Natural Family Planning?

[maybeizfundie]

I think one of the tensions between many Catholics and the NFP doctrine is that NFP is not supposed to be used in that stringent, lifelong way. From what I understand (from conservative Catholic family members and many years of perusing their conservative Catholic literature), NFP is an *acceptable* means of spacing children or avoiding pregnancy when there is *serious* cause to do so (extreme poverty, life or death situation, etc). It would indeed be very difficult to maintain for 3 decades with a goal of only ever having two children because two kids are all you feel like having. Some people do it, but many couldn't.

When NFP becomes just a "more natural" way of doing family planning the way everybody else does, then it doesn't make a whole lot of sense being touted as "non contraceptive". The attitude is the same, just the methods differ. As far as I can tell, the advocacy of NFP was not supposed to be advocacy of the average couple severely limiting family size or putting 10 years in between kids.

[liltwinstar]

So, basically, if you're poor or sick, you get permission to have less sex with your spouse. If you're wealthy and healthy, you get permission to have tons of sex and tons of babies. That's...nice.

And yes, I do think that people have a right to want/have more children than I think they should have. I wish everyone was responsible enough to make good choices/decisions about that, but the reality is, it's their choice to make. I guess I'm more accepting of it if I believe that it really is that person's choice - that they're making that decision of their own free will. If I think that choice has been made for them by a religious leader who (in my opinion) butts in where he/she shouldn't, that's where I have a problem.

[Rosa]

The thing about "the pill" is there are tons of different pills. I know a lot of women who switched from pill to pill because of various side effects - weight gain, mostly, but lack of sexual desire too. It's something most of my friends did in their early 20s so I don't hear about it anymore, people have found what works for them.

And the doctor who is on our public radio all the time gave the possibility of not implanting as a tertiary way the pill might work - first, it suppresses ovulation, then, it stops eggs & sperm from getting through the fallopian tubes, THEN it might maybe stop implantation.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/displa ... raceptive/

And even then, I'd LOVE to see someone try to study if that really happens. Because I know an awful lot of Oops babies because Momma forgot one single pill, which means the egg implanted on a day she *did* take it.

[dawbs]

I don't know what you mean by your "own experience" (how would you know if your uterus had expelled a fertilized pill due to the pill?). I'm not trying to be snarky, but I'm truly wondering what your own experience is in this situation.

Probably because I edited-myself as I was heading out the door, I meant to say something profound like "through the lens of my fundie-lite upbringing, close acquaintance with the protestant 'NFP only' movement and the fact that I was still OK w/ hormonal BC from the day I got married until the day I started TTC, here's my take" But I hit delete on only 1/2 of that.

As far as the secondary being rare, it probably is very rare.

IF, however, I believed that fertilization is life and preventing implantation = abortion, I'd probably not be OK with that secondary effect.

For me personally, it never bothered me. But I don't think the logic of women who are uncomfortable with it is *completely* unsound.

[fundifugee]

I think it's because people feel that those items put a barrier between the couple during the 'marital embrace'. With the pill I think it's because there's the thought that if a woman did get pregnant the pill makes her womb inhospitable for implantation and the fertilized egg would die (almost like a pre-abortion - if that makes any sense). I don't know too much on how the IUD or depo shot works to know if they mimic the pill with disallowing ovultion and making the uterine lining too thin for egg implantation or not.

As far as I understand it, this is a simplistic view of what the Catholic Church teaches. I don't know about other religion's teachings.

I think the fear of getting knocked up again would put a total end to 'the marital embrace' for me....or seriously get in the way of it!! Far more than my IUD.

[Austin]

Probably because I edited-myself as I was heading out the door, I meant to say something profound like "through the lens of my fundie-lite upbringing, close acquaintance with the protestant 'NFP only' movement and the fact that I was still OK w/ hormonal BC from the day I got married until the day I started TTC, here's my take" But I hit delete on only 1/2 of that.

Gotcha! thanks :D