Isn't Natural Family Planning just another form of birth control?

[Good_Daughter]

Just adding to Jennifer J’s excellent post…

Only engaging in the sexual act when the conception is nearly impossible seems to contradict the procreative aspect the marital act.

If that were the case, Catholicism would forbid sex for couples during all times of natural infertility such as pregnancy and menopause.

In reality, Catholicism does not forbid couples from engaging in relations during times of natural infertility (thank goodness as women spend the vast majority of their lives in a state of natural infertility).

According to Catholic teaching, as long as a couple takes no steps to exclude the life-giving aspect from sexual love, that sexual love is procreative.

It is important to note that procreative does not necessarily mean reproductive.

 

[Good_Daughter]

Out of curiosity…

Do those who consider NFP just another form of birth control also consider couples who have sex during pregnancy to be contracepting?

 

[Rico_S]

Jennifer & Good Daughter:

Just to be clear, I am not arguing that it is a sin to engage in intercourse during non-fertile times. Nor am I intentionally being obtuse. But one reason why I, and I think many others, struggle over this issue is that the church’s teachings appears unclear and perhaps even inconsistent.

According to Catholic teaching, as long as a couple takes no steps to exclude the life-giving aspect from sexual love, that sexual love is procreative.

.

How is NFP not taking steps to exclude the life-giving aspect from sexual love? ONLY participating in the marital union when the life-giving aspect of sexual love is absent is clearly taking steps to exclude the life-giving aspect of the sexual love.

It is important to note that procreative does not necessarily mean reproductive.

A very clear definition of the procreative aspect would be helpful to my understanding.

–Rico

 

[fix]

The periodic continence isn’t the issue here. The issue is using a calendar to take advantage of enjoying the marital act only when you know that conception is highly unlikely. The intent is still to prevent conception… contra-ception.

I realize that the church has authority and I respect that… I simply do not understand how in the world NFP can be permitted given the intent of the teaching

Abstaining is not preventing conception anymore than eating lunch and not having sex is preventing conception. It is illogical.

 

[fix]

How is NFP not taking steps to exclude the life-giving aspect from sexual love? ONLY participating in the marital union when the life-giving aspect of sexual love is absent is clearly taking steps to exclude the life-giving aspect of the sexual love.

With NFP the act is unaltered. If the act is not altered it is by definition unitive and procreative.

** The Conjugal Act:** “Open” to Procreation?
Clarification of the Procreative Meaning

 

[Brendan]

With NFP the act is unaltered. If the act is not altered it is by definition unitive and procreative.

Exactly.

The issues is NOT the spacing of births. The Church allows that.

The question is by what MEANS this is accomplished.

Artificial means disrupt the marital act. It seperates the union of both spouses. You pretty much cannot be united to someone that when you are actively rejecting their natural fertitiliy.

On the other hand, a full recognition and acceptance of your spouse’s natural fertility IS Unitive.

So it’s not the end ( legitimate spacing of births) that makes artificial contraception immoral, it the means by which it accomplishes it.

Note also that the spacing of births must be legitimate and flow from just reasons. If spacing of births, or a complete rejection of children is NOT done for just, moral reasons, it becomes sinful no matter what the means.

 

[Jennifer_J]

Fix,
Excellent article!!! I’m posting it again, just incase people missed it.
lifeissues.net/writers/cat/cat_03conjugalact.html

It explains the difference between procreation and procreative better than I ever could!!!

 

[Rico_S]

The Conjugal Act: “Open” to Procreation?
Clarification of the Procreative Meaning

Thank you for the link. I will take some time to read it over.

–Rico

 

[eelpis]

NFP is not intrinsically disordered like unnatural contraceptives.

NFP is a method that is neutral, it can be used for good and bad reasons.

The Church has told the difference.
Casti Connubii and Humanae Vitae.

You can be unloving and ungenerous using NFP, just as you can be ungenerous and unloving using contraceptives.

 

[TLM08]

Women are not fertile 24/7 every day of the month. We have naturally occuring fertile and nonfertile cycles. It is well within the rights of a married couple to engage in relations at any day of her cycle. Whether a woman knows she’s fertile or not is irrelevant. The ACT is not modified in any way. Procreation isn’t modified. The couple is simply using an infertile day of the cycle.

That’s my point. The couple is using infertile days of the cycle to enjoy sex without the risk of pregnancy. Why this is okay in light of Church teaching makes no sense to me. With 90% or more of Catholic couples in a perpetual state of mortal sin because they are practicing artificial birth control, in one form or another, I would suspect that it makes no sense to them either.

There is a shocking number of Catholics who aren’t even aware of this ban! Also… if this deadly serious sin sends souls to the eternal fires of Hell, why isn’t this being preached during Mass?
No wonder most people don’t take this seriously.

