Birth control in certain circumstances?

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flyingfish said:
Personally I would doubt that contraception is more damaging to a marriage than no sex. Sex is what keeps the bond between husband and wife going.

If NFP works for this couple, the risk of having a child with birth defects is pretty small.
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I disagree wholeheartedly and have posted the statistics to support this.

Granted sex is a very important and wonderful part of marriage, but sex is not the bond that keeps marriages going. It is in part this way of thinking that has contributes to the 50% failure rate of most marriages. Sex with others, porn, withholding sex as an act of power, using your spouse simply for pleasure (which is what sex outside of procreation is), to name a few examples.

The bond that keeps marriages together is Love, the love between the spouses and God, as part of the marriage. A love that is stronger and more powerful than the sexual drive is and that puts the needs and desires of the spouse ahead of the sex drive.
 
1ke said:
What your physician wants you to do is contracept. That is an intrinsically evil act and a grave sin against the Sixth Commandment.

No, it is not OK to contracept in **any **circumstance.

You can continue to use natural family planning to avoid pregnancy while taking other medication. Use conservative, post ovulatory time for intimacy. Perhaps even add a fertility monitor, such as is used in the Marquette Model of NFP.
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And, the only way to ensure that you are not pregnant is through abstinance. Artificial contraception and NFP are not 100% effective.
 
Fidelis_Unus said:
I pray that this is true, as the act of taking birth control is intrinsically evil.

On the contrary. Abstinence, is a true act of charity and done with Love, builds marriages. There are many saints who lived chaste marriages and this act of true love for eachother is well-rewarded. Simple look to the statistics. Couple who marry currently have a 50% success rate. Those who practice NFP and attend Mass faithfully have a 95-99% success ratem depending on the poll. 🤷

-from Catholiceducation.org: "while the divorce rate in the United States hovers around 50 percent during the first five years of marriage, those who use Natural Family Planning have a divorce rate of about 0.6 percent according to the Couple to Couple League, and 2-5 percent according to research conducted by California State University, attesting to the strong covenant love shared by these couples.
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Not to derail this thread, but I think your statisics might also reflect on the fact that those who look at marriage as an actual SACRAMENT are more likely to work harder to make it successful. I’ve noticed that Catholic or not, if you don’t see a problem with divorce, followed by dating, and/or remarriage, you’re not as likely to make it work. Those who look on marriage as a Sacrament (and therefore a done deal) work harder from what I’ve seen.
Way too many people are marrying in civil court only, and that makes marriage dispensible.
 
Humanae Vitae states:

Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it—in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general. Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong. (HV 14)
 
And also not to derail a thread… but yes, people do seek to bamboozle a priest to get them to say what they want to hear. I think everyone here has known of instances where people go “priest shopping” to find someone to give them permission to do the impermissible. And those priests that do are often very popular.

And this is what has brought the Church to its present climate of scandal. When people who think a priest is great because he tells them they can dispense themselves from the law of God find that (horrors! Shocked! SHOCKED!) that the priest also has been dispensing himself from the law of God.

Then everyone points fingers at the Church, when really, they should be doing an examination of conscience and seeing if they encouraged and tolerated priests who thought the laws of God were open to various interpretations.

Sin is sin is sin is sin.
 
Rence said:
It’s a sin to miss Mass, but you can get dispensation for doing so. That way, it’s not a sin.
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Missing Mass is not an intrinsic evil (you are not expected to go if you are ill, have small children to take care of, or are called to work)…not a good comparison…How about can you get a dispensation to murder someone? Can you get one to rob someone?
 
Rence said:
It’s a sin to miss Mass, but you can get dispensation for doing so. That way, it’s not a sin.
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The obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation are juridical laws of the Church, binding on Catholics by virtue of canon law. Canon law itself gives the exceptions and ability to dispense. Juridical laws arise from the authority of the Church, and therefore the Church (via the Pope) has the authority to change canon law or (via the Bishop) to dispense from some items (as outlined in canon law itself).

The moral law-- under which contraception is found as a violation of the Sixth Commandment-- is not a merely juridical law established in canon law, and therefore changeable or dispensable. The moral law is universal and absolute. It arises not from the authority of the Church but from God himself. The Church has no authority to change, or dispsense, the moral law.
 
