Because the Church’s teaching concerning contraception has roots in the natural law, she, as would be expected, has no objection to anything that is natural. Therefore, she is an ardent supporter of a form of child-spacing or fertility regulation in marriage known as Natural Family Planning (NFP). Some have objected that NFP is “unnatural†because it require periodic abstinence, taking the wife’s body temperature, reading charts, checking mucus, and so on. In this case, however, such critics use the word “natural†to mean “spontaneous,†a meaning that does not reflect the Church’s mind when she uses the word in conjunction with her natural law teaching. Accordingly, what the Church means by “natural†in this context, refers to the normal functioning or proper order of things. Setting a broken humerus or using corrective lenses restores the normal functioning of the arm or the eyes. NFP is natural, not because it has any claims to spontaneity, but because it respects the order of nature. Contraception, in sundering the natural relationship between intercourse and procreation, does violence to the natural law. As Pope John Paul II states in his Apostolic Letter, Familiaris Consortio: “When . . . by means of recourse to periods of infertility, the couple respect the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings of human sexuality, they are acting as ‘ministers’ of God’s plan and they ‘benefit from’ their sexuality according to the original dynamism of ‘total self-giving’, without manipulation or alteration.â€Â
NFP can be used, in the positive sense, to enhance the couple’s chances of achieving pregnancy. In a situation where the husband has a low sperm count, for example, by combining knowledge of the time of ovulation with a period of abstinence that allows the husband to build up his sperm count, the conditions for conceiving are greatly increased. On the other hand, NFP can be used, in the negative sense, in order to avoid conception.
Planned Parenthood’s official statistician, Christopher Tietze has reported that the effectiveness of one method of NFPâ€â€the “temperature methodâ€Ââ€â€is 99%, which is higher than most contraceptives.16 Mother Teresa, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the poor in Calcutta, reports that her NFP program in India prevented 1.1 million births in that country.17 A study of 20,000 Hindu, Muslim, and Christian women of Calcutta who were taught NFP was reported in the India Medical Journal. The report stated that NFP was as successful as the Pill in avoiding pregnancies.18 Unlike the Pill and other forms of contraception, it should be noted, NFP has no undesirable side-effects. As many practitioners of NFP have come to learn through experience, it is marriage that is the sacrament, not contraception.
The most common objection to using NFP in order to avoid conception is that it appears to be morally equivalent to using contraception. What is the difference in this case, people say, between using NFP and using contraception since the desired end is the same, namely, to avoid conception?
Apart from the issue of side-effects, which is decisive in itself, one must recognize the difference between an end and a means. Most of morality, in fact, is concerned not about ends but about means. The end, moral as it may be in itself, does not justify the employment of an immoral means. Having a child is a good end, but surely achieving that end by means of kidnapping is morally distinguishable from becoming a parent by means of loving union with one’s spouse. Money may be a desirable end, but obtaining it through theft, blackmail, or extortion, as opposed to earning it justly, is the difference between immorality and morality. Virtually everyone in the history of moral philosophy recognizes the validity of this distinction. Contraception violates the order established in nature by God between intercourse and procreation.
Also, there is a profound difference between an immoral act and no act at all. This difference is not only metaphysical (between being and nonbeing), but can be felt personally and intensely on a psychological level. Suppose, for example, an engaged couple is preparing its list of wedding guests. The couple wants some people to come and others not to come. The traditional approach is to invite those whom you want to be your guests, and not invite those whom you do not. But let is imagine that this particular couple, instead of simply not inviting certain people, sends them a disinvitation: “Dear John and Mary: We are getting married, but we do not want you to come to our wedding. Our ushers have been instructed to escort you to the parking lot if you dare show up. Your presence is not wanted. Stay away. We do not want to see you.â€Â
It is not difficult to appreciate the difference in impact on John’s and Mary’s feelings that receiving such a “disinvitation†would have, as compared with their not receiving an invitation. Sending out such a disinvitation could very well ruin whatever vestige of friendship existed between the two parties. The difference between the disinvitation and no invitation is the difference between insult and etiquette, contempt and civility. It is one thing not to invite a person; it is quite another to explain to him that his presence is unwanted.
Using contraception is like sending a disinvitation to God. It is like telling God that He should not show up, that His creative act is not only unwanted, but disrespected. But abstaining from intercourse as part of NFP does not send any such message. By refraining from intercourse at a time when a couple does not want to conceive sends an altogether different and more tacit message: “We do not invite or invoke your creative act at this time, but we will not insult you by profaning the means you have established to inititate new life by exploiting it for our own purposes while disinviting your presence through contraception. We will abstain rather than profane.â€Â
Another common objection to the Church’s promotion of NFP and rejection of contraception is that it represents a beautiful “ideal,†but it is not very practical for most married couples. But NFP has proven to be eminently practical wherever it has been used, whereas the “ideals†that contraception promoters envisioned, such as less sexual anxiety, happier marriages, fewer divorces, and better rapport between parents and children, have proven to be decidedly impractical and unrealistic.
Among married couples who practice NFP, divorce is rare. Josef Rötzer, M. D., author of a sympto-thermal method, reports not a single divorce or abortion among 1,400 married couples who used NFP. John Kippley, founder of the Couple to Couple League, reports a divorce rate among married couple who teach NFP at 1.3%.19
The contraception debate is not between an out-dated Church whose ideals are unrealistic and a modern, secular world that has no ideals but is hard-nosed and realistic. The debate is between the Church, whose ideals are realistic (in the sense that they can, with effort, be realized) and a world whose ideals are not. Contraception advocates are not without ideals. It is simply that their ideals cannot be realized through the contraceptive means that they propose. To believe that contraception will bring about a greater two-in-one-flesh intimacy is to believe in an impossibility.
An ideal may be difficult, but it should not be dismissed simply because it is an ideal. The “ideal†for each hole in golf is to make par. In fact, this is a minimal ideal. Amateur golfers and the legion of struggling recreational performers known as “duffers,†often find this ideal hard to fulfill. Yet no golfer protests that golf is an unrealistic game and that par should be whatever number of strokes it takes for a player to complete a hole. The “ideal†is necessary to give the game its structure, meaning, and direction.
It is precisely because the Church’s teaching is based on the natural law that her ideals are both realistic and realizable. By contrast, the ideals of the world are often based on dreams that have no relationship with either nature or the natural law. Such dreams are fundamentally unrealistic.
