The point of pro-contraceptive individuals (e.g. Sean Hannity) is that sex is for procreation, and likewise a woman’s biology tells her to have sex when she is ovulating. So why isn’t it unnatural to avoid your wife’s biological calls, and to steal one away when her body isn’t asking for it. Taking a pill is taking it one step further, I grant. But people take nicotine, caffeine, mood stabilizers, weight pills that pump you up, ect. Candy is bad for the body and therefore unnatural. Therefore I don’t see a clear argument on natural law against contraception. But what is wrong with accepting it on faith?
I haven’t listened to Hannity for a while, I get a feeling he doesn’t even consider himself Catholic anymore, just “Christian”. But I do recall that he has promoted contraception as something a responsible couple would use as part of an overall approach to fiscal responsibility. I think he sees the alternative to contraception, as people having a bunch of kids they can’t afford and filling the gap with welfare and other government programs. I’ve never heard him discuss NFP at all, but I suppose he assumes NFP is too unreliable to count as something a responsible couple would use to prevent births.
Anyway, although many people (both in and out of the Catholic) seem to think the Church wants everyone to has as many kids as they physically can, the Church doesn’t actually teach this. It teaches that limiting births can be appropriate in some circumstances. Arguing that is essentially a strawman. The issue is the MEANS people use for limiting births.
Now, here is where most who support the Church bring in some analogy such as a man robbing a bank vs a man getting a job to feed his kids. But I’d point out an example that’s even more relevant.
Some people actually depend on abortion, not as a last resort, but as a primary means of birth control. Many Christians oppose the use of the Pill, IUD, and other forms of “contraception” that could act as an abortifacient, but DO approve of non-abortifacient means of contraception such as condoms, spermicides, etc.
Such Christians would certainly NOT agree with the argument that “contraception is just as bad as abortion because a woman who has her partner use the condom, and a woman who has an abortion, both have the same goal, avoiding an unwanted child. So it’s hypocritical to oppose abortion but not contraception. If you accept contraception, then you have to accept abortion, both acts have the same end”.
Essentially, NFP is not meant to be a substitute for contraception, it’s meant to be a substitute for total abstinence. Couples mutually agreeing to abstain totally and have a “Josephite marriage” has certainly been accepted by the Church as licit. Periodic abstinence is seen as a variant of that, not “Church-approved contraception”.
