Periodically when I post about Natural Family Planning, some people become upset that I have failed to mention what the Catholic Church teaches about contraception, or what a certain pope has written on the subject. Some actually seem highly offended if someone talks about NFP in non-theological terms. So I thought I would clear up any confusion by stating that such omissions in any of my previous posts are completely intentional. Yes, intentional.
Don't get me wrong. I am glad that there are many people committed to helping other Catholics understand why the Church is opposed to contraception, and helping other Catholics understand the beautiful and profound theology involved in living the NFP-lifestyle. I am grateful for this and I personally have benefited from their work.
There's a question, however, that I frequently ponder: What about people who aren't Catholic?
Oral contraceptives are classified as a group one carcinogen for breast, liver, and cervical cancers. Breast cancer is the leading cancer death among women of child-bearing age today. And I don't want just Catholic women to be free from breast cancer. I want that for every woman.
Hormonal contraception causes many changes in a woman's body, which can cause problems with infertility when a woman wants to conceive. Infertility is heartbreaking. I don't want just Catholic couples spared this heartache, I want this for every couple.
Some women are on the pill because they have a gynecological disorder. The thing is, though, pill-use doesn't actually treat any gynecological condition. It merely covers up the symptoms. NFP empowers women to know how their bodies work; they know when something is amiss, and with a NaPro-trained doctor, they can get the benefit of receiving actual treatment for infertility and other problems, rather than just treatment of symptoms. I think every woman deserves the benefit of real health-care and to have this basic knowledge of how her body works, not just Catholic women.
From the many birth control forums I've perused, I've gotten a sense that a lot of women don't actually like birth control. I've read quite a lot of rather common experiences women have had with various kinds of contraception, and I don't know if these women feel resentful towards their partner for what they go through in order to be sexually available, but I feel resentful on their behalf, not to mention that women are only capable of becoming pregnant about 100 hours a cycle, while almost all birth control affects her normal and healthy functioning every day of her cycle. I know contraception is marketed as woman's liberator and all, and of course some women use it without noticing any side-effects, and some vehemently defend it's necessity, (though even then they often do so because they think the only other option is to have gazillions of kids), but I've noticed that a lot of women actually hate birth control. I really don't hear a whole lot of feelings of liberation. It seems large numbers of women tolerate it because they think they don't have any other option.Well, I don't want just Catholic women knowing that they don't have to put up with the expense and side-effects of artificial contraception. I want every woman to know that NFP is 97-99% effective when used to avoid pregnancy and has ZERO side-effects.
The divorce rate in the US is around 50%, while the divorce rate for couples who practice NFP is around 1%. Now, some say this is because only highly religious people who don't believe in divorce practice Natural Family Planning. But I personally don't think this is the full story, or even a significant part of it. This description doesn't explain why NFP-users report greater sexual intimacy, even despite periods of abstinence; growth in respect for self and spouse; enhanced communication with their partner; and greater satisfaction with the quality of sexual intercourse as compared to contracepting couples. Here is my own explanation and observations about this statistic. Keep in mind, the only thing my husband and I have in common is our children. We have vastly different personality types and are pretty different when it comes to religious belief, life outlook, and how we view and interpret life-events. I'm very religious while he is agnostic. These things could be a source of great conflict in our relationship, and yet, we have a pretty phenomenal marriage if I do say so myself. It is my belief that NFP has something to do with that.
When a woman is ovulating she wants to give herself to her husband, and she's emitting pheromones that make her husband really want to give himself to her. What I have observed is that if my husband and I can't do this physically because we are choosing to abstain during my fertile time in order to avoid pregnancy, it seems like we end up doing this emotionally. There have been many times where if we could have had sex we would have, but we were abstaining that week and we ended up getting in the most profound and deep-sharing, connecting conversation. I've written further about this in another post if you are inclined to hear more. Our culture is pretty obsessed with sex, but having these built-in times that lend themselves to nurture the other aspects of our marriage, I feel has helped my husband and me.
I see using NFP as entering a school of respect, for self and spouse. I learn to view my body as good and amazing, not as a burden to medicate away. This has improved my self-esteem. My husband also learns to respect me as I am, without asking me to put myself at risk from the various side effects of contraception. He loves all of me, just as I am. I feel like I can trust him with all of me, physically and emotionally, because his actions have told me that he would rather sacrifice sex-on-demand than change any part of me. This makes for a great friendship and amazing sex. He honors my femininity; that is to say, he honors who I am. I don't want just Catholic couples to have strong marriages, I want that for every couple.
