iwpoe wrote:

Contraception *qua* contraception may not be healthcare in the narrow sense, but there are incidental uses of it that seem to be: the regulation of very painful and/or very irregular menstruation by hormonal birth control seems to be a case of healthcare that incidentally results in contraception (in the event of intercourse).

I suppose I'd have to rework the argument...

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that contraception is health care in the context of someone who uses it for the medical reasons you mention, but otherwise remains sexually inactive so that the intrinsically evil nature of contraception -- the deprivation of the sexual act of its procreative meaning and/or the killing of a newly conceived human being -- is not an issue. For, if the person who uses contraception for those medical reasons chooses to have sex while taking the drug, then the person directly intends to use their sexual faculties under conditions that are contrary to the purpose of those faculties. The contraception that occurs in the event of intercourse when the person is using the drug for medical reasons is not merely an "incidental result," but an intrinsically evil aspect of deliberately having contraceptive sex.

Consider the example of various drugs and treatments for the obese. Most of these either mechanically or chemically thwart digestion and/or absorption of food towards the end of causing the patient to lose weight. It is the permanent or temporary partial frustration of some natural faculties towards the maintenance or restoration of others.

Amputation and hysterectomy come to mind as similar in form as well.

Again, I'd have to rework the argument, perhaps to include the principle of totality, which allows for the removal of some diseased or gravely damaged organ (thereby preventing the person from realizing one or more of their natural ends) for the sake of the health of the whole organism (so that they might at least realize a

Here's my suggestion for a revised argument of the OP's original...

(1) Health care is that which attempts to restore a person's natural faculties to a state in which they can achieve their natural ends. (Examples: eyeglasses help the eyes to achieve their end of seeing well; drugs for digestive disorders attempt to restore the digestive system so that it can achieve its end of nutrition.)

(2) Contraception frustrates our sexual faculties from achieving their natural end of procreation.

(3) Therefore, contraception is not health care.