On The Job With
A Catholic Ob-Gyn

Dr. Kim Hardey

hat is the biggest issue facing Catholics today? Is it abortion, or the breakup of families? According to Dr. Kim Hardey, the answer is birth control, because, as he sees it, it is at the root of problems such as divorce and abortion.

Hardey knows a thing or two about birth control. He is part of just a handful of the 40,000 obstetrician-gynecologists who refuses to prescribe birth control for moral reasons.

But Hardey was not always in this moral minority.

It took the tragic death of his 9-year-old son, Brad, to make him realize that by prescribing and practicing birth control he had not been living up to the Catholic life. Since then, he has put his career at risk rather than compromise this core moral teaching of his Catholic faith.

"Prior to Brad's death, I was a good Catholic from all outward appearances," Hardey said in a recent interview. "Our family had been Catholic family of the year, I was president of the parish council, I was a eucharistic minister, a lector and a member of the parish's finance committee. My wife and I accepted everything that the Church taught --except for the teaching on birth control."

Brad Hardey was struck by a car while he was on a school field trip, and in the aftermath of his death, his father began examining his life. He asked himself, "What is it about my life that made God feel that He should allow this to happen to me?"

Hardey saw birth control as the biggest obstacle between himself and God, and he decided to change it.

Hardey's wife, Bonnie, had struggled with the birth-control issue, but since her husband was prescribing birth control for his patients, she figured that he must know what he was doing.

Radical Action

However, after his "reconversion," Hardey and his wife took radical action and stopped using birth control that day. Then he decided to stop prescribing birth control to his patients, and he moved his practice from Dotham, Ala., to Lafayette, La., where he thought there would be enough good Catholics to support a "Catholic ob-gyn."

So far, Hardey's gamble has paid off just fine. "I'm not doing any worse than if I were a new pro-choice or pro-birth-control doctor opening up a new practice in a new town," Hardey said.

Hardey sees it as his mission to make the Church's teachings on birth control more widely understood and better accepted. But he also wants to set an example for other Catholic doctors, to show them that being faithful to Church teaching will not cause their practice to dry up.

Contraception is so widespread among Catholics that the severity of the offense against God has been watered-down to the point where people do not see the sin anymore, Hardey complained.

"Catholic couples who practice contraception see it that as an isolated decision for the bedroom," Hardey said.

"They think it doesn't affect Church anyone else, but it does. " According to Hardey, a couple's decision about birth control starts a chain reaction that goes through to their children and then into society.

"Following the Church's teachings shows your children that you have self-control, which you are also asking of them by teaching them to wait until they get married," Hardey said.

Also, it shows children the valuable example of obedience to Church authority, even though it requires sacrifice. Not obeying Church teaching, Hardy reasons, could lead children to believe that other Church teachings, such as that on adultery or premarital sex, can be disregarded as well.

"Following the Church's teaching shows that you are serious about being Catholic and about your own salvation, because you are obeying Christ's Church here on earth," Hardey said.

Not everyone is ready to hear about the Church's teaching on birth control, so when Hardey speaks to a parish doctors group, he begins by talking about what birth control has done to society.

He cites the strong correlation between birth control and divorce. Catholics who follow the Church's teachings on birth control have a divorce rate of less than 5 percent, according to the Couple to Couple League, who advocate natural family planning.

Catholics who do use artificial contraception, meanwhile, suffer the same rate of divorce as the rest of society, about 50 percent. Also, Hardey claims, 80 percent of all abortions stem from failed birth control. Sex outside of marriage is now "normal," and this has led to a rise in venereal disease, date rape and the "objectification of women," Hardey said.

And all of those facts don't take into account that using birth control puts the offending party in the state of mortal sin. Those who are aware of a mortal sin on their conscience are not allowed to receiving Communion until going to confession. In fact, by receiving communion in the state of mortal sin, is to commit a grave sacrilege, Hardey explained.

Opposed To Discipleship

"Birth control makes you selfish and materialistic, which are characteristic directly opposed to Christian discipleship," Hardey said. "It keeps you from developing the virtue of self-control that helps you have a better marriage and greater witness to God's power in your life."

If birth control is such a serious sin and common in many families, why don't the priests say more about it from the pulpit?

"Priests have let the situation pass and have accepted that people will do what they want to do," according to Hardey. "People don't see birth control as a big issue when, in reality, it is the biggest issue that Catholics face, because it touches so many areas of our lives."

Priests, when asked by a couple if they should use birth control, will answer no, he said. But most won't risk confronting a couple on the issue, for fear that it will chase them away from the Church all together.

Popular wisdom says that if a couple is going to Mass it is a sign that God is working in their lives to some degree and in time they will understand the fullness of Catholic teaching.

But for many, going to Mass is the only formation they are getting, so if they don't hear about birth control at Mass, where will they? Unfortunately, some don't even know birth control is wrong or, even worse, they are waiting in vain for the Church to change its teaching.

Hardey realizes the difficulty of the task because people have been living away from the truth for so long.

"It is important to gently, yet steadily, urge people back on the road to Christ," Hardey said. When people ask Hardey about natural family planning, he tells them that it does work for couples who need to space births.

The Catholic Church is a church of sinners, so it's rare to find a couple who has not practiced birth control at least at some point.

"For years I thought I was doing something great," Hardey said. I really thought I was being good giving out birth control to couples. There was a blindness that contributed to my deception."

"Clearly, the Church is right. If you want to change the world, you have to do something drastic, and that will happen one couple at a time. We need to turn to what God gave us."