How many Catholics really use contraceptives?

[aball1035]

And how does this number differ from nominal Catholics vs. weekly churchgoers?

 

[Tantum_ergo]

And how does this number differ from nominal Catholics vs. weekly churchgoers?

And what does ‘use’ mean?

Suppose you’re a Catholic and (as many of us did or do) we go through a period of months or maybe years where we might use a contraceptive now and then, out of ignorance or fear or even rebellion. Maybe we do it a few times with one person, then never again. Maybe we do until we marry. Maybe 99% of the time we’re married we don’t, and then we have ONE occasion where for whatever reason we do because we think we just couldn’t ‘risk’ a baby because hubby was just laid off and one of our four born kids was just diagnosed with ADHD. . .and we’re scared and for that one brief time, we don’t think we can trust God. . .and then we come to our senses and regret our actions. . .the rest of our lives. .

So, does even ONE time of use make a person ‘use contraceptives’ and does that use count for exactly the same weight as somebody who has used them regularly all her life? Is there a scale of use? Who draws the line?

A nominal Catholic might still ‘use’ less often (let’s say she had two relationships in her life, and used contraceptives for say a grand total of 10 times) than a ‘regular churchgoer’ who might have had one relationship but used a total of 11 times. SO. . .are either really ‘users’? How about the many times they may have considered and wound up NOT using the contraceptive when they could have? Do the times that they ‘reject’ contraception make them 'non-users"?

IOW> . . this kind of ‘statistic’ usually just winds up engendering upset and finger-pointing and ‘judgmentalism’ of others. . .IMO of course.

 

[prodigalson2011]

I don’t know if it’s like this everywhere in the U.S., but I grew up in a churchgoing Catholic family in the 80’s-90’s and I don’t think much of anyone in my parish (including my own family) followed the Church teaching on contraception. I know for fact that every member of my immediate family practices contraception in one form or another, and also some close family friends who also attended our church. I can’t think of a singly family that had more than 2 or 3 children.

I actually didn’t even know that the Church opposed contraception until I came back to the faith 2 years ago. I had to learn it for myself. Never even saw the Catechism until then. I went through PSR and formation until just a few weeks before I was supposed to be confirmed (I had been a closet atheist for roughly 5 years by then, and I decided to “come out” at that time). It’s astounding to me now that I look back on it to think that I went through 17 years of weekly mass, PSR, church youth group, etc. and never once even heard the term papal infallibility. I think that says it all.

 

[Fred_Bartels]

As was pointed out, it’s probably impossible to pin down any reliable numbers on contraceptive and artificial birth control use among Catholics. Surveys are notoriously inaccurate. One thing is certain, far too many Catholics use contraceptives, which is most often due to a lack of catechesis and an inappropriate acceptance of what is considered “normal” in culture and society.

Often, once Catholics learn about how artificial birth control is gravely sinful and why this is the case, as well as how damaging it can be to relationships, the people who use it (physically and spiritually), marriage and society as a whole, including how children are aborted by chemical contraceptives that act as abortifacients, they often gladly do an about face and follow the teaching of holy mother Church in free and loving obedience. In doing so, they truly become free.

 

[Robertanthony]

And how does this number differ from nominal Catholics vs. weekly churchgoers?

A vast majority. The choice is this: you trust NFP and let God magically decide the perfect timing for babies (in reality: seed meets ovum, period) or you realize children cost a lot of money and require lots of time and energy (x5 if they’re ADHD,I know first-hand) and it won’t be God who will be financially, physically and emotionally spent by the end of the day.

 

[jamie86]

A vast majority. The choice is this: you trust NFP and let God magically decide the perfect timing for babies (in reality: seed meets ovum, period) or you realize children cost a lot of money and require lots of time and energy (x5 if they’re ADHD,I know first-hand) and it won’t be God who will be financially, physically and emotionally spent by the end of the day.

If you use NFP properly it is as effective as the Pill. The newer methods use fertility monitors like ClearBlue for the Marquette method. God doesn’t magically decide anything. He put laws and cycles in so we can understand how He works. It’s not a random shot. My husband and I have used NFP for 10 years. We only have 2 kids and both were planned. Take your ignorance elsewhere please. Women deserve better than to be chemically fixed when we aren’t broken. Real men understand that!

 

[prodigalson2011]

A vast majority. The choice is this: you trust NFP and let God magically decide the perfect timing for babies (in reality: seed meets ovum, period) or you realize children cost a lot of money and require lots of time and energy (x5 if they’re ADHD,I know first-hand) and it won’t be God who will be financially, physically and emotionally spent by the end of the day.

NFP is 99% effective when practiced properly, so you’re setting up a false dilemma. Your view of children as an unwanted burden is endemic to the utilitarian modern West, though. The irony of it all is that apparently larger families typically function better, as the increase in inter-child dynamics helps them to mature and learn cooperative behaviors faster, taking alot of stress off of the parents.

One thing’s for sure, this omnipresent anti-life attitude will be the death of Western civilization.

 

[rmbrulotte]

I think I heard a statistic once that it was around 90% but as has been pointed out it is anyone’s guess as to how accurate these are. How many of those participate in the life of the Church I don’t know but I personally know several people actively involved in ministries at my parish who have told me they use contraception (for the express purpose of contraception) or they or their spouses have been sterilized. Sigh.

But as my parents told me over and over again as a child: “So what if your friends are all doing it? Would you jump off a bridge if they all did?”

“A vast majority. The choice is this: you trust NFP and let God magically decide the perfect timing for babies (in reality: seed meets ovum, period) or you realize children cost a lot of money and require lots of time and energy (x5 if they’re ADHD,I know first-hand) and it won’t be God who will be financially, physically and emotionally spent by the end of the day.”

