Why is "Natural Family Planning" ok when other contraceptive methods are not?

[St_Francis]

I really thought we were making progress on getting to the meat of just about the only differentiating feature separating NFP and ABC. ** I have yet to hear how my analogy does not apply in a similar fashion to NFP.**

Sorry for the brashness.

And yet I have repeatedly told you, as have others. *As soon as Joe put the rock in a position where it would fall, he did something wrong. *It is *not *a series of un-sinful acts leading to a sin; it is a series of acts one of which is sinful leading to a sinful end. You are acting like we ignored it and we didn’t. Since your analogy was flawed, we couldn’t apply it to NFP, which does *not *include a sinful act.

so I’m willing to go along with the pixie dust analogy:

Joe and Charlie are friends who like to play tricks on each other, Joe sets up a bag of dust so that when Charlie opens the door, he will get hit by it and turn green.

Pete happens to see the contraption and leaves it where it is.

Who played the trick: Pete or Joe?

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

Why not look at Humanae Vitae.

Neither the Church nor her doctrine is inconsistent when she considers it lawful for married people to take advantage of the infertile period but condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly prevent conception, even when the reasons given for the later practice may appear to be upright and serious. In reality, these two cases are completely different. In the former the married couple rightly use a faculty provided them by nature. In the later they obstruct the natural development of the generative process. It cannot be denied that in each case the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result. But it is equally true that it is exclusively in the former case that husband and wife are ready to abstain from intercourse during the fertile period as often as for reasonable motives the birth of another child is not desirable. And when the infertile period recurs, they use their married intimacy to express their mutual love and safeguard their fidelity toward one another. In doing this they certainly give proof of a true and authentic love.

vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

 

[Vico]

You picked up something I said many pages ago. I will repeat it here:

…Most of these types of statements rely on the assumption that contracepted sex is wrong. You can not make that assumption if that is question we are trying to answer. The same goes for many other X’s that are brought up. I don’t want to list them all, but many have come up in this thread. So to answer your question, the practical part of my statement is the “X” that is used to establish a position. If it is something we can observe here and now, it needs to be clearly true. I haven’t seen one yet that is."

Disagreeing with ABC as a matter of faith is not in question. Agreeing with NFP as a matter of faith is not in question. Saying ABC is immoral because of “X”, without being able to clearly show how X is NOT applicable to NFP, is an unsupported assertion. If your assertion requires you to already assume ABC is immoral, then you have created a circular argument. You can prove anything with a circular argument.

Basis: it is immoral to intentionally disorder the physical constitution.
Assertion: it is morally wrong to modify the physical constitution of an individual to accomplish infertility.
ABC: artificial birth control modifies the physiology to accomplish infertility.
NFP: natural family planning does not modify the physiology to accomplish infertility.

 

[PassingThru]

And yet I have repeatedly told you, as have others. *As soon as Joe put the rock in a position where it would fall, he did something wrong. *It is *not *a series of un-sinful acts leading to a sin; it is a series of acts one of which is sinful leading to a sinful end. You are acting like we ignored it and we didn’t. Since your analogy was flawed, we couldn’t apply it to NFP, which does *not *include a sinful act.

Swing and a miss. The analogy is not flawed, at least not how you described it. You are failing to realize that the morality of killing Joe is not relevant to the discussion. I will repeat, killing Joe is irrelevant to the discussion. I know you fail to understand this. That is why you feel the analogy is wrong. If you still feel it is related, you are still missing my point. Can you please try and understand this? You are correct that killing Joe is immoral. You are wrong in assuming that it is related to the analogy. You are wrong in thinking that the morality of killing Joe is in any way related to NFP or ABC in this analogy.

I will repeat this, yet again, and please DISREGARD killing Joe, as you can not get past this logical hurdle. Keep the scenario the same, but replace the rock with the pixie dust, as referenced earlier. Now that it is pixie dust, it is NOT immoral to place it on a shelf. Can we agree on that? So now, Joe gets pixie dust dumped over this head. By contrast, Amy walks up and dumps the pixie dust over Joes head. The rest of the scenario plays out as specified, with the same resulting questions.

Joe and Charlie are friends who like to play tricks on each other, Joe sets up a bag of dust so that when Charlie opens the door, he will get hit by it and turn green.

