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

  • Thread starter Thread starter AskSeekKnock
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Doc_Keele said:
I do understand what you’re saying - it’s just not logical. NFP is also frustrating the sexual act.
Click to expand...
NFP is not frustrating the sexual act because the sexual act *is not engaged in. *
And you haven’t explained why frustrating the sexual act is wrong.
Click to expand...
This article might explain better what I am trying to say, down towards the end.

Here’s a quote from it: For the act [of of having sexual relations when using contraception] is directed against a basic intelligible human good, namely potential human life. A possible baby, although not an actual baby, is still a basic intelligible human good, which is why it is an object of the will. In fact, all human goods (i.e., friendship, marriage, integrity, etc) are possibilities before they are actualities. That is why the intention to act against possible human life is morally significant. A possible human life is not non-being; for when couples decide to have a baby, they are willing life, which is initially only a possibility.

In the case of couple C, the will does bear upon a real possibility, a bearing that is anti-life; hence the word ‘contraception’. It is the contra-life intention that renders homicide morally evil; by the same token that very intention renders contraception morally evil.

There is a real difference between preventing something from being and choosing not to cause something to be. In the unselfish use of NFP, the couple simply chooses, for good reasons, not to cause a baby to be. It is not possible to willingly prevent a possible baby unless one believes that a possible baby might become an actuality as a result of a life-giving action. A couple that chooses not to have sex is not preventing a possible baby, because choosing not to have sex is not a life giving act—there is no need to contracept an act that is not life-giving.

But sexual intercourse is a life-giving act, which is why contracepting couples take steps to contracept it. A baby is a real possibility if the couple chooses to have sex, and it is against this real possibility that the couple willingly acts. The problem with this is that “you are what you will”.
 
In NFP, the couple have sex whilst avoiding pregnancy - therefore the sexual act (and the couple) is frustrated.
 
Doc_Keele said:
In NFP, the couple have sex whilst avoiding pregnancy - therefore the sexual act (and the couple) is frustrated.
Click to expand...
This is the same argument that Passing Through had, which I was unable to clarify for him, so I doubt I will be able to clarify it for you, but I will give it one try:

NFP involves *not *having sex for a period of time which exists because God created women that way, not through the couple’s actions.

ABC involves having sex during that period and **doing something to render the act sterile. **The sinful aspect is the bolded part.
 
NFP involves a process that renders the sex you do have sterile.

You have not proved why rendering sex sterile is morally wrong, and why this does not apply to NFP.
 
Doc_Keele said:
NFP involves a process that renders the sex you do have sterile.

You have not proved why rendering sex sterile is morally wrong, and why this does not apply to NFP.
Click to expand...
The reason that the sex had during NFP is sterile is not because of a process which has rendered it such; that is the *normal *condition for women, to be fertile only at certain times. Surely you as a doctor know this?

It is not a sin to avoid having children at a certain time for serious reasons.

It is not a sin to engage in the marital embrace during those times when the woman is not fertile.

It is not a sin to mutually decide to avoid the marital embrace.

So, there is no sin involved in NFP.

However, it is a sin to engage in sexual relations while taking an action to pervert their ends.
 
St Francis - pay attention to the words I used.
I said “NFP involves a process that renders the sex you do have sterile”. I have added some emphasis to make my point clearer I hope. That statement has a totally different meaning from the paraphrase you made. It doesn’t change the nature of a particular episode of intercourse, but that wasn’t the point I was making.

The argument for NFP rests on the premise that it is sinful to render sex sterile. All the arguments based on this tend to be circular. Can you prove that this is morally wrong?

Supposing me and my friends play a bizarre game where we eat apples, some of which are poisoned (with something harmful but not fatal). Friend A is able to work out which apples are poisoned, and so avoid them. Friend B just takes an antidote to the poison. Now unless there is an arbitray rule saying that the taking of antidotes is forbidden, then both are OK.
 
St_Francis said:
The reason that the sex had during NFP is sterile is not because of a process which has rendered it such; that is the *normal *condition for women, to be fertile only at certain times. Surely you as a doctor know this?

It is not a sin to avoid having children at a certain time for serious reasons.

It is not a sin to engage in the marital embrace during those times when the woman is not fertile.

