NFP is not “Catholic birth control”
Some people criticize Natural Family Planning (NFP) as just “Catholic birth control.” It is fundamentally no different, according to critics, than condoms, birth control pills, or other means to prevent pregnancy. These are obviously people who have never actually used NFP in their own lives, for if they did, they would know how different it really is.
The great thing about NFP is that using it helps one to recognize the great gift of marital sexuality as well as the great blessing of children in a marriage. Whereas artificial birth control focuses exclusively on preventing the natural consequence of sexual relations, NFP helps a couple focus on the two primary purposes of sexual relations: procreation and marital unity. This often leads them to a deeper marriage and a greater openness to children – and even a greater appreciation of the Catholic Church, as can be seen with this couple:
Couple credits NFP for changed worldview
Chris and Christelle Hagen weren’t Catholic when they decided to use natural family planning instead of artificial birth control.
Christelle was initially attracted to NFP for health, not moral, reasons, she said. At first, Chris was surprised she didn’t want to use birth control pills, but he was happy to oblige.
Now, 13 years into their marriage, the Hagens, members of St. Michael in Stillwater, say using NFP has positively affected not only Christelle’s health, but also the way they view their marriage, intimacy and children.
NFP also opened the door to the couple’s exploration of the Catholic faith, and their eventual conversion to Catholicism from the Evangelical faith in 1999, said Chris, 34.
Learning to trust
Unlike contraception, which uses barriers or hormones to prevent the marital act from producing life or, in some cases, can act as an abortifacient, NFP ensures the couples’ marital act is always open to life. When a couple does not want to become pregant, they abstain from sex when the wife is fertile.
According to the Catholic Church, NFP is the only moral way to regulate pregnancies.
Christelle, 37, first learned of NFP while living with a Catholic family after college, and she explained it to Chris, whom she was dating. They made a decision to use NFP after they married.
But, out of fear of pregnancy, the Hagens used condoms during their honeymoon. A few nights later, however, they had a spiritual experience — something Chris said is difficult to describe.
“We both felt an intense amount of fear, we felt very vulnerable, and we both had the sense — we were experiencing this at the same time — that it was because we were using condoms,” he said.
They didn’t use a condom after that night and tried better to trust God, they said.
Their Evangelical church didn’t teach contraception was wrong, and initially, the Hagens thought that, while it was wrong for them, contraception wasn’t wrong for everyone, Christelle said.
They eventually changed their minds. Chris was persuaded by the fact that no Christian denominations approved artificial birth control until the 20th century. Although Christelle had already changed her mind, a miscarriage eight months after their wedding confirmed her beliefs, she said.
“That experience for me was really a turning point emotionally for NFP, because I realized more of what was at stake with sexuality — that it had incredible power to it, the power to create life, and after that, I’ve never looked back,” she said.
They started to teach NFP, which they did for eight years as a couple through Couple to Couple League. When Chris became too busy to co-teach, they retired from Couple to Couple League, and Christelle focused on her growing interest in childbirth and parenting.
Practicing NFP deepened their appreciation for children, they said, and today they have four, ranging in age from 2 to 9.
I have only one qualm about NFP, if you trust God, why use it?
I am not married, but soon will be and both my fiance and I have decided that we Trust God more than ourselves so we will not be using NFP.
After that revelation, my views on NFP are turning more negative because if you cannot trust God in the most fundamental aspect of married life, then why bother being a Christian?
Tito,
I understand your attitude, but I think it is misguided. We could apply your standard to similar extremes: if a farmer really trusts God, why bother learning about the seasons and proper soil, etc. – just trust that God will grow your harvest abundantly no matter what.
It is not a lack of trust in God to use our intellects to understand how God created us, and to use this knowledge for our benefit. There are many reasons to use NFP (including temporary or permanent physical problems, to conceive, etc), and the Church has determined that these do not automatically reflect a distrust in God (obviously, one could abuse NFP for one’s selfish desires, but the abuse of something does not invalidate its proper use).
