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agapewolf
Guest
Doctors have also changed the definition of pregnancy, conception, and fertilization, so that a fertilized egg that is not implanted is expendable, abortable, and can be used for embryonic stem cell research.
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LJN21
Guest
This.
We change the definition of contraception and it makes the Church stances harder and harder to explain. “Oh well … if NATRUAL contraception is okay why can’t I just eat this shroom (or whatever) after sex?”
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PaulinVA
Guest
I’m sorry, but I am *not *engaging in contraception by going to bed tonight without having sex.
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baylee
Guest
If you’ve chosen not to have sex to avoid pregnancy you are against conception during that time (you are contracepting).
But I am wasting my breath because I guess if you believe that the only forms of contraception out there are the ones that the Church disagrees with (and therefore the word contraception as a whole MUST be negative), then that’s the only kinds of contraception out there.
Call it what you want.
But I am wasting my breath because I guess if you believe that the only forms of contraception out there are the ones that the Church disagrees with (and therefore the word contraception as a whole MUST be negative), then that’s the only kinds of contraception out there.
Call it what you want.
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PaulinVA
Guest
If you follow your line of thinking then if a young woman sends her horny boyfriend home and refuses sex, she is contracepting, because she doesn’t want to get pregnant, even though she kept her clothes on the whole time!
I think that you are enmeshed in semantics.
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whatevergirl
Guest
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baylee
Guest
You’re equating a situation where both are married and choose a course of action together with a situation where one person wants the sex and the other does not? Obviously not the same thing.
I am not enmeshed in semantics…you, and others, are in denial simply because you think agreeing with the idea means you are doing something wrong.
I’m done here.
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PaulinVA
Guest
I’m sorry that we can’t understand each other. The point you are trying to make is being obscured by your examples.
Above, you seem to be saying that, in a marriage, if the wife is using NFP and telling the husband when sex is allowable, she’s not contracepting because only one of them is participating in the decision.
But I’m not in denial - you haven’t stated an idea that I can understand.
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BiologyBrain
Guest
I guess I don’t understand.
So any time a man & woman choose not to have sex, they are contracepting? By this way of thinking EVERYONE contracepts at one point or another (even w/n marriage) for various reasons. For instance, if I’m ill & just can’t stomach sex, I’m contracepting b/c I tell my husband ‘no’ and he respects me? Or when a couple is separated by time & distance during the woman’s, they’re contracepting? Or when the couple is just too tired from dealing w/ jobs, kids, finances, etc, they’re contracepting? The couple who completely abstains is contracepting as well? Are we supposed to have sex ALL the time?
I think we have an incomplete, badly worded, ambiguous definition of contraception going on here. Its just not logical to think of all those examples above as contraception. Of course, in my mind contraception can only occur when sex occurs. If no sex occurs, there’s nothing to contracept b/c there isn’t even a possibility of anything happening (egg meeting sperm, etc). The only time a condom, hormonal bc, etc are contracepting is when sex occurs & there’s something to counter-act. The simple fact that someone is on the pill doesn’t make her contracepting if she’s not having sex. KWIM?
Of course, I guess I could be stuck in the negative connotations of contraception. However, it just doesn’t seem logical to think that I’m sitting here contracepting b/c I’m choosing NOT to have sex w/ my husband while we’re both at work. Sorry, it just doesn’t make sense to me.
To have a contraceptive mentality, IMO the people involved have to be looking at sex simply b/c it feels good, but rejecting the life-giving act in & of itself. In other words, to have a contraceptive mentality the couple has sex just to have sex. The contraceptive mentality includes the option of just ‘getting rid’ of the product of sex (whether through chemical means like the pill or direct means like abortion). However, w/ NFP the couple KNOWS there’s a possibility for new life (even in the ‘non-fertile’ phase) and welcomes it. I think the statistics show that couples that use NFP have much lower divorce rates & practically non-existant abortion rates. They also offer themselves as they are - men are always fertile, women are cyclic in their fertility. Both accept each other w/o barriers. Therefore, they are both accepting the unitive & procreative facets of human sexuality.
God created woman to be cyclicly infertile & man to be continuously fertile. Nothing is altering those God-given biological facts w/ NFP. However, contraception alters those God-given biological facts and nullifies them. Therefore, the joining of man & woman is strengthened by sex while using NFP by the very acknowledgement that God created man & woman that way. However, contraception requires that the man &/or woman present themselves as fundamentally (biologically even) different from how they were created. That is presenting oneself as a lie.
** For clarity, the NFP I’m referring to here is what I term Catholic NFP. It is NFP that only relies on biology - no secondary devices (condoms, spermicides, withdrawl, etc). The NFP that PP uses in its statistics is NOT Catholic NFP. It embraces contraceptive devices as a secondary measure to prevent pregnancy.
