NFP for "Spacing"

[ShannonMcCatholic]

The thing I keep coming back to is this-- would anyone say it is a sin- ifa maried couple doesn't copulate every single day a woman is fertile?? No - as that is ridiculous! Not having sex is not sinful-- as long as it doesn't lead someone into sins of impurity.

Now if a woman uses the signals God made her body have,to tell her when a pregnancy will likely occur if there is intercourse- to either pinpoint when there should be relations or when there shouldn't( depending on if pregnancy is desired or not)- I don't see a conflict-- God did not make women fertile ALL the time-- God did not create us so that pregnancy will occur EVERYTIME we have intercourse.

Also- as a family-- would it be the right thing for me to do to give ALL of our money to the poor? No way-- we have a responsibility to take care of our family- the Church asks that we give back 10%.. It is called prudent giving- we are not limited to only giving 10% if we can afford more- nor are we bound to 10% if that is too much-- the idea is to be giving generously while still attending to the needs of our family without being stingy to the Church and instead choosing tpo own luxury items...

A couple using NFP-- is NOT sinning when they don't have sex-- as that is NOT a sin. A couple using NFP can sin- if they are not using prudence governed by generosity to guide their family size...

 

[Cosmic Charlie]

No you could not, doing that would mean you are just fooling yourself because they are evil in themselves. They no need help to be that way because they are designed to render contraception/pregnancy/implantation of a embryo impossible. If you take the ABC you are in reality saying you are not becoming pregnant.

I am yet to meet someone who thinks that they will do what they can to not get pregnant but let's see if God will make me pregnant anyway. That is rather ridiculous to have your mindset that way, it is a contradiction to use ABC and be open to life, it is down right silly. God isn't going to force a pregnancy on you if you are doing your best by chemically or by using foreign objects designed to have all sorts of backs ups if you do conceive to reject the baby.

He does respect our choices and our free will. Saying that you will use ABC that science has done all it could to render conception and pregnancy, life itself impossible, and saying if God let's it happen, oh well, is testing God, don't you think?

But this science doesn't apply to reproductive knowledge ? We are also fooling ourselves if we believe that without the work done by the medical community between 1880 and 1950 we would have NFP available to us.

This line of argumentation would be a lot more convincing if a women knew clearly and inately when she was ovulating. Without this knowledge and using the knowledge and tools medical science has given her, I see NFP as just as "artifical" as any other form of ABC.

Also, as an aside I think it ridiculous to think that the Master of the Univervise will do whatever it takes to make a women preganent using NFP (and that would take some doing) but wouldn't put a hole in a 50 micron sheath of latex. The whole line of agurement is sort of stupid.
[/QUOTE]
We have explained this a dozen times, because we are for one, talking about intent but also a physical immoral act apart from that. Anything artificial is compromising the act, period regardless of your intent. Combine with intent to close yourself of from life, you are piling sin on top of sin. If you commit no sin in your body by using NFP but in your heart then that is where the sin lies. NFP is not evil itself, but ABC of all kind is.[/QUOTE]
We have circuluar argument going here:

NFP is good because it doesn't break the unity/procreative bond

ABC is bad because its intent is always to break the bond by withholding your reproductive self from your spouse.

NFP requires that you withhold your reproductive self from your spouse at all times in order that if work correctly.

How is NFP not a contraceptive method ?

See point 1.

You say this is my view. I say this is my question. Its the only one I've ever had and no one seems able to give be an answer that gets me out of the loop.

 

[Cosmic Charlie]

I think thats what your missing Charlie - the OBJECT of sex is NEVER comprimised with NFP because when a couple uses NFP both aspects - unitive AND procreative are respected.

I do not think you actually read my post. It was NOT about intentionality.

When couples use unnatural birth control, the OBJECT of SEX is ALWAYS comprimised, so the INTENTION means diddly. The act is ALWAYS Immoral.

With NFP, the intention IS relevant, only because the OBJECT is good - a bad intention can still make it a bad act.

Bold, Italicised, underlined, and color coded for your reading pleasure

I'm going to make this easy. I buy every syllable of everything you say. Lay it out like I'm one of you pain in the butt confermation students:

How, exactly, do you use NFP day-to-day, in a way the avoids using as a contraceptive method and instead uses it as the church intends?

What is different about NFP in object, intention, whatever, that makes it possible for a couple to set around the issues that make ABC immoral ?

 

[Benedicta00]

But this science doesn't apply to reproductive knowledge ? We are also fooling ourselves if we believe that without the work done by the medical community between 1880 and 1950 we would have NFP available to us.

And as I said if you use NFP in a way so you are doing all that is possible to avoid sex because you don't want children, you are testing God.

This line of argumentation would be a lot more convincing if a women knew clearly and inately when she was ovulating. Without this knowledge and using the knowledge and tools medical science has given her, I see NFP as just as "artifical" as any other form of ABC.

It isn't because there is nothing foreign that is being used. It is you and the spouse and God, not you and the spouse and God and rubber, or a chemical or divice. I think you are missing a big picture here, God design the women's body exactly this way, are we wrong for using it in accord with how he made it and not abusing with foreign things?

