Barrier Method vs. NFP

[Questionful]

Yes, in a way vaccines interfere with a natural act (a virus/bacteria making you ill). But the interference they do is not one that involves two intertwined aspects that are sinful to separate. So once again, we must go back to the morality of separating love-giving from life-giving.

See, I don’t understand why people are arguing that the means are what makes it so intrinsically evil when we all acknowledge that there are some circumstances where you MAY separate the love-giving from the life-giving.

This reasoning leads me to the idea that the Catholic Church wants us to think:
It’s not okay to separate the love-giving aspects of sex from the life-giving aspects.
… Unless you have good reasons, and only use NFP.

There’s something very wrong about that.

This last paragraph leads you into trouble. As other posters have pointed out, the obvious conclusion to draw would be that a couple must always try to get pregnant with each act of intercourse. Are you prepared to defend that?

Well, I’m not trying to argue that, and I’m sorry that it makes it seem like that. What I’m saying is that, in the course of this argument, have attributed evil to barrier methods because they make the sexual act infertile. However, NFP methods also make the planned sexual act infertile. I’m saying that, if it’s wrong to make the act infertile, then why is NFP right?

• If I use science to discover that I have terminal cancer and I have a prognosis of 6 months to live, is that a DIRECT action?
• If an enemy of mine locks me in a radioactive room where I contract cancer, is that a DIRECT action?

I don’t understand your questions. Are these a direct action to do what? To discover you have cancer, or to get cancer? For the first scenario, that’s a direct action to discover cancer, but not to contract it. For the second scenario, your enemy is deliberately acting so that you may contract cancer. … While you probably aren’t directly acting to contract it yourself.

 

[Magdalena09]

So you’re saying that, even though a person doesn’t want to have children sooo~ much that they are taking precautions to avoid conception, they still have to act like they’re still trying to conceive?

And that’s what is supposed to make NFP moral? In light of all that you’ve done to thwart conception, you have to pretend that you’re trying to have a child? The intrinsic morality of having a child is ejaculation? That can’t be right, because then hormonal birth control would be valid in the eyes of the Church.

I’d love to see this reasoning applied to develop a pro-active stance on artificial insemination, though. What a grand old play that would be.

Also, 2+2=4, but it can also equal 5 for extremely large values of two. So, people could object, and still be right. Both quantities have been rounded down to two, but quantitatively, they still equal 5 when combined.

I think you’re putting words in peoples’ mouths now. No one said anyone had to pretend to want to become pregnant.

Faithful Catholics are open to life, period. Whether it is open through the possibility of becoming pregnant, open through the fact that they are opposed to euthanasia, or any other pro-life stance.

Example:
If a Catholic couple believes, in good conscience, that they do not have the means to care for a new baby, they might employ NFP to reduce the likelihood of them conceiving at that time, while they still acknowledge the possibility of conception if that is what God has planned.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

Recourse to Infertile Periods

1. Now as We noted earlier (no. 3), some people today raise the objection against this particular doctrine of the Church concerning the moral laws governing marriage, that human intelligence has both the right and responsibility to control those forces of irrational nature which come within its ambit and to direct them toward ends beneficial to man. Others ask on the same point whether it is not reasonable in so many cases to use artificial birth control if by so doing the harmony and peace of a family are better served and more suitable conditions are provided for the education of children already born. To this question We must give a clear reply. The Church is the first to praise and commend the application of human intelligence to an activity in which a rational creature such as man is so closely associated with his Creator. But she affirms that this must be done within the limits of the order of reality established by God.

If therefore there are well-grounded reasons for spacing births, arising from the physical or psychological condition of husband or wife, or from external circumstances, the Church teaches that married people may then take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles which We have just explained. (20)

Neither the Church nor her doctrine is inconsistent when she considers it lawful for married people to take advantage of the infertile period but condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly prevent conception, even when the reasons given for the later practice may appear to be upright and serious. In reality, these two cases are completely different. In the former the married couple rightly use a faculty provided them by nature. In the later they obstruct the natural development of the generative process. It cannot be denied that in each case the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result. But it is equally true that it is exclusively in the former case that husband and wife are ready to abstain from intercourse during the fertile period as often as for reasonable motives the birth of another child is not desirable. And when the infertile period recurs, they use their married intimacy to express their mutual love and safeguard their fidelity toward one another. In doing this they certainly give proof of a true and authentic love.