Pete happens to see the contraption and leaves it where it is.

Who played the trick: Pete or Joe?

I don’t know where you are heading with this. I assume you have come up with this as a simple analogy to say “Pete used his observation to avoid the bag of dust”, and tie that back as how NFP is benign. I can not begin to explain how much this misses my point.

Regardless, this is largely irrelevant now as I believe we have now established that the CCC teaches “A morally good act requires the goodness of its object, of its end, and of its circumstances together.” Assuming this is valid (I have yet to get this seconded) it makes my analogy largely redundant, as that was the basis of my scenario.

Again, if you weren’t declaring this analogy “void” due to lack of context, I wouldn’t have these ever stronger rebuttals.

 

[PassingThru]

I said:

“If your assertion requires you to already assume ABC is immoral, then you have created a circular argument.”

You followed with:

Basis: it is immoral to intentionally disorder the physical constitution.
Assertion: it is morally wrong to modify the physical constitution of an individual to accomplish infertility.
ABC: artificial birth control modifies the physiology to accomplish infertility.
NFP: natural family planning does not modify the physiology to accomplish infertility.

Correct me if I am mistaken, but you basically started with ABC is wrong. “Basis: it is immoral to intentionally disorder the physical constitution. Assertion: it is morally wrong to modify the physical constitution of an individual to accomplish infertility.” That is saying ABC is wrong. You just added some language to it. Am I missing something?

If my Basis and Assertion was that ABC was right (or acceptable), then of course I can make any case I want for ABC or NFP.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

Passing thru…could I ask you what you believe NFP to be?

NFP is only knowledge to determine when a woman is fertile. Each month the couple who uses NFP to avoid has to evaluate if their reasons are important enough to abstain.

ABC the couple doesn’t have to evaluate anything. They don’t want to abstain, they want to ensure that the sexual act is rendered sterile, especially the days that could be fertile.

A married couple is not required to try to conceive a child everytime they are together. They are not required to be intimate a certain number of times a month.

It seems that you object to NFP because it’s effective? Or too effective?

Coitus interuptus is not very effective at all but the church doesn’t sanction it.

 

[hellopeople]

Good question. See article 1752 in the excerpt from the Catechism. Intent is the goal of the “act”. In our examples, a common intent shared between NFP and ABC is to avoid pregnancy. This intent can be either moral or immoral. The Church’s teach clearly states the there are moral reasons for spacing births. So, if the intent is consistent with these reasons then the intent is moral.

Delaying pregnancy because it would interfere with your lifestyle is bad? What about just not wanting to have any more kids? The thing is teachings like this could be taken to the extreme. I am sure most parents could support upwards of 10 kids…is it a sin if they don’t do it?

 

[hellopeople]

Passing thru…could I ask you what you believe NFP to be?

NFP is only knowledge to determine when a woman is fertile. Each month the couple who uses NFP to avoid has to evaluate if their reasons are important enough to abstain.

ABC the couple doesn’t have to evaluate anything. They don’t want to abstain, they want to ensure that the sexual act is rendered sterile, especially the days that could be fertile.

A married couple is not required to try to conceive a child everytime they are together. They are not required to be intimate a certain number of times a month.

It seems that you object to NFP because it’s effective? Or too effective?

Coitus interuptus is not very effective at all but the church doesn’t sanction it.

So NFP is sinful because people don’t want to abstain? What if the people use NFP, abstain, but use condoms at infertile times of the month as an added protection. Is that sinful?

 

[St_Francis]

I said:

“If your assertion requires you to already assume ABC is immoral, then you have created a circular argument.”

You followed with:

Correct me if I am mistaken, but you basically started with ABC is wrong. “Basis: it is immoral to intentionally disorder the physical constitution. Assertion: it is morally wrong to modify the physical constitution of an individual to accomplish infertility.” That is saying ABC is wrong. You just added some language to it. Am I missing something?

If my Basis and Assertion was that ABC was right (or acceptable), then of course I can make any case I want for ABC or NFP.

We are not starting with ABC i wrong. We are starting with disrupting the integrity of the body, including making the body work less well, is wrong.

ABC makes the body not work as it ought to.

