Protesant asked me "why isn't nfp birth control"

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It is sort of a birth control, but the difference is that it is a natural method - ie. it solely utilizes the natural processes of the human body, and it doesn’t eradicate (or attempt to eradicate) the possibility or openness to the conception of life.

Artificial contraception and birth control are wrong because they constitute a wilful attempt to destroy or inhibit the conception life.

Basically, nfp just makes it a lot less likely to conceive within the confines of natural processes. It is basically what it says it is - natural family planning.
 
Simple: the sex is still natural, or in other words, open to life.
 
Simply tell 'em…‘because the Church says it is…’ that should really frost them.
 
It IS birth control. It isn’t contraception,. Regulating the spacing and number of children is not sinful. Contracepting is.
 
NFP is not first and foremost birth control as it is self control. With artificial contraception couples can treat each other like sex objects with no compunction. With NFP couples have to take one another’s health and ability to procreate into account. It’s much more than merely spacing children, although it does that. It’s regarding each other in a self-sacrificing way instead of making sex the object of a relationship instead of true intimacy of persons.
 
Ask them if there is a difference between having sex and not having sex? NFP is discerning with God not to expand the family and abstaining from the covenantal act of marriage during the 100 hours a month a woman is fertile, the other is chemically making the womb inhospitable to a fertilized egg, that ain’t right.
 
Adamski said:
Why isn’t nfp birth control?
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It uses natural pauses in a woman’s fertility cycle, to help more predictably manage when children enter the world.

It can be abused with a contraceptive mentality if used indefinitely, with no openness to children. It can be abused as a crutch to hide problems a husband and wife are having that may lead to separation.

NFP classes teach morally neutral methods to understand a woman’s cycle. These methods can be used for holy or sinful purposes.
 
Corki said:
It IS birth control. It isn’t contraception,. Regulating the spacing and number of children is not sinful. Contracepting is.
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Exactly.

It’s rather a trick question. In a sense, NFP *is *birth control, if by “birth control” you simply mean deciding when or how often to have children and planning accordingly.

But if the circumstances justify it, that’s perfectly okay. What’s objectively sinful is to contracept individual acts of intercourse. A couple using NFP to avoid pregnancy isn’t doing that, because when the wife is infertile, that’s not due to contraception, and when she’s fertile, there’s no sexual act going on to contracept.
 
Adamski said:
Why isn’t nfp birth control?
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I think there are a lot of good answers out there…some good insights posted on this thread so far!

I look at it in 2 ways:

First, although the ultimate end is often the same (avoid children) the way in which one intends to do this is different. With birth control one intends to render the marital act sterile. In NFP one merely intends to abstain…they do not intend to alter the marital act.

Second way I look at it is this: If one does not want to have the natural consequences of sex (Consequences which are 100% good, beautiful, and sacred (human life!!!) ) There are two ways in accomplishing this…ie two methods of “birth control.” The first is contraception the second is abstinence. There are no other methods, its that simple.

They are entirely different however. In contraception, one does not recognize the ultimate gift of fertility in the marital act…instead, one deliberately destroys this element of the act. They intentionally change the very nature of something God has made fertile into something sterile. So they disrupt the way God has made the world…this is why birth control is one of the “sins against nature” specifically. It is a sin because it takes what God has made and disrupts it deliberately interefering with the natural purpose of the marital act. In doing this, one offends God and separates sex from procreation which trivializes the act and leads to a number of other problems…

On the other hand, abstinence does nothing too the act…if I abstain I simply recognize that under the current circumstances it would not be prudent to have a child (or immoral if I am unmarried or in serious situations within marriage). In that case, instead of changing what God has made, I respect the way God has made the marital act and respect the gift of fertility and simply recognize at this time I cannot engage in the marital act. I am completely in control of my passions because I abstain…Now NFP is just abstinence during fertile days…or “periodic continence”

So there is the best I can describe of the difference between the two
 
runningdude said:
It uses natural pauses in a woman’s fertility cycle, to help more predictably manage when children enter the world.

It can be abused with a contraceptive mentality if used indefinitely, with no openness to children. It can be abused as a crutch to hide problems a husband and wife are having that may lead to separation.

NFP classes teach morally neutral methods to understand a woman’s cycle. These methods can be used for holy or sinful purposes.
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I would just like to add to this something:

One certainly can use NFP sinfully and selfishly. This could be considered a “contraceptive” mentality if one would be unwilling to have children or would be not open to life even if the circumstances were present that made openness to life easy…However this mentality is sinful because it is (a) Selfish and (b) Contrary to the purpose of marriage and therefore very wrong…

That said, NFP can NEVER be used as contraception in other words, when one sins using NFP (NFP without serious reason, with bad mentality, not open to God’s plans etc.) …one DOES NOT commit the same sin as when one contracepts…one does not sin against the nature of the marital act…it is impossible to sin against the act when abstaining from it.

I think thats important to clear up (not saying anyone here denied it) because otherwise the distinction between NFP and contraception can be confusing…
In short:
If one sins using NFP one sins against some virtue in general OR marriage but not nature (in the same sense )
If one sins using contraception one sins against nature (God) and possibly another virtue or marriage
 
Also, there are some forms of artificial contraception/birth control out there that can cause cancer and the World Health Organization lists it in the same carcinogenic category as lead paint and asbestos. The Church is the only organization telling women this.
 
