C
CaptainPrudeman
Guest
We can recognize the unitive purpose, but we can’t allow artificial contraceptives. That is simply how things go and if that scares off some from His church, so be it. Heaven is a difficult commitment.
- Status
P
Pup7
Guest
The failure rate of the modern oral contraceptive, when infallibly used, is between 0.3% and 3%.
NFP doesn’t come close to that. Even when infallibly used failure rates approach thirty percent. You have to know your body, know your cycle, and never screw up - and your body can fail you. You can ovulate and not have a period. You can ovulate and not know you ovulated. You can have a period and not ovulate.
(Remember these numbers are averages.)
What you typically see with women who do this is “it gets old”. And I’m sure it does. As someone who fought for the better part of 20 years to conceive with no luck, I know very well how old it can get trying to get pregnant. I’m sure preventing it becomes equally exhausting. I’m not kidding when I tell you an obsession with What My Body Is Doing Right Now becomes a full time job. I don’t think the intended outcome (avoid a baby or have a baby) doesn’t shift the stress much. I’m sure eventually no one wants to live that way any more.
It isn’t about restraint. I’m sure it gets to be about sanity.
I lived in Saudi Arabia for three years (and not when I was on active duty, either - I’m an officer in the Air Force). The Islamic religion has similar teachings on birth control as the Catholic Church. Over there, birth spacing using artificial methods of contraception was eventually permitted under their laws - because having a baby every single year is actually unhealthy, and used to be the reason pregnancy and childbirth were the West’s leading cause of death among women of childbearing age.
NFP doesn’t come close to that. Even when infallibly used failure rates approach thirty percent. You have to know your body, know your cycle, and never screw up - and your body can fail you. You can ovulate and not have a period. You can ovulate and not know you ovulated. You can have a period and not ovulate.
(Remember these numbers are averages.)
What you typically see with women who do this is “it gets old”. And I’m sure it does. As someone who fought for the better part of 20 years to conceive with no luck, I know very well how old it can get trying to get pregnant. I’m sure preventing it becomes equally exhausting. I’m not kidding when I tell you an obsession with What My Body Is Doing Right Now becomes a full time job. I don’t think the intended outcome (avoid a baby or have a baby) doesn’t shift the stress much. I’m sure eventually no one wants to live that way any more.
It isn’t about restraint. I’m sure it gets to be about sanity.
I lived in Saudi Arabia for three years (and not when I was on active duty, either - I’m an officer in the Air Force). The Islamic religion has similar teachings on birth control as the Catholic Church. Over there, birth spacing using artificial methods of contraception was eventually permitted under their laws - because having a baby every single year is actually unhealthy, and used to be the reason pregnancy and childbirth were the West’s leading cause of death among women of childbearing age.
LumineDiei:
I’ll heartily agree that in younger, healthy and regular women, NFP - perfectly executed - is as good at preventing conception as the pill or condoms.
But it’s not difficult at all to loosen up with it to the point that it’s more like five to ten or even twenty percent likely to produce a pregnancy in a year. I think not enough NFP advocates are honest about that.
Last edited:
C
CaptainPrudeman
Guest
Again, that’s all fine and dandy, but the answer isn’t ignoring church teaching.
V
Vonsalza
Guest
It’s not a problem if the Catholic Church is simply wrong, as some argue the Holy Spirit leads most lay-Catholics and virtually the entirety of non-Catholic Christendom.
After all, we’ve oceans of examples where Rome’s been wrong before…
Last edited:
V
Vonsalza
Guest
That’s my suspicion, but in deference to NFP-ers, I try to use their own numbers in showing what a non-solution it really is.
But alas, their commitment is primarily emotional. So rational arguments hold little dominion…
What to do, eh?
C
CaptainPrudeman
Guest
That’s bordering on heresy. The pope said it in an arguably infallible encyclical and contraceptives deny the full unity of the act by blocking out the possibility of procreation artificially. This is Catholic teaching. It’s not flexible. Abstain, use NFP, make more kids a viable option, or don’t get married. Sin is a non-answer.
V
Vonsalza
Guest
No it isn’t. Popes have even been so awful as to be anathematized.
They’re fallible men. Deal with that fact as best you can.
For the umpteenth time, HV is not an infallible document. You’ll find a few Catholics of your persuasion that might argue it is, but it simply is not included in the common lists of infallible papal proclamations.
Again, Deal with that fact as best you can.
Excellent. Then women ought to be free to use the pill because it uses the very same hormones found in their own bodies…
The clergy and laity in the Papal Commission openly disagree with you.
Again, you can’t rationally appeal to sin when that very status is the thing being challenged. It’s another Galileo Affair on the part of the Church.
Last edited:
C
CaptainPrudeman
Guest
You’re not going to budge, so there’s no point in talking to you.
V
Vonsalza
Guest
The pot calleth the kettle, perhaps?
C
CaptainPrudeman
Guest
The pot is siding with the church, the kettle isn’t. That’s the difference here.
V
Vonsalza
Guest
The pot is siding with the magisterium of the Catholic Church, which as an institution has been demonstrably wrong at some point on some issue at nearly every level.
The Kettle sides with the overwhelming majority of Christendom, including most Catholics.
Last edited:
C
CaptainPrudeman
Guest
The laity don’t have magisterium at all. We have no authority whatsoever to argue against what the Pope has decreed and what so far hasn’t been officially challenged.
