Birth Control

[spunjalebi]

This semantics discussion is making me think of another discussion I once had with another person at a different Christian internet forum.

She was raised Catholic, but left the Church because she felt that many of its teachings were inconsistent. One of them had to do with NFP, because she did not feel that NFP was any different than other contraceptive methods because you are still avoiding pregnancy. She believes that if you really were to be open to life, you would do so without any infringements-- such as avoiding sexual intercourse during fertile times, “spacing” children using our own methods, etc.

This is actually a woman who uses NOTHING for birth control.

 

[CountrySinger]

This semantics discussion is making me think of another discussion I once had with another person at a different Christian internet forum.

She was raised Catholic, but left the Church because she felt that many of its teachings were inconsistent. One of them had to do with NFP, because she did not feel that NFP was any different than other contraceptive methods because you are still avoiding pregnancy. She believes that if you really were to be open to life, you would do so without any infringements-- such as avoiding sexual intercourse during fertile times, “spacing” children using our own methods, etc.

This is actually a woman who uses NOTHING for birth control.

 

[Imryl]

I have to admit, the longer this goes on the more confused I’m getting.

Can we put all the definitions in one place? ie. fertility, procreation, unaitive, birth control, contraception, etc etc.

And not the definitions from Wiki and dictionary.com. To be quite frank, the church sorta defined all these things first… and wiki and dictionary.com tend to update every few years, so they definitions themselves change at a whim.

I understand the difference between frustrating God’s design by changing a woman’s natural cycle or wearing a condom… verses working within and with that design. But I’m trying to figure out how to properly articulate these concepts. So far, the distinction that we’re talking about the morality of the issue and not just “natural” has been the most helpful

Thanks!

 

[twoangels]

So, instead of explaining why we don’t like something, we instead change the meaning of the words? I can’t remember Christ ever using that approach with the Pharisees.

Definitions are not set in stone. This is why whenever scientific, philosophical and theological works contain definitions. Dictionaries only give definitions used in the venacular use of a language…that is in a language’s vulgar use where there is less specificity. The use of language without stricter, specific definitions actually limits the communicative power of a language. As such, for the Church to be clear in her teachings, she needs to define how she is using her terms.

The key moral principals and definition is this:

2351 Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.

To say that ABC and NFP are the same is like insisting that a healthy diet and regular exercise is just the same as if we invented a condom for the throat that allowed us to indulge in foods that we don’t want to deal with the consequences of eating, or taking some pill that would render our bodies incapable of digesting unhealthy foods. Can you not see how the motivation to do such a thing would be motivated out of the sin of gluttony? Certainly even in a healthy diet, there are times where we can still eat cake, icecream and a few other empty calories. But a healthy diet requires we do this in moderation. Its not gluttony that motivates them to eat them once in awhile. It is gluttony that motivates us to indulge in them whenever we feel like it.

Now, granted, it can be argued that an NFP couple could be just following the letter of the law, like a dieting person who keeps obsessing about food they can’t have and struggles with going crazy about the food when it is available. However, in the long term, a person with such gluttony in their heart and so little self control will likely quickly give up their diet. They may be constantly looking for an alternative solution to their lack of self control, as is evident by the number of diet chocolate shakes and the whole diet food market which marks up its food for a higher sale while still in reality being inferior to a diet that truly relies on eating healthy natural foods.

Now granted, you don’t see a lot of talk in the Church about the sin of gluttony. I often have to remind myself that I need to confess being too picky about the food I eat, being overly selective. I’m not overweight, but my gluttony tends to express itself in being very picky about my food: what I will and what I will not eat. Granted, it is not my impression that the Church considers utilizing slim fast as a mortal sin. But I believe that that is because the creation of children and the martial embrace is far more sacred than the act of eating. Sex is a sacramental action and thus defiling it is a bit like defiling the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

 

[HouseArrest]

Look, if the word “contraception” is throwing you off, don’t use it. How is family planning through NFP (creating a “time-boundary”) any less family planning than the use of a condom (creating a “space-boundary”)?

I have been reading and reading, an interesting conversation for sure.

NFP is no less family planning, in fact it is called family planning. But NFP is not contraception because in the time boundary situation, no sex is being had. In the space boundary situation, it is.

 

[noclevername]

Here is what I don’t understand. No where in the Bible does it say not to use ABC. The Catholic Church says dont’ use ABC. Man wrote the Catholic church laws. So how do you really know what God really wants? I’m not trying to demeaning or anything like that. It’s just that Catholics are almost the only religion that practices no birth control and I happen to know that a lot of Catholics use ABC anyway.