Well done 1ke. If that doesn’t end the dispensation discussion regarding contraception, nothing will.
 
1ke said:
The obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation are juridical laws of the Church, binding on Catholics by virtue of canon law. Canon law itself gives the exceptions and ability to dispense. Juridical laws arise from the authority of the Church, and therefore the Church (via the Pope) has the authority to change canon law or (via the Bishop) to dispense from some items (as outlined in canon law itself).

The moral law-- under which contraception is found as a violation of the Sixth Commandment-- is not a merely juridical law established in canon law, and therefore changeable or dispensable. The moral law is universal and absolute. It arises not from the authority of the Church but from God himself. The Church has no authority to change, or dispsense, the moral law.
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I encouraged her to go to her priest 🙂
 
Jennifer_J said:
Missing Mass is not an intrinsic evil (you are not expected to go if you are ill, have small children to take care of, or are called to work)…not a good comparison…How about can you get a dispensation to murder someone? Can you get one to rob someone?
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It was an example. I still encourage her to go to her priest 🙂
 
ktpatterson22 said:
My husband and I practice NFP and have done so since we were married 2.5 years ago. We have a 5 month old, and believe that God is calling us to wait to have another baby until we see where our finances will go (there is a strong possibility I will be laid off in the next 6 months). Without getting too deep into detail, my doctor would like me to take a medication that is known to cause birth defects. He is strongly urging me to go on birth control because of the high risks. Would this be ok if my husband and I still did NFP and avoided relations around my fertile time?
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No, birth control is never ok even as just a back-up plan. Using NFP is all fun and games when you can welcome another surprise bundle of joy but in your circumstances the only moral option is complete abstinence. My wife and I had to abstain for close to six months due to similar circumstances and it certainly wasn’t the end of the world.
 
flyingfish said:
You won’t find what you’re looking for on this forum. People will not tell you it’s okay to use birth control.

How is it a prudent course of action to abstain from sex for half a year? That kind of thing destroys marriages.
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Can you give people a little credit , please? We are not these out of control wild things that cannot be denied? What do think Lent is all about? We practice denying ourselves little things like chocolate or coffee so that when it comes to the big things like abstaining for health reasons or such we can do it. If this woman was unfortunately hospitalized in a coma for six months would you automatically assume the lack of sex was going to destroy the marriage? Your priorities are askew.
Why wouldn’t preventing a birth defect in your unborn child be reason enough to give a man or woman the strength to abstain? If a couple love their child (which hasn’t even been created yet) enough to do this don’t you think they have the mature love that it takes to make a marriage work through a bad time. You know "bad "time like it says in our marriage vows.
 
And I would say that as parents it’s good to give the kids an example on through their teenage years. If you can’t abstain for a few months, how do you expect your teens to abstain for years until they find a proper spouse? Lead by example. Because someday you’ll have a teenager asking you all sorts of embarrassing questions and you don’t want to be the “do as I say, not as I do” category of parenting.
 
Seatuck said:
Can you give people a little credit , please? We are not these out of control wild things that cannot be denied? What do think Lent is all about? We practice denying ourselves little things like chocolate or coffee so that when it comes to the big things like abstaining for health reasons or such we can do it. If this woman was unfortunately hospitalized in a coma for six months would you automatically assume the lack of sex was going to destroy the marriage? Your priorities are askew.
Why wouldn’t preventing a birth defect in your unborn child be reason enough to give a man or woman the strength to abstain? If a couple love their child (which hasn’t even been created yet) enough to do this don’t you think they have the mature love that it takes to make a marriage work through a bad time. You know "bad "time like it says in our marriage vows.
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I’m not saying it will destroy a marriage every time. I’m not saying it’s impossible for some couples with disabilities to remain together without sex.

I’m just saying that stopping sex increases the odds of the relationship going south.

In reading countless threads about spouses complaining about no sex, or not frequent enough sex, I have to say I understand that.

We’re not meant to live in chaste relationships, our sex drive is one of the most powerful things there is on par with hunger. If you decide to live as brother and sister, expect to have brotherly/sisterly feelings for your partner. If that’s enough? Fine. It wouldn’t be enough for me, as I have no interest in being married to a brother.
 