Throughout the world, many vulnerable women have been placed in the hands of abusive and coercive population-control programs whose main goal was to control rather than to empower or help. Women who know NFP are empowered with the knowledge of how their bodies work and couples have autonomy in deciding when to postpone pregnancy and when to achieve. I don't want just Catholic women protected from such coersion, I want that for every woman.
What I'm saying is, if I went on and on about Catholic doctrine, people might get the impression that NFP is only for Catholics, and it's not. NFP is for everyone who wants to have a good health record and an understanding of her body. NFP is for every woman who wants real answers to her gynecological health problems. NFP is for everyone who wants to be able to plan his or her family size in an effective way without any harmful side effects; it's for everyone who wants to be friends again with her spouse; for everyone who wants to have a profound and satisfying intimacy with her spouse. NFP is for everyone who wants to experience the freedom and joy of being loved fully as she is for who she is.
I really love how you point out that if a couple is choosing to abstain during a fertile period, it opens the door for other ways of connecting... even "just talking." How many married couples have lost the fine art of talking?
ReplyDeletewho was introduced to NFP via the Catholic community, and if those bloggers had only (or even mostly) emphasized the Catholic Church's stance on contraceptive, they would have lost me. Because they spent so much time explaining the health, environmental, relational, and spiritual harms of birth control, I discovered that NFP isn't -- or shouldn't be -- just a Catholic thing.
ReplyDeleteYou're doing important work!
(Shoot, I have my baby on my lap as I write this and it messed up my comment. It started out with, "Thanks for this! I am a non-Catholic . . .")
DeleteYour comment about birth control not helping gyno problems...what about women who suffer from uterine fibroids or endometriosis? The pill doesn't just mask these symptoms, it helps regulate estrogen that feeds these masses and keeps them from becoming a 20 lbs tumor that presses up against all the other organs and create an unbearable pain. While I myself am not on the pill, I feel I should've been on a low dose and maybe, I could've prevented being given Lupron, a drug that sends the body into early menopause to stop the growth of the mass ( I was 26). I know a lot of women who have been on Lupron because of fibroids and are now not able to conceive. And as we're drilled the pill is bad and we shouldn't be on it, many women (myself included) opted not to be on the pill and looked for natural remedies for the fibroids and lost the ability to conceive. I'm not saying the pill is the answer, but some women do need the pill for their gyno problems and if it helps them and they are able to conceive at a later time, then it didn't just mask their problem did it? Just a thought...
ReplyDeleteLisa - I'm very sorry to hear about your problems. Coming from a religious stand point, I've had many friends in your shoes, with severe gyn. problems that are resistant to other medications. After much prayer and consultation with a religious figure these friends have decided that "the pill" is their best hope at health and have taken their necessary medication with a clear conscious. Each one was told that going on a medication (whether it's a form of the pill, chemo, etc.) that affects a woman's fertility for the sole intention of protecting their health has a completely different intent than using BC purely for BC reasons. Intent is often key and if their intent (and perhaps yours) is to use this medication to preserve their fertility for as long as possible (because of the results your mention) in order to try and have children at some point than they are doing so with a complete ly different mentality.
DeleteP.S. Many religious advisers that I've known (priests, nuns, etc.) will encourage Catholic women who find themselves in this situation to continue to use NFP methods while taking their necessary medications in order to reduce the chance of conception being achieve while the uterus is not prepared, there fore (hopefully) reducing the chance of terminating a pregnancy unintentionally or giving the women the tools to recognize a pregnancy quickly so that she can consult with her doctor about taking herself off said medications in order to do her best to preserve the pregnancy.
This might not be the perfect answer to these questions, but it comes from the real life decisions of real women.
Thanks for this! This is exactly what we're trying to do with iuseNFP. We'll be sharing this on our FB page :)
ReplyDeleteGreat explanation!
ReplyDeleteAddressing Lisa: I'm very sorry for your loss of fertility. I can only imagine the emotional pain that can cause. If you read back over what she wrote you'll see this...
" NFP empowers women to know how their bodies work; they know when something is amiss, and with a NaPro-trained doctor, they can get the benefit of receiving actual treatment for infertility and other problems, rather than just treatment of symptoms. I think every woman deserves the benefit of real health-care and to have this basic knowledge of how her body works, not just Catholic women."
