"Open to Life" and "Intent" - NFP vs ABC

[LittleDeb]

svoboda:

Personally I don’t see much difference between this and birth control. Obviously the means of birth control are different, instead of carefully measuring birth control simply prevents sperm from meeting the egg. To me this is more of a technical than a moral difference, because I don’t see anything inherently wrong with preventing the sperm from meeting the egg.

Herein lies the problem. What if there IS a huge moral difference?

The only reason you would not recommend NFP is because you view the means as time-consuming and impractical? If you are correct and there was no moral difference in the means, then intent is all that matters?

So the point of this thread, “Does the use of terms like ‘open to life’ and ‘contraceptive mentality’ muddy the issue and do a disservice to promoting NFP?” has changed my opinion a bit. I used to think it did muddy the waters and caused confusion.

If this belief about the use of NFP is common, then I am truly saddened. I will answer your question on intent now. The aim in using NFP for those faithful to Truth is, in a nutshell:

To more perfectly conform our will in family size and spacing to the will of God through prayer, fasting and periodic abstinence. Further, to grow in holiness as a couple through unmanipulated marriage acts.

Marriage is sacred. The marital act is holy. My heart goes out to those who do not see the difference. I used to be one of them.

 

[cynic]

LittleDeb:

If this belief about the use of NFP is common, then I am truly saddened. I will answer your question on intent now. The aim in using NFP for those faithful to Truth is, in a nutshell:

To more perfectly conform our will in family size and spacing to the will of God through prayer, fasting and periodic abstinence. Further, to grow in holiness as a couple through unmanipulated marriage acts.

.

OR, to have sex without more children.

 

[svoboda]

LittleDeb:

Herein lies the problem. What if there IS a huge moral difference?

The only reason you would not recommend NFP is because you view the means as time-consuming and impractical? If you are correct and there was no moral difference in the means, then intent is all that matters?

It’s not that I wouldn’t recommend NFP, if people want to use it it’s their perogative. I just wouldn’t say that barrier/spermicide methods are an immoral alternative.

What is so inherently evil about preventing the sperm from reaching the egg instead of carefully measuring the time when there is no egg?

If this belief about the use of NFP is common, then I am truly saddened. I will answer your question on intent now. The aim in using NFP for those faithful to Truth is, in a nutshell:

To more perfectly conform our will in family size and spacing to the will of God through prayer, fasting and periodic abstinence. Further, to grow in holiness as a couple through unmanipulated marriage acts.

But I think you are putting things into NFP that don’t belong there (i.e. prayer and fasting). People who use barrier/spermicide methods can also pray and fast, and be very serious about discerning God’s will when it comes to family size. They might even decide to periodically abstain from sex from time to time, but not because the woman is fertile but simply for spiritual reasons.

Or for example if the woman’s health would be endangered by pregnancy they might use NFP, condoms, and spermicide to protect her health.

Or if for whatever reason NFP is not effective for them, they might choose barrier methods as an alternative.

Why would the presence of a condom or spermicide affect the holiness of the marriage act? Either way the couple are doing it for unitive/emotional purposes, not for procreative purposes. Personally I don’t see how a condom would take away from the love, intimacy, closeness and all the other things that go into the martial act.

 

[vluvski]

svoboda:

I would not use this language. A malformed (or corrupted) conscience means that a person believes an evil act is okay. For example someone who believes rape is okay has a malformed conscience

Hey, you’re the one who said corrupted. I can think of more examples of people who believe an evil act is OK: someone who thinks abortion is OK, or someone who thinks ABC is OK. The whole point is that the person’s conscience is UNABLE TO RECONGNIZE that an act is evil in the first place, not that they believe it is OK to do something they understand is evil.

It doesn’t matter what circumstances brought them to the point where they are blind to these evils. They’re being lied to, and their consciences have been formed by those lies instead of by the truth. Thus, their conscience is malformed or misinformed.

The church never taught that abortion wasn’t evil, just that it wasn’t technically murder before this so-called quickening. The concept of quickening was phased out as we came to a better understanding of how life begins, and it was never a Church teaching.

Humanae Vitae successfully predicted the long-term effect birth control would have on society. Have you actually ever read it? The amount of insight in HV is proof enough to me and many others that Pope Paul VI was truly guided by the Holy Spirit in issuing that encyclical.

