Tag Archives: birth control

A few months ago I was having The Conversation with someone close to me, a Protestant friend of many years.  I was dropping the bomb about joining the Catholic Church and as was expected, I found myself in a back-and-forth about the implications of this decision.  Something she said struck me as odd:  “But now you’re going to have to do what the Church says, you know!”  I thought that was weird.  Well, yeah.  Doesn’t any genuine Christian accept their church’s teachings as binding on their lifestyle?  This should be nothing new.

I pondered my friend’s words for the rest of the evening and suddenly, it dawned on me.  Maybe she was making reference to the Church’s world-famous stance against birth control?  I couldn’t think of any other lifestyle implication that would spur such a comment.  I never did ask what she meant, but it’s a fair assumption that she was now picturing Shannon and me driving a small bus to the grocery store with our sixteen unplanned little blessings in tow.  (Maybe she was singing this in her head too.)

If my brain had been working a little faster that day, I’d have set her straight right there: ditching contraception was not an issue for us in our conversion to Catholicism.  In fact, we’d rejected it long ago as Protestants from the earliest days of our marriage.  God convicted us in a big way that we were to remain open to life and to let Him determine the size of our family.  We were struck with the idea that we humans are simply not permitted to decide how many other humans should make their way into this world.  I initially had a tough time with this conviction because of the serious life implications that came with it (I was studying in college to be a teacher at the time and was now facing the possibility of having a child within the year).  My husband didn’t have much trouble with it at all and was very encouraging to me during that trial of our faith.  We trusted God and have since been blessed with two beautiful daughters in His timing.  As we approach our fifth anniversary, we can’t imagine any other way of living.

In my Catholic recovery story, I shared a bit about my struggles to relate to our fellow Protestant Christians in our convictions about family planning.  Shannon and I were certainly a minority among the young adults in our life.  When we initially considered Catholicism, we were impressed by the Church’s unwavering stance against birth control.  As was the case with so many of our faith convictions, we discovered that the Church had it right all along.  Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body was both affirming and completely mind-blowing at the same time.  Rather than struggling with the prospect of a contraception-free marriage, we were relieved.  We continue to price out small buses for future family transport.

I have to admit, however, that I am struggling with something related to Church teaching on this matter.  I really don’t understand how the concept of Natural Family Planning can be reconciled with living a life of Catholic faith.  I admit that this sounds like I’m questioning Church teaching, and I’m honestly not trying to be rebellious or anything like that.  I am confident that I’m simply misunderstanding or missing some vital piece of the puzzle.  Allow me to share my disjointed thoughts here and perhaps you can help me out.

First of all, I have made effort to study the purpose of NFP in the context of Catholic marriage.  I’m familiar with the Catholic concept of marital intimacy as an integral part of who we are as human beings created by God.  I’m definitely on board with the concept of “openness to life.”  We’ve embraced these values since our Protestant days.  What I don’t understand, however, is how all of these wonderful concepts can be reconciled with Natural Family Planning, which seems to me to be just another method of controlling fertility.  NFP has long been marginalized as “Catholic birth control” and I understand that Catholic proponents of NFP reject this notion wholeheartedly.  After all, Natural Family Planning is approved as an acceptable practice by the Church itself!  NFP can certainly be used with a contraceptive mindset, but I’m having a hard time separating that mindset from the “proper use” promoted by the Church.

When my husband and I were convicted to reject birth control in our marriage, we did so for one reason: faith in God to determine our family size.  Of course, there were the added benefits of enhanced intimacy, healthier living, and the peace that comes with being right with God in our marriage.  But the sole purpose was to relinquish control, to make a daily statement to God that we were not our own possessions but instead “living sacrifices” to Him (Romans 12:1).

Natural Family Planning seems to violate these values in its attempt to inject human wisdom into the equation.  When a couple discerns a “grave reason” to postpone or avoid pregnancy, Natural Family Planning is touted as the answer to this moral dilemma.  Enjoy intimacy when you’re confident that you won’t get pregnant; abstain on the days you’re likely to conceive.  Depending on who you ask, NFP can be wildly successful for avoiding pregnancy when you’re armed with the right knowledge.  Then comes the escape clause: And if you do end up pregnant, it’s because you were open to life.  