Luckily when we are spent and can’t handle another child we have the option to use NFP, rather than those in the past who had to abstain indefinitely.

 

[Wampa]

There are some old threads that really dive into the #s and the methodology behind the surveys that come up with the oft-cited numbers. I do remember something about the 99% number coming from the fact that the surveys asked Catholic women if they HAD EVER used contraception, which of course is essentially worthless as a question, other than to make it incorrectly look like virtually all US Catholics disagrees with the Church.

If I get time later I will look back and see if I can find them.

 

[Abrigham]

A bit of a tangent, but this reminds me of one of the last services my husband and I attended at our old evangelical church (out of obligation as volunteers in the nursery, we’d already decided to become Catholic) when the pastor put a bar graph up on the screen of the percentage of different denominations and religions who pray regularly. Catholics were in the bottom 3 with Jews and Muslims, and of course evangelicals were at the top or he probably wouldn’t have used the graph in the first place. What it failed to explain was how many of those Catholics, Jews and Muslims were actually practicing or just identified that way because they were raised Catholic or whatnot.

My point is, what is the underlying purpose of the people asking the question? What point are they trying to make? Because how they can phrase the questions asked, they can get whatever statistical outcome they are hoping to achieve.

 

[Abrigham]

Also, if you really understand NFP and how a woman’s body works, it’s not that complicated. Taking your temperature every morning, checking mucus (sorry if that’s tmi) and taking an ovulation test really isn’t that much more work than taking a pill, and my conscience is clean at the end of the day and my body isn’t polluted with artificial hormones and who knows what else is in birth control pills these days.

 

[Robertanthony]

If you use NFP properly it is as effective as the Pill. The newer methods use fertility monitors like ClearBlue for the Marquette method. God doesn’t magically decide anything. He put laws and cycles in so we can understand how He works. It’s not a random shot. My husband and I have used NFP for 10 years. We only have 2 kids and both were planned. Take your ignorance elsewhere please. Women deserve better than to be chemically fixed when we aren’t broken. Real men understand that!

Anecdotal evidence. Take your ignorance elsewhere and learn basic courtesy. The platitude, lame slogan at the end “Real men understand that” Thank God you have a regular cycle, Mrs. know-it-all.

 

[rmbrulotte]

Anecdotal evidence. Take your ignorance elsewhere and learn basic courtesy. The platitude, lame slogan at the end “Real men understand that” Thank God you have a regular cycle, Mrs. know-it-all.

There are actually published studies on the effectiveness of various methods of NFP.

 

[Anthony_V]

Remember statistics also come with confidence intervals and upper/lower bounds due to margin of error.

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For those of you who have never taken a statistics class, a sample is taken from a population, because it it would be ridiculous to try and ask every single Catholic on the face of the planet whether they practice contraception. A point estimate is then derived (number of “yes” divided by number of participants). An upper and lower bound is calculated using a z-score or t-score, and a confidence level is integrated by using alpha.

So that test statistic could actually be something like, “I am 50% sure that the amount of practicing Catholics that use contraception is 55% ± 44%.”
In other words, “I am half-way sure that the amount of practicing Catholics that use contraception is between 11% and 99%.”

But I’ve never seen the test statistics themselves.

 

[Robertanthony]

There are actually published studies on the effectiveness of various methods of NFP.

so why would you think a lot (let’s not quantify) of married Catholics of child bearing age don’t opt for that method if it is that good for *all *women? Is this like a best kept secret, people simply don’t know too much about it, apart from the bias (could be true or not) that it doesn’t work all the time for all women?

 

[livingwordunity]

And how does this number differ from nominal Catholics vs. weekly churchgoers?

I know my wife has never used any form of artificial contraception. We do use Natural Family Planning, but we are not closed to life (i.e. if she gets pregnant an abortion would be unthinkable to us).

 

[Robertanthony]

NFP is 99% effective when practiced properly, so you’re setting up a false dilemma. Your view of children as an unwanted burden is endemic to the utilitarian modern West, though. The irony of it all is that apparently larger families typically function better, as the increase in inter-child dynamics helps them to mature and learn cooperative behaviors faster, taking alot of stress off of the parents.

One thing’s for sure, this omnipresent anti-life attitude will be the death of Western civilization.

But 99% means what? That if, as a Catholic couple, you follow NFP’s guidelines religiously, that one out of a hundred marital embraces will result in a pregnancy? Wouldn’t that be like a pregnancy a year for vigorous couples?This might be helpful to look at…en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_birth_control_methods And perhaps you could back up your 99% or tell us (me) how you came up with that figure

 

[livingwordunity]

But 99% means what? That if, as a Catholic couple, you follow NFP’s guidelines religiously, that one out of a hundred marital embraces will result in a pregnancy? This might be helpful to look at. And perhaps you could back up your 99% or tell us (me) how you came up with that figure.

I can tell you from personal experience that NFP has worked 100% effective for my wife and I, and we’ve used the method for 9 years. But if my wife would have gotten pregnant we would have welcomed the new baby. That’s the difference between being open to life while using NFP vs the contraceptive mentality of “if this doesn’t work I can just get an abortion”.

 

[prodigalson2011]

Anecdotal evidence. Take your ignorance elsewhere and learn basic courtesy. The platitude, lame slogan at the end “Real men understand that” Thank God you have a regular cycle, Mrs. know-it-all.

Having an irregular cycle does not hamper the efficacy of NFP. NFP is not the rhythm method.

 

[Robertanthony]

I can only tell you from personal experience that NFP has worked 100% effective for my wife and I, and we’ve used the method for 14 years.

Point well taken. But in many people’s minds, natural family planning (NFP) is a lesser method to control pregnancies. The question is: does reality contradict these people’s idea?