Eric,
Christians throughout the centuries have trusted only on God to provide their sustenance.
Do you call monks misguided for refusing to work for pay?
Did not God say look at the birds for they want not?
Your argument doesn’t hold water and I want to know what teaching or dogma says that don’t trust God, learn worldly skills to depend on yourself?
Ignore my last stanza.
I am sure there is a solid argument, I just want to know it so I can engage in dialogue better with others.
Thanks for sharing this couple’s story. I was the same way. I embrace NFP while I was still firmly protestant. I found it to be so right. It made me wonder how the Catholic church kept teaching against artificial contraceptives despite the fact that most Christians, both Catholic and protestant, thought they were OK. It was one of many ways the question of ‘How do we know God’s truth anyway?’ became central to my conversion.
Great story. My comment is for Tito – NFP is a life saver for those who need to space children for many reasons. Due to postpartum high blood pressure we need to wait for our next child. Even if I wanted to use birth control (something I would never do) I couldn’t because of the high blood pressure. Learning about your body – which God created – through science – is a good and beautiful thing!
Tito,
Are wordly skills not God’s creation? Our knowledge of earth, sea, and stars; of micro-organisms and galaxy clusters; critics might say otherwise, but don’t Christians know that our earthly knowledge is only made available because God himself gave us the ability to know?
Like knowing a sweet fruit from a poisonous fruit, or a working animal from a vicious hound, NFP is just one of the many ways we can live within the rules which God intended.
What is not in NFP that is not in trusting God? The sacred act of sex in marriage could only be unity and faith in God, perhaps more so than a vague superstition that presupposes a violation of earthly rules – the rules which God knowingly placed.
One of the great things i discovered about learning NFP is learning how the body works, about the differences that happen to your body throughout the cycle. I have a problem with my ovaries, so I don’t have a predictable cycle like most women, but NFP has helped me know what’s going on inside me so much better. I always knew that NFP was something I would do when I got married, but didn’t bother to actually learn about it until I got engaged. now i wish I had learnt 10 years earlier.
Aaron,
Thank you for that beatific explanation.
I think you’re the closest I’ve read to explaining why NFP is trusting in God.
The more I learn, the better I can explain NFP to others.
But thus far I trust God more than I do NFP.
In answer to the above question by Tito: because we have our intellects and God wishes us to use them.
Using NFP is not a case of not trusting God. It is a case of now being able to use the new understanding we have of our bodies, that previous generations did not have, and using this knowledge in a holy way to plan out a family.
In previous generations, and husband and wife did not have this understanding and so simply had baby after baby often making life extremely difficult. The wife may have died earlier since her body often did not have the chance to recover from pregnancies or from a difficult pregnancy. If the wife had other health issues, a pregnancy may have caused her death.
The husband was often unable to support so many children. Many couples simply had too many children to support.
Many children born so close together were not very healthy because the mom was unhealthy during the pregnancy etc..
Unfortunately, as with anything, NFP can be misused and can be used contraceptively. But holy and good Catholics can and do use NFP to space their children and I know many couples who have 6, 7, 8 and 9 children using NFP. They have these children not because NFP failed them but because they were able to space their children so that mom and baby had time to be healthy and recover from each pregnancy.
NFP also places the responsibility of self control on both husband and wife. Would you, knowing that your wife was not well, deliberately conceive another child, trusting to God that she wouldn’t die? You probably wouldn’t. You would use your intellect to make a prayerful decision in this matter.
Another really important God-given tool women have for naturally spacing children is breastfeeding. So little is taught to women about it and the NHS will tell you it’s not true but a woman can remain naturally infertile for well over a year after a birth if she breastfeeds exclusively. A benefit of caring for a baby’s physical and emotional needs in the most perfect way:
http://www.nfpindy.org/resources/breastfeeding.html
Great book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Breastfeeding-Natural-Child-Spacing-Ecological/dp/0926412205
More info:
http://www.llli.org/NB/NBSepOct08p4.html
Thank you for the interesting article.
