NFP sinful

[PumpkinSeed]

NFP could be considered a birth control, but its not artificial… Its a natural birth control, which is why its not sinful. Also, it is not against giving life. Sure they would have sex on a day where she is not fertile, but the chance is still there.

 

[Nate13]

NFP could be considered a birth control, but its not artificial… Its a natural birth control, which is why its not sinful. Also, it is not against giving life. Sure they would have sex on a day where she is not fertile, but the chance is still there.

These arguments while technically correct are easily misunderstood. NFP is not ok because its “natural” or else withdrawal would be ok. Now if you clarify and say “natural” as in accord with the natural moral law that is better. I’ve found saying NFP is ok because its natural usually just sows more misunderstandings than it does understandings. You have to explain what “natural” means and be able to explain how natural moral law is recognized and why it should be upheld.

The argument concerning the fact that its possible to get pregnant even when you have sex during the infertile time is also misleading. You could also get pregnant while using a condom. What being “open to life” means is that the act is committed in the way it was designed to be committed. Whenever you have intercourse your act is inherently “open to life” as long as you do nothing to try to impede the natural state of fertility during that act. If you did try to impede it, it would be pretty obvious the act was not open to life but was rather a contradiction. That is why contraception is by definition not open to life.

 

[Luna_Lovecraft]

Families of my grandmother’s time never looked at their checkbook to see if they could afford more kids.

When I was in graduate school I was involved in an oral history project with a major American museum. For this project I interviewed 55 women who were born in the late 19th century, roughly from 1880 to 1900. This was in the 1980s, so the youngest of the women were in their 80s, and some were more than 100 years old. I talked with them about their family life experiences, and our conversations covered everything from what their parents taught them about sexuality to how housekeeping changed in their lifetimes to domestic violence to pregnancy and childbirth to menarche, menstruation, and menopause.

• Only a small number of the women, who ranged from very poor to extremely wealthy, were virgins on their wedding nights. The majority of the non-virgins had had sex only with the men who’d become their husbands, but more than a few had had multiple sex partners, including lesbian experiences and menage a trois.
• Only a handful of them had had large families. They used herbal remedies to terminate pregnancies, and they wore homemade pessaries and douched after intercourse to prevent pregnancies. What was striking was their disdain for their contemporaries who had had a large number of kids. I’ll never forget a couple of the women telling me, “Back when I was young we said that a women with a lot of kids was a woman who was too lazy to get out of bed and douche.”
• Many of the women were forthright in their admission that they’d either terminated a pregnancy or helped a sister, sister-in-law, friend, or cousin terminate one. Since they faced arrest if something went wrong and the woman ended up in the hospital, they all knew of at least one doctor who was willing to put ‘menstrual problems’ on the admission forms to keep them out of jail.

I also learned that woman took domestic violence into their own hands with poisons, opiates, and ground glass.

I’m not saying that I agree with everything I learned, but what they told me about early- to mid-20th century domestic life forever changed my thinking about the good old days. They were old, but they were far from good.

Luna

 

[seekerz]

With all do respect Mary, do you think these women had a choice?? They were truly submissive to their men giving them sex whenever they wanted it. Do you think my grandparents/greatgrandparents knew anything about watching cycles. They had farms and God provided. They had true faith unlike people of today who use NFP and supposedly have good reason not to have children.

Any marriage in which a woman feels that she does not have a choice to say no once in a while is/was a marriage in need of spiritual counseling - I don’t care what the historical era. Women, like men, were given free will by God for a reason. Those ‘good old days’ perhaps were perhaps not as ‘perfect’ as the people who get nostalgic for them would have us imagine.

As for men 'falling into masturbation, that’s just ridiculous. Does that mean that all men must be married? A man’s sexual drive is his responsibility to control - not his wife’s. What if she develops long-term illness or impairment that precludes sex? Must she still bear responsibility for his lack of self control, like one elderly wife I know (whose consciousness was impaired to the extent that she didn’t know the date or where she was, but was still expected to ‘submit’)?

People can cry all they want about what’s the world coming to, I know it was never paradise (not since Eden) and never will be until Christ returns. In the meantime we must do what we can to be responsible in all our actions - including childbearing. In today’s world, that includes making sure we can provide a child with the necessities of life.

It’s one thing to talk about the selfishness and materialism but the fact remains that it was cheaper to raise 12 or 15 kids in the days when people farmed, when they didn’t have to take a long road trip to fish, when kids could skip school if needed to help out at home and there was a ready-made team at home for any sports that they took a fancy to. It is also a fact that more women died in childbirth then not only because medicine was not as advanced, but because the health risk increases with the number of kids. So for those who can afford to raise a large family on a single income, I say great. For those who can’t, there’s NFP.

 

[LightBound]

Well…you have to ask yourself my friend. Ask your heart. With watching your cycle to space your pregnancies are you truly being open to life. The answer is no. The truth hurts sometimes.

Excuse me, but WHO do you think you are? I’m sorry if the truth hurts you, but you are NOT the Pope or the Magisterium! You came on here posting with an agenda from that schismatic group and now you think you can make judgement on others who ARE following Church teachings?

 

[Nate13]

Excuse me, but WHO do you think you are? I’m sorry if the truth hurts you, but you are NOT the Pope or the Magisterium! You came on here posting with an agenda from that schismatic group and now you think you can make judgement on others who ARE following Church teachings?

Haha the making of the “judgements” only logically follows when joclucsylv takes the position that has been taken. What logically follows from that position is going to come out as a judgement. I would not take offense at what is being said, but rather understand that what is being said is based out of an misunderstanding of Church teaching.

 

[Robert_Bay]

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