Authors: Patrick Coffin
Notice the similarity between the word “contradict,” which literally means “against the speaking,” and the word “contraception,” which, as we saw in the introduction, means “against the beginning.” Objectively speaking, contraception is the repudiation of the adventure of parenthood. By raising up a two-sided mirror between the spouses, contraception is a gussied up form of mutual masturbation
The couple knows deep down that a baby could result from a contracepted act of intercourse. They would not necessarily choose abortion; indeed, they may even shrink in horror at the thought. A baby who “slips through” the phalanx of birth control security guards and is born, however, is by definition an unwanted baby—even if he or she is later kept and loved. How so? Because the very existence of the baby was considered and rejected through the decision to disable their sex act so that it would
not
do what it’s supposed to do.
How does all this compare with NFP?
It must be admitted that it’s possible for a couple to misuse natural family planning by declining to view their fertility as a gift and thus to adopt an outlook similar to the contraceptive mentality. Say, for example, a couple with no known sterility problems is married for ten years. They have a heated pool, a big house, three cars, an annual Costa Rica vacation, and yet they endlessly postpone children with no serious reason not to. That couple would clearly not be acting in harmony with the message of
Humanae Vitae
. Still, they sin more by omission than by commission. They may be stingy or fearful of their fertility, but this is different altogether from the sin of contraception.
Pope John Paul II zeroed in on the difference between birth prevention and birth regulation in his apostolic exhortation on the Christian family,
Familiaris Consortio
(1981). The following passage is a good example of what happens when you think deeply, and not just feel deeply, about the important things in life. The Holy Father approaches the issue by asking how it affects the persons involved from a subjective perspective, which is quite different than from an objective law or doctrine perspective. Characteristically dense but rich in meaning, he is worth quoting at some length:
When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as “arbiters” of the divine plan and they “manipulate” and degrade human sexuality—and with it themselves and their married partner—by altering its value of “total” self-giving. Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.
When, instead, by means of recourse to periods of infertility, the couple respect the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings of human sexuality, they are acting as “ministers” of God’s plan and they “benefit from” their sexuality according to the original dynamism of “total” self-giving, without manipulation or alteration. (
FC
32)
Notice the contrast the Holy Father makes here between the contracepting couple being
arbiters
who
manipulate
, and couples using NFP who are
ministers
of God’s plan and who benefit from the sexual experience of
total self-giving
represented by respecting both meanings of sex. The contrast shows an oil-and-water difference both in subjective attitude and in objective behavior. He then concludes:
In the light of the experience of many couples and of the data provided by the different human sciences, theological reflection is able to perceive and is called to study further the difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle: it is a difference which is much wider and states that the two mentalities at work in the two means of birth regulation reflect two entirely different anthropologies. (FC 32)
When NFP couples have just reasons
1
to avoid bringing a new child into the world at a given time, they simply monitor the bodily signs of female fertility, and, during days known to be fertile, they choose to show their love in non-genital ways. Each time they bodily renew their marriage covenant, they are open to new life, even if they foreknow that chances are slim that they will conceive during sex in the infertile period. Using a poker comparison, such couples treat God as a partner with whom they’re willing to share high-value cards, whereas contracepting couples treat God as an opponent they want to defeat. Another way to say this is to say that NFP couples never have unwanted children, only sometimes unplanned ones.
Some claim that sex on a day known to be infertile is the same thing as using birth control in general. The key difference is that God Himself designed the human female with a natural rhythm of fertility and infertility, and this knowledge merely determines the timing of an act of intercourse. It doesn’t involve the desecration of any such acts.
God arranged this monthly ebb and flow. His creatures are free to enter into its dance, either genitally or non-genitally as their life situation warrants. Most people don’t look at it this way, but since ovulation occurs only one day a month (abstention usually lasts five to ten days, depending on the duration of the fertile phase), the divine design actually favors the enjoyment of unity and sexual satisfaction over the procreative meaning by a hefty margin!
The attack on the unitive meaning is also real, but it’s subtle and more difficult to prove. This does not make it less real. If you sit in the same room with an exposed chunk of radium, you’re really being affected by the radiation even though you may feel absolutely no sensible reaction. An invisible effect is not the same as a non-existent one.
The exact opposite of this would be the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Even though a battery of biochemical tests done to the consecrated Host would detect nothing beyond the accidental qualities of unleavened bread, Jesus taught us He is really
there
, and that the species of bread are really
not there
.
In the use of NFP, not one sex act is ever manipulated or thwarted. What such couples say to God is, “Father, we have prayerfully discerned our life situation and we believe we ought not conceive at this time. But we want to honor you as the true Lord of Life. In partnership with you, we enter into this embrace trusting that, if it be your will to bless it with a child, we will joyfully accept him or her.” On fertile days, they do stuff not involving the genitals. Start that list with Scrabble.
