You are right in that it was a semantic problem, but the problem was the relevance of being “open to life”. NFP is actually no different in terms of being “open to life” than ABC is, but it doesn’t matter because contraception is still wrong since it prevents spouses from giving their whole selves, including their fertility, to eachother during the marital act, and altering the marital act with devices defies God’s design.
Natural vs Artificial Birth Control
- Thread starter Mavzylor
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pensmama87
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Still doesn’t alter the act or the couple. It just provides information.
There’s lots of information my husband and I consider when we’re deciding whether or not to have sex, even if we sift through it rather quickly. And we’re never obligated to have sex, even if nothing is preventing us.
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Vonsalza
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Sure, the part they “refuse to give” is the procreative aspect of sex. To pretty much anyone who isn’t a devout catholic - that makes NFP an example of contraception. It’s just a method rather than a pill. Either way; the goal is the same.
So you’re right; semantics.
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Vonsalza
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Oh, the pill doesn’t alter the act of intercourse!Vonsalza:
Still doesn’t alter the act or the couple. It just provides information.
Intercourse with a woman on the pill is exactly the same as intercourse with a woman using NFP. It’s intimacy-sans-ovum. Biologically the same.
That makes you similar to every couple out there, regardless what they use for contraception; a pill or NFP.
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pensmama87
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I can assure you I was not the same woman when I was on the Pill.
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Vonsalza
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Doesn’t bug my wife at all.
But she’s a cradle protestant. Different upbringing. Different person.
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pensmama87
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That part isn’t contrary to Church teaching. The Church doesn’t say, “Abandon all reason and information when it comes to your sex life, except this freebie, wink.”
What’s contrary is altering the act or yourself. Putting yourself on hormones, without therapeutic purpose, alters yourself.
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Vonsalza
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Remember that the next time you take an asprin to frustrate your God-given inflammatory response!
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Vonsalza
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Oh I’d vigorously argue that avoiding new children after you have as many as you can afford or as you start getting toward the backside of middle age is immensely therapeutic for the vast majority of folks.
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pensmama87
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Yeah, that’s not what that means.
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Vonsalza
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Inflammation is not part of the natural order, nor is it from God.
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Respectfully, deacon, denying that your body’s inflammatory response is “part of the natural order” isn’t correct. It’s part of the body’s repair process. This is established fact I can cite if you actually disbelieve it.
A wasp stings me, my arm swells, I take an asprin to help the swelling subside.
So I guess the wasp stinging me was a violation of natural law? Wasps were sans stingers before the Edenic exile? Or they had them, but they were somehow not for stinging?
You may not realize it deacon, but you’re assisting me here…
One very educated fellow on these forums told me that artificial birth control was wrong because it simply boils down to a ban on artifice directly affecting the procreative aspect of sex in the negative.
There is really no greater principle in play like “openness to life” or “avoidance of artifice upon the body” because there are so many situations where those rationals don’t completely hold in Catholic life.
And let me tell ya what- I think he’s completely right.
And that makes it so unacceptably arbitrary to so many people, deacon. But I’m sure you’re not unaware. The recent generation of Catholics have largely left and maybe 90% of those that remain quietly reject the Church’s stance on the matter.
Or do you think all those Catholic families with 2 or 3 kids are just really, really good at NFP?
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Respectfully, deacon, denying that your body’s inflammatory response is “part of the natural order” isn’t correct. It’s part of the body’s repair process. This is established fact I can cite if you actually disbelieve it.
“Intended state”. Now there’s a rabbit hole…
A wasp stings me, my arm swells, I take an asprin to help the swelling subside.
So I guess the wasp stinging me was a violation of natural law? Wasps were sans stingers before the Edenic exile? Or they had them, but they were somehow not for stinging?
You may not realize it deacon, but you’re assisting me here…
Again, it seems to be wrong by fiat rather than reason, deacon.
One very educated fellow on these forums told me that artificial birth control was wrong because it simply boils down to a ban on artifice directly affecting the procreative aspect of sex in the negative.
There is really no greater principle in play like “openness to life” or “avoidance of artifice upon the body” because there are so many situations where those rationals don’t completely hold in Catholic life.
And let me tell ya what- I think he’s completely right.
And that makes it so unacceptably arbitrary to so many people, deacon. But I’m sure you’re not unaware. The recent generation of Catholics have largely left and maybe 90% of those that remain quietly reject the Church’s stance on the matter.
Or do you think all those Catholic families with 2 or 3 kids are just really, really good at NFP?
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Wesrock
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One is a misuse of a faculty, the other is not using a faculty. Misuse is the issue.
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jjje1995
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Does your wife not know the pill is an abortifacient?
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Vonsalza
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Interesting, deacon.
When a man scrapes his leg on a rock, the redness there is inflammation. So I guess no one physically fell down in Eden?
Quite a box, here.
and the ban is that specific.
You don’t have to be completely “open to life” because the Church allows you to practice NFP which exists specifically to give devout Catholic couples a way to have sex and not have kids…
You don’t have to avoid putting artifice in your body for sexual reasons because the Catholic Church seems to be fine with men using the little blue pill…
So if there’s an over-arching reason that doesn’t seem oddly arbitrary or indefensibly full of holes, I’d really like to see it, deacon. And I say that as honestly and sincerely as humanly possible.
This doesn’t show me that it’s true. It only shows me that you “know” it’s true, deacon.
And while commissions can be wrong, so too can popes as I’m sure you know.
Thanks for your beliefs, deacon.
When a man scrapes his leg on a rock, the redness there is inflammation. So I guess no one physically fell down in Eden?
Quite a box, here.
Spoken like a true believer, deacon. But this remains; it seems the Church very specifically bans the use of artifice that directly and negatively affects the procreative outcome of sex -
and the ban is that specific.
You don’t have to be completely “open to life” because the Church allows you to practice NFP which exists specifically to give devout Catholic couples a way to have sex and not have kids…
You don’t have to avoid putting artifice in your body for sexual reasons because the Catholic Church seems to be fine with men using the little blue pill…
So if there’s an over-arching reason that doesn’t seem oddly arbitrary or indefensibly full of holes, I’d really like to see it, deacon. And I say that as honestly and sincerely as humanly possible.
When it suits us, is anybody?
Statements like that remind me of the end of 1984 where the protagonist was finally broken and he saw the truth and beauty of “Big Brother” which he was previously resisting.
This doesn’t show me that it’s true. It only shows me that you “know” it’s true, deacon.
Sure. And maybe the Church has another “Galileo” on its hands. If there wasn’t some ambiguity on the matter, there probably wouldn’t have been a Pontifical Commission that voted overwhelmingly against the pope.
And while commissions can be wrong, so too can popes as I’m sure you know.
Thanks for your beliefs, deacon.
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Vonsalza
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Vonsalza
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Calling unitive sex with artificial contraception a “misuse” while proclaiming unitive sex with “natural” contraception (like NFP) a “proper use” seems capricious to some.
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jjje1995
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This is a scientific fact.
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Vonsalza
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Actually, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that an “abortion” of a zygote has occurred due to use of oral, hormonal contraception. None at all.
Now anecdotal testimony and circumstantial theory given by folks who are likely religiously biased? Yes. You can find plenty of that. But those aren’t facts.
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jjje1995
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If I may ask, what is your religious affiliation?
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