A reader writes:
I came accross your web site when I was looking to see the catholic churches stance on vasectomies. I have a question, my wife was diagnosed with diabetes and we were informed that if we concieve a child there is a large risk of still birth or deformities. We were told that it is a higher rick than an average couple.
First, I am very sorry to hear about your wife’s condition. Diabetes is a cross that many have to carry, but there is hope for a cure soon.
I am extremely suspicious, however, of the advice you have been given regarding having children. While there may be a higher risk of stillbirth or deformities, there is a significant likelihood that this risk has been exaggerated by your physician. Many doctors in America today have a hypersensitivity to risk and an anti-child mentality that leads them to tell people they should’t have children for totally inadequate reasons.
I strongly suggest that you contact a pro-life doctor and ask him to give you a realistic assessment of the impact that your wife’s diabetes may have on the situation.
For example, even the March of Dimes (a very anti-child organization that wants to end birth defects by killing the children who have them) says the following about diabetes and pregnancy:
Today, most of these women [i.e., women who have diabetes] can look forward to having a healthy baby. While diabetes poses some risks in pregnancy, advances in care have greatly improved the outlook for these pregnancies [SOURCE].
It goes on to say that:
Women with poorly controlled preexisting diabetes in the early weeks of pregnancy are three to four times more likely than nondiabetic women to have a baby with a serious birth defect
but it elsewhere notes that the chance of a birth defect is 1 in 28. That means that for a woman with poorly controlled diabetes the chance of a birth defect would be 12.5% (assuming that the "serious birth defect" mentioned in the diabetes article is the same as the "birth defect" mentioned in the second article; the risk would be less than 12.5% if "serious birth defect" meant to be is a subset of the category "birth defect," meaning that there is less than a 1 in 28 chance of a serious birth defect.)
It does not seem to me that a 12.5% risk of a birth defect creates an automatic "don’t have children" situation. There is an 87.5% chance per kid that the child will be totally fine.
And that is for women with "poorly controlled preexisting diabetes." I assume that your wife, now that she has been diagnosed, will be properly controlling her diabetes through diet, exercise, and (if needed) medication, in which case the chances of having a normal baby will be greater than 87.5%.
I therefore strongly recommend that you talk to a pro-life doctor or contact the Couple to Couple League for additional perspective on this as I think you’re being misled by a hyper-cautious doctor.
The reader continues:
We are currently thinking about my getting a vasectomy. I am almost sure I will get one, my question is will this stop my ability to get the eucarist, or recieve other graces (i.e. ability to get into heaven)?
I strongly recommend that you do not pursue this course of action. Having a vasectomy is intrinsically wrong and a grave sin. To have one knowingly and deliberately is a mortal sin. Those in a state of mortal sin cannot receive Communion and those who die in mortal sin do not go to heaven because they have turned their back on God and extinguished the life of grace in their souls by rejecting his will in a fundamental matter. (Documentation on all this available on request.)
If, after seeking appropriate pro-life counsel, you conclude that you need to avoid having children then this needs to be accomplished in a morally licit way, such as Natural Family Planning. The Couple to Couple League can help you get trained on how to do that.
Finally, I’d add a caution of a prudential nature: Many men who have vasectomies later repent and conclude that they shouldn’t have had them. Some, along with their wives, conclude that they really want children after all. Consequently, they undertake corrective surgery. However, the way corrective surgery for a vasectomy works, it is not always successful (leading to further heartbreak and anguished regret for the couple) and it often causes the man ongoing physical pain.
I therefore strongly urge you not to undertake an action that could so dramatically affect you life, both spiritually and physically.
Hope this helps, and God bless!
20
