Response by Father James Dean
Q. When talking with friends about the benefits of natural family planning (NFP), they have trouble understanding the difference between using NFP to delay pregnancy and using artificial methods. Do you have a good response?
A. Yours is a very common question, probably the most often asked question when talking about natural family planning. Your friend’s question reflects a consequentialist mentality, that is, what is right and wrong is solely determined by the consequences (i.e., results) of an action. The results of NFP and unnatural birth control are the same, yet your friend is confusing the end of the act with its means. The Church does not have a problem with the postponement of bearing a child for a good and serious reason, but a morally licit method must be used to obtain that goal. A simple example of this idea involves giving $100 to the poor. That’s a good end, but there’s a big difference between stealing the $100 or earning it rightfully.
The question remains as to why NFP is a licit means to postpone childbearing and unnatural methods are illicit means. There are many different avenues that can be taken in this regard. I will address it from the perspective of the nature of the human person and the covenant of marriage.
Man is a rational creature composed of a body and a soul, which together express the reality of the person and cannot be disassociated in any human interpersonal activity. Marriage is a covenant whereby God joins a man and a woman into a bond where “the two become one body/flesh” (Gn 2:24; Mt 19:6; Mk 10:8). In that covenant, the two people must give themselves totally and completely to each other. If one were to attempt to hold back anything that they have or are, it would not be the covenant of marriage. For example, if a man were to say, “All that I have is yours, except my car which is to remain only mine,” this would preclude the total unity of the couple. This is why a couple cannot enter the Sacrament of Matrimony with a pre-nuptial agreement based on divorce.
The act which is the bodily expression of the covenant of marriage is sexual intercourse. And just as a person entering marriage cannot hold back part of himself and at the same time give all of himself away, so also in the act that is the expression of the covenant. It must be an act of total self-donation, total self-gift, not a partial gift of self, whereby the fertility is withheld (and/or not accepted). And since each and every marital act has an intelligibility of its own, to be judged on its own merits, each act must be a total gift of the self, whereby the two become one — which is precluded by unnatural birth control.
On the other hand, natural family planning, when attempting to postpone pregnancy during times of fertility, does not violate the covenantal act, but foregoes the act altogether. It does not distort the act by contradicting its meanings (procreative and unitive), but postpones the act until a time when it can be an expression of total oneness and unity without thwarting its potential to produce human life. The reason NFP is such a wonderful gift from God is that it gives couples a means of responsible parenthood all the while respecting God, each other and the integral unity of the body and soul.
To learn more about Natural Family Planning, visit www.ccli.org.
