Jimmy Akin

A reader writes:

Thank you for your website. I have a question – I’m Catholic, my husband is not. 4 years ago, I talked him out of a vasectomy after the birth of our 2nd daughter, and convinced him that we could use NFP to not conceive (I wanted more children, he didn’t, I can provide more details if needed). Recently, I discovered I am pregnant. My husband was, surprisingly, happy, said he knew it could happen, that this was obviously God’s will, and that he’s going to get a vasectomy. I again voiced all my objections to it, and he, knowing that I am completely opposed to it, is going to go ahead with the vasectomy.

My question is, if I have intercourse with my husband after he has the vasectomy am I committing a sin? My brother-in-law pointed out that it is grounds for annulment, and made a comment that sounded like he assumed I wouldn’t be having intercourse with my husband after the vasectomy.

Your brother-in-law is mistaken in regarding this situation, as tragic as it is, as grounds for an annulment. (It is not.) He is also mistaken in (apparently) regarding continued conjugal relations with your husband as sinful.

Here is what the Church’s Vademecum for Confessors has to say regarding this kind of situation:

13. Special difficulties are presented by cases of cooperation in the sin of a spouse who voluntarily renders the unitive act infecund [i.e., who use contraception or who have themselves sterilized]. In the first place, it is necessary to distinguish cooperation in the proper sense, from violence or unjust imposition on the part of one of the spouses, which the other spouse in fact cannot resist. This cooperation [i.e., continuing to have relations]can be licit when the three following conditions are jointly met:

1. when the action of the cooperating spouse is not already illicit in itself;
2. when proportionally grave reasons exist for cooperating in the sin of the other spouse;
3. when one is seeking to help the other spouse to desist from such conduct (patiently, with prayer, charity and dialogue; although not necessarily in that moment, nor on every single occasion).

In your case, condition (1) is fulfilled because you, the cooperating spouse, are not being asked to do anything illicit in itself (e.g., you are not being asked to use contraception). Condition (2) is presumably fulfilled since it would likely do grave harm to your marriage if you permanently stopped conjugal relations. And condition (3) is presumably fulfilled since you will presumably over the course of time encourage your husband to repent of his action (though this may not mean a reversal of the vasectomy; just a repentence of having done it).

Assuming matter are as just described, it would appear that continuing conjugal relations with your husband after his vasectomy would be morally licit.

I hope, however, that you will be able to dissuade him from this course of action. You might try asking him to put it off for a while since it will obviously be a while before the new child is born and you are fertile again. This would give him time to think over the matter in more depth.

Hope this helps, and God bless!

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