However, I would like to open a question in the debate on the use of contraceptives such as condoms.
Building on the example of the farmer in comment #2 (by Eric) where the farmer should use his God-given intellect to gain knowledge of the seasons, soil etc. I completely agree with this logic, but can it not then be extended to say that the farmer should use his that same God-given intellect to develop tools to better aid him? Should he not use a spade instead of his hands to dig the soil?
Similarly with contraception (and for the moment, let us exclude abortifacients), why should we not use this option? It is true that condoms (for example) were developed by humans – but so was the farmer’s spade. I accept the counter-argument that the use of contraceptives dissociates the act of sexual intercourse from its intended purpose of procreation. However, this argument also applies to NFP where this same dissociation is achieved by waiting until a suitable time.
My point is that the strongest argument against the use of non-abortifacient contraceptives also applies to NFP and so either both or neither can be the solution. Have I missed something in this opinion or line of argument?
Andrew,
You said:
I accept the counter-argument that the use of contraceptives dissociates the act of sexual intercourse from its intended purpose of procreation. However, this argument also applies to NFP where this same dissociation is achieved by waiting until a suitable time.
Here is where your analysis is faulty. NFP does NOT “dissociate” sexual relations from its intended purpose of procreation. If it did, then EVERY act of intercourse which fell outside a woman’s fertile time would be immoral. Using NFP, the couple simply decides when to have intercourse, but in no way is the ACT of intercourse removed from the the purpose of procreation, as every sexual act still is open to life. Using a condom, however, distorts the very act of sexual relations by working to prevent its very purpose – procreation.
To continue to use my farmer analogy (which should not be stretched too far), using a condom would be like using the spade to destroy the plants instead of using it to prepare the soil for planting.
“It is not a lack of trust in God to use our intellects to understand how God created us, and to use this knowledge for our benefit.” So God gave us a brain and we created condoms to use so that we can conceive children when we feel we can best raise them. If this happens in a marriage I don’t think it is much different to using NFP if you ask me. Just a question of theologians trying not to upset the applecart… How do you know if God want you to have a child or not? I don’t think you ask Him everytime you have/abstain from sex. So isn’t it just as bad to abstain from sex?!
This is so tricky. I completely agree with what Tito said. Why be afraid to trust that God knows best on if you will even get pregnant and carry the baby full term. I am sorry but I don’t by that stuff about spacing the kids a part or anything else because don’t you think God will allow it or not if he thinks fit. He is the one in control even though we are in the act of sex itself. Otherwise NFP is in the same boat as condoms if people are using it to always know there infertile times.
Just 70 years ago ROME & Catholic Italy had just attacked & launched a massive, hellish WAR on its neighbors.
Butchering & murdering Millions & MILLIONS of innocent peacefull people…JUST for not JOINING up with HITLER ~
for NO REASON…… MURDERING Thousands of Africans, Egyptians , Greece & others …
ROME & Catholic Italy had JUST Joined up with Hitler,
IT took 22,000
{ twenty two thousand}…..]
US American tooops DYING, IN ITALY, for
the USA to defeat Catholic Italy….
~~~~~~~~~Millions of Catholics IN Germany & Italy….. murdered Millions of OTHER CATHOLICS & Non Catholics round the planet..
Simply for not joining up with The Catholic Hitler..
This was just 70 yrs ago…..
we can understand why and how catholics are feeling lonley or different from other religions.
Muslims are going throught the same eXact thing today..
As were we are at war with islamic terrorists ,,,,
We were at war with Catholic terrorists and nazis
in WW ll.
We can only pray for catholics and muslims …
We must never { as bible believers } resort to their traditions of force conversions and violent attacks upon NON catholislamics.
Prayer and love is all we can do for them…