There is no doubt in my mind that birth control opens the door to all sorts of evils. All one has to do look at what has happened in society since the arrival of “the pill”. I believe that the contraceptive mentality was what led to the horrendous abortion decision in 1973.

Handguns lead to all sorts of evil as well, but one must admit that they are not evil by themselves and their existence is overall beneficial to society when used responsibly. I am just another sinful human being trying to make it in this world, but it would seem to me that Catholic couples who have brought children into this world would be afforded an exemption from the ban on artificial birth control provided it is not an abortifacient.

 

[Brendan]

That’s my point. The couple is using infertile days of the cycle to enjoy sex without the risk of pregnancy.

And there is nothing wrong with that. It just has to be done in the way that God created the marital act.

God created it so that married couple COULD, at times, enjoy the marital act without a pregnancy occuring. There is nothing wrong with using what God has created.

There IS something VERY wrong with altering the marital act to actively REJECT the God given fertility of one’s spouse.

Why this is okay in light of Church teaching makes no sense to me.

See the above.

With 90% or more of Catholic couples in a perpetual state of mortal sin because they are practicing artificial birth control, in one form or another, I would suspect that it makes no sense to them either.

Then they need to research exactly why the Church teaches what it does and to quit being so arrogant as to belive that they know more about Moral Theology than the Church does.

I am just another sinful human being trying to make it in this world, but it would seem to me that Catholic couples who have brought children into this world would be afforded an exemption from the ban on artificial birth control provided it is not an abortifacient.

Why?

As I mentioed above, using artificial birth control is taking a unifying act and adding rejection to it. What else should a spouse be ‘allowed’ to reject? Perhaps he feels his spouse is too ugly so asks her to wear a bag over her head? Would that be unifying? Certainly NOT!

So why would it be a good thing to say to the spouse that they think the fertility that God gave them is ugly and use latex or pills to ‘cover that up’ as well.

 

[Jennifer_J]

That’s my point. The couple is using infertile days of the cycle to enjoy sex without the risk of pregnancy. Why this is okay in light of Church teaching makes no sense to me. With 90% or more of Catholic couples in a perpetual state of mortal sin because they are practicing artificial birth control, in one form or another, I would suspect that it makes no sense to them either.

There is a shocking number of Catholics who aren’t even aware of this ban! Also… if this deadly serious sin sends souls to the eternal fires of Hell, why isn’t this being preached during Mass?
No wonder most people don’t take this seriously.

There is no doubt in my mind that birth control opens the door to all sorts of evils. All one has to do look at what has happened in society since the arrival of “the pill”. I believe that the contraceptive mentality was what led to the horrendous abortion decision in 1973.

Handguns lead to all sorts of evil as well, but one must admit that they are not evil by themselves and their existence is overall beneficial to society when used responsibly. I am just another sinful human being trying to make it in this world, but it would seem to me that Catholic couples who have brought children into this world would be afforded an exemption from the ban on artificial birth control provided it is not an abortifacient.

Again, it’s not sinful to use the infertile days to enjoy relations, because if it was, then we would HAVE to use NFP to time relations for the fertile days. The Church doesn’t teach that. All the Church says is that relations must be unaltered and ordered toward procreation (ie if the woman WERE fertile than a pregnancy COULD result). NFP is the alternative to total abstinence, it is NOT the alternative to contraception. Do some people use it selfishly? Probably, but it’s much harder to do that because NFP takes sacrifice–just less sacrifice than total abstinence. It’s also a shame that Catholics aren’t aware of Church teaching in this matter, however, it’s not all that difficult to find out about the teaching. If people would take their faith seriously, then they would know. If people did the simplist delving into their faith, then they would know. The problem isn’t with the teaching, it’s with the people not caring about growing in their faith, it’s about them being more concerned with the secular world than with a relationship with Jesus. The Church certainly isn’t silent on this topic, but I do wonder if a homily is the place to speak about this (children present, you know) frankly? I know our Diocese sponsors classes EVERY MONTH on NFP. It’s advertised. Our Diocesan paper has a big write up every year about Humanae Vitae and life issues. NFP is covered in marriage prep. It’s no secret, people just choose to ignore it or think it can’t possible apply to them… I don’t know how one fixes that? The secular world is very enticing. However, that doesn’t make the teaching wrong nor does it make NFP wrong.

 

[Rico_S]

The Church certainly isn’t silent on this topic

Really? Becasue I think the silence is deafening.

Someone earlier in this thread referenced the 90% of the Catholics are using some form of birth control–I doubt that is far off at all. I have 4 kids and they go to a Catholic school and we are one of the bigger families there. The vast majority have 2-3 kids and I don’t think there is one family with more than 6 kids. It is perfectly clear that people are contracepting…either with NFP or traditional birth control methods.