Disagree with me all you want, no one can convince you of something you refuse to be convinced of. Just be sure you are confident that you aren’t disagreeing with anyone important before you close your mind.

 

[svoboda]

vluvski:

Hey, you’re the one who said corrupted. I can think of more examples of people who believe an evil act is OK: someone who thinks abortion is OK, or someone who thinks ABC is OK. The whole point is that the person’s conscience is UNABLE TO RECONGNIZE that an act is evil in the first place, not that they believe it is OK to do something they understand is evil.

But my point is that people who think abortion is okay DO NOT think that murder is okay. They simply don’t think that the unborn are human. (Which is a legitimate position for those who think that it’s the consciousness, the thinking, and the feeling that makes a human, not the DNA.)

They have not been taught to think that murder is okay, chances are they all unanimously believe murder is a grave evil.

If they thought murder was okay, then I’d agree with you that they thought evil to be okay.

Contraception is completely different, because people who think it’s moral know exactly what it is! There is no misinformation here, everyone who uses barrier/spermicide contraception knows that its whole purpose is to prevent the sperm from meeting the egg and to allow the couple to have sex without becoming pregnant.

They are not misinformed about contraception, unlike in the case of abortion they know exactly what it is and what it’s for.

When good people think abortion is okay, they do it because they don’t think the unborn are human and therefore there is no murder!

When good people think contraception is okay, they think there’s nothing wrong in preventing conception in order to enjoy sex without having babies.

This is a huge difference, and to return to my previous argument, it is very curious that most people including many good people think that preventing conception in order to have sex without having babies is just fine. If it was a grave evil, like murder, and if it was the consquence of “natural law”, then one would would expect they would think birth control is evil.

Humanae Vitae successfully predicted the long-term effect birth control would have on society. Have you actually ever read it? The amount of insight in HV is proof enough to me and many others that Pope Paul VI was truly guided by the Holy Spirit in issuing that encyclical.

I’ve read bits of Humanae Vitae. I suspect it predicted the “break up” of families, the increased sexual promiscuity and the like?

In a way I agree with it, birth control makes it easier for people to do what they want. I suspect people were the same back then, they just couldn’t be promiscuous because of the consequences, they couldn’t look at internet porn because there was no internet.

Birth control is as much at fault for all these thinigs as the internet is at fault for internet pornography. It makes it easy, but in the end people make choices to be promiscuous, to divorce, to be addicted to porn etc.

In addition, so many people have become secular and have rejected religion, that it’s more probable that a rejection of Catholic morality has to do with rejection of Catholicism, not birth control.

 

[vluvski]

svobodoa:

If they thought murder was okay, then I’d agree with you that they thought evil to be okay.

Contraception is completely different, because people who think it’s moral know exactly what it is! There is no misinformation here, everyone who uses barrier/spermicide contraception knows that its whole purpose is to prevent the sperm from meeting the egg and to allow the couple to have sex without becoming pregnant.

They are not misinformed about contraception, unlike in the case of abortion they know exactly what it is and what it’s for.

You’re reading what you think I’m saying and not what I’m actually writing. Did I not just say that their perceptions was…

not [because]
they believe it is OK to do something they understand is evil

but because something is preventing them from understanding that it is evil.

Just as someone whose concept of “personhood” (which is a complete fabrication thanks to creative pro-abortion rhetoric) leads them to believe an unborn baby is not human, someone’s deep-seated misunderstanding of God’s design for marriage and sexuality allows them to believe that contraception is morally acceptable.

People ARE misinformed about contraception. Most women do not realize that the pill, the ring, the patch, IUDs, all carry significant risks and side effects. They do not know that the pill is only masking their symptoms if it is prescribed for other non-contraceptive reasons, and most tragically they don’t know that each of these has the potential to be a mechanism for abortion, not contraception. In fact, most of them act almost exclusively to prevent implantation (an abortion) instead of to prevent conception (contraception). Now add in barrier methods, and they also have no idea that NFP is much safer and more effective, plus has the side effect of helping improve communication between spouses and can improve marriages.

svoboda:

But my point is that people who think abortion is okay DO NOT think that murder is okay. They simply don’t think that the unborn are human. (Which is a legitimate position for those who think that it’s the consciousness, the thinking, and the feeling that makes a human, not the DNA.)

