Shemp:
Thanks for pointing out the WSJ article and website for cyclebeads. I appreciated reading about them.
First, to answer your question, using them would not be evil. Basically, they are a visual record keeping apparatus and morally no different than keeping track of things on a notebook or calendar. The fact is, the marital act is still open to both the procreative and unitive aspects.
That said, I wouldn’t recommend it. Why settle for only 95% effective, when other forms of NFP are in the 99% to 99.8% range.
For example, here is a link to a Lancet article discussing NFP success rates. There was a very large (19,843 women) study done in Calcutta that showed 2 pregancies per 100 woman-years (i.e., 2 pregnancies in 1200 cycles, or 99.8% effective).
(Hmmm, I wonder how there just happened to be someone teaching predominantly poor women in Calcutta how to use NFP.)
Here is the Lancet article:
fertilityuk.org/nfps841.html
Here is another article showing success rates:
geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/2879/primer.html.
BTW, when you were asking about the morality of using something like the cyclebeads, there is one other aspect of Church teaching to be aware of.
All married couples are called to be open to life. Period. However, we may choose to refrain from the marital act during naturally infertile times to try to avoid pregnancy if we have a serious reason to do so. Avoiding pregnancy for the health of the mother, or if another child would materially impair our ability to provide and care the children we already have are a couple of examples of serious reasons. Whimsically “feeling” like it isn’t convenient to be pregnant right now wouldn’t be a serious reason.
Married couples should jointly and prayerfully discern their reasons on an ongoing basis.