One of the most distinctive positions of the Catholic Church in our age is our refusal not only of obvious atrocities against life that cry to heaven like abortion, but also of the “merely” grave and mortal sin of contraception. So much of the world has folded to pressure on this issue, even Christian groups. Indeed, a lot of ostensible Christians—strangely and incoherently, I might add—appeal to the availability of artificial contraception as a reason for why abortion is even less fathomable. Even despite the pressures put on the Church from within and without, the Catholic Church has consistently continued to proclaim that separating the unitive and procreative aspects of marital sexual activity is objectively and gravely immoral, such that those who do so with full knowledge and consent of the will are committing a mortal sin. This truth is drawn from considering the natural law and the very purpose of human sexuality and God’s design for marriage; The immorality of artificial contraception (or, in reverse, sexual activity devoid of spousal and unitive love) is unchanging and unchangeable, it is immoral always and everywhere for all human beings, not merely a “Catholic thing.” However, many think of it as a merely religious rule; even some Catholics who abide by this teaching perhaps do so with the preconceptions and language of the world regarding this issue. E.g. that contraception could solve a lot of life’s problems but “the Church says no.”