Dearest Questionful: I have now posted this section of Humane Vitae for the third time. Please read it. Please read the highlighted parts. By all means read the entire encyclical.

Now to address some of your concerns from your previous post to me.

The couple that uses a condom and the couple that is using NFP both are trying to avoid pregnancy.

Since, there are only 2 - 3 days that pregnancy can occur, the condom using couple does not care when that is, and uses a condom. They are doing what would cause a baby, on the day it would cause a baby. They want “safe sex” on a fertile day. They are telling the Holy Spirit, “You are not welcome in our home.” How do they do this, by making procreation impossible. Furthermore, a condom using couple, uses condoms most times they are intimate, telling the Holy Spirit," You are never welcome ."

Again since there are only 2-3 days a month that a pregnancy can occur, the couple who wishes to postpone pregnancy abstains from sexual intercourse during those days. If they are intimate on days that pregnancy cannot occur, they have done nothing to cause the temporary infertility. They have not told the Holy Spirit, “You are not invited.” The temporary infertility is not willed, it is not artificially caused, it just occurs naturally.

This will be my final post…cause I’m somewhat tired of having to repeat myself. I hope that the Holy Spirit opens your heart and mind. Please read Humane Vitae

God Bless.

 

[Questionful]

I think you’re putting words in peoples’ mouths now. No one said anyone had to pretend to want to become pregnant.

Faithful Catholics are open to life, period. Whether it is open through the possibility of becoming pregnant, open through the fact that they are opposed to euthanasia, or any other pro-life stance.

Example:
If a Catholic couple believes, in good conscience, that they do not have the means to care for a new baby, they might employ NFP to reduce the likelihood of them conceiving at that time, while they still acknowledge the possibility of conception if that is what God has planned.

I’ll address your other post tomorrow, but I can address this right now.

fix said that the act must be orientated towards life, meaning that things must happen like you’re trying to have birth, even if you’re infertile “through no fault of your own” – like it’s GOD’s fault that you determined the times where you would be infertile. You knew that you were infertile, but you’re putting on an act, like GOD doesn’t know that you deliberately had sex at this point of time to reap the benefits of infertile sex.
Also, I’d like to correct an error I made. By fix’s reasoning, hormonal birth control probably wouldn’t be allowed by the Church – depending on how much fault the Church could put on the woman using the treatment.

But don’t get me wrong. Infertility isn’t morally wrong – It’s neutral. Not every act of sex needs to be fertile. However, I’d like to ask you: Can justify the morality of specifically learning when you’re fertile or infertile solely because you only want to have sex when you’re infertile?

Your example is flawed. A Catholic couple can believe in good conscience that they can’t support another child, and use a condom to reduce the probability of conception. At the same time, they can acknowledge the possibility of conception, and leave whether conception takes place up to GOD. A latex, or rubber condom will not prevent what GOD has planned.

 

[momor]

I would like to say thank you again to everyone on this thread. It has been very helpful for me even though sometimes my head was spinning too.

I understand Church teaching much better now. It really is pretty simple if you accept that it’s OK to space out the pregnancies based only the menstrual cycle.

For those of you who obviously evangelize a lot on this topic I have a few suggestions if I may?

I think use of the phrase “openess to life” in the discussion of the morality tends to mislead and should be dropped or used a lot less. It is too vague and can mean different things to different people. In the extreme it can mean just being willing not to abort. And it definitely misled me when it was applied to NFP and intercourse only during infertility.

And I think we really need better terminology for the concept of avoiding pregnancy. Having a theological meaning of contraception vs a medical meaning only serves to cause confusion.