It is not a sin to mutually decide to avoid the marital embrace.

So, there is no sin involved in NFP.
Click to expand...
I think everyone follows this and accepts it as church teaching. (I am not saying they agree, just accept it as church teaching)
However, it is a sin to engage in sexual relations while taking an action to pervert their ends.
Click to expand...
The problem lies in trying to explain why this is. The explanations, such as from the last author you quoted, don’t hold up b/c they reasoning behind condemning abc is just as easily applied to NFP. The posters understand that NFP and ABC are fundamentally different, so no need to reiterate that. Just provide justification for the condemnation of abc that doesn’t take down NFP as well.

Start by defining what it means for each sexual act to be procreative and then explain why each act must be procreative.
 
Rico_S said:
I think everyone follows this and accepts it as church teaching. (I am not saying they agree, just accept it as church teaching)

The problem lies in trying to explain why this is. The explanations, such as from the last author you quoted, don’t hold up b/c they reasoning behind condemning abc is just as easily applied to NFP. The posters understand that NFP and ABC are fundamentally different, so no need to reiterate that. Just provide justification for the condemnation of abc that doesn’t take down NFP as well.

Start by defining what it means for each sexual act to be procreative and then explain why each act must be procreative.
Click to expand...
Thank you Rico. I have stepped out to avoid repeating the same thing over and over and over. It gets very frustrating to explain to people that you can not base your logic on the assumption that ABC is immoral. I am glad so many are dedicated personally to that faith, but it absolutely destroys any ability to put a logical thought process down. And I really do not think they see the folly in the logic.
 
Doc_Keele said:
St Francis - pay attention to the words I used.
I said “NFP involves a process that renders the sex you do have sterile”. I have added some emphasis to make my point clearer I hope. That statement has a totally different meaning from the paraphrase you made. It doesn’t change the nature of a particular episode of intercourse, but that wasn’t the point I was making.

The argument for NFP rests on the premise that it is sinful to render sex sterile. All the arguments based on this tend to be circular. Can you prove that this is morally wrong?

Supposing me and my friends play a bizarre game where we eat apples, some of which are poisoned (with something harmful but not fatal). Friend A is able to work out which apples are poisoned, and so avoid them. Friend B just takes an antidote to the poison. Now unless there is an arbitray rule saying that the taking of antidotes is forbidden, then both are OK.
Click to expand...
Whether the sex while practicing NFP is sterile is not the deciding factor in its morality. The Church teaches:
CCC 1756:
It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.
Click to expand...
Which one of the three things is immoral in the case of NFP.

Object: Sex during naturally infertile periods
Intention: Legitimate spacing of children
Circumstance: for example, youngest child is 6 months old.
 
Davidv - fine, so you’re coming back to saying that ABC is wrong because it’s wrong. Why is it wrong?
 
Doc_Keele said:
St Francis - pay attention to the words I used.
I said “NFP involves a process that renders the sex you do have sterile”. I have added some emphasis to make my point clearer I hope. That statement has a totally different meaning from the paraphrase you made. It doesn’t change the nature of a particular episode of intercourse, but that wasn’t the point I was making.

The argument for NFP rests on the premise that it is sinful to render sex sterile. All the arguments based on this tend to be circular. Can you prove that this is morally wrong?

Supposing me and my friends play a bizarre game where we eat apples, some of which are poisoned (with something harmful but not fatal). Friend A is able to work out which apples are poisoned, and so avoid them. Friend B just takes an antidote to the poison. Now unless there is an arbitray rule saying that the taking of antidotes is forbidden, then both are OK.
Click to expand...
Hi Doc,

Your analogy makes perfect sense to me.

I suspect, however, that there will be a few posters who don’t think your analogy is an “apples to apples” comparison.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. 😃
 
Doc_Keele said:
LOL!

NFP is not natural!

How can one “mutilate” oneself with drugs???
HUH?

It’s you that’s providing the ludicrous examples so far for me. NFP strikes me as disordered enjoyment just as much as sex using ABC. You’re just trotting out the same circular arguments time after time.

