NFP intent the same as contraception?

[amyjo10]

Hi,
I’m against the pill, but I see no difference in intent between NFP and contraception. I argue that NFP is contraception because you intentionally have sex when you can’t get pregnant. If NFP is 99.9% (or so) effective at preventing pregnancy just like the pill, isn’t a couple with the knowledge of this sinning because they are having sex when they KNOW that the procreative aspect of the act is missing. They are intentionally having sex when they know they cannot get pregnant, just like someone who is using any other form of contraception.

Also, if anyone has any links to scripture or writings on why each sex act has to be both unifying and procreative (and why it can’t be one or the other) I’d appreciate it.

Thanks!

 

[CatofAlexandria]

Here are some recent threads on the topic:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=442006&highlight=NFP+Contraception

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=437901&highlight=NFP+Contraception

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=413198&highlight=NFP+Contraception

You will also want to read Humanae Vitae (vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html)

Essentially, having the same aim and effect does not make two different actions morally identical. Janet Smith gives the example of robbing a bank to provide for your family as opposed to working hard and earning more money. In both circumstances, the desire and result is the same, but the means are different. What’s “wrong” about ABC is not that it is a means of postponing pregnancy when there are prudent and serious reasons to do so, but that it is essentially robbing your spouse of the fullness of the act.

 

[Spencerian]

Hi,
I’m against the pill, but I see no difference in intent between NFP and contraception. I argue that NFP is contraception because you intentionally have sex when you can’t get pregnant. If NFP is 99.9% (or so) effective at preventing pregnancy just like the pill, isn’t a couple with the knowledge of this sinning because they are having sex when they KNOW that the procreative aspect of the act is missing. They are intentionally having sex when they know they cannot get pregnant, just like someone who is using any other form of contraception.

Also, if anyone has any links to scripture or writings on why each sex act has to be both unifying and procreative (and why it can’t be one or the other) I’d appreciate it.

Thanks!

Hi, AmyJo.

The difference is that NFP does not introduce an **artificial **barrier or change in the natural processes that prohibits conception. The Pill alters hormones, and condoms and other devices physically block conception.

Unless you are unmarried, the enjoyment of the marital act without the intent of conception at the particular time or over a course of time is not a sin. Catholics aren’t obligated to see sex only for procreation.

Now, NFP can be used illicitly by a couple who are not open to having children at all. As Catholics, we are obligated to be open to the opportunity of children when financial and other responsibilities are met–it’s one of the two prime reasons for marrying in the first place.

The prior poster’s links to previous threads should definitely help.

 

[1ke]

Hi,
I’m against the pill, but I see no difference in intent between NFP and contraception.

The intent, also known as the “end” is indeed the same. The end is to space or avoid pregnancy for a time or indefinitely. The Church does not teach this is immoral, intrinsically. One can have just reasons for spacing.

Contraception and abstaining from sexual intercourse are two different means of achieving the end of spacing. One is immoral, the other is moral.

Just as when one has the “end” of obtaining food for one’s family, one may use an immoral means of obtaining the food (stealing) or a moral means (buying).

I argue that NFP is contraception because you intentionally have sex when you can’t get pregnant.

That is not what contraception is. Else, a pregnant woman and her husband would be contracepting-- and sinning-- when they engage in intercourse as would a postmenopausal couple or any couple afflicted with the burden of infertility through disease or defect.

Such is not the case.

Contraception is the act of engaging in intercourse while taking a deliberate action to render it sterile.

A couple using the infertile period of a woman’s cycle, a pregnant couple, a post menopausal couple, and a couple infertile by disease or defect, take no such action. They engage in a fully unitive and fully procreative act. The act is objectively procreative because it is completed in the way God designed it, and it is unaltered.

Contraception is immoral because it actively attempts to separate the unitive and procreative elements by an overt act of the will. Masterbation, homosexual sexual relations, heterosexual anal or oral “intercourse,” also are immoral for the same reason.

If NFP is 99.9% (or so) effective at preventing pregnancy just like the pill, isn’t a couple with the knowledge of this sinning because they are having sex when they KNOW that the procreative aspect of the act is missing.

No. See above. The couple knows they are naturally infertile. They can have sex or not. It’s their choice. But if they have sexual relations they do not alter it in any way.

A sex act that is complete and unaltered is *objectively *procreative, even if *subjectively *it doesn’t result in conception due to time of the cycle, pregnancy, age, or disease/defect. The couple engages in the act 100% the way God designed it.

A sex act that is sterilized via contraception is not objectively procreative *even if *it subjectively results in conception via method failure.

