The Church, Condoms, and Aids: a Continuing Conversation

I am in need of some help from my fellow bloggers and readers on thinking through the issue raised by Michael P. on the Church, Condoms, and Aids.

I would break down the question in two ways - first, is the condom use taking place within marriage or outside of marriage, and second, is the question one of morality or prudential judgment.

Situation 1.  If one spouse is infected with HIV/AIDS, couldn't a condom be used for the purpose of protecting against the transmission of the disease (HIV/AIDS) as long as the married couple is not using the condom for the purpose of treating the possibility of the creation of new life as a disease?

Situation 2. When the sexual act occurs outside of marriage (especially where there is no intimacy such as in a case where a women exchanges the use of her body for money), the unitive aspect of the coupling is absent.  In these situations, the degradation of self - the giving of a body as an object for the pleasure of another - has already taken place.  Does it add anything to the degradation to use a condom for protection against a) the disease of HIV/AIDS or b) the procreative aspects of sexual union, since the unitive and procreative are inherently conjoined? (As an aside, I should make clear that I am not making a subjective moral judgment about desperate women in desperate situations but stating an objective fact about the degradation of self, a fact that I am sure many of these women understand all too well). 

If my analysis is correct, then condom use would be morally permissible in Situation 1 because it is not meant to inhibit the pro-creative possibilities of the union but only the anti-creative nature of the disease.  And, in Situation 2, the use of a condom is no less morally impermissible than sex act itself because engaging in sex outside the marital union destroys the procreative as well as the unitive purposes of sex.

Addressing situation 2, it seems to me that the Church is right to teach abstinence - that the sexual union ought to take place within marriage.  Since this is the Truth revealed in our Tradition, what else can it teach?  But, given the real world reality of non-marital sex with grave consequences, could the Church, consistent with its theology, support (or at least not condemn) condom use in these situations.  Here, given my analysis above, the answer is yes. 

If my analysis is correct so far (and I stand ready to be corrected), then the question becomes a prudential question.  And, here it becomes less about sex and more about how do you help someone engaged in destructive behavior.  The question is akin to how to deal with drug addicts and the dangers (including the danger of transmitting HIV/AIDS) of using unclean needles.  Is it prudent to supply (or promote -or at least condone- the supplying) of clean needles to drug addicts?  Isn't that the real issue here?

I look forward to hearing from others.

Michael S.