NFP

[Chrismasfetus]

Just a question…

With all of the benefits NFP has to offer when morally used (with MARRIED couples, of course!! :getholy

Has NFP caught on with unmarried couples (who obviously engage in premarital sex)? Or is NFP still mainly used by married couples?

 

[puppylove]

I don’t think anyone participating in pre-martial sex would think to use NFP. NFP is choosing to do something morally acceptable which when engaging in pre-martial sex is not. What’s the point?

 

[Kat24]

I know of some couples that engage in pre-marital sex and use NFP. I think it’s great that they are using NFP instead of using pills or condoms.

 

[UxoretMater]

Kat24:

I know of some couples that engage in pre-marital sex and use NFP. I think it’s great that they are using NFP instead of using pills or condoms.

I can’t think it is GREAT if they are engaging in objectively sinful behavior. So they are only breaking God’s law on non-fertile days? Whether they are using condoms or NFP is of no matter – it is sinful behavior.

NFP is not required by the Church. It is ALLOWED by the Church for married couples to limit or space children when there are grave reason to do so.

 

[Dr.Colossus]

I know of some couples that engage in pre-marital sex and use NFP. I think it’s great that they are using NFP instead of using pills or condoms.

I can’t think it is GREAT if they are engaging in objectively sinful behavior. So they are only breaking God’s law on non-fertile days? Whether they are using condoms or NFP is of no matter – it is sinful behavior.

Let’s not do the seamless garment thing. I think it is great that they are choosing to respect life. I think it is sad that they are not choosing to respect love. NFP can be a seed that causes couples to take each others sexuality more seriously. If they begin to see it as sacred, perhaps it will help them realize that it should be saved for marriage.

 

[Chrismasfetus]

Kat24:

I know of some couples that engage in pre-marital sex and use NFP. I think it’s great that they are using NFP instead of using pills or condoms.

Just a response to your comment…

NFP should only be reserved for ***married couples ***who are eventually looking to have a family of their own. The use of NFP is a morally acceptable way to space out births or to avoid having children for the time being (due to a certain grave reason). It allows a couple to come closer together and love one another more fully because the use of artificial contraception is absent from their marital embrace. The couples do not “use” each other for only one reason —> pleasure. Couples who use NFP are always open to the possibilities of starting a family together.

The fact that you know of some couples who use NFP instead of artificial contraception doesn’t make their actions more morally acceptable. Even if they’re using NFP, it is still just as bad as them using the methods of artificial contraception (condoms, birth control pill, etc.).

Why? Many unmarried couples who engage in premarital sex are not really open to having a family at that moment. They are only caught up in doing what is pleasurable to them. Whether or not they realize it, they are using each other’s bodies to fulfill their own selfish desires. Premarital sex is not an act of love, its an act of lust that’s often confused with love.

 

[SeanG]

There are many folks out there who are either indifferent to Christianity or directly hostile to it but also advocate living a more ‘natural’ lifestyle, one that avoids artificially produced medicines, that has a preference for organic foods, etc.

I can easily see such folks engaging in pre-marital sex while accepting NFP with the moral underpinings of it jettisoned.

 

[UxoretMater]

Chrismasfetus:

Just a response to your comment…

NFP should only be reserved for ***married couples ***who are eventually looking to have a family of their own. The use of NFP is a morally acceptable way to space out births or to avoid having children for the time being (due to a certain grave reason). It allows a couple to come closer together and love one another more fully because the use of artificial contraception is absent from their marital embrace. The couples do not “use” each other for only one reason —> pleasure. Couples who use NFP are always open to the possibilities of starting a family together.

This is very well said but I would change the ALWAYS to USUALLY. NFP as a tool is morally neutral – it can be used selfishly by married or singles alike. It is only allowed if the spouses have grave (that is the word in Humanae Vitae) reason to space or limit children.

“In relation to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised, either by the deliberate and generous decision to raise a numerous family, or by the decision, made for grave motives and with due respect for the moral law, to avoid for the time being, or even for an indeterminate period, a new birth.”
"If, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions, for the use of marriage in the infecund periods only, and in this way to regulate birth without offending the moral principles which have been recalled earlier."

While it is true that NFP use might open one’s eyes to the beauty of the Church’s teaching on sexuality, its use before marriage is blatantly ignoring the teaching by engaging in behavior allowed ONLY in marriage.

Great discussion!!!

 

[Townsend]

SeanG:

There are many folks out there who are either indifferent to Christianity or directly hostile to it but also advocate living a more ‘natural’ lifestyle, one that avoids artificially produced medicines, that has a preference for organic foods, etc.

I can easily see such folks engaging in pre-marital sex while accepting NFP with the moral underpinings of it jettisoned.

You are quite right, NFP is all the rage with Gaia/Vegan types who are rejecting modern pharmacology. :whacky:

 

[Dr.Colossus]

While it is true that NFP use might open one’s eyes to the beauty of the Church’s teaching on sexuality, its use before marriage is blatantly ignoring the teaching by engaging in behavior allowed ONLY in marriage.

I agree completely, but I think you can acknowledge the good, i.e. not compounding one sin with another, without giving a blanket approval to another immoral act. Sexual activity before or outside of marriage is a grave evil. But compounding that act with contraception is worse.

 

[Chrismasfetus]

UxoretMater:

This is very well said but I would change the ALWAYS to USUALLY. NFP as a tool is morally neutral – it can be used selfishly by married or singles alike. It is only allowed if the spouses have grave (that is the word in Humanae Vitae) reason to space or limit children.

My mistake for my wording in that sentence! Thanks ! But you have a point there, and that’s something I failed to mention … I’m sure there are many married couples who do use NFP selfishly; I’m sure there are some who just don’t wish to have children at all. For those couples, however, hopefully they’ll come to understand the beauty of life and will be more open to it eventually