Abu, as usual, you get to the core of the issue with your research.
Notice how the quoted Priest mentioned the purely uilitarian argument. The argument for artificial contraception is a purely utilitarian one. Because of that it is anathema to the Catholic doctrine, which is a Natural Law arguement. Some people become confused because the utilitarian argument, which is concerned with consequences only, can sometimes apear to be like the Natural Law arguemnt, because to a certain extent, Natural Law moral ethics also takes notice of xonsequences. However, Natural Law moral reasoning takes into account much more han utilitarianism and it does so by examining the actions and the motives behind them. The Church, rightly, uses the Natural Law arguemnt to show why the artificial contraceptive act is wrong. The wrongness lies within the act itself. The wrongness is intrinsic to the act. The Natural Law argument also demonstrates the consequences of the intrinsically wrong act.
Artificial contraception removes the openess to life that the Church, using its Natural Law moral argument, demonstrates as being essential to a theological and anthropologically successful marriage. Artificial contraception essentially commodifies sex and removes from it the procreational aspect which is an intrinsic aspect of its nature. To do that requires a change in the mindset of the people involved. The mindset naturally includes the very strong posibility of a resultant pregnancy. with that strong possibility removed, the miondset is one of embracing sex for its utility, devoid of responsibility. The responsibility for possible pregnancy in marriage is a shared one. When the possibility of pregnancy is removed, the shared responsibility is also removed and each individual is therefore not accepting of anything other than a selfish pleaure, often then seen as an entitlement. Thus sex becomes a hedonistic pleasure to be sought after and its utility is the resultant pleasure. In a marriage that is open to life, the utility is measured in the openness to life allowing for a sense of shared responsibility. That is what families are founded on. If its utility is measured by the giving of pleasure, with no responsibility, then one cannot condemn prositution, casual sex, or even homosex sex.
The Op and his wife are not open to life. They are not embracing a willingness to share responsibility. That comes through in his subsequent posts. Both he and his wife are placing careers and ‘serving others’ ahead of any willingness to accept responsibility for new life. All it means is that a child between them is down their list of priorities, below academic achievement and ‘helping others’. In the process, they have not been forward looking enough to say, well, if a child eventuates from our union, we can adjust and accomodate it. Instead, they are saying that if a child eventuates from their union, their studies and ‘helping others’ will be compromised. to avoid that compromisation, they have closed themselves to the posibility of life.
It would be consistent with their priorities and with their unwillingness to have those priorities compromised to have an abortion should a child accidentally eventuate. Of course, that will strike horror into the mind of the OP, but that is the slippery slope he and his wife are on. They put themselves there by telling themselves that a child is not a priority over academic and other social pursuits and they are closing off the possibility of new life in order that those priorities should be so.
If NFP is used continuously to avoid the possibilty of new life, then it too is a misuse of the natural functions of the human body and becomes just another convenient form of contraception. NFP is compromised as a tool for regulating the arrival of new life according to the prudent judgement of circumstances. NFP does not contain the intrinsic wrongness of artificial contraception, but its prolonged use results in a compromised attitude to being open to life and of a willingness to accept a shared responsibility. It relegates the role of sex in marriage to being one of pleasure only, with pleasure its measure of utility. That is a sin against the very nature of the sacrament of marriage.
