Natural Family Planning (NFP) is an often misunderstood discipline. It is often billed as “Catholic birth control,” or “Catholic contraception,” but it is neither of these. When discussing the use of NFP versus contraception, many questions surround the morality of its use, especially if sex is supposed to be for procreation. When NFP is properly studied against contraception though, its methods and differences from contraception and the morality to use it become quite obvious and easy to understand.
NFP uses a woman’s cycle to help her and her husband determine when to best engage in sex. This determination is dependent on the couple’s goals for having children or avoiding children, while still being open to new life. Different systems of NFP exist and each offers a variety of tools for a woman to track her fertility cycle. These range from physical observations of her cervical mucus to taking daily hormone measurements. Dependent on a couple’s goals for fertility, this will determine when they abstain from, or engage in sex. If the goal is to hold off on having children at the present moment, then the couple would abstain from sex during the time that the wife is at peak fertility, and the three days following the day of ovulation. This generally allows them at least a few days to engage in sex before the peak window, and from the fourth day after peak day until the beginning of menstruation to engage as well, depending on the length of the wife’s cycle. If the goal is to have children, it is generally advised to wait until the peak window to engage in sex, but the couple is free to engage whenever they wish.
But how is this different from using contraceptives, and why is it morally licit, if the intent to prevent pregnancy is the same? First of all, it is the means used towards the ends that is different. NFP uses abstinence and works naturally with the wife’s body, the way it was intended to work by God, and keeps sex ordered. Contraceptives artificially alter the way the wife’s body works and keeps it in a state that it was not intended to be in and disorders sex1. Second of all, NFP preserves the openness to God’s will and allows God to work in and through the couple while contraceptives close the couple off to God’s will and makes them the arbiters in the act of Creation that God invites married couples into. Contraceptives degrade human sexuality by altering its value of complete self-giving2. This violates the vows the couples profess during their marriage to give all of themselves to each other. NFP on the other hand allows the couple to completely give of themselves. As stated earlier, NFP keeps sex ordered. This order is towards procreation, unity of the couple, and pleasure3. Contraception removes procreation and thus disorders the sexual act. Because NFP works with the natural faculties afforded to a couple, it is morally licit4, whereas contraception is intrinsically wrong5.
The decision to have children or space out births, or refrain from them for a time is not one to be taken lightly. It is a decision that must be made with proper discernment and communication between the couple. But should they find they cannot responsibly raise a new life at the present moment, they do have options available to them. NFP provides many wonderful tools for couples to take charge of their fertility and work together, with God, in planning their parenthood.
Footnotes
- Paul IV, Humanae Vitae, (Vatican City: Vatican Press, 1968), sec. 16
- John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, (Vatican City: Vatican Press, 1981), sec. 32
- “Gaudium et Spes.” n.d. Servizio Internet Vaticano. Accessed July 21, 2022. https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html. sec. 48; 50
- Paul IV, Humanae Vitae, sec. 16
- Paul IV, Humanae Vitae, sec. 14
Edit Notes: Corrected a citation
The Measure of a Man 