Contraception: Why Not? (part 21)

This post is part of a series by Professor Janet E. Smith.

Slide: Effectiveness of Natural Family Planning

Natural family planning is every bit as effective as any form of contraception.  Dr. R. E. J. Ryder published an article in the British Medical Journal in 1993 in which he reviewed studies done by world health organizations on natural family planning and concluded that pregnancy rates of couples using NFP have depended on the motivation of couples.  He concluded:

Increasingly studies show that rates equivalent to those with other contraceptive methods are readily achieved in the developed and developing world.  Indeed a study of 19,843 poor women in India had a pregnancy rate approaching zero.  Natural planning family is cheap, efficient, without side effects and may be particularly acceptable to and efficacious among of people in areas of poverty.

Of the women studied, one third were Christian, one third were Muslim, and one third were Hindu.  Most of them were illiterate.  Do you know who was teaching them?  Mother Teresa’s nuns.  Mother Teresa had all of her nuns learn how to teach natural family planning.

NFP costs nothing and is perfectly healthy.  A fraction of the money, a fraction of the billions of dollars recommended by the UN for contraceptives could be used to teach women NFP and there would be billions left for health care, antibiotics, hygiene, making the water supply safe, etc.

Slide: Benefits of NFP

One benefit of natural family planning is that there are no bad physical side effects.  One of the reasons that NFP marriages last longer is that women using NFP are not as irritable, prone to depression and gaining weight and to having a reduced sex life as are women on contraceptives.  The non contracepting woman is a healthier woman; she feels better.  She is not taking drugs that mess with her system.

Secondly, using NFP requires mutual sacrifice.  That is key.  It takes two people to have sex.  It takes two people to abstain.  Not one or the other of the couple is bearing the contraceptive burden.  In couples where natural family planning is used, wives generally think their husbands are exceptional men.  She thinks, “I married myself an exceptional man.  He doesn’t ask me or expect me to take all of these drugs into my body that are bad for me.  He enjoys my company even when I’m not sexually available.  He can control his sexual desires.  He’s probably not masturbating and using pornography.  I’ve got myself an exceptionally fine man.”

And when a man is married to a woman who thinks he’s exceptionally fine, he tends to think he’s exceptionally fine.  It does good things for his self-esteem.  We women can be very critical.  When a wife thinks her husband is an incredibly wonderful man, that makes for an incredibly wonderful relationship.  He respects his wife; she respects him.

NFP enhances communication between spouses and strengthens marriages.   For some time I wondered how NFP enhances communication.  I figured it out one day and some people now accuse me of hiding in their closets and listening to their conversations.  I understand that about once a month, somewhere during that 7 to 10 day period of abstaining, a couple want to have sex, especially since she’s fertile and males and females are more attracted to each other when the female is fertile.  So they have a conversation that usually begins with the question: “Why did we decide it wasn’t a good idea to have a child right now?”  That’s a very important question because if the answer is that having a baby would be acceptable, the couple can go ahead and do what they want to do.

Now if a couple has a good reason for not having a baby right now,  that can go a long way to dampening the sexual desire.  Spouses have some pretty revealing conversations about the reasons.  The wife might say, “If we have another child right now, I’ll kill you.”  That could lead her husband to remember that there is a sporting event on TV that he very much wants to watch.

Or she might say, “You said that you would do the dishes.  You said that you would give the kids baths.  You said that I would have time for shopping on Saturday.  When was the last time that you did the dishes or gave the kids a bath or gave me any time on Saturdays?”  And he may respond, “I forgot; I’m so sorry.  I didn’t know.  All right, I’m on duty.”  Or she might say, “I have been tired with three kids under 5 but the baby is out of diapers now.  If we had another one I could handle it.”

Or the husband might say to the wife, “The reason we’re not having more babies right now is because I just can’t imagine how I’m going to support the kids that I’ve already got. I am worried about paying for braces, tuition, and having to buy a bigger van. The way you spend money!!  Your friend Jane wants a fence, you need a fence.  Your friend Jane gets a new kitchen, you need a new kitchen.  What’s a man supposed to do?  And she might reply, “I really had no idea that you felt that way.  I don’t need that kitchen.  I don’t need a fence.”  Or he might say, “I was worried about finances, but I have been getting raises along the way.  My dad raised 4 or 5 children on next to nothing.  If he could do it, I can do it.  So, yes we can go ahead.  If there’s another baby around here, we can handle it.”

That conversation takes place about once a month for couples who are using natural family planning.  It makes them assess where they are in respect to these key questions: Why are we having children and why are we not having children?  Who’s carrying their weight around here?  Who is not?  That’s the kind of conversation that marriage counselors want every couple to have, touching base with each other.  Natural family planning couples have that conversation.

Most people who use natural family planning have contracepted at one time.  They know the difference between a contracepted relationship and an NFP one.   Nearly all of them testify that their NFP relationship is definitely better than their contraceptive relationship was. When they were contracepting they rarely had conversations about having or not having babies.  They decided they were not having a baby for another 3 or 4 or 5 years.  They just get all involved in their own world and don’t talk about the mutual world they should inhabit.

NFP strengthens a couple’s relationship with God.  Catholics who come to accept the Church’s teaching on contraception generally have a whole new respect for their church.  It’s an incredible Church that has this teaching.  The Church clearly isn’t trying to win a popularity contest.  It teaches against contraception because this is God’s truth, not man’s truth.  These are God’s laws, not man’s laws.  Some of God’s laws are very peculiar to us.  But when we live by them, when we love our enemies, for instance, we’re usually a lot better off than when we hate them.  And it’s counterintuitive to think you ought to love your enemies.   But if we live by that then we’ve got a better world. We thought contraception was going to be great, but maybe it’s not.  My view is that if people stop using contraception, we will reduce the problems in society.  Poverty will go down.  Crime will go down.  People will generally be happier and better off.

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