Finally, for concrete thinkers like me and probably others like me, philosophical explanations are not helpful. I just don;t get most of it. That’s when my head spins and my eyes glaze over.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.and I am happy to finally be in harmony with Church teachings because I understand them, not just because I obey them.

 

[Magdalena09]

fix said that the act must be orientated towards life, meaning that things must happen like you’re trying to have birth

This explains a lot. Being open to life, or oriented towards life, or accepting of the life-giving nature of sex, does not equal “trying to have birth”, trying to get pregnant, or trying to conceive.

So that kinda negates the rest of your response.

 

[Magdalena09]

Your example is flawed. A Catholic couple can believe in good conscience that they can’t support another child, and use a condom to reduce the probability of conception. At the same time, they can acknowledge the possibility of conception, and leave whether conception takes place up to GOD. A latex, or rubber condom will not prevent what GOD has planned.

With that mindset, you ought to have no problem with abortion because God could intervene and the baby could survive, as in the case with Gianna Jessen.

 

[Magdalena09]

Dearest Questionful: I have now posted this section of Humane Vitae for the third time. Please read it. Please read the highlighted parts. By all means read the entire encyclical.

Now to address some of your concerns from your previous post to me.

The couple that uses a condom and the couple that is using NFP both are trying to avoid pregnancy.

Since, there are only 2 - 3 days that pregnancy can occur, the condom using couple does not care when that is, and uses a condom. They are doing what would cause a baby, on the day it would cause a baby. They want “safe sex” on a fertile day. They are telling the Holy Spirit, “You are not welcome in our home.” How do they do this, by making procreation impossible. Furthermore, a condom using couple, uses condoms most times they are intimate, telling the Holy Spirit," You are never welcome ."

Again since there are only 2-3 days a month that a pregnancy can occur, the couple who wishes to postpone pregnancy abstains from sexual intercourse during those days. If they are intimate on days that pregnancy cannot occur, they have done nothing to cause the temporary infertility. They have not told the Holy Spirit, “You are not invited.” The temporary infertility is not willed, it is not artificially caused, it just occurs naturally.

This will be my final post…cause I’m somewhat tired of having to repeat myself. I hope that the Holy Spirit opens your heart and mind. Please read Humane Vitae

God Bless.

 

[Magdalena09]

like it’s GOD’s fault that you determined the times where you would be infertile. You knew that you were infertile, but you’re putting on an act, like GOD doesn’t know that you deliberately had sex at this point of time to reap the benefits of infertile sex.

This thinking is completely warped.

Who do you think determined in the first place that a woman would be very likely to conceive only 2-3 days a month, and less likely to conceive the other 27+ days of the month? He could have chosen for women to be very likely to conceive all the time… but he didn’t.

What do you mean by “deliberately had sex at this point of time to reap the benefits of infertile sex”?

Your thinking would make more sense if the situation was reversed and a woman was less likely to conceive for only 2-3 days a month, because THEN it would be like they waited around for 27+ days and JUMPED at the opportunity to have “infertile” sex as you put it. But that simply isn’t the case. For about 325 days out of the year, a woman is not likely to conceive.

 

[surritter]

I’d have to disagree with your point there. By saying artificial, you’re making the argument way too complex for me, and I’d rather not have to argue the morality of hormonal birth control, IUDs, spermicides, sterilization, etc.

Hold on – this isn’t complicated at all. It goes back to a point which you refuse to admit: anything that spouses do to directly impact the procreative aspect while maintaining the unitive aspect is considered “artificial contraception.” To discover about infertile periods and engage in sex during those times is natural contraception (although we use the acronym NFP because any mention of the word contraception makes everyone thing of the artificial variety).

Come on… Can’t we at least agree on basic terminology?
I must believe that you are not intentionally being difficult.

 

[surritter]

See, I don’t understand why people are arguing that the means are what makes it so intrinsically evil when we all acknowledge that there are some circumstances where you MAY separate the love-giving from the life-giving.