Also, as an aside I think it ridiculous to think that the Master of the Univervise will do whatever it takes to make a women preganent using NFP (and that would take some doing) but wouldn't put a hole in a 50 micron sheath of latex. The whole line of agurement is sort of stupid.

This is not a matter of can God but will God. Of course he can, but he respects our free will to do as we wish even if it is sinful and damning to us.

We have circuluar argument going here:

NFP is good because it doesn't break the unity/procreative bond

ABC is bad because its intent is always to break the bond by withholding your reproductive self from your spouse.

You can call it circular but I am just glad you finally do get the point. There are two separate sins and evils and issues we are dealing with. Not one big one.

NFP requires that you withhold your reproductive self from your spouse at all times in order that if work correctly.

And for a legitimate reason, a unselfish, not self serving reason, this is fine. Why do you argue against that? Either you have to think God wants one kid after the other regardless of circumstance of situation including danger or he wants you to contracept as you so please using what ever way pleases you because when he is ready he will pop a hole in your condom. It is a all or nothing, either or mindset and outlook that limits God and puts him in a box by saying he is either/or and not both/and.

How is NFP not a contraceptive method ?

It can be, who said it could not be? But it is not in of itself but when man makes it that way. We do have dominion, you now.

See point 1.

You say this is my view. I say this is my question. Its the only one I've ever had and no one seems able to give be an answer that gets me out of the loop.

I have to beg to differ, from my POV, you hold on to this as an excuse, for why? I don't know. You have been answered competently, you reject the answer, this is your God given free will right to do so.

 

[fabuleuse]

What is different about NFP in object, intention, whatever, that makes it possible for a couple to set around the issues that make ABC immoral ?

Contraception prevents pregnancy by altering the fertility of the sex you have. NFP prevents pregnancy by the periodic absense of sex. Any time you do have sex while following NFP, you're not sterilising the act yourself. You're choosing a naturally sterile time. It's a subtle difference but it's there.

 

[Benedicta00]

Contraception prevents pregnancy by altering the fertility of the sex you have. NFP prevents pregnancy by the periodic absense of sex. Any time you do have sex while following NFP, you're not sterilising the act yourself. You're choosing a naturally sterile time. It's a subtle difference but it's there.

The difference is God made us this way- to be infertile at time and fertile at others.

 

[ShannonMcCatholic]

The difference is God made us this way- to be infertile at time and fertile at others.

Why is that so hard for people to get?? I don't understand why it is so hard-- I wish I did- so I could explain it better...

 

[Benedicta00]

Why is that so hard for people to get?? I don't understand why it is so hard-- I wish I did- so I could explain it better...

Dunno- Shannon, it is the easiest thing to get. God made our bodies to work this way- not that way- and he also gave us dominion over nature so, common sense tells us that we can use nature (not abuse it and call it science) in the way that harmonizes with the way God made us.

 

[Caedmon]

Is your intent pure, for reasons that are legitimate and sincere, like illness, high risk, or lack of money, no job, out of work, or caring for a disabled person, ect or do you just want to save instead to buy a new SUV or maybe kids get on your nerves and you like sleeping late, traveling and coming and going as you please, so you get a dog instead and call him your baby?

Wow...

 

[geocajun]

I'm going to make this easy. I buy every syllable of everything you say. Lay it out like I'm one of you pain in the butt confermation students:

I wouldnt call them a pain in the butt Charlie - I enjoy teaching religion to children.

How, exactly, do you use NFP day-to-day, in a way the avoids using as a contraceptive method and instead uses it as the church intends?

Remember that sin among other things is a personal act. We are discussing the morality of the act of sex. Not the act of abstinence.
In the act of sex with no contraceptive, a couple has no unnatural barrier in place to the 2 necessary aspects of sex, then having as it was intended to be. Procreation can happen, and so can Unity.
A couple using ABC has, regardless of intention, modified the object of their sexual relations by removing one of the necessary aspects of sex

What is different about NFP in object, intention, whatever, that makes it possible for a couple to set around the issues that make ABC immoral ?

Let me open this up with a few selected quotes from the CCC - this is to help set up some context.

CCC-1751 The object chosen is a good toward which the will deliberately directs itself. It is the matter of a human act. The object chosen morally specifies the act of the will, insofar as reason recognizes and judges it to be or not to be in conformity with the true good. Objective norms of morality express the rational order of good and evil, attested to by conscience.

CCC-1755 A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances together. An evil end corrupts the action, even if the object is good in itself (such as praying and fasting "in order to be seen by men").
The object of the choice can by itself vitiate an act in its entirety. There are some concrete acts - such as fornication - that it is always wrong to choose, because choosing them entails a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil.


CCC-1756 It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.

Now, the object of contraceptives is to remove the procreative aspect from sex, which automatically causes sex to be intrisically disordered.

