NFP and Population Levels

[otjm]

I’m not lacking on knowledge of what the Church says. What I can’t understand is why the Church holds the position it does. The reason I have trouble with this teaching is that no matter what I read, I don’t see how the sexual activity of a married couple is immoral unless they plan to never have any children.

There is a difference in lack of knowledge and lack of wisdom.

For starters, read Humanae Vitae - several times - and then get a copy of Contraception - Why Not? from Dr. Janet Smith.

 

[runningdude]

Why is it that before the invention and proliferation of ABC the population did not skyrocket like that?

Death and disease, cured with medicine and technology developed in tandem with birth artificial control…

(Disclaimer, this not an argument for birth control, but a rebuttal to a facile dismissal of a legitimate concern)

 

[otjm]

Death and disease, cured with medicine and technology developed in tandem with birth artificial control…

(Disclaimer, this not an argument for birth control, but a rebuttal to a facile dismissal of a legitimate concern)

You forgot one - abortion. Between North America, Europe, Russai and China, only God knows how many abortions there have been; we are 50,000,000+ and counting. Or is it now 55,000,000+?

 

[Rafaela]

Dear Thinking10,
Are you afraid that you end up with 6-12 kids? Or what is the issue here?

Personally, I do not see much point in discussing what-if’s. Most of European countries have population growth rate much below 2,1 required to maintain current population. Secondly, many Asian countries have very distorted one because of the high ratio of men, meaning that they will not be able to marry in the future.

Marital act has to be both unitive and open for life, every single time, check your catechism if you don’t believe me. All Catholics that I know, who have been called for a vocation of marriage -marriage is a vocation- do follow these rules. Marriage is a sacrament and through the reception of this sacrament the couple receives grace needed to live catholic family life.

Maybe it is just that I have always been a little bit of all or nothing person. Either I believe the whole set of Catholic beliefs, or I don’t, so I do fail to see issues with NFP. Soren Kierkegaard did call this ‘the leap of faith’, and sometimes one just has to do it. Up to a point one can find justifications and regulations and so on, but after that one just has to jump.

 

[strange_guy]

You need to get out and meet more Catholics. The vast majority of Catholics in the circles I run in are very much believers in and practitioners of Catholic teaching on the matter. Now, I know we’re not the majority by any stretch of the imagination, but we do exist.

I’m from Brazil. In Brazil most of the population still claim to be catholic but most are not very serious about it.

 

[strange_guy]

Anyway, if I was married I wouldn’t mind using birth control pils with my wife. I don’t think this is a sin.

 

[Kamaduck]

If the OP ever accounted for religious vocations, I didn’t see it. The math doesn’t check out simply because not everyone is called to marriage, and if the entire world were following Catholic teaching, we would almost certainly see an increase in religious vocations. We might even see more single people, if the whole population saw that as a viable future. And then, of course, there are married people who can’t have children, or who must limit their children for medical or economic reasons. The whole population isn’t going to be procreating, let alone having 6+ children.

If the world population DID explode to the point that having more children was dangerous, then I expect that lots of people would have adequate reason to use NFP, based on their precarious circumstances. That would correct for any population concerns. If people are really following the teachings of the Church, I do think that’s sustainable.

 

[Rau]

Right now we have about 7 billion people on Earth, right? Suppose the entire world was Catholic, and followed NFP teachings and had a family of between 6 and 12 children. The median family size would be 9 children, or 4.5 per person currently living. In one generation, our planet’s population would go from 7 billion people to (7 x 4.5) 31.5 billion. Could we really support 31.5 billion people?

If this hypothetical rate of reproduction continued for two more generations, we would have 637 billion.

What you are asking above can be boiled down to:

“If the world utilised only the means to regulate and limit births which are acceptable to the Catholic Church (NFP), would we have a population explosion?”

Unfortunately, you set the discussion off on a bad footing by proposing what birth rates would result using anecdotal evidence with no proper foundation.

Some studies have been done on effectiveness of NFP and ABC, eg. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_birth_control_methods

This gives the probability of a pregnancy in a year of using NFP as:
1.8% (typical use of NFP)
0.6% (perfect use of NFP)

This suggests it is entirely possible for families to limit the number of children to that which they deem appropriate. Of course, it requires self-denial which is not present in some other artificial means, and is potentially inconvenient. But the data indicates effectiveness of NFP is on par with or better than many other artificial means, and far and away sufficiently effective to bring about modest family sizes if desired.

I note you separately raise the tangential question of whether NFP is different in a material way to ABC. That matter has been discussed on numerous other threads (feel free to start yet another…), but has nothing to do with the topic you posted originally.

 

[Rau]

Death and disease, cured with medicine and technology developed in tandem with birth artificial control…

(Disclaimer, this not an argument for birth control, but a rebuttal to a facile dismissal of a legitimate concern)

“Facile” is a bit uncharitable… But I would add the point that mutual masturbation and ejaculating outside the woman have always been available means of ABC - no technology required…

 

[runningdude]

“Facile” is a bit uncharitable…

I called it “facile” because the poster was intentionally dismissive of the moral panic the OP faces without actually making any persuasive argument against the OP’s assumptions. Birth control is a complex issue, and it is a *huge *(though unnecessary) factor in the current low birth rates in some parts of the world. The statistics you have provided regarding NFP’s effectiveness are a much stronger argument that artificial birth control is unnecessary for a sustainable population.

But I would add the point that mutual masturbation and ejaculating outside the woman have always been available means of ABC - no technology required…

I don’t disagree, except to say that these are by no means artficial - they are simply unacceptable forms of *natural *contraception!

Unfortunately, you set the discussion off on a bad footing by proposing what birth rates would result using anecdotal evidence with no proper foundation. …

I think the question the OP posed is entirely appropriate as phrased, simply because society has perpetuated a myth that humans are utterly incapable of sustainably populating the earth. Hearing such a myth justifiably provokes panic; we as knowledgeable Catholics must help restore the calm, by setting the record straight.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Anyway, if I was married I wouldn’t mind using birth control pils with my wife. I don’t think this is a sin.

But your faith does. How do you reconcile the two?

 

[TarkanAttila]

If I may, if we have 31 billion people here in the next 40 years, won’t the vast majority of them be young, able-bodied, and willing to work?

We have a significant deficit of such people, particularly in the West and Japan. Our populations may be large, but - with all respect to the elderly - they are ageing, and getting less and less in working-age range.

Besides, if we have more workers we can produce more goods, food, clothing, shelter. We can come up with more technology. We can have more servants of other people (like CNAs, or hotel staff, or psychotherapists). Who knows? Maybe with enough bright minds we could colonise the Moon, Mars, Venus.

Controlling the population may seem like a good idea. And it is understandable, given all the starving children in Africa. But if we really wanted to solve it, we could, and we could do so even while having a growing population. Isn’t that the glory of our age, technology’s ability to solve anything with enough applied phlebotinum?

 

[ManOnFire]

The overpopulation issue, coupled with the disbelief in God, is the rationale behind the academics’, media, and politicians’ current progressive liberal propaganda. They see the promotion of God as nothing more than propaganda, so they have no problem doing the same, albeit opposite direction. And, if God doesn’t exist, then I’m hard pressed to argue with them. A populace of unromantic self-absorbed individuals will be more likely to have sex for recreation, use foolproof birth control most of the time, reduce marriages, and float down the population over time. I just wish the progressive liberals would truly educate people as to this choice instead of Deceiving people into adopting their point of view with carnal pleasures and causing so much dependency, angst and confusion. Then again, they see religion as doing the same thing… Different, but not true Progress…