 

[Jennifer_J]

Here is what I don’t understand. No where in the Bible does it say not to use ABC. The Catholic Church says dont’ use ABC. Man wrote the Catholic church laws. So how do you really know what God really wants? I’m not trying to demeaning or anything like that. It’s just that Catholics are almost the only religion that practices no birth control and I happen to know that a lot of Catholics use ABC anyway.

Up until 1930 contraception was condemed by all Christian churches/communities.

Doctrine of the Catholic Church is given to us by God. You err in saying contraception isn’t dealt with in the bible, it is (and condemed by the early Church as well)
catholic.com/library/Birth_Control.asp
catholic.com/library/Contraception_and_Sterilization.asp
catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0507sbs.asp

Even if most Catholics were disobedient and used contraception, it wouldn’t change the truth of the teaching that the marital act is both unitive and procreative and when you attempt to take away one of these actions, the act stops being sacramental. NFP does nothing to interfere with any particular act of sex. If the woman is naturally fertile and abstains, nothing happens. If the woman is naturally infertile and abstains, nothing happens. We are all abstaining right now, right? Is that sinful? No. Abstaining can be virtuous. Refusing the marriage debt for no good reason might be sinful, but choosing to abstain, as a couple, isn’t sinful, esp if there is a just/serious/grave reason for doing so.

 

[catharina]

Here is what I don’t understand. No where in the Bible does it say not to use ABC. The Catholic Church says dont’ use ABC. Man wrote the Catholic church laws. So how do you really know what God really wants? I’m not trying to demeaning or anything like that. It’s just that Catholics are almost the only religion that practices no birth control and I happen to know that a lot of Catholics use ABC anyway.

Maybe you are unfamiliar with the sin of Onan. Even back in Old Testament days, God made clear His rejection of interference with the marital act. Onan ejaculated on the ground. Jewish law, as we know it, forbids such an act (birth control) and until the 1930s ALL Christians were in agreement about that.

Then some Protestants began to adopt atificial birth control but the ages-old teachings remain unchanged in the Catholic Church. Does that help your understanding?

 

[StTommyMore]

I’m a little scared to post this because I’ve seen a couple of rude comments in a few other threads… so try to handle with care or at the very least don’t be rude…

I am 100 percent again abortion because it is the ending of a life that has begun. However, I do not see what is wrong about birth control - it is preventing the beginning of a life, not ending a life. My husband and I are not ready to have children right now for a variety of personal reasons that I am not going to get into. Are we really supposed to remain celibate for years because of this? I find that completely absurd. And what of the couples that already have several children? Do they simply stop having sex after having a couple of kids?

Please be honest… because you don’t find a lot of Catholic families with 6 or more kids anymore… so I’m SURE I’m not the only person who feels this way.

To give you a bit of my background - I was born and raised Catholic until the age of 10. My family left the faith, and I’m now 30 years old and have just started going to church again. So I’m a new/old Catholic… or I suppose a cradle Catholic (I saw that term going around in here, and I think that would probably apply to me, though I didn’t really have any say in my family leaving Catholicism). So I’m still fairly new to some of the doctrines, customs, etc. Thanks for bearing with me!

Here is a piece I wrote (originally for a Moral Theology class) on Artificial Contraception.

 

[Rico_S]

Why must each marital act be procreative and unitive?

 

[Gingersnaps4]

Why must each marital act be procreative and unitive?

I could see this rule meaning something, if not for NFP. I mean to closely monitor your body every day even going so far as to take your temperature and check yourself internally, maybe even use opk’s too, and then keep a daily chart on it…and then on top of that, to use these findings to purposefully only have relations when you know the act is sterile… I’m just having a hard time making sense of that. Seems like an oxymoron to me. Now if you never knew whether you were ovulating or not it would make sense. It also seems like to much credit or import is being given to abstaining the few fertile days, like it’s a heroic act. I’m questioning these things because so far NFP has taken over my life, in the time ive been charting so far. It’s made marital relations feel very unnatural.

 

[Em_in_FL]

Why must each marital act be procreative and unitive?

A lot of what the Catechism teaches on this subject is based on Encyclicals - one being Humanea Vitae…

Here is a quote:

Union and Procreation

1. This particular doctrine, often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.

The reason is that the fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman. And if each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, is preserved, the use of marriage fully retains its sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme responsibility of parenthood to which man is called. We believe that our contemporaries are particularly capable of seeing that this teaching is in harmony with human reason.