Lets step back for a second and think about what it means to be a 'necessary aspect' of something.
A soul for example, is a necessary aspect of a human being - so what is a human being with that necessary aspect called? A corpse.

When we seek to remove the procreative aspect of sex, we get disorder, by its very nature it is disordered (intrinsic) - the very act of sex in this case is working directly against God's ability to participate.


In the case of NFP the object itself - sex - contains nothing to stop God from participating because there is no barrier, other than nature itself in the womans infertility - and it is by design that we can have sex during the naturaly infertile periods.


Now this has distinguished between the two objects - and then we can go onto the evaluate the goodness of the intention - only in the case of the person using NFP. In the case of the person using contraceptives, their intention means nothing as we have seen the object to be bad.

 

[RhetorTheo]

The thing I keep coming back to is this-- would anyone say it is a sin- ifa maried couple doesn't copulate every single day a woman is fertile?? No - as that is ridiculous! Not having sex is not sinful-- as long as it doesn't lead someone into sins of impurity.

Intent matters. If you are not having sex because you aren't in the mood, that's not sin. The question is the avoidance of sex during certain times of the month out of a hardened heart and a contraceptive intent.

 

[RhetorTheo]

If a couple unintentionally is breastfeeding children and that reduces reproductive capacity, they is natural spacing. But intentionally milking for year after year, long after the children are done breastfeeding, to fend off fertility is not natural. Similarly, if a couple unintentionally had sex only during the infertile times, it would be natural and morally acceptable. But I don't see any reason for a couple to have sex only during infertile periods unless they have a contracepting intent.

 

[RhetorTheo]

I don't see how you can intentionaly have sex only in infertile periods without destroying the procreative aspect of sex.

Unless, again, the words have a meaning that is completely separated from their dictionary definitions. If "procreative aspect" simply means "the state of not having artificial birth control in use," then the argument makes sense. But all that does is to shift an absurd justification into an absurd definition. All of the arguments sound like nothing but rationalizations.

 

[RhetorTheo]

But, by using NFP as intented you ARE removing the reproductive aspects of it by avoiding sex during fertile times of the month so how is NFP moral ?

I can understand "NFP is moral because the Church says so, and ABC is immoral because the Church says so." But I find it hard to believe the justifications given for this rule.

 

[marciadietrich]

I can understand "NFP is moral because the Church says so, and ABC is immoral because the Church says so." But I find it hard to believe the justifications given for this rule.

hi again,

This is basically the conclusion I came to a while back. That the main difference was that NFP is licit and ABC is not. So I can tell you I've been there.

Your series of replies, some didn't have quotes, so not sure who was being addressed. If you have any questions on what I said earlier, would be glad to try to explain further. I'm still working it out myself.

Marcia

 

[geocajun]

I can understand "NFP is moral because the Church says so, and ABC is immoral because the Church says so." But I find it hard to believe the justifications given for this rule.

RT, well thats all that really matters, everyone here knows what the teaching is and actually understanding the reason for the teaching is not necessary.
I can continue trying to explain reasons if you wish

 

[Caedmon]

I don't see how you can intentionaly have sex only in infertile periods without destroying the procreative aspect of sex.

I concur. NFP sounds like a loophole to me.

 

[geocajun]

I find it very sad that so many folks in this thread take the stance that NFP is a loophole. It is the moral teaching of the Church that given the right purpose it is morally good - not a loophole.

 

[Benedicta00]

To all those who think NFP is a loophole,

If you think it is a loophole than what? Do you think that we are to have child after child with no regard for the cross that God gives us that may render that not possible for the time being or eve indefinite, or do you think we can contracept artificially as we please?

I have asked the question before but no one provided an answer or an opinion. I'll re phrase it, what do those who think NFP being a loophole think about God making the women's body just the way He did? I mean men are fertile all the time but women are not, why do you think He did that? Did He make man fertile all the time so he can use condemns during the women’s fertile period and or did he make men fertile all the time so a woman can take some chemical or use a device to change when she is fertile? Or do you think He made a women infertile at times so it can all be up to chance if she may conceive on any given occasion or not?

For those who believe the latter, I leave you with this, the mother from Texas who suffered greatly and significantly from mental illness and ended up in a psychotic episode killing her 5 children. her Husband did not believe in any “contraception” at all either.

The are legitimate reasons to space children, postpone a pregnancy for a indefinite amount of time. If one’s spouse life was seriously in jeopardy if she were to have a child year after year, would it be good and holy if she were to ignore that, keep having children and die, leaving her living children with out a mother?

There is a great difference in becoming pregnant with out being at risk and then having something go wrong and choose to give your life for the life of a child, but yet another to test the situation by saying if God wills, it will be fine when God has let you know, there is grave danger involved.

You all must understand that it is not God but the fallen world we live in that can render the circumstance and situations that would make children not possible for a legitimate reason, we live in a imperfect fallen world.

 

[Ampmonster]

"I don't see how you can intentionaly have sex only in infertile periods without destroying the procreative aspect of sex."

because if thats all your doing God can still hook it up anytime. your not limiting him!!!!