Ok…so 90% of we Catholics are in a state of mortal sin…and the priests and bishop have so much concern for our souls that they…schedule plenty of NFP classes and put them in the bulletin…include NFP in pre-cana cirriculums…??? What? The souls of 90% of all Catholics are blackened with the grave sin and that it the best the Church can do??? I think Christ would be disappointed…no?

So there must be a reason why they don’t feel the need to actively attempt to save our souls?
–they think we are already lost and it is not their responsibility to bring back the lost sheep?
–the priests do not feel that strongly about the teaching of contraception…perhaps even disagreeing with “traditional” church teaching?
–perhaps there is a fear of financial backlash for opposing the 90% of their contributors.

I don’t know what the reason is, but I don’t think the Church is active at all in this regard, especially considering the gravity and sweeping scope of the sin.

–Rico

 

[Rico_S]

Handguns lead to all sorts of evil as well, but one must admit that they are not evil by themselves and their existence is overall beneficial to society when used responsibly. I am just another sinful human being trying to make it in this world, but it would seem to me that Catholic couples who have brought children into this world would be afforded an exemption from the ban on artificial birth control provided it is not an abortifacient.

We used NFP when my wife and I first married to delay getting pregnant until we were a little more financially sound. We got pregnant relatively quickly and had our fist child. We continued its use and were again pregnant relatively quickly. For whatever reason (yes, I know you zealots out there are going to shout at me and say–Rico…you must be doing it wrong!), NFP as a means of spacing/avoiding pregnancy really wasn’t working too well for us.

We have since had 2 more kids for a grand total of 4. And I might add that we are truly blessed with great kids…truly blessed. But I am pretty happy with the size of my family. It is a struggle to send all 4 to Catholic school, but we do so b/c that is a priority for us. Could we have more kids…sure. I am positive we could have 4 more and I could keep them fed and clothed and give them the necessities of life…but I don’t really want more now. I enjoy letting the kids have some outside activities, being involved with those activities, we are thrilled to be able to provide them with a solid, Catholic education, and we like being able to live a comfortable life (modest home, 2 cars, spending money to eat out or go to the movies on occasion) without worring if we can pay the bills next month, all while my wife stays at home. I do believe these things would not be possible with the addition of more children.

I am quite sure that my justification for not wanting more kids is not satisfactory for most of you here—I am certain most of you will view it as selfish. Perhpas it is…and I will be judged as such if so. So even if we chose to use NFP at this point in our lives, the church would still judge it as sinful (as our intent is to use it as a contraceptive). I don’t really have a choice in the matter…I must be open to having more kids or I am committing a grave sin.

But the bottom line for us is that NFP did not work for us (cue the “rico, you aren’t doing it right! posts”) .I am not inclined to in give it another whirl as a method of “spacing” births or even using it as a contraceptive.

–Rico

 

[Good_Daughter]

Jennifer & Good Daughter:

Just to be clear, I am not arguing that it is a sin to engage in intercourse during non-fertile times. Nor am I intentionally being obtuse. But one reason why I, and I think many others, struggle over this issue is that the church’s teachings appears unclear and perhaps even inconsistent.

I agree with you on intercourse during non-fertile times and I think it’s good to know exactly why it’s not only not a sin, but potentially something wonderful.

You’re not being the least bit obtuse, in fact, I think the patient way you ask questions will inevitably lead to real understanding. Most of us need more of your patience!

I know what it’s like to find Church teaching unclear. What I found helpful in this regard was the proper definition of some basic terms (ie. “procreative”). This clarified the teaching in my mind and helped me to see the consistency.

How is NFP not taking steps to exclude the life-giving aspect from sexual love?

Best question ever. Because, wonderful as babies are, life-giving means so much more than simply making babies. Authentic sexual love is so life-giving that it actually allows us to image the Trinity with our own “communion of persons”, regardless of whether we’re fertile or infertile. What could be more life-giving to a human being than imaging God?

ONLY participating in the marital union when the life-giving aspect of sexual love is absent is clearly taking steps to exclude the life-giving aspect of the sexual love.

But the life-giving aspect is not automatically absent from the marital union during times of infertility. The reproductive aspect of sexual love is often absent from the marital union but that in and of itself doesn’t negate the presence of the life-giving aspect.

A very clear definition of the procreative aspect would be helpful to my understanding.

–Rico

Hopefully fix’s link will help. I love the author’s definition of the term procreative as describing, "…the natural inclination of the conjugal act towards the generation of human life ".

I also like the simple definition of procreative, “ordered toward creation”.

I know sex is procreative when it is the act that makes a baby, regardless of whether or not a baby is actually created.

 

[Rico_S]

You’re not being the least bit obtuse, in fact, I think the patient way you ask questions will inevitably lead to real understanding. Most of us need more of your patience!

My wife would laugh at someone calling me patient but thank you for the kind words. I hope to arrive at the truth and fully understand…it seems a bit out of reach for me at this moment (and I am not talking exclusively of NFP, sex, contraception, etc.