Abortion and murder and contraception are all separate issues and require understanding of different elements of God’s design. Actually this proves my point even further. There are people who think (and they are wrong) that abortion is OK, but murder is not. Likewise, there are people who think (and they are also wrong) that contraception is OK, but abortion and murder are not. Just because a person’s consciences has not been properly formed on one issue (abortion or contraception) does not mean that it is going to be wrong on every issue.

The bolded portion of your quote illustrates something else. Truth is not relative to what a person believes is true. One could say that IF someone didn’t believe that (or didn’t understand how) sex is linked to marriage and natural fertility/procreation and union between spouses, then contraception is OK. Sure, it makes perfect sense, but only if the assumption is valid.

Consider this: If I thought squares had three corners, it would be legitimate for me to believe that all squares were triangles. So we all pretend for a second that I am right, trying to be empathetic and look at it from my point of view… well, by golly, if squares had three corners, they WOULD all be triangles, wouldn’t they? Gee, this really makes sense, why didn’t I think of this before… and everyone forgets we’re just trying to look at it from someone else’s (incorrect) point of view in the interest of empathy.

This is precisely why it is not good to live in a world of hypotheticals. We begin making invalid assumptions that lead to incorrect conclusions (I know this is false, but what if it was actually true…), then forget the assumption was invalid and start believing the conclusion is the right one. It seems absurd in the above example because the fact that a square has four sides, not three, is pretty simple and straightforward. Not so with complex issues like marriage and sexuality where it is easy to lose track of just one of many assumptions being made as you trek through the jungle of moral theology.

And that, my friend, is exactly how one comes to be the proud owner of a malformed conscience.

 

[svoboda]

vluvski:

Now add in barrier methods, and they also have no idea that NFP is much safer and more effective, plus has the side effect of helping improve communication between spouses and can improve marriages.

fda.gov/fdac/features/1997/conceptbl.html These FDA statistics contradict what you say about NFP effectiveness, and allege that typical use rate of pregnancy for calendar, temperature, and cervical mucous methods is 25%. The best expected rate is 1 - 9%

Male condom without spermicide typical use is 14%, best use is 3%. Unfortunately it doesnt have with spermicide statistics.

I agree that NFP can improve communication, but so can going on dates and having intimate conversations. Personally I would not want to examine my mucous or cervix. And I most definitely would not want my husband examining my vaginal mucous.

The bolded portion of your quote illustrates something else. Truth is not relative to what a person believes is true. One could say that IF someone didn’t believe that (or didn’t understand how) sex is linked to marriage and natural fertility/procreation and union between spouses, then contraception is OK. Sure, it makes perfect sense, but only if the assumption is valid.

But neither is truth relative to what a few Catholic officials believe is true. If I’m not mistaken until Vatican II the Church did not even talk about the “unitive” purposes of sex, and in the past it used to be strictly about procreation.

The Church changed in the past, it will change again in the future. Personally I would not put too much weight on what celibate men who may have never had sex in their lives say about marriage and much less how married couples should have sex and regulate family size.

God is speaking to every single person through their moral conscience, and the moral conscience of the overwhelming majority of human beings says there is nothing wrong with birth control. This is not just perverted sinners, but even priests, even very good people who live moral lives, even most Catholics!

By the way, your profile says you’re an engineer. Do you plan to become a stay at home mom after you have kids? If not, how do you expect to have the energy and health to work if you keep having one kid after another?

Because however effective NFP might be, you can’t just use it because you feel like it.

 

[jegow]

cynic:

what a contradiction.

Feel free to explain why you think it was. Otherwise don’t take my quote out of context please.

 

[jegow]

vluvski:

If you make a distinction between the intent of a selfish vs legitimate practice of NFP, you must also make a distinction between those who use contraception for legitimate reasons and those who use it for selfish reasons.

My whole point is that NFP is never in itself the sin, while ABC (for contraceptive purposes) is always a sin regardless of the couples intent. The intent issue requires the application of a brand new set of moral standards that are separate from how the couple goes about carrying out this intent.

If ABC is always a sin (which you seem to agree to also) then how can there be legitimate reasons to use contraception? You may not have wanted to but it seems that you have made a contradiction.

 

[jegow]

jegow:

The legitimately practicing couple has an intention to be open to life but to abstain from those fertile periods of the female spouse to avoid if possible a conception due to legitimate or just reasons for doing so.

cynic:

what a contradiction.