They are intentionally having sex when they know they cannot get pregnant, just like someone who is using any other form of contraception.

It is not “just like” someone who uses contraception.

Someone who uses contraception says “I want to engage in sex, on my time and my way, but I don’t want a baby, so I will sterilize the act and throw you and the way you designed intercourse out, God.”

Someone who uses the infertile period of the cycle says, “I want to engage in sex, but I don’t want a baby, so I will wait-- God-- and respect the way you made sex and refrain from sexual relations until such time as you have given us in the rhythm of the cycle.”

Also, if anyone has any links to scripture or writings on why each sex act has to be both unifying and procreative (and why it can’t be one or the other) I’d appreciate it.

Thanks!

Read Casti Connubii and Humanae Vitae for starters.

You can get a free copy of Janet Smith’s “Contraception, Why Not?” at www.omsoul.com

They also have a number of other resourses (books and pamphlets) dealing with the immorality of contraception. I highly recommend the book The Bible And Birth Control by Charles Provan (not a Catholic) if you come from a protestant “bible only” background and are finding it hard to kick that way of thinking.

 

[ContegoFides]

I agree with most of the responders here, but I will try to make it really concise.

The key distinction is that “not having sex” (NFP) is not always wrong. Deliberately making an act sterile (artificial BC) is always wrong.

Slightly more explanation:

Artificial contraception deliberately attempt to make every act infertile. Doing so is intrinsically wrong in and of itself.

NFP primarily uses abstincence to avoid pregnancy. NOT having sex with your spouse is not wrong in and of itself.

Not all uses of NFP would be licit - and that is what you are sensing. If you are using NFP without justification, then the intent to avoid pregnancy would be morally wrong. However, if you have just reason (which could include finances, health, and others) then NFP to avoid preganancy is justified.

You should discuss whether NFP to avoid pregnancy is appropriate for you in particular with an orthodox priest.

 

[Mirror_Mirror]

Hi,
I’m against the pill, but I see no difference in intent between NFP and contraception. I argue that NFP is contraception because you intentionally have sex when you can’t get pregnant. If NFP is 99.9% (or so) effective at preventing pregnancy just like the pill, isn’t a couple with the knowledge of this sinning because they are having sex when they KNOW that the procreative aspect of the act is missing. They are intentionally having sex when they know they cannot get pregnant, just like someone who is using any other form of contraception.

Also, if anyone has any links to scripture or writings on why each sex act has to be both unifying and procreative (and why it can’t be one or the other) I’d appreciate it.

Thanks!

Christopher West responds to this question here:

Contraception vs. NFP

*A further question arises: Would a couple be doing anything to falsify their sexual union if they embraced during a time of natural infertility? Take, for example, a couple past childbearing years. They know their union will not result in a child. Are they violating their vows if they engage in intercourse with this knowledge? Are they contracepting? No. Contraception, by definition, is the choice to engage in an act of intercourse, but then do something else to render it sterile. This can be done by using various devices, hormones, surgical procedures, and the age-old method of withdrawal.

Couples who use natural family planning (NFP) when they have a just reason to avoid pregnancy never render their sexual acts sterile; they never contracept. They track their fertility, abstain when they are fertile and, if they so desire, embrace when they are naturally infertile. Readers unfamiliar with modern NFP methods should note that they are 98-99% effective at avoiding pregnancy when used properly. Furthermore, any woman, regardless of the regularity of her cycles, can use NFP successfully. This is not your grandmother’s “rhythm method.”

To some people this seems like splitting hairs. “What’s the big difference,” they ask, “between rendering the union sterile yourself and just waiting until it’s naturally infertile? The end result is the same: both couples avoid children.” To which I respond, what’s the big difference between killing Grandma and just waiting until she dies naturally? End result’s the same thing: dead Grandma. Yes, but one is a serious sin called murder, and the other is an act of God.

If a person can tell the difference between euthanasia and natural death, he can tell the difference between contraception and NFP. It’s the same difference. I’m not equating contraception and murder. That’s not the analogy. Rather, Grandma’s natural death and a woman’s natural period of infertility are both acts of God. But in killing Grandma or in rendering sex sterile, we take the powers of life into our own hands—just like the deceiver originally tempted us to do—and make ourselves like God (see Gn 3:5).

This is why Pope John Paul II concludes that contraception “is to be judged so profoundly unlawful as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God” (address Oct. 10, 1983).*

 

[Luke_K]

With anything other than NFP, the couple takes a deliberate action with the intent to remove a natural function of their bodies. With NFP, they let their bodies be themselves, as God created them.