FAQs About NFP

What is Natural Family Planning and how is it different from artificial contraception?

Natural Family Planning is a general term that has been adopted to describe methods of menstrual cycle observation combined with planned sexual intercourse or abstinence, based upon the desire of the couple to either achieve or avoid pregnancy. These methods that make use of periodic abstinence respect openness to life which is an essential aspect of marital sexuality. When devices or chemicals are used to prevent pregnancy, the couple withholds part of themselves while appearing to be fully united. The use of contraceptives, therefore, introduces a lie into the marriage relationship. Pope Paul VI wrote this in 1968 about the use of contraceptives and the detrimental effect upon marriage relationships:

“Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based, if they care to reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificial birth control. Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that men – especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point – have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of contraceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion” (Humanae Vitae, 17).

To summarize, Pope Paul VI was able to draw out consequences from moral principles what could happen in a marriage relationship if artificial contraceptive practices continue to be a part of the couple’s sexual relationship. Since 1968, when Humanae Vitae was released, we have seen the fruits of contraceptive practices in our society. These include:

• Increased infidelity
• Increased divorce
• Increased sexual activity outside of marriage
• Increased domestic violence
• Increased single-parent families
• Increased child abandonment and abuse

In general, widespread use of contraceptives weakens marriage, which in turn weakens family life, and ultimately leaves children of these broken relationships without protection or direction.

How is Natural Family Planning different from the “rhythm method?”

Natural Family Planning methods that are used today are scientifically proven and based upon daily observations of one or more of the observable signs of fertility – cervical mucus, vaginal sensations, basal body temperatures, cervical changes and hormonal changes. The “rhythm method,” developed in the 1930s, instructed a woman to count the days of her cycle and make guesses about when ovulation would occur based upon an average menstrual cycle. Obviously, the “rhythm method” proved to be largely inaccurate because women’s cycles are not all the same. In today’s methods of NFP, Couples are taught to record and interpret signs to determine fertile and infertile phases in a cycle and to apply simple rules for postponing or achieving pregnancy. Here are some of the NFP models and methods that are available to learn both here in our diocese and online:

The Billings Ovulation Method
Based on over 50 years of ongoing research, the Billings Ovulation Method was first developed by physicians John and Evelyn Billings in 1964. Signs of fertility observed and recorded. This method is easy to learn and use and is widely available throughout the world. We offer Billings Method Classes here in our diocese. Couples may register for classes online: https://diocesecc.org/natural-family-planning.

The Creighton Model FertilityCare™ System
Developed by Dr. Thomas Hilgers, founder of the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction, the Creighton Model is a “standardized modification and legitimate offspring of the original Billings Ovulation Method.” It meets the standards of allied health and medical professionals in the field of natural fertility regulation. Beyond that, the Creighton Model FertilityCare System is the basis on which technologies have been developed to diagnose and treat hormonal and female reproductive health issues. This specialty in practice, called NaPro Technology, is used in many clinics throughout the United States by request of women who are tired of being used as experimental research subjects by the contraceptive industry. Synthetic hormonal contraceptives have a long, documented history of adverse side effects, and NaPro Technology is a response to that need for natural treatments backed by decades of scientific research. NaPro Technology is fully in line with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. We now have a Creighton Model Practitioner in our diocese. Shirelle Edghill can be contacted through her website: https://infinityfertilitysolutions.com/.

The Sympto-Thermal Method
Dr. Josef Roetzer developed the first symptom-thermal rule in 1951. Couples track cervical mucus and basal body temperature, along with other signs of fertility and have the option to apply multiple rules for cross checking interpretation of women’s fertility. Couple to Couple League (CCL) is an NFP apostolate originally founded by John and Sheila Kippley that informs couple of the Sympto-Thermal Method while at the same time fortifying the couple in their understanding of human sexuality according to Pope St. John Paul’s teaching, Theology of the Body. Instruction is offered online. https://ccli.org/.

The Sympto-Hormonal Method
Developed by professional nurses and physicians at Marquette University in the late 1990s, the Symto-Hormonal Method uses the ClearBlue® Easy Fertility Monitor to measure hormone levels in urine to estimate the beginning and end of the time of fertility. Instructions for use can be found online http://nfp.marquette.edu/.

My doctor says that if I pregnant again, I could die. Why wouldn’t the Church allow me to have a tubal ligation to protect my life?