• The legitimately practicing couple - this means that they have the right to be using this method.
• has an intention to be open to life - thier intention is still to welcome life from their union if it should come from it.
• but to abstain from those fertile periods of the female spouse - this is when new life is likely to come about since both spouses are fertile.
• to avoid if possible a conception due to legitimate or just reasons for doing so - these are the reasons that the married couple possesses that give them the right to practice NFP. For a list of them please see Humanae Vitae.

So, I contradict myself how?

 

[vluvski]

jegow:

If ABC is always a sin (which you seem to agree to also) then how can there be legitimate reasons to use contraception? You may not have wanted to but it seems that you have made a contradiction.

Sorry if I was unclear. I am not saying that it is legitimate for the couple to use ABC, but that their reason is legitimate. In other words, their intent is legitimate or sufficient or just or grave or whatever language you want to use.

Another way of saying it would be that the couple in question could legitimately use NFP in their case (as opposed to a couple who has no serious reason to avoid).

 

[vluvski]

fda.gov/fdac/features/1997/conceptbl.html These FDA statistics contradict what you say about NFP effectiveness, and allege that typical use rate of pregnancy for calendar, temperature, and cervical mucous methods is 25%. The best expected rate is 1 - 9%

Male condom without spermicide typical use is 14%, best use is 3%. Unfortunately it doesnt have with spermicide statistics.

These rates do not accurately reflect the actual “method failures” or “user failures” because they lump everyone together- those who take chances during their marginally fertile times and those who decide they no longer wish to abstain knowing they will likely get pregnant.

I am quite happy with my plan for my personal and professional life as is my fiance, and quite frankly my ability to manage that in the future is not yours to question. Besides, everyone knows what happens when you assume too much. Please keep such comments and questions to yourself.

Since you are clearly quite confident that the Church is wrong and ABC is moral, I am done discussing this with you. Peace.

 

[svoboda]

vluvski:

These rates do not accurately reflect the actual “method failures” or “user failures” because they lump everyone together- those who take chances during their marginally fertile times and those who decide they no longer wish to abstain knowing they will likely get pregnant.

I am quite happy with my plan for my personal and professional life as is my fiance, and quite frankly my ability to manage that in the future is not yours to question. Besides, everyone knows what happens when you assume too much. Please keep such comments and questions to yourself.

Since you are clearly quite confident that the Church is wrong and ABC is moral, I am done discussing this with you. Peace.

Okay, but just in case you feel a moral duty to give up your professional life for the sake of being a stay at home mom, take a look at this, it’s a conservative Catholic site with a conservative Catholic priest saying this:

Furthermore, some couples LOVE children - the more the better - and are happy with many and cope well. Their happiness is usually contagious to the fortunate children. Other parents love their one or two or three, but have even keener interests in the area of service to the community, or art, or intense professional work. They may feel that a large family of children would be frustrating to them, and perhaps their frustration would have a feed back to the detriment of the children. As Pius XII said for them too: the limits of what is legitimate are very wide.

That in reference to NFP legitimacy. Just in case. Wouldn’t want you to throw away your talents/profession, especially not out of some kind of a sense of obligation.

lifeissues.net/writers/zim/rb/rb_04radiantbeams5.html

 

[vluvski]

Thank you for your concern. My plans are the result of my vocational discernment.

 

[svoboda]

vluvski:

Thank you for your concern. My plans are the result of my vocational discernment.

I wrote a bit more to you in a private message, do with it what you will, I thought I ought to tell you.

 

[Palamite]

svoboda,

Or if for whatever reason NFP is not effective for them, they might choose barrier methods as an alternative.

This is a more common situation than some may realize, as there are many women whose menstrual cycles are not very uniform and for whom NFP simply would not work.

 

[Palamite]

svoboda,

The agrument that there has to be a “complete gift of self”, fertility included, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Everybody recognizes that people can’t just keep having babies, and that the gift of fertility is not always good. Why not withold it when the time isn’t right for another baby? NFP is just a more time consuming way of withholding it.

The idea that sex must always be open to life also doesn’t make sense, because obviously NFP users go to great lengths to avoid any possibility of being open to life.