If ABC is wrong because you shouldn’t have sex without running the risk of pregnancy (and no one’s sought to prove that premise at all, but let’s just accept it for the sake of argument), then NFP is exactly the same.
NFP is also abortifacient (under some “Pro-Life” definitions of the term).
Click to expand...
American Heritage Dictionary

mutulate:
  1. to deprive or a limb or an essential part: cripple
  2. to disfigure by damaging irreparably: mutalate a statue, Syn: batter
  3. to make imperfect by excising or altering parts
So drugs can mutulate, as in permanent damage that results from their use.

NFP cannot be an abortifacient due to terminating a pregnancy (medical) or a conception (religious). They would have to mean American Heritage, abortion meaning 4:

abortion:
4. Cessation of a normal or abnormal process before completion.

You said:
  1. “NFP strikes me as disordered enjoyment just as much as sex using ABC.”
    and
  2. “If ABC is wrong because you shouldn’t have sex without running the risk of pregnancy”…“then NFP is exactly the same.”
I can understand statement no. 1 as conjugal act being disordered if it was a natural law that every conjugal act would result in pregnancy, but it does not and is naturally so. So the enjoyment is naturally ordered. Now ABC is by definition not natural, it is artificial, so is not naturally ordered. The enjoyment resulting is then disordered.

I agree with you to no. 2, but that is not the Catholic teaching.

You said: “NFP is not natural”. The natural in NFP refers to the conjugal act itself, the long term behavior is described as the “nature of married life”, that of excluding children in general, and that is in agreement with what Pope Pius XII stated: “Therefore, to embrace the matrimonial state, to use continually the faculty proper to such a state and lawful only therein, and, at the same time, to avoid its primary duty without a grave reason, would be a sin against the very nature of married life.”
 
Vico, drugs generally don’t mutilate - and certainly to say that contraception is bizarre. The dictionary certainly doesn’t support your “definition”.
NFP is abortifacient by the definition that is applied by some “Pro-Lifers” to ABC - fertilized zygotes are more likely to encounter a hostile endometrium. NFP results in an increased loss of zygotes, each of which is a precious life that has suffered abortion (that is, murder!!!) at the hands of couples practising NFP. Wickedness.
 
Christopher (Sorry David!), Doc Keele,
You two seem to be having a lot of trouble understanding what an act is.

An act is *doing something, *taking a pill, putting on a condom, having surgery…

Accepting that something occurs is *not *doing something. The fact that women are created by God to be fertile only 3/4 time is *not an act. *That is just the way things are.

Having sex is one act. Abstaining from sex is *not *an act: it is non-action.

Having sex within marriage is a moral and necessary part of marriage.

Not having sex from time to time with the consent of both is also moral.

Not discussing the morality here, simply differentiating between the two: What differentiates abc from nfp is that abc is that a *another *act occurs with the use of abc, which is the addition of the method to the act of sex which occurs. NFP is a *non-*act; abc is *two *acts.

Now, why is abc wrong? Because the *end *of the action taken in using the method is to render the instance(s) of marital embrace infertile. And this is condemned in the Bible when Onan used the withdrawal method of birth control. That is what made what Onan did wrong.

Now, an atheist will look at that and say, well, so what? And not understand what is wrong about doing something which God condemns, that is true. She doesn’t believe in the Person who said it was wrong. An atheist can understand not killing people, because she is a person and she would not want to be killed. And an atheist can understand not stealing, because she has stuff that she does not want taken away from her. And so on and so forth.

But the atheist (and I’m not calling y’all atheists, just using that as an example because it’s more clearcut that way) does not understand the interconnection between God and us. She does not understand obedience to the Being in Whom she does not believe. She does not understand that *everything *we have comes from Him and the gratitude we owe to Him. She does not understand that when children come, God sends them, and that when God sends children, they are a blessing (and the fact that some people do not have children only means that God blesses them in other ways).

And the atheist does not understand that the way we are made, with a free will of our own, is also a gift from God, and that the marital embrace and the fact that we share in the creation of new human beings are *each *a gift from God, and that we must therefore obey God in the use of the gifts which He gives us.
 
St Francis - I have condensed down the argument and clarified the issues. Let’s not go back over issues that are unimportant. I know what an act is better than you do, since there are highly technical legal usages of the term “act”.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top