Therefore, abc is wrong.

(This is what I was trying to explain to Doc Keele earlier, but Vico put it more concisely.)

 

[St_Francis]

Swing and a miss. The analogy is not flawed, at least not how you described it. You are failing to realize that the morality of killing Joe is not relevant to the discussion. I will repeat, killing Joe is irrelevant to the discussion. I know you fail to understand this. That is why you feel the analogy is wrong. If you still feel it is related, you are still missing my point. Can you please try and understand this? You are correct that killing Joe is immoral. You are wrong in assuming that it is related to the analogy. You are wrong in thinking that the morality of killing Joe is in any way related to NFP or ABC in this analogy.

I will repeat this, yet again, and please DISREGARD killing Joe, as you can not get past this logical hurdle. Keep the scenario the same, but replace the rock with the pixie dust, as referenced earlier. Now that it is pixie dust, it is NOT immoral to place it on a shelf. Can we agree on that? So now, Joe gets pixie dust dumped over this head. By contrast, Amy walks up and dumps the pixie dust over Joes head. The rest of the scenario plays out as specified, with the same resulting questions.

I will ignore that analogy from now on.

I don’t know where you are heading with this. I assume you have come up with this as a simple analogy to say “Pete used his observation to avoid the bag of dust”, and tie that back as how NFP is benign. I can not begin to explain how much this misses my point.

Regardless, this is largely irrelevant now as I believe we have now established that the CCC teaches “A morally good act requires the goodness of its object, of its end, and of its circumstances together.” Assuming this is valid (I have yet to get this seconded) it makes my analogy largely redundant, as that was the basis of my scenario.

Again, if you weren’t declaring this analogy “void” due to lack of context, I wouldn’t have these ever stronger rebuttals.

I guess I didn’t put that well. I was trying to show that Pete, as someone who merely left the bag of pixie dust alone, was not an “actor” in the trick played upon Charlie. Pete did not set the bag up, he just left it there. The person who played the trick was Joe, not Pete.

 

[hellopeople]

We are not starting with ABC i wrong. We are starting with disrupting the integrity of the body, including making the body work less well, is wrong.

ABC makes the body not work as it ought to.

Therefore, abc is wrong.

(This is what I was trying to explain to Doc Keele earlier, but Vico put it more concisely.)

You could argue that medicine does the same thing. What about if you have surgery and are put on pain killers…your body is not working as it ought to be on pain killers. Even tylenol is going to make your body work differently.

 

[Doc_Keele]

any argument that rests on asserting that altering bodily functions is unnatural and therefore against God’s plan and therefore wrong runs into all sorts of problems, unless you’re a caveman I guess?

 

[hellopeople]

any argument that rests on asserting that altering bodily functions is unnatural and therefore against God’s plan and therefore wrong runs into all sorts of problems, unless you’re a caveman I guess?

Yes. Can someone please list the reasons (minus “the church says so”) that ABC is wrong.

 

[mark_a]

Why would you try and distract the conversation when we are finally getting close to narrowing our focus on one very important, controversial aspect that distinguishes ABC and NFP? One that we have been working on for some time to properly define and evaluate?

I didn’t realize you were getting close.

Something tells me that the abc/nfp debate will end up as one of the unsolvable debates such as ss/s&t and sf/f&w.

 

[PassingThru]

Passing thru…could I ask you what you believe NFP to be?

It is a system designed to avoid sex while fertile, while having sex only while infertile.

NFP is only knowledge to determine when a woman is fertile. Each month the couple who uses NFP to avoid has to evaluate if their reasons are important enough to abstain.

You put a lot of subjective emphasis in there. It could also read “NFP lets us have sex without worrying about children because we know when she could get pregnant. I don’t even have to guess, I have this handy chart right here next to my bed.” Do you see how both are right, but it is the couple who determine how they practice? I am going to great lenghts to not put subjective language in my discussion.

ABC the couple doesn’t have to evaluate anything. They don’t want to abstain, they want to ensure that the sexual act is rendered sterile, especially the days that could be fertile.

Neither couple has to evaluate anything, that is speculation. Both couples want to have sex without kids, else there would be no NFP. They don’t need to abstain, this is the nature of most ABC. Your last part is a bit self evident.