V
Vonsalza
Guest
This isn’t just Catholic Church v. Laity.
It’s Catholic Church v. Everyone Else.
There’s all kinds of alternative structures and authorities. Orthodoxy is a great example.
C
CaptainPrudeman
Guest
“Everybody else” isn’t part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Just because they do it doesn’t mean it’s right.
V
Vonsalza
Guest
Actually, several make exactly that claim and in the case of Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church recognizes it…
C
CaptainPrudeman
Guest
Good for them. Does that invalidate our structure? No.
V
Vonsalza
Guest
Who says it does or that it even needs to?
Just saying. The Catholic Church recognizes the validity of the Orthodox Church and their sacraments.
And in their wisdom they typically allow married couples with kids to use bc.
C
CaptainPrudeman
Guest
That’s good for them. We don’t and until it’s challenged at a higher level than online laity, I won’t ever see your point. You’re arguing against the Catholic church. That’s not a fight the laity can win.
P
Pup7
Guest
An irregular menstrual cycle is, for the most part, always corrected by hormonal treatment.
All of the hormones used to right it are in oral contraceptives. Every one of them.
Because the OCP (oral contraceptive pill) is cheap, deemed safe for most women with a few exceptions, is readily paid for by insurance companies, and does not involve tricky dosing calculations and guesswork that can in the long run do more harm than good (progesterone and estrogen and all the derivatives aren’t something you mess around with), most providers opt for OCP administration for several months - even specialists. It’s a very valid choice in this instance. It brings relief to the woman and the husband (living with a woman going through this is no fun for him either) and corrects a bona fide medical problem.
You’re either going to get the hormones via injection or orally. They’re exactly the same, and they’re the only way to correct a hormonal-based problem. Yes, sometimes a simple D&C (where the lining of the uterus is manually removed to give the organ a “clean slate” - and NO I am not talking about abortion; D&C is used for other things - it’s still dilation and curettage) can correct it, but you’ll never correct profound irregularity or severe endometriosis (where the lining goes outside the uterus) without resetting the whole system, so to speak. And the only way to do that is with hormones.
There’s so much more involved in women’s health than just preventing pregnancy here.
The numbers I’ve presented for NFP are straight out of the literature and multiple research articles. I’m one of the few RNs a lot of women in my world come across who’s willing to talk about NFP, so I try to keep up on the latest information out there - from reliable sources.
(My dad was a cradle Catholic. I inherited a lot of my thinking from him eons and ages ago.)
For the record, the current willy-nilly ingestion of OCPs just to give the taker free reign to bed hop (and yes, I get that not everyone is doing that, but there are those who are; I see them every day) both hurts and infuriates me. The one thing in life I wanted I’m clearly never going to have. I see younger women throw this away every day, and it hurts my heart. I pray they never end up like me, because this is hard, very hard. I struggle with anger and confusion, even at my age - and I pray about it all a lot, because I don’t know what else to do with it. There’s nothing else I can do with it. Clearly there’s another plan for me.
But OCPs have very very valid medical uses beyond just basic contraception,
Again, I just want to share knowledge. This isn’t a judgment on anyone. People have to do what they feel is right for them, and they’re going to, regardless.
All of the hormones used to right it are in oral contraceptives. Every one of them.
Because the OCP (oral contraceptive pill) is cheap, deemed safe for most women with a few exceptions, is readily paid for by insurance companies, and does not involve tricky dosing calculations and guesswork that can in the long run do more harm than good (progesterone and estrogen and all the derivatives aren’t something you mess around with), most providers opt for OCP administration for several months - even specialists. It’s a very valid choice in this instance. It brings relief to the woman and the husband (living with a woman going through this is no fun for him either) and corrects a bona fide medical problem.
You’re either going to get the hormones via injection or orally. They’re exactly the same, and they’re the only way to correct a hormonal-based problem. Yes, sometimes a simple D&C (where the lining of the uterus is manually removed to give the organ a “clean slate” - and NO I am not talking about abortion; D&C is used for other things - it’s still dilation and curettage) can correct it, but you’ll never correct profound irregularity or severe endometriosis (where the lining goes outside the uterus) without resetting the whole system, so to speak. And the only way to do that is with hormones.
There’s so much more involved in women’s health than just preventing pregnancy here.
The numbers I’ve presented for NFP are straight out of the literature and multiple research articles. I’m one of the few RNs a lot of women in my world come across who’s willing to talk about NFP, so I try to keep up on the latest information out there - from reliable sources.
(My dad was a cradle Catholic. I inherited a lot of my thinking from him eons and ages ago.)
For the record, the current willy-nilly ingestion of OCPs just to give the taker free reign to bed hop (and yes, I get that not everyone is doing that, but there are those who are; I see them every day) both hurts and infuriates me. The one thing in life I wanted I’m clearly never going to have. I see younger women throw this away every day, and it hurts my heart. I pray they never end up like me, because this is hard, very hard. I struggle with anger and confusion, even at my age - and I pray about it all a lot, because I don’t know what else to do with it. There’s nothing else I can do with it. Clearly there’s another plan for me.
But OCPs have very very valid medical uses beyond just basic contraception,
Again, I just want to share knowledge. This isn’t a judgment on anyone. People have to do what they feel is right for them, and they’re going to, regardless.
V
Vonsalza
Guest
Oh honey, there are clergy that openly question it…
- Status