Medical complications are serious concerns for the health of the mother and of the baby before, during and after the pregnancy. In prior centuries, abstinence was prescribed for couples in these circumstances, but medical advances in the past century have made it possible to track fertility within a margin of error that rivals sterilization procedures. Research in the area of Natural Family Planning methods have made it possible for couples who have serious reasons to avoid pregnancy to have the reassurance that their sexual activity during the times of infertility will not result in pregnancy. Their practice of Natural Family Planning makes use of the infertile times without communicating through their bodies that they are holding anything of themselves back from one another. Natural Family Planning was designed especially to meet the needs of couples who find themselves in this sort of a difficult situation. Any sort of sterilization procedure destroys fertility, which is a state of health. Medical principles used to instruct doctors to preserve health, but in recent years, ethicists have adopted some of the consequentialist philosophies that pervade our society, such as the principle of allowing a moral evil to bring about a perceived good. This sort of philosophy contradicts our faith and must continue to be counteracted by good, sound principles and the practices that flow from them.

“Equally to be excluded, as the teaching authority of the Church has frequently declared, is direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or of the woman…In truth if it is sometimes licit to tolerate a lesser evil in order to avoid a greater evil or to promote a greater good, it is not licit, even for the gravest of reasons to do evil so that good may follow therefrom, that is, to make into the object of a positive act of the will something which is intrinsically disorder, and hence unworthy of the human person, even when the intention is to safeguard or promote individual, family or social well-being” Humanae Vitae, 13.

Can I use birth control to regulate my cycles?

The therapeutic use of hormones is not immoral in itself. However, hormones that suppress ovulation or artificially regulate a cycle often act as a contraceptive. Sometimes young women slide into contraceptive use within their marriage because they had been accustomed to being on hormonal contraceptives in their teen years for cycle regulation. There is also the moral risk of premarital sexual activity in young women who were put on contraceptives at an early age. Married women may take therapeutic hormones if they are needed for health reasons, but if the hormone prescribed has a contraceptive effect, couples must abstain from intercourse during the time that the woman is taking the contraceptive hormone in order to preserve the integrity of the marital relationship. Natural Procreative Technolgy (NaPro) – trained doctors are able to navigate all these reproductive health issues in a way that best preserves a woman’s fertility while respecting the marital relationship of the couple. A list of South Texas NaPro-trained Obstetrician-Gynecologists can be found here: https://diocesecc.org/napro/

What is the Church teaching on hysterectomies?

If a part of the body is diseased or not functioning properly to the point at which the general health of the body is suffering, the surgery to remove that affected part is, in fact, a great good and a benefit. We are indeed blessed to live in a time when medical technology can safely provide relief through surgery.

“Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good” (CCC, 2288).

If the Church is pro-life, why does it not support the technology of in-vitro fertilization in helping couples to achieve pregnancy?

In the technology involved with in-vitro fertilization, human life is created outside of the sexual act of the couple. This isolates the life-giving aspect from the sexual act and places it in a laboratory where a number of surgically extracted eggs are injected with sperm. After fertilization, a portion of the embryos – tiny, living human beings – are transferred into the woman’s uterus through the cervix. In IVF, because of the high failure rate of these procedures, it has become standard practice to reserve some of the embryos for future attempts. The Church opposes these medical procedures for two important reasons: 1) Because IVF involves the destruction of countless lives on the path to the possibility of providing the couple with a child and 2) The child, conceived in a laboratory, is not given the dignity of being created in the act that expresses the loving unity that is shared between his or her mother and father. Furthermore, the proliferation of this technology has contributed to the habit of viewing children as mere commodities, as indications of societal status, and will inevitably lead toward the practice of couples designing their children through DNA manipulation.

What does the Church say about the use of fertility pills to increase the chances of becoming pregnant?

Fertility pills signal the body to release a number of eggs at one time of ovulation. Though there is nothing inherently wrong with this, couples might consider the physical and moral risks that could be involved. The first is that multiple egg release puts the mother at a higher risk for carrying more babies that the human body was meant to carry. Mothers of multiples are familiar with these risks, and while multiple pregnancies are not insurmountable obstacles, the woman is put into a position of being pressured into “therapeutically reducing” the number of babies she is carrying. It is possible that taking a fertility pill would qualify as a near occasion of sin for many couples. Couples who are struggling with infertility can also be helped by physicians who are trained in NaPro technology. Finally, there are many children who need loving homes. Couples might consider God’s mysterious plan that he might make parenthood possible for them in an unexpected and beautiful way.

Copyright, Elizabeth Nguyen for the Diocese of Corpus Christi. Please request permission to use by emailing [email protected].