NFP involves the pursuit of goods other than the good of a new human being. Contraception involves sterilizing an act of intercourse that is feared to be fertile. Beyond noting the biological signs of fertility, NFP involves no action at all. In this case, a non-action is not immoral. NFP is non-procreative sex; contraception is anti-procreative sex.
If the Catholic Church really taught that couples must consciously wish that each and every act of intercourse result in pregnancy, then the doctrine would forbid intercourse on infertile days!
There is solid statistical evidence that couples living the NFP lifestyle are far, far less likely to divorce than those using birth control. Elzbieta Wojcik cites the extraordinary finding by an Austrian doctor named Josef Rotzer who tracked fourteen hundred NFP users over twenty years and found a divorce rate among them of zero percent.
2
There has not yet been a large amount of objective research done on the role of birth control in the skyrocketing divorce rate since the late 1960s, although sociologist Robert Michael attributes roughly half of all divorces to the explosion of contraceptive use in the decade that straddled
Humanae Vitae
.
3
It takes a certain combination of blindness and boldness to refuse to see the causal role played by contraception in the high divorce rate, which sprouted up after Paul VI’s encyclical was thrown under the bus. The Holy Father himself saw it coming:
Indeed it is to be feared that husbands who become accustomed to contraceptive practices will lose respect for their wives. They may come to disregard their wives’ psychological and physical equilibrium and use their wives as instruments for serving their own desires. (HV 17)
How vindicated he has been as a prophet. Surveying the emotional and social wreckage forty years later, we can see that the causal connection is not so mysterious. Ironically, much of the research documenting the empirical evidence over the past forty years has been done by secular scientists.
4
If the only reason for marital stability is that most are serious Catholics, why do other “serious Catholics,” who yet dissent from
Humanae Vitae
, divorce at higher rates than their NFP-loving Catholic brethren?
The short answer: there is something more profound at work. Couples who use NFP must have an all-important conversation each month. Will we have another baby? Why not? They regularly tap into the very reality that differentiates their relationship from every other relationship. The natural cycle of the wife, with its silent rhythm of
now
and
not yet
, becomes the object of intimate and even affectionate knowledge of the couple. When they renew their marriage in sexual union, they are free from worrying about whether their effort to sabotage it will fail. With
sex au naturel
, this mental intrusion does not exist.
On the other hand, contracepting couples have no heightened expectation of pregnancy during fertile days, and hence no monthly conversation about new babies. Their sex life—which was supposed to ignite into erotic delights only dreamed of by Viagra ad men—can easily peter out over time. By contrast, NFP couples tend to be allergic to the very language of birth control, which is to say the language of protection.
Think about what this communicates. Protected against … what harm? In the winter, we need protection against the cold; in summer, against the heat; in war, against the enemy. Sexual intercourse, says birth control, needs protection from the potential alien invader otherwise known as Junior. Contraception has not-so-subtly redefined children as the unspoken enemy of true romance.
We close with five simple analogies that highlight the moral difference between natural family planning and contraception:
Dieting
. I don’t know the origin of this one, and, like all analogies, it’s not perfect, but it makes instant sense to most people when they hear it. We touched on it in Chapter Six. Eating is to the individual what sexual intercourse is to the race: each sustains. But if you want to lose weight, you diet, i.e., you abstain from food. You don’t eat and then stick a spoon down your throat to induce vomiting. Such a person acts in a way that appears to respect the natural end of eating, but then frustrates its power while simultaneously enjoying its pleasure. This condition is called bulimia, which is an eating disorder. In light of natural law, contraception is a sexual disorder.
Speaking
. Mary Rosera Joyce develops this at some length, in one of the earliest philosophical defenses of
Humanae Vitae
.
5
We all recognize that others deserve to hear the truth from us when we speak to them, especially our close friends and family. But some occasions call for silence or prudence, as when a technically “truthful” word would hurt the person. Still, we must never lie, which is the use of words to deceive another. Silence is not the same as lying.
In this analogy, contraception is the equivalent of lying; NFP the equivalent of remaining silent. John Paul II sums this up by saying that the body has its own language of love, and contraception is its lie.
Praying
. The first principle in any spiritual life is that one must pray. Prayer is the lifeblood of one’s relationship with God, calling out to Him by name, mentally affirming one’s love for Him. But at times in daily life (the majority of the time, actually), we cannot pray directly or consciously. Yet we must never fake it for show. Obviously, we must not blaspheme, either by taking the Lord’s name in vain or by playacting. On the bodily, interpersonal level, contraception is a kind of blasphemy.