Adapted from “The