But the life-giving aspect is not automatically absent from the marital union during times of infertility. The reproductive aspect of sexual love is often absent from the marital union but that in and of itself doesn’t negate the presence of the life-giving aspect.

I would not argue that the absence of the reproductive aspect of sexual love negates the presence of the life-giving aspect. But to purposefully eliminate the reproductive aspect of sexual love …even if the form is unchanged, would seem to negate the life-giving aspect.

–Rico

 

[Scottgun]

There is no statistic saying that 90% of Catholics are using contraceptives. I have seen a statistic were 80-90% Catholics answered the question that went something like, “Is contraception always wrong?” and they answered “no”. It doesn’t follow that anyone who answered no is using contraception.

Now I will certainly agree that way too many Catholics are using contraceptives, and bishops and priests need to work harder on this.

Not doing something is only wrong when there is a duty to do something. While there is a normative duty for married people to have children, it is not absolute, and certainly there is no duty to have relations on this day vs. this day. Thus, NFP passes the smell test which I outlined in my original response about Objective, Subjective, Relative. People need to read CCC 1749-1761, learn how to plug it in and use it. It all comes down to the Truth and ordering your world view according to it. If one’s world view is subjectivist/relativist in which one sees the same results from two things and concludes that they are morally the same, then as Yoda would say, “You must unlearn what you have learned.”

 

[fix]

But to purposefully eliminate the reproductive aspect of sexual love …even if the form is unchanged, would seem to negate the life-giving aspect.

–Rico

Having relations during a non fertile time is not changing the act. It is not eliminating anything. Again, the act is ordained by God to be both procreative and unitive every time as long as one does not intentionally alter the act.

Part of the problem seems to be that we mistakenly think chance of conception is central to being procreative and that is no so.

An 80 year old couple has relations that are unitive and procreative. If we use your position they are no longer sharing the marital embrace as God designed. Women have a natural cycle for a reason.

 

[Jennifer_J]

I would not argue that the absence of the reproductive aspect of sexual love negates the presence of the life-giving aspect. But to purposefully eliminate the reproductive aspect of sexual love …even if the form is unchanged, would seem to negate the life-giving aspect.

–Rico

But NFP doesn’t eliminate the reproductive aspect, that aspect is naturally occuring in every cycle and infact a woman is mostly infertile. The life-giving aspect is the total self giving, even if you aren’t fertile. This is but one reason that people who are infertile may be sacramentally married but those who are unable to physically engage in relations (prior to marriage) may not be married in the Church. Infertility is NOT a barrier to marriage nor does it take away from the life-giving aspect of the marital embrace. You are confusing procreative for fertile–they are different.

PS to you, Rico --there are various forms of NFP, perhaps looking into a different version might help?
nfpandmore.org online sympto-thermal
ccli.org sympto-thermal
creightonmodel.com medical model mucous
boma-usa.org mucous nnly
marquette.edu/nursing/NFP/ above methods with the addition of a fertility monitor
omsoul.com for info about why contraception is wrong and to locate NFP only Docs and various NFP teachers

 

[Jennifer_J]

Really? Becasue I think the silence is deafening.

Someone earlier in this thread referenced the 90% of the Catholics are using some form of birth control–I doubt that is far off at all. I have 4 kids and they go to a Catholic school and we are one of the bigger families there. The vast majority have 2-3 kids and I don’t think there is one family with more than 6 kids. It is perfectly clear that people are contracepting…either with NFP or traditional birth control methods.

Ok…so 90% of we Catholics are in a state of mortal sin…and the priests and bishop have so much concern for our souls that they…schedule plenty of NFP classes and put them in the bulletin…include NFP in pre-cana cirriculums…??? What? The souls of 90% of all Catholics are blackened with the grave sin and that it the best the Church can do??? I think Christ would be disappointed…no?

So there must be a reason why they don’t feel the need to actively attempt to save our souls?
–they think we are already lost and it is not their responsibility to bring back the lost sheep?
–the priests do not feel that strongly about the teaching of contraception…perhaps even disagreeing with “traditional” church teaching?
–perhaps there is a fear of financial backlash for opposing the 90% of their contributors.

I don’t know what the reason is, but I don’t think the Church is active at all in this regard, especially considering the gravity and sweeping scope of the sin.

–Rico

The silence is NOT deafening here. I’m sorry that it is where you are. Perhaps you could speak with your priest or bishop about this? Maybe they would do something. Maybe they think people really do know about NFP? I dont’ know. I do know that it’s not a secret and the info is EASY to find…

btw, for a sin to be subjectivly mortal, 3 conditions must be met:

1. Grave matter
2. Full Knowledge
3. Deliberate Consent
   So, contraception is objectivly a mortal sin, but an individual person’s culpability may be lessened due to many factors