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Archived Catholic Natural Family Planning Columns from Sara Fox Peterson:

The Pill as Panacea
Too Much Affection?
Surprises Happen
Husbands and Daughters
The Pill: Questions and Answers
Heroic Virtue
Not on the Same Page (Part II)
Not on the Same Page (Part I)
The People Who Actually Do This
Sweetness and Light
Freeing Our Consciences
What if It's Too Late?
What's the Difference
Medical Exceptions
Waiting
Fear Not - Five Resolutions for a New Year
An Open Question
Catholic Contraception?
Contraception, Lies and the Truth
Natural Family Planning - Why Not?

Sara can be contacted by email at sfp@thosepetersons.com - please indicate "NFP" in the subject line of your email.

What is NFP?

Every fertile woman experiences recurring signs of her fertility. Natural Family Planning (NFP) teaches a woman to recognize and record these signs so that spouses can identify the days in each cycle when conception can occur and plan the timing of their marital relations according to their desire either to avoid or achieve pregnancy.

Looking for more information on Natural Family Planning?  Visit our Natural Family Planning Resource Center.

Natural Family Planning Method Comparison - a comprehensive comparison of natural family planning methods 

For additional "cyber-support" you are also most welcome to join in the discussions in the Catholic Mom Community's NFP Forum

What’s in a Name? 

I have a confession to make. I don’t like the name ‘Natural Family Planning’. At all. I think it emphasizes all the wrong aspects of what NFP teachers and promoters are teaching and promoting and leads to not a little confusion about what the Church teaches about family planning. 

Natural

Natural is very popular these days - natural foods, natural cleaning products, natural fiber clothing. And that is all well and good, but artificial is not synonymous with evil or immoral. Tupperware is artificial. A minivan is artificial. The plastic buttons on my blouse, the keyboard I am typing this on, anesthetics and antiseptics for life-saving surgeries, even the thermometers and ink and stickers with which couples collect and record data about their fertility are all artificial. Likewise there are natural, non-technological methods of family planning that are entirely immoral (withdrawal, sexual activity that leads to climax outside of normal intercourse). 

NFP is not good because it is natural and contraception and sterilization are not wrong because they make use of modern technology or because they are artificial. Contraception and sterilization are wrong because they alter either the spouse’s bodies or sexual intercourse itself and so destroy the sacramental nature of the marital act and NFP is actually not good in and of itself, but a morally neutral tool which we can use for either good or evil (more on this in a minute). 

Family Planning

NFP is really nothing more than awareness of the signs and symptoms of fertility* that every woman capable of conceiving a child experiences and an understanding of what these indicate about the couple’s state of fertility or infertility.  This awareness and understanding can be used as a method of family planning (i.e. to intentionally avoid or intentionally achieve pregnancy), but it certainly doesn’t have to be used this way or even used at all. Nor is there any moral requirement that every couple have this awareness.**  

Indeed, none of us is ever supposed to be doing the planning. Planning is God’s job – ours is to do our level best to discern His plan and cooperate with it.  

Recently a woman who is one of 11 children shared with me how her parents responded to the inevitable “Was it planned?” inquiries that greeted each new pregnancy. Her father’s response: “How do you plan a gift?” Amen. 

Every child is a gift specifically willed by God and while, as the result of circumstances in our lives, He may sometimes ask us to forgo the pleasure of putting out our hands (so to speak) to ask for the gift of a child, this is a sacrifice to be prayerfully discerned, not a plan to be independently decided. 

And here we find the answer to one of the thorniest objections to NFP that I have come across – the objection that NFP is really a kind of ‘Catholic contraception’ and that by permitting the use of NFP to postpone or avoid pregnancy the Church has broken with nearly 2000 of consistent teaching on the intrinsic evils of contraception. 

This is untrue because NFP is not an alternative to contraception. NFP (also called periodic abstinence) is an alternative to total abstinence (celibacy) for couples who have truly serious reasons to avoid conceiving and the Church has always recognized total abstinence as morally permissible for such couples. 

Avoiding pregnancy – whether through periodic or total abstinence - is good when it is done in order to cooperate with God’s plan for a couple, but to do so without first sincerely seeking His will is wrong.  

In the words of Pope Paul VI:

With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time.

Responsible parenthood, as we use the term here, has one further essential aspect of paramount importance. It concerns the objective moral order which was established by God, and of which a right conscience is the true interpreter. In a word, the exercise of responsible parenthood requires that husband and wife, keeping a right order of priorities, recognize their own duties toward God, themselves, their families and human society.

From this it follows that they are not free to act as they choose in the service of transmitting life, as if it were wholly up to them to decide what is the right course to follow. On the contrary, they are bound to ensure that what they do corresponds to the will of God the Creator. The very nature of marriage and its use makes His will clear, while the constant teaching of the Church spells it out. (Humanae Vitae 10)

That God has permitted us an understanding of how our fertility works and a glimpse at the physical processes by which husband and wife may co-create with Him is a wonderful privilege. And that modern NFP is a reliable way of avoiding pregnancy is a mercy to those couples who have serious reasons to do so (though it can also be a challenge to such couples to trust God more fully because while NFP is as effective as any contraceptive, no method of avoiding pregnancy is as effective as total abstinence). But with this privilege comes the responsibility to use our understanding to cooperate with God’s will rather that asserting our own wills and to resist the temptation to think that we are the ones ultimately in control.

*When I mention my dislike of the name Natural Family Planning people often suggest ‘Fertility Awareness’ instead. I agree that this is a more accurate description, but it is commonly used to refer to NFP with the option of barrier contraceptives during the potentially fertile parts of the woman’s cycle - something that is clearly immoral – so I think that using the two terms interchangeably creates even more confusion.

** I don’t mean this to be a commentary on whether instruction in NFP should be a normal part of marriage preparation. There are sound arguments on both sides of this issue and discussing it is beyond the scope of this particular column. Also, as I have mentioned in a previous column, I do think young women should be prepared to notice and understand cervical mucus in the same way that they are prepared to notice and understand menstruation.

For additional "cyber-support" you are also most welcome to join in the discussions in the Catholic Mom Community's NFP Forum

Looking for more information on Natural Family Planning?  Visit our Natural Family Planning Resource Center.

Sara Fox Peterson is a full time momma, a sometimes writer and a certified teacher of the Billings Ovulation Method of Natural Family Planning. She holds a BS in biology and an MS in human physiology, both from Georgetown University, and lives in Maryland with her husband and children.

10/12/06

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