A married couple is not required to try to conceive a child everytime they are together. They are not required to be intimate a certain number of times a month.

Never even remotely alluded to that.

It seems that you object to NFP because it’s effective? Or too effective?

I think you are missing the basis of my discussion. If you read back on just my posts on the last few pages, you should be able to figure it out.

Coitus interuptus is not very effective at all but the church doesn’t sanction it.

For purposes of this discussion, I would just put that in with ABC for the sake of preventing yet another sidetrack.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

So NFP is sinful because people don’t want to abstain? What if the people use NFP, abstain, but use condoms at infertile times of the month as an added protection. Is that sinful?

NFP is not sinful. (I guess you meant ABC) Yes it would still be sinful.

A woman can only conceive a few days a month. If the couple does not want to conceive, they avoid sex.

Contraception works to remove fertility from the scenario. So the couple has sex, when the woman should have been fertile. They artificially remove the fertility.

 

[hellopeople]

NFP is not sinful. (I guess you meant ABC) Yes it would still be sinful.

A woman can only conceive a few days a month. If the couple does not want to conceive, they avoid sex.

Contraception works to remove fertility from the scenario. So the couple has sex, when the woman should have been fertile. They artificially remove the fertility.

OK, so it is sinful to artificially remove fertility. But why? Is it sinful if I take a pain killer to artificially remove pain?

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

It is a system designed to avoid sex while fertile, while having sex only while infertile.

You put a lot of subjective emphasis in there. It could also read “NFP lets us have sex without worrying about children because we know when she could get pregnant. I don’t even have to guess, I have this handy chart right here next to my bed.” Do you see how both are right, but it is the couple who determine how they practice? I am going to great lenghts to not put subjective language in my discussion.

Neither couple has to evaluate anything, that is speculation. Both couples want to have sex without kids, else there would be no NFP. They don’t need to abstain, this is the nature of most ABC. Your last part is a bit self evident.

Never even remotely alluded to that.

I think you are missing the basis of my discussion. If you read back on just my posts on the last few pages, you should be able to figure it out.

For purposes of this discussion, I would just put that in with ABC for the sake of preventing yet another sidetrack.

Passing thru…part of the scenario that you might not be understanding is: sure, the NFP couple might not want or desire children, but they are doing nothing to make the fertility go away. When the woman starts her fertile cycle, they need to agree to go to neutral corners and have no genital contact. For the entire time she is fertile. The couple understands sexual contact at this point could result in a child.

“Well we can’t have a child for xyz reasons.” Fine. Then you can’t have sexual contact when you are fertile. The woman eventually will no longer be fertile. Would they need to abstain the entire month?

People contracept because they don’t want to abstain.

Please read my post at 440, I quoted Humanae Vitae.

Also read my analogy of the dinner party, That would be post # 391.

 

[PassingThru]

We are not starting with ABC i wrong. We are starting with disrupting the integrity of the body, including making the body work less well, is wrong.

ABC makes the body not work as it ought to.

Therefore, abc is wrong.

(This is what I was trying to explain to Doc Keele earlier, but Vico put it more concisely.)

Wait wait wait wait, hold on a second. Is this the “basis” from which all of this stems from? I remember Doc arguing a while ago about this, but I didn’t connect the dots, or hear the original line of thinking/logic.

Vico, is this what you were referring to? The logic quoted above?

I really hope that is not it. If it is, that is the thinnest of threads I have seen yet to support an entire chain of teaching/dogma. That Basis can be violated in so many possible ways it makes my head spin. The number of ways we “violate the integrity of the body” is staggering, for good and for bad.

I am still more than open to reasoning behind “ABC is wrong because of X” that we can show is NOT applicable to NFP without presuming ABC is immoral as a given.

At this point, I can not even think of how to respond to the above line of thinking. The scope of that statement is so enormous, being applied to something so specific, it kind of takes me aback. I mean, a rubber “intentionally disorder the physical constitution”? Really? I mean, this is the kind of logic I would have used in jest just to give someone a hard time.

There must be more than this…

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

OK, so it is sinful to artificially remove fertility. But why? Is it sinful if I take a pain killer to artificially remove pain?

No, taking a pain killer removes something negative, pain.

Fertility is not negative.