Unequal burden.

Cathleen Kaveny concluded her most recent column ("Contraception Again," December 15, 2006) by saying, "our committment to a natural-law approach ... has to be more fundamental than our position on this particular application of natural law." When Kaveny argues that we need to shift the terms of the debate, however, she too quickly glosses over a fundamental error within the Catholic application of natural law to the question of marital sexuality: it assumes that the natural law which applies to marital sexuality impacts both sexes equally.

This premise is simply untrue: everywhere in the world, women bear a disproportionate share of the consequences of unprotected marital intercourse. This is true whether one looks to women infected with HIV by their husbands, women in the developing world who die in childbirth, or women in the developed world who are economically disadvantaged because of years spent caring for large families.

Rather than shift the terms of the debate, the Catholic Church needs to revisit its original argument; this time, with the recognition that the application of a law to a particular case is necessarily impacted by circumstances such as race or gender. When it does so, it will be forced to recognize that the current prohibition of contraception within marriage is unjust because it places an undue burden on half of God's creation.

PAULA McQUADE

Chicago, Ill.