In reading countless threads about spouses complaining about no sex, or not frequent enough sex, I have to say I understand that.
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The problem in those relationships isn’t the no sex, or not frequent enough. That is a symptom of a different problem… a spouse has mentally checked out for other reasons, infidelity, anger issues, unresolved hostilities, porn issues, illness, fatigue, punishment or other emotional games, different desire levels on the part of one or both spouses, and many other reasons.

When people complain, it’s because they’re taking it personally, or they’re not mature enough to practice self control while a spouse is ill or when a pregnancy is not the most optimal thing. Or when sex is withheld as a weapon, or forced on someone who doesn’t want it as much, or denied because one person has an addiction.

No one is saying two mature people have to only view each other as brother and sister, but sometimes you have to “refrain from embracing” as the Bible says. It really isn’t too much to ask. Some people have to do it for years, for lifetimes.

If a spouse was in an accident and became a paraplegic, does that mean the vows are over and the other spouse has a reason to leave? We aren’t guaranteed sex every day for the rest of our lives when we marry.

If your spouse were paralyzed would you leave? So as not to live like a brother? Yes, the sex drive is powerful, but sex is NOT essential to life like food is. You can go years without sex. You can’t go years without food.
 
I am not a NFP expert so forgive me in advance if this is stating the obvious. And I don`t mean it as medical advice. But it might be worth asking your doctor if that particular medication can be safely substituted for a different one with less side effects. Either way, it is worth investigating whether that medication could impede/impact your cycle and/or your ability to predict your infertile times.

Alternatively, perhaps the Pope John Paul Institute could help provide advice. Their link is popepaulvi.com/home.html

Sincerely,

Maria1212
 
DH & I were in a similar situation as I have serious health issues. We’ve been using NFP for 13 yrs. & like the OP, certain medications I took caused severe birth defects. In the beginning, we carefully charted and when we had questions, I just called my NFP practitioner to sort things out. Has the OP looked into finding a good NFP practitioner to assist her whenever questions arose??

After I stopped my medication b/c it caused a low white blood cell count, the threat of birth defects wasn’t the problem until I had my stroke 5 yrs. ago. Then it was discovered that I had a clotting disorder and I was told to avoid a pregnancy at all costs b/c it could cost me and an unborn child’s life due to the treatment I’m on for the rest of my life.

NFP has been a Godsend b/c it’s one less pill, it’s safe, it allows us to practice abstinence, it’s marriage insurance, it promotes communication in our marriage, and I can tell when my Crohn’s is flaring or if I’m in a true flare by charting. It won’t interfere w/the other treatments I’m on either unlike the “pill” which does.

If the OP reads this post, I hope that she’ll be able to find a good NFP teacher near her to assist in charting and reassure her of her infertile time so there won’t be any confusion for her and her DH. I wish her the best. 🙂
 
Liberanosamalo said:
The problem in those relationships isn’t the no sex, or not frequent enough. That is a symptom of a different problem… a spouse has mentally checked out for other reasons, infidelity, anger issues, unresolved hostilities, porn issues, illness, fatigue, punishment or other emotional games, different desire levels on the part of one or both spouses, and many other reasons.

When people complain, it’s because they’re taking it personally, or they’re not mature enough to practice self control while a spouse is ill or when a pregnancy is not the most optimal thing. Or when sex is withheld as a weapon, or forced on someone who doesn’t want it as much, or denied because one person has an addiction.
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I don’t know, in listening to the posters complain (it’s mostly men), it seems they just want the physical release of sex.
If a spouse was in an accident and became a paraplegic, does that mean the vows are over and the other spouse has a reason to leave? We aren’t guaranteed sex every day for the rest of our lives when we marry.
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It would be hard to stay. I personally don’t know if I would. I might start out wanting to stay, but realistically living with a paraplegic spouse would get old pretty fast, and I doubt most people would stay. Stay friends? Sure. Help the person out? Sure. But I think I’d want a real husband. (Obviously I’m not Catholic, so I don’t believe that marriage is forever.)
 
Before you ever marry, at least be honest with a potential spouse that if such a thing happened to him, you’d be out of there. It’s only fair.
 
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