So, to answer your question more directly - it’s established by God that both aspects are inherent to the marriage act because the use of (Sacramental) marriage is fully retained.

I think that’s part of the issue… Marriage is a Sacrament we receive through the CHURCH. It’s not something man created. We can’t redefine the Sacramental nature of the union.

 

[spunjalebi]

Here’s what I don’t understand-- I have seen a lot of these “chastity in marriage” arguments here on CAF. Does the Church really expect that a married couple is going to refrain from sex for years, or even forever in their relationship? When I read the Bible, it clearly does not make marriage out to be like that at all. I don’t think God created marriage to have extremely long periods of abstinence, but I have yet to hear a good argument about that from Catholic teaching.

 

[Em_in_FL]

Here’s what I don’t understand-- I have seen a lot of these “chastity in marriage” arguments here on CAF. Does the Church really expect that a married couple is going to refrain from sex for years, or even forever in their relationship? When I read the Bible, it clearly does not make marriage out to be like that at all. I don’t think God created marriage to have extremely long periods of abstinence, but I have yet to hear a good argument about that from Catholic teaching.

FYI - “chastity” is not the same thing as “celibacy”… lots of definition confusion here…
There is PLENTY of sex in a “chaste” marriage relationship.

 

[StTommyMore]

FYI - “chastity” is not the same thing as “celibacy”… lots of definition confusion here…

That is correct. Chastity in marriage does not necessarily include abstinence. Celibate chastity does.

 

[spunjalebi]

Okay fine, I’ll use a different word this time I’ve seen a lot of arguments on CAF about how married couples should be able to be celibate, to avoid using ABC, and if NFP won’t be effective. Tell me, what doesn’t seem ironic about a celibate married couple?? I mean seriously-- we’re not all Mary and Joseph!

 

[heart4home]

Okay fine, I’ll use a different word this time I’ve seen a lot of arguments on CAF about how married couples should be able to be celibate, to avoid using ABC, and if NFP won’t be effective. Tell me, what doesn’t seem ironic about a celibate married couple?? I mean seriously-- we’re not all Mary and Joseph!

Why is NFP not going to work? I think if you go back there have been some really excellent explanations given here, but yet the same question just keeps getting asked over and over.

I don’t know many Catholics that choose to live a celibate marriage unless one spouse is unable to partake in the marital act, sickness etc.

NFP is not being celibate and it works when used correctly. The original poster has been given some information on other types of NFP that she can use. There is more than one method and with today’s technology of monitors etc. they are getting easier and easier to follow.

If the OP chose to use ABC for example, there is still a chance that she could conceive.

So if she is terrified of becoming pregnant because of her medication that may cause a birth defect than her ONLY guarantee is to remain celibate until she can get off the medication.

If she is willing to use ABC and take that risk then she should be willing to use and learn a different/more methods of NFP that will be equally successful.

 

[choose_to_love]

@rico, as has been noted, because God made it that way; more fully, because by preserving the untive and procreative ends, this is how we, created in the image and likeness of God, image the Trinity.

(my take on this is you are asking questions to facilitate the discussion, yes?)

 

[Em_in_FL]

Okay fine, I’ll use a different word this time I’ve seen a lot of arguments on CAF about how married couples should be able to be celibate, to avoid using ABC, and if NFP won’t be effective. Tell me, what doesn’t seem ironic about a celibate married couple?? I mean seriously-- we’re not all Mary and Joseph!

Many people find NFP difficult and prefer the ease of ABC. I understand there may be effort involved in learning the different techniques, or solving underlying medical issues that are causing confusion in the signs (but then again, shouldn’t we be MOTIVATED to solve underlying medical problems?)… but there’s no reason why NFP can’t be just as effective as ABC.

And that’s not even the point - we shouldn’t be comparing NFP to ABC, which is discussing morality vs immorality!
NFP is an alternative to *abstinence *- like you said - it allows married couples to be fully united and bond through intimacy, even when there are serious/grave underlying issues that make having a baby a challenge. This bond is supposed to help them get PAST those issues, united together - so that the need for NFP goes away entirely!

 

[choose_to_love]

@spunjalebi: one may not see anything in the Bible about extended abstinence in marriage, but on the other hand, one does not see children as anything but a blessing in reading Scripture either, and similarly, one will not find anything about limiting one’s children, IIRC.