Forgive me if this post betrays my mild frustration, but we gotta hammer this point out or else the whole discussion is over. I’ll extract the main fallacy that you must get over, Questionful. Your statement: “We all acknowledge that there are some circumstances where you MAY separate the love-giving from the life-giving.”

I do not acknowledge any circumstance where couples “may separate the love-giving from the life-giving.” Why? The key word is the verb separate, which is an action verb. Couples may not separate the two.

Wait, you say, NFP separates the two. Wrong again. In a sideways manner, you have admitted such, as when I posed the situation about discovering cancer vs. being locked in a radioactive room (my post #120, your post #141):

For the first scenario, that’s a direct action to discover cancer, but not to contract it. For the second scenario, your enemy is deliberately acting so that you may contract cancer. … While you probably aren’t directly acting to contract it yourself.

You just said it! If someone naturally gets cancer, you said that discovering is a direct action, but contracting it is NOT. However, if I cause the cancer to develop in a person, that is a direct action. You just said it!

For Pete’s sake, simply plug in the appropriate term from our discussion: To discover about infertile periods may be a direct action (I’d debate the adjective direct, but we’ll let it go). But at least it is an action that is moral (parallel to the first cancer scenario) because you are not deliberately causing love and life to be separated, just as the oncologist does not cause cancer. But to cause infertility is a deliberate action (parallel to the second cancer scenario).

For the sake of my sanity, please reread this post before responding. And reread it again…

 

[RobNY]

I also have to disagree with your last point in this post. The Church does allow for direct actions that are meant to thwart conception while allowing the sexual act. If that weren’t the case, NFP would not be allowed. Please don’t misunderstand my disagreement as a game of semantics, as I really don’t mean for it to have that purpose. Rather, I’m trying to assert a point that I’ve been trying to make all along: NFP is being directly used to thwart conception, and the fertility of the sexual act.

Friend,

NFP, as a “direct action” is completely accidental to fertility. It changes, not a person, nor a person’s fertility, but merely his knowledge about his fertility.

Now, I grant you, there are some instances where the morality of an action hinges on whether a consequence is foreseen or not. But the Catholic church does not hold that, in matters of procreation and sexual intercourse, that knowledge of the consequences is what makes contraception wrong. This is why, for instance, the Church thinks that infertile couples have valid marriages, and that there is no problem in infertile people, qua infertile for having sexual intercourse.

If you want, call this ‘direct action,’ but no matter what you call it, realize that it seems that is does seem to mean anything significant in this context-- whatever you call it.

In my previous post, I quoted the deceased Cardinal Konig on his stance on the matter: that this is just an argument for which method of tricking nature is the most moral.

It’s not about ‘tricking nature’ at all. How is gaining accurate knowledge about oneself “tricking nature?” Besides, the ground for saying that contraception is wrong is not some facile objection that ‘tricking nature’ is wrong, if by tricking nature we mean altering something about our biology. There is nothing wrong with altering our biology simply considered. For we do, after all, practice medicine. There is something wrong with things that are “contrary to nature,” but nature is taken equivocally in this example. Nature in “tricking nature” (let’s call this nature type-1), means something different than nature in “contrary to nature” (let’s call this nature type-2). And in this, it is either a simple fallacy-- equivocation, or in the case of some, a simple modernist error (of making human “nature” no more than, or reducible simply to nature type-1), which renders the position wrong.

Once again, I implore you to make a careful study of the classical thought behind the Church’s position. Until you investigate the Aristotelian doctrines on natures and ends, we are going to have a very difficult time, talking past each other.

God bless,
Rob

 

[Jennifer_J]

I think use of the phrase “openess to life” in the discussion of the morality tends to mislead and should be dropped or used a lot less. It is too vague and can mean different things to different people. In the extreme it can mean just being willing not to abort. And it definitely misled me when it was applied to NFP and intercourse only during infertility.

.

I agree, and try to use ORDERED TOWARD PROCREATION, instead of open to life. Each act of sex must be properly ordered to procreation–ie, nothing is done to make the act infertile. NFP does nothing to affect any specific act of sex–the woman is either fertile or not fertile. The act procedes as normal.