NaPro trained doctors train specifically to help woman with these type of issues. There are other alternatives to the pill that can help you avoid altogether possibly losing your fertility. These alternatives you may not find from your general gyno because they aren't trained in them, and/or fail to research them. I would encourage any woman having fertility problems to seek out help from a NaPro trained doctor to help her avoid the heartache that comes with such a personal and integral part of her personhood.
All the best!
I loved your post, the only thing that bothered me slightly was you seem to imply that periods of abstinence make a marriage better. That marriages without that lack opportunities to become stronger and deeper. That abstinence gives opportunities for emotional growth that can't be found in non-abstinent marriages. In the past Catholic couples didn't have NFP and many, even now, chose to forgo it and simply rely on God to determine family size. Do these couples have less intense communication or a weaker bond? NFP does not bring special graces to a marriage, being open to life and God's will does. For some couples that will mean using NFP since God has shown them it's His will they hold off on pregnancy for awhile, for others it will mean not using NFP. Either way it is obedience to Him that brings the graces that allow a couple to deepen their emotional relationship. It's not that I don't get your point, but I do think it's important that we don't give the impression that NFP is some kind of holy sacrament.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is certainly true that many couples currently choose to forgo NFP, it is possible that you are forgetting that prior to NFP, faithful Catholic couples were required to abstain from sex for religious reasons. The Church always taught that penitential times (and often times of feasting as well) were times when it was inappropriate (i.e. sinful) to engage in sexual activities. And, in addition to the liturgical requirements for abstinence, there were other reasons that faithful Catholic couples abstained: for instance you can read Saint Hildegard's interpretation of the science of her time to understand that good Catholic couples would abstain for part of the women's cycle out of concern that sex would lead to an unhealthy child.
DeleteNFP is certainly not a sacrament, but for many couples it brings them to a view of sex and a practice of abstinence which is much closer to what the Church has always taught about sex: it can help prevent the idea that sex itself is somehow the essence of a good marriage.
To anonymous: NFP enables both the man and the woman in the relationship to come to appreciate the intricacies of God's design in a woman's body. Even couples who don't use NFP will still have periods of abstinence. Wives have their periods, have babies, or even get colds. Husbands suffer illnesses, too, or occasionally break their arms playing basketball. The point the writer is making is that abstaining from sex doesn't prohibit a couple from growing in intimacy.
ReplyDeleteYou're right Movie Girl, it doesn't prohibit a couple from growing in intimacy but neither does it insure that a couple will. That's my concern - she seems to imply that NFP will lead to an emotionally deeper marriage. I know many many couples who struggle mightily with burden of periodic abstinence and have to constantly fight the temptation not to be bitter, complain or pressure a spouse into acquiescence. The author states that using NFP is "entering into a school of respect for self and spouse," and that NFP is for "everyone who wants to be friends again with her spouse; for everyone who wants to have a profound and satisfying intimacy with her spouse." I'm saying that those fruits are from the graces received by being obedient to God's will (NFP or not), and thus, Catholics who choose not to use NFP or contraceptives are not less likely to have "a profound satisfying intimacy with her spouse." More importantly, since the article is geared toward non-Catholics, we shouldn't attribute qualities to NFP that aren't facts. NFP has so many great benefits that all women will enjoy (and she does a great job of listing some, e.g. no carcinogens in the body, not masking symptoms of medical problems, etc) but I think we do NFP a disservice when we falsely build it up. I do think it's important to talk about the low divorce rate, how it CAN (not WILL) open the door to better communication, emotional connection, etc and how it lead to more mutal respect. My only point was that all too often we see people, in an attempt to educate and convert, glorify the benefits of NFP to an extreme. It's unfair to those who Catholics who practice providentialism because it cheapens their path of obedience and it's unfair to those contracepting couples because it can lead to disappointment if their experience isn't like the one portrayed.
ReplyDeleteIt's Interesting how it's not as common for non-Catholics to know about NFP I believe in Mexico even non-Catholic women know about NFP as a matter fact I remember an Atheist teacher talking about it in school. Great article non-Catholic women should know about NFP.
ReplyDeleteAmen!
ReplyDeleteMy sister-in-law refuses to use birth control pills and she is totally non-religious in any sense. She refuses to undergo the negative health impact of the hormones and other chemicals in birth control.
My brother and his wife have practiced NFP since the beginning of their sexual relationship for this reason alone.
I intend to e-mail this post to my Representative in Congress!! "Women's Health and Reproductive Rights"....if they only knew the truth!