I think what you highly here is key. Many supporters of Humanae Vitae like employing “proof texts” from the Church Fathers in support of their position, but this is not truthful - for said Fathers are either clearly speaking about abortion, or they are articulating a position on marital sex which even the RCC does not accept (that the only moral use of one’s marital rights, is when one has the intention of procreating - IOW. NFP is clearly out of the picture, and a couple having relations simply out of love and a desire for mutual satisfaction but with no thought of conceiving a child would be sinning in somewise, even if only “venially”.)

The truth of the matter is that the modern RC position is not substantially founded upon some perennial Chrisitan teaching, but is (IMHO) a position in search of a logical basis. For now, that basis is the whole “theology of the body” and ideas like “the full giving of the self” which you point to. None of those ideas were part of the Patristic consideration of the subject, and if they are not compelling in and of themselves, I find it very offensive that anyone could pretend they represent a moral norm by which the world will be judged and which people’s consciences must be burdened with.

 

[svoboda]

Palamite:

svoboda,

This is a more common situation than some may realize, as there are many women whose menstrual cycles are not very uniform and for whom NFP simply would not work.

May I ask what your source is on this matter? Do you know women for whom NFP simply cannot work for this reason?

But yes, in such a case I don’t see how the Church can possibly justify “no birth control.”

It is unjust to expect couples to have one child after another or abstain from sexual intercourse for years and years.

 

[svoboda]

Palamite:

svoboda,

I think what you highly here is key. Many supporters of Humanae Vitae like employing “proof texts” from the Church Fathers in support of their position, but this is not truthful - for said Fathers are either clearly speaking about abortion, or they are articulating a position on marital sex which even the RCC does not accept (that the only moral use of one’s marital rights, is when one has the intention of procreating - IOW. NFP is clearly out of the picture, and a couple having relations simply out of love and a desire for mutual satisfaction but with no thought of conceiving a child would be sinning in somewise, even if only “venially”.)

The truth of the matter is that the modern RC position is not substantially founded upon some perennial Chrisitan teaching, but is (IMHO) a position in search of a logical basis. For now, that basis is the whole “theology of the body” and ideas like “the full giving of the self” which you point to. None of those ideas were part of the Patristic consideration of the subject, and if they are not compelling in and of themselves, I find it very offensive that anyone could pretend they represent a moral norm by which the world will be judged and which people’s consciences must be burdened with.

One of the big problems with things like Theology of the Body is that the man who wrote it has never been married, possibly never even had sex. From my perspective it seems that there is not enough emphasis (and in a way almost a demonization) of the physical pleasure derived from sex. The Church teaches that sex for physical pleasure is evil/lustful, but why? It is almost reminiscent of the gnostics who hated the body. From my perspective doing something (that doesn’t hurt anyone) simply because it is physically pleasant is one of the purest motivations a person can have, it is very basic, almost thoughtless/biological, and in my opinion sinless. Personally I am far, far more disturbed by mortifiers who deliberately torture their bodies for some kind of spiritual pleasure/payoff. That to me is far more unnatural and perverse than having sex for physical pleasure.

Plus, given that couples may be married for some 20 fertile years and have only 2 or 3 children (or maybe even 5) during that time, but will probably have sex countless numbers of times for the purpose of love, emotional closeness, and the dreaded physical please, that I would say the primary purpose of sex is not procreative but unitive, and sex for the purpose of procreation happens comparatively rarely in marriages.

 

[magdelaine]

svoboda:

May I ask what your source is on this matter? Do you know women for whom NFP simply cannot work for this reason?

But yes, in such a case I don’t see how the Church can possibly justify “no birth control.”

It is unjust to expect couples to have one child after another or abstain from sexual intercourse for years and years.

Not to get too personal, but I’m someone for whom using NFP is a little more difficult. My “signs” are basically the same day after day, which to use while trying not to concieve means that only 15 post-ovulatory days out of 32-36 day cycle are “safe”, and 6 of those days is during my period. While being able to have intercourse for only 9 days out of every 32 to 36 days is certainly a discipline, it is not one I have felt myself called to personally.

In any case it’s a moot point right now as I’m “ecologically breastfeeding”.

I should point out that my case is actually on the “good” end of this spectrum. For women that are actually anovulatory for weeks and or months at a time, but for “justifiable reasons” need to avoid pregnancy, using NFP amounts to abstaining from sex altogether.