Hmm.  Open to life?  While I don’t presume to know anyone’s motives, it would seem to me on a purely objective level that this logic could easily be applied to using actual contraception.  Of course, I make the distinction that hormonal contraception is not what I’m talking about here due to its abortive nature.  But what about condoms?  Consider the couple with a grave reason to avoid pregnancy.  They use condoms to prevent pregnancy but also acknowledge their failure rate (as low as 82% effective according to the Centers for Disease Control).  If the wife becomes pregnant from a failure of the condom, they would thank God for the blessing and make the necessary arrangements to accommodate a new (and unexpected) family member.  Couldn’t we argue that this couple is “open to life?”  The desire to avoid pregnancy seems virtually identical, but one method is acceptable and the other a mortal sin.  Why?

I’ve voiced this concern aloud and others have graciously tried to help me understand the difference.  “But with NFP, you’re not putting a barrier between the male and female biology.  You’re not rejecting one another’s fertility the way you would if you altered your biology with hormones or limited your physical contact using a barrier method.”  Fair enough.  I know firsthand the joy of a marriage free from these concerns.  What I still don’t understand is how abstaining from the marital embrace with the explicit purpose of avoiding pregnancy is not considered a rejection of your partner’s fertility!  Oh, if my husband pointed to a calendar one night and said, “Sorry honey, you ovulated yesterday,” I’d be so heartbroken.  It would be the pinnacle of rejection.  Worse yet, we’d be actively controlling our desire to avoid a pregnancy – we’d be controlling birth!  Why would this be permissible?

While I’m demonstrating my failure to connect the dots, here’s another concept I don’t understand: a “grave reason” to avoid pregnancy.  This “grave reason” clause is widely celebrated in the Catholic blogosphere, as I’ve come to find.  I recently read a post on a Catholic news source in which the female author reassured her readers that a “grave reason” could be anything, really.  What she described sounded like a relativist free-for-all in which a couple could use their religious liberty to subjectively define what constitutes a “grave reason” to limit their family size.  It was like Protestantism all over again.  I found it to be very disheartening.  Though I acknowledge that the author of the article probably misrepresented Catholic teaching on family planning, I was struck by the fact that there is indeed no protocol for determining whether a a “grave reason” is serious enough to justify the prevention of pregnancy.  One couple may believe that the wife’s medical condition is a grave reason.  Another couple might decide that their income isn’t sufficient and so avoid pregnancy until a later time.  Both scenarios are acceptable so long as the couple perceives them as serious impediments to parenthood.

I really appreciate that the Church values a woman beyond her capacity to bear children.  As I’ve read time and time again on NFP websites and blogs, the Church doesn’t believe that couples need to have as many children as humanly possible in order to live a devout Catholic life.  And yes, I do believe that there are actual grave reasons to avoid pregnancy.  I wholeheartedly assent that there are times in a woman’s life when pregnancy would be unwise or even downright dangerous, such as in the postpartum period, when seriously ill, when undergoing cancer treatment, etc.  I believe this is what the Apostle Paul was talking about when he admonished the Corinthians to abstain from marital relations “by mutual consent,” and for a determined time, if the need arose  (1 Corinth 7:5).  I can’t help but feel that Natural Family Planning seeks to circumvent this directive from Saint Paul by promoting the “have your cake and eat it too,” mentality.  With the help of modern science, we can know exactly when a woman is fertile and when she is not (and with brag-worthy accuracy – just ask your local NFP instructor).  Did Saint Paul intend to tell us that a “determined time” could be the length of a woman’s fertile period, therefore freeing us to enjoy the unitive aspect of sex without its procreative counterpart?  I’m not so sure.  It doesn’t feel right.

I’m told that my belief in giving God total control of our family size is called “providentialism” and that while not morally objectionable, it is not promoted by the Church.  My husband and I feel very blessed to have such peace about God’s provision in our lives.  Should we encounter a grave reason to avoid pregnancy, we’d abstain totally.  Some Catholics believe Natural Family Planning is an acceptable alternative to this plan but I truly can’t understand why, given my concerns about inevitably entering a contraceptive mindset.

Despite my criticism here, I’m sincerely not coming at this from a place of judgment.  I admit that my being new to the Catholic way of thinking is likely to blame for my frustration by this issue.  What am I missing here?  Do you believe that Natural Family Planning is compatible with faith in God’s plan for our family size?  Why or why not?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.