Can Catholics Have Sex While Pregnant?
The Legitimacy of the Marital Act with Regards to Circumstances: Times - Part 3.
In general, yes, it is morally permissible for Catholics to have sex while the wife is pregnant.
Rationale:
While new life cannot be conceived when a woman is already pregnant, it is permissible to make use of the marital debt to fulfill the other ends of marriage, namely, mutual support and the remedy of concupiscence (Pius XI, 1930). This is because the act is still intrinsically ordered to the procreative end. In other words, the act is such that if circumstances were different she could conceive. On this note, just because conception is impossible does not mean that one could use a condom or not complete the marital act properly (ejaculation of semen in the vagina).
Caveat
The caveat is that sex while pregnant becomes immorally if it is likely to cause harm to either the mother or the child (Tanquerey, 1922). In some cases, it is immoral to have sex during a part of the pregnancy (often in the final weeks leading up to the due date) because of certain health risks. In these cases, the theologian would defer to the physician. If one’s physician is adamant that one should not have sex due to health concerns then it is probably not moral to have sex. On the other hand, if one’s physician permits it then, generally speaking, one can morally have sex during the full duration of the pregnancy.
Case in point: the OB/GYN of one of my clients gave her two date ranges. The first was the “don’t if you can stand it” time and the latter was the “white knuckle it” time. Since she and her husband wanted to be able to have sex as long as they could, I instructed them on techniques to do so safely while encouraging them to follow her physician’s directions.
Resources:
MyCatholicDoctor.com - Women’s Health
Sex and Pregnancy. (n.d.). Permanente Medicine. Retrieved April 22, 2024, from https://mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/mas/structured-content/Health_Topic_Sex_and_Pregnancy_-_OBGYN.xml?co=%2Fregions%2Fmas
References:
Pius XI. (1930). Encyclical “Casti Connubii” on Christian Marriage. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.html
Tanquerey, A. (1922). Supplementum ad Tr. De Matrimonio. In Synopsis theologiæ moralis et pastoralis: Vol. 1. De Poenitentia, De Matriomonio et Ordine. (9th ed.). Desclée & Co.
