Is it physically possible for a breastfeeding mother to “use” her baby? Yes. Is it morally right or wrong for a mother to “use” her baby? That depends upon what is meant by “using” another person. There is a good sense and a bad sense to that word. An employer uses other people to accomplish a task. If he pays them fairly, provides a safe working environment, and treats them with the dignity due them as human persons, we say he is using them as members of his extended family in the good sense of the term. On the other hand, if the employer pays the least possible amount, fails to provide a safe working environment and in general uses them not in accord with their dignity as human persons, we say that he is using them in the pejorative or bad sense of that term.
If a breastfeeding mother is engorged and puts her baby to breast for relief, she is clearly using her baby, but is that wrong? My answer comes later. Again, what if she knows that ecological breastfeeding normally delays the return of fertility for over a year. What if she likes that idea and decides to do ecological breastfeeding for that reason? Is she doing something wrong? Is she “using” her baby in the pejorative sense?
You may think these are silly or purely speculative questions or even cruel ones since they could lead to scrupulosity among sensitive mothers. But the question of “using” one’s breastfeeding baby has been raised in recent months so it calls for a response.
The Question
Would a mother who chose to breastfeed solely for its baby-spacing effects be “using” her baby in the pejorative sense? The short and simple answer is “Absolutely not,” but something more might be helpful.
We need to start by recognizing that this is a purely hypothetical question. In real life, it would be impossible, practically speaking, for a woman to have or at least to retain such a narrow reason for breastfeeding. For one thing, breastfeeding has too many advantages or blessings to keep focused on one single benefit. Second, to obtain any significant spacing, the mother would have to do ecological breastfeeding, and it can be demanding.
Still, one person with a theological background was given this question and replied that “If a woman were breastfeeding with the SOLE or even PRIMARY intent of preventing ovulation, then, yes, she could be using her baby as a means to an end.” That sounds like a pejorative sense of “using.”
Further, a friend has informed us that in its new teacher training program, the Couple to Couple League has written as follows: “As a matter of fact, if the only goal of breastfeeding is the infertility at the expense of the mother, the baby and/or the family, that could be a ‘use’ of the mother, baby and/or family. And as pointed out in ‘The Human Body,’ we should love people, and use things… not the other way around.” (“The Human Body” is a CCL publication.) The inclusion of “at the expense of the mother, the baby and/or the family” is not helpful for our basic question, but the whole sentence gives the impression that our hypothetical single-focus mother would be “using” in the pejorative sense.
Let’s look at this in terms of a standard analysis of a human act as we did last week.
There are three factors that constitute the morality of a human act.
1) the thing done,
2) the circumstances, and
3) the intention of the person who acts.
1) Let us focus on ecological breastfeeding in particular because that’s the only kind that offers extended infertility. In this case, the thing done is a basic human good. It is the form of baby care that gives the baby the best nutrition and nurturing.
2) The circumstances are such that they do not affect the morality of the action. The mother is able to nurse, and the baby is able to suckle.
Here we need to address CCL’s inclusion of extraneous circumstances, “at the expense of the mother, the baby and/or the family.” Adding extraneous circumstances completely confuses the issue, whatever it might be. Is it good for a mother to worship at Mass on Sunday for the sole purpose of pleasing God? Of course it is, even if there are also other very good reasons that she might not have in mind on any given Sunday. But now add “if it is done at the expense of a child who is so sick that he needs the full-time presence of his mother.” Clearly, the mother has a primary obligation to care for a desperately sick child, and for her to leave her child under those circumstances would be child abandonment and the wrong thing to do. So when we address the morality of breastfeeding for a single intention, we have to eliminate extraneous circumstances.
3) The intention is the key issue here. Let’s state the question again and then rephrase it.
Would a mother who chose to breastfeed solely for its baby-spacing effects be “using” her baby in the pejorative sense?
In other words, would a mother who chose to breastfeed for the sole purpose of seeking the natural effect that God himself built into the nursing mother-baby ecology be “using” her baby in the pejorative sense? Not at all. She desires a God-given good, and the only way to achieve that good is to let her baby nurse frequently. How can anyone say the she would be “using” her baby in a pejorative sense of the word?
For the sake of argument, one might say that the hypothetical mother with her narrow focus has acted with less than the best intention. To that I would offer two responses. First, let’s assume that’s correct. We are required to act for a good intention, but there is no moral teaching of which I am aware that obliges us to act out of the best intention. That’s a concept that a person might discuss with his or her own spiritual advisor. I have heard of some saints who took a promise always to do the best thing, which I imagine would include or might include always acting for the highest intention, but I believe it would be rash for anyone to do so without good spiritual direction. It would be a recipe for scrupulosity and could tie a sensitive person into knots. Second, in the case at hand, the mother’s intention is to achieve a God-planned effect, not an unnatural effect. What can be wrong with that?
This issue should never be raised in the context of general instruction about breastfeeding because of 1) the risk of causing a scrupulous conscience and 2) the total unreality of the question in real life. In real life, the question would only apply to a mother who did ecological breastfeeding, for that’s the only kind that offers extended natural infertility. And in real life, a mother who started with only that limited intention would either soon stop ecological breastfeeding because of the demands of this form of baby care, or she would expand her horizons as she learned both from her own experience and from others the many other benefits of ecological breastfeeding.
To return to the question of intention, our hypothetical mother who chooses to do ecological breastfeeding only for its baby-spacing effects is not doing anything wrong or sinful. She has chosen to do what is best for her baby by all available measurements. She is simply focusing on one God-given effect instead of the big picture. Her limited intention is a good intention. She is not engaged in any form of contraceptive behavior. She allows her baby to nurse whenever he wants, but she cannot force her baby to nurse. Using a standard moral analysis, I cannot find anything wrong or sinful in the choice to do ecological breastfeeding solely for its baby-spacing effect, hypothetical as such a decision might be.
As far as I am concerned, the only thing wrong in this picture is the suggestion that such a mother may be acting wrongly, “using” her baby in a pejorative sense. That plants the seeds for a scrupulous conscience. In my opinion it is wrong to put into NFP instruction and teacher training such concepts that may lead sensitive moms to wonder, every time they pick up their babies, if they are “using” their babies in some sort of wrongful way.
To return to our opening question, what if a mom is feeling engorged, and she nurses solely, at that moment, for personal comfort? Is she using her baby? Of course she is. Is there anything the least bit wrong with that? Absolutely not. Does she love her baby any less because at that moment she is hoping that he will relieve her engorgement? Of course not. Let us be done with negative talk about “using” a breastfeeding baby.
John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius)
Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book, a short, free, and readable e-book available at
www.NFPandmore.org.