FOOD FOR THOUGHT	FAMILY PLANNING
	Fr Francis Marsden
	For 18 Oct.’87

Twenty years on, it is becoming clearer how prophetic Pope Paul VI was in his Encyclical Humanae Vitae on the troubled question of contraception. Many Catholics had, perhaps still have, great difficulty with the Church’s ban on artificial contraception. However, the passage of time is helping to clarify the issues involved.

Gradually the serious side-effects of the Pill have come to light. You cannot conduct blanket chemical warfare against a woman’s fertility system for years without paying some price. Moreover infections and cancers have resulted from the coil and other contraceptive devices.

Meanwhile research into natural family planning (NFP) techniques has progressed rapidly. These use  God-given, in-built rhythms of the human body. The Australian doctor couple, John and Evelyn Billings developed the sympto-thermal method. This combines observation of the woman’s vaginal mucus with body temperature recording. When taught by a qualified instructor to a motivated couple, it has a 99.5% success rate — higher than the condom, almost equal to the Pill but with beneficial, not harmful side-effects. Unlike the older calendar rhythm methods, it works just as well for women with irregular cycles.

NFP is also a great help for seemingly infertile or low-fertility couples. It helps them pinpoint the best times for intercourse and conception.

NFP enables married couples to control their fertility at zero cost. Obviously, the vast contraceptive industries have a stake in playing down these techniques. If NFP became widespread, their massive profits would collapse. Therefore, they work to influence the climate of opinion, spreading the lie that NFP is unreliable and difficult to use. . .“Keep on buying our pills, coils, sheaths, diaphragms, creams. . Don’t listen to this periodic abstinence nonsense.”

Contraceptives invade the marital act, and artificially cut out the procreative aspect. This opens the door to sex without responsibility. If there is no discipline of periodic continence, no mastery of the sexual urges, then impulsive and unloving sexual behaviour can go. unchecked. Hence, artificial contraception may corrode good family life.

More family planning counsellors are coming to the conclusion that contraceptives endanger a couple’s love. After two or three years’ use, many complain of sexual boredom or stagnation. Women especially report, “During intercourse I am only an object, a thing, a means, at the service of my husband’s pleasure.”

Dr Wanda Poltawska is a Polish wife and mother and close friend of Pope John Paul II. She suffered four years in Ravensbruck concentration camp, then became a doctor and psychologist specializing in marital problems at Krakow medical school.

In her many years of experience, the contraceptive attitude destroys love. It can lead to unfaithfulness and bring on disintegration of the marriage. Contraception does not forestall abortion: rather, it leads to more abortions as a back-up to failed contraception.

She reports that contraceptive intercourse is inclined to generate neurosis — increased aggression and hyper-sensitivity in the man, depression in the woman. Nor is total abstinence usually advisable. The only correct solution to the problem of human fertility is periodic abstinence.

NFP involves 8-10 days/month abstinence for a couple, when they are encouraged to express their love and affection for one another in ways other than intercourse. Just as fasting makes one more grateful and appreciative of food, so abstinence increases the quality of sexual union. It leads to growth in disciplined chastity, in tenderness, respect and sensitivity. It requires a deep level of communication and cooperation between man and wife.

The man has to understand his wife’s cycles, moods and feelings much more deeply. No longer can he casually unload responsibility onto her, claiming that contraception are her affair, not his. NFP is a joint decision. Joint responsibility. Joint cooperation. It puts an end to one partner using the other purely for pleasure.

Intercourse becomes “the expression of mutual love instead of the satisfaction of instinct.” “Love grows with the kiss that is given, not with the kiss that is seized.”

These words come from Charles and Elizabeth Rendu, a French couple on the Pontifical Commission for Marriage and the Family. They conducted a poll on hundreds of couples using NFP. The advantages most frequently reported were as follows:

“A deeper love. Meaningfulness of the effort. It is more natural. The wife admires her husband. Fosters respect for the partner. Improved conjugal harmony. Partners are better prepared for the conjugal act. Discovery of. other means to express love. Meaningfulness of continence.”

Even NFP, however, can be selfishly abused. The key question for each married couple is “What is God’s will for us now? Does he want us to be open to having another baby at present?” This needs prayer and discernment. It needs a personal relationship with God. Rather than argue endlessly about contraception, let us make sure the spirituality is right first.

Sometimes, after a painful delivery or post-natal depression, women are understandably reluctant to get pregnant again. Spacing births is sensible enough. However, a wife can pray that if God eventually wants to give her and her husband another child, they may both begin to desire one. His grace can melt their fears and reluctance. The Sacraments are broad and deep channels of healing grace.

A couple who already have four or six children around the house, may feel they have already done their share. They may well be right. Catholic couples are urged to be generous in handing on the gift of life, but not to have more children than they can rear and educate.

Let us be careful not to limit God over much. Cardinal Pironio of Argentina, President of the Synod on the Laity, is youngest of 22 children. St Catherine of Siena was youngest of 25! Perhaps they should have canonized her mother too.

Openness to children is an essential part of Christian marriage. Hostile to this is the DINK (Double— Income—No—Kids) mentality of materialistic career people who want only possessions and no children. In California, there are luxury apartments for DINKs, with squash courts, swimming pools, saunas and every mod con . . . but it is written into the lease that you must not have children. If you do, you are out. This is the sad culmination of sterile selfishness.

Before a couple can contract marriage in a Catholic Church, they must promise that they are willing to have children, if God sends them.

There is an ecological difference between artificial contraceptives and NFP. Rather like modern society, artificial contraception aims to dominate, to control and to override natural processes, thereby damaging human beings. In contrst, NFP respects and works in harmony with the Creator’s design. Physically, psychologically and spiritually it brings many benefits.

By recognizing and respecting God’s plan in their marriage, a couple comes to a deeper relationship with Him. His peace and love binds them together. However, no Catholic couple can rest easy in conscience while using artificial contraceptives. The natural alternative needs effort, but it is much more satisfying.

I would sincerely beg any such couples to learn NFP. It could bring much extra joy and love into their marriage.