, because the alternatives to not being on a pill could be greater risks and go against what the church wants more than merely taking it.