Fr Richard Hogan wrote on page 9, The Human body … a sign of dignity and gift

Some people think that a decision by a couple to time their acts of love in order to space children using NFP is the same as the decision by a couple to avoid pregnancy through contraception. This is a confusion of purposes and means. The purpose may be the same, but the means are different. The NFP couple delaying another pregnancy and the contraceptive couple delaying a pregnancy are engaging in two radically different acts… The NFP couple, while engaging in non-procreative intercourse by making use of the infertile times, give themselves to each other totally and completely as they are at that moment. The contracepting couple withholds their fertility from each other in an anti-procreative act and do not give themselves totally. Remember, love is defined as a total self-gift… Further, the contracepting couple alters either both of their bodies or one of them, and in doing so they violate the integrity of their own bodies

Nfp and artificial birth control differ in big ways


  1. *]Nfp does not separate the action from its purpose (action theory), by ‘breaking’ the conjugal act. Artificial birth control does

    *]Nfp can help you to achieve pregnancy. No artifcial birth control can

    *]Nfp does not alter the fecundity of the conjugal act. Artificial birth control does

    *]Nfp is open to life. Artificial birth control’s purpose is a steriliser
 
The Moral Difference Between Contraception and Natural Family Planning

lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_04moraldifference.html

Fr Richard Hogan wrote on page 9, The Human body … a sign of dignity and gift

Some people think that a decision by a couple to time their acts of love in order to space children using NFP is the same as the decision by a couple to avoid pregnancy through contraception. This is a confusion of purposes and means. The purpose may be the same, but the means are different. The NFP couple delaying another pregnancy and the contraceptive couple delaying a pregnancy are engaging in two radically different acts… The NFP couple, while engaging in non-procreative intercourse by making use of the infertile times, give themselves to each other totally and completely as they are at that moment. The contracepting couple withholds their fertility from each other in an anti-procreative act and do not give themselves totally. Remember, love is defined as a total self-gift… Further, the contracepting couple alters either both of their bodies or one of them, and in doing so they violate the integrity of their own bodies

Nfp and artificial birth control differ in a big way


  1. *]Nfp does not separate the action from its purpose (action theory), by ‘breaking’ the conjugal act. Artificial birth control does

    *]Nfp can help you to achieve pregnancy. No artifcial birth control can

    *]Nfp does not alter the fecundity of the conjugal act. Artificial birth control does

    *]Nfp is open to life. Artificial birth control’s purpose is a steriliser
 
Get the medical warning list of the side effects of taking the pill. It’s like 10 pages of horrible, life threatoning side effects in microscopic print. Hundreds if not thousands of women die each year from the pill, or injections! Would a loving man let his wife jeopardise her health/life in such a manner? Also these powerful drugs completely overhaul the natural workings of a woman’s body, and kill her natural sex drive. Possibly the worst part is these couples may be aborting numerous babies each year! Yes, it’s true.

The pill, shots, IUD’s, and such cause lil people to die. the eggs still release, and are fertilized. Now there is a new person! Their sex, hair color, eye color, characteristics are set, but they cannot implant in the womb, which is what God intended to happen. Instead they pass out of the body and die! What kind of marriage is that that kills it’s young? The visible sign of their love, and unity dies…

God commanded that people multiply! Couples on NFP must decide every month wether to try to conceive, or abstain. They are thus given a prompt to pray to God, and ask for his leading. NFP can be used to delay having a child, or to help a couple conceive if they so choose!

Contraception takes a good, normal, God designed healthy system, and stops it from functioning in a normal, healthy manner! NFP respects, and protects her normal, and healthy functioning fertility which is quit fragile. It allows a women to experience a greatly hightened sexual desire when she ovulates. This makes her long for her husbands physical attention! Very healthy, and wonderful for a marriage!👍
 
  1. When is it moral to regulate births?
2368-2369
2399

The regulation of births, which is an aspect of responsible fatherhood and motherhood, is objectively morally acceptable when it is pursued by the spouses without external pressure; when it is practiced not out of selfishness but for serious reasons; and with methods that conform to the objective criteria of morality, that is, periodic continence and use of the infertile periods.
  1. What are immoral means of birth control?
2370-2372

Every action - for example, direct sterilization or contraception - is intrinsically immoral which (either in anticipation of the conjugal act, in its accomplishment or in the development of its natural consequences) proposes, as an end or as a means, to hinder procreation.

vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html
 
NFP cooperates in God’s creative power, with human beings participating as we were, “In the beginning”… in the garden. There is no artificial barrier to conception and no aritficial alteration of the natural cycle.

ABC is a choice to go outside the natural plan that God has provided for us. In the end, the question is whether we are willing to cooperate with God’s will rather that trying to bend God to our will.
 
Della said:
NFP is not first and foremost birth control as it is self control. With artificial contraception couples can treat each other like sex objects with no compunction. With NFP couples have to take one another’s health and ability to procreate into account. It’s much more than merely spacing children, although it does that. It’s regarding each other in a self-sacrificing way instead of making sex the object of a relationship instead of true intimacy of persons.
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👍
 
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