That’s my story & I’m sticking to it!
So any time a man & woman choose not to have sex, they are contracepting? By this way of thinking EVERYONE contracepts at one point or another (even w/n marriage) for various reasons. For instance, if I’m ill & just can’t stomach sex, I’m contracepting b/c I tell my husband ‘no’ and he respects me? Or when a couple is separated by time & distance during the woman’s, they’re contracepting? Or when the couple is just too tired from dealing w/ jobs, kids, finances, etc, they’re contracepting? The couple who completely abstains is contracepting as well? Are we supposed to have sex ALL the time?
I think we have an incomplete, badly worded, ambiguous definition of contraception going on here. Its just not logical to think of all those examples above as contraception. Of course, in my mind contraception can only occur when sex occurs. If no sex occurs, there’s nothing to contracept b/c there isn’t even a possibility of anything happening (egg meeting sperm, etc). The only time a condom, hormonal bc, etc are contracepting is when sex occurs & there’s something to counter-act. The simple fact that someone is on the pill doesn’t make her contracepting if she’s not having sex. KWIM?
Of course, I guess I could be stuck in the negative connotations of contraception. However, it just doesn’t seem logical to think that I’m sitting here contracepting b/c I’m choosing NOT to have sex w/ my husband while we’re both at work. Sorry, it just doesn’t make sense to me.
To have a contraceptive mentality, IMO the people involved have to be looking at sex simply b/c it feels good, but rejecting the life-giving act in & of itself. In other words, to have a contraceptive mentality the couple has sex just to have sex. The contraceptive mentality includes the option of just ‘getting rid’ of the product of sex (whether through chemical means like the pill or direct means like abortion). However, w/ NFP the couple KNOWS there’s a possibility for new life (even in the ‘non-fertile’ phase) and welcomes it. I think the statistics show that couples that use NFP have much lower divorce rates & practically non-existant abortion rates. They also offer themselves as they are - men are always fertile, women are cyclic in their fertility. Both accept each other w/o barriers. Therefore, they are both accepting the unitive & procreative facets of human sexuality.
God created woman to be cyclicly infertile & man to be continuously fertile. Nothing is altering those God-given biological facts w/ NFP. However, contraception alters those God-given biological facts and nullifies them. Therefore, the joining of man & woman is strengthened by sex while using NFP by the very acknowledgement that God created man & woman that way. However, contraception requires that the man &/or woman present themselves as fundamentally (biologically even) different from how they were created. That is presenting oneself as a lie.
** For clarity, the NFP I’m referring to here is what I term Catholic NFP. It is NFP that only relies on biology - no secondary devices (condoms, spermicides, withdrawl, etc). The NFP that PP uses in its statistics is NOT Catholic NFP. It embraces contraceptive devices as a secondary measure to prevent pregnancy.
That’s my story & I’m sticking to it!
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moon1234
Guest
What is your intention? If your sick, then your primary intention in avoiding sex is not to contracept, but to heal your body. If your at work, etc. then you are not intentionally avoiding sex to avoid having a child. In all of your examples the understood intention is not to avoid sex to avoid the possibility of conception.
The defintion of contraception is very simple. It is only hard when you want the term to mean two different things. If you wanted to make any kind of impression on a non-catholic when referring to NFP you will need to be logically consistent, otherwise the non-catholic person will not understand your logic. They will will see it as solely intellectual semantics. “I think it is not contraception, therefore it is not.”
CHOOSING to avoid sex SOLEY based on the “possibility” of becoming pregnant with the expressed purpose of NOT wanting (or making nearly impossible) conception will seem to the non-catholic to be nothing more that what PP says NFP is. I am sure plenty of people could make the unitive argument with ABC as well. They want to be together, but want to virtually eliminate the possibility of getting pregnant.
The Catholic church takes a different view though. They see the lack of external manipulation, with regards to NFP, as acceptable. What people are taking exception to is that it is just intellectual symatics to many.
I fully intend to NOT have children at this time for XYZ reason. I will use the NFP method which has a 90-100% effectiveness. This is OK in the eyes of the church, but it focuses solely on the PHYSICAL aspects of conception. What about the intellectual component?
It would be like walking up to someone you dislike, not SAYING anything bad to them, but in your mind you are cussing at them, wishing they would be run over by a truck, sent to hell, etc. By this logic you have commited no sin, because you never did anything physical to them (i.e speaking). Yet you did sin in thought, which is a non-physical action.
By your definition NFP is ALWAYS acceptable irrespective of the frame of mind of those using it. If your husband purposefully stayed away from you by working, etc. with the sole intention of wanting to reduce the risk of getting pregnant, then to me this is sinful. He has sinned in thought. If his boss asked him to work late or he has a lot of work that needs to get done, then his primary purpose is not to avoid conception, but to complete his work.
I know you don’t agree with this, but it is logically consistent and would make SENSE to a non-catholic.
Mary_Gail_36
New member
Thank you for this very good post.
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BiologyBrain
Guest
In a way that’s true. I believe that NFP is very difficult to mis-use. I’m sure its possible since we don’t live in an ideal world. However, NFP is listening to nature and using what God designed. My husband is a non-Catholic (non-Christian actually) and he understands the difference in NFP vs. ABC. Trust me when I say, he is NOT shy about telling me he disagrees or something doesn’t make sense about Catholicism.
What counts as a ‘just reason’ when its your fertile time if using NFP to avoid sex (and therefore pregnancy) is wrong? Is just a ‘headache’ a just reason? Does it mean you have to stay home from work (or not do housework if you’re a SAH)? If you’re anxious about something - is that a just reason? I think inferring that using NFP to avoid = contraception can get just a bit ridiculous. There are plenty of reasons why people avoid sex at various times of the month - whether fertile or not, planning to conceive or not, etc.
The intention can have an effect on the licitness of the act, but when you take into account the self-sacrifice, self-denial, self-discipline, mutual respect, etc that it takes (most of the time for me at least) to avoid sex when fertile, I think my ‘sufferings’ outweigh the negatives of my avoidance. Again, to me the contraceptive mentality espouses sex for sex sake - no planning, no acknowledgement to God for His blessed creation, etc. NFP does not do that even when used to avoid pregnancy. I’m thankful to God for giving me obvious signs of my fertility so that I can plan (using His creation) more children, while still observing that I may feel the need to postpone for a while. When I personally use NFP I cannot separate the awe, wonder, and thankfulness I have for God for creating me as He did. I cannot separate the self-sacrifice, self-denial, self-discipline, mutual respect, etc that my husband must have for me by avoiding when we would both rather have consequence-less (contraceptive) sex. I glory in the fact that God created me w/ obvious signs of fertility and that I can use them to further His glory by creating new life and by unifying w/ my husband.
I’m pretty sure we’re just going to have to agree to disagree here. We seem to be going round & round w/o getting anywhere.
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LJN21
Guest
I think this is very much the case. Even if you are using it selfishly, your not sinning by using NFP, you sinning by being selfish. Improper use of NFP would be the symptom, not the cause.
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LongingForLight
Guest
I think this is just a difference of definitions, and that the position I hear used in Catholic circles is legitimate even when used with non-Catholics.
The definition I usually hear in the Catholic church is that contraception implies actively going against conception by acting as if you were allowing conception (engaging in sex) but then preventing it. Therefore, as you point out later, NFP is never contraception, by this logic, as you never active prevent conception while using your bodies in a way that ought to allow contraception. This definition doesn’t mean NFP is never sinful, nor does it mean NFP is never used with a contraceptive mentality. With this definition of contraception, NFP does fall into the broader category of “birth control”, and we can still use this term to speak of both contraceptives and NFP.
When speaking with non-Catholics, it is not always appropriate to use non-Catholic terms (although we should explain what we mean if we might be misunderstood). For example, we must not move on using the definition of conception that states that conception occurs at fertilization, and not at implantation! In this case, using the Catholic definition of conception requires us to share through our language our belief that there is a human life as soon as egg and sperm meet and create the definition of a unique human being.
I think the same idea holds with contraception; by using this term deliberately with non-Catholics, we force them to acknowledge that we believe there is an objective difference between contraceptives and non-contraceptive birth control methods. This does not mean that we are saying that non-contraceptive birth control is always acceptable, but it does draw attention to the important distinction between contraception and birth control.
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LongingForLight
Guest
Great explanation. This is my understanding, as well. It is the selfishness or hard-heartedness of being closed to life while married that would be sinful and unhealthy.
From what I’ve seen, improper NFP use stemming from these sinful attitudes tends to be naturally self-correcting, since using NFP for long periods of time tends to be stressful. Most people need very strong reasons to use NFP long-term simply because it is such a tremendous effort of will. Contraceptives do not have this same effect; the objectively sinful nature of the act aids selfishness or an attitude that is closed to life, rather than opposes it.
ETA: I just reread the post and the quote, and I would say that NFP use is not always acceptable / without sin, but it is never contraceptive. Semantics? Yes, but since semantics are what people are getting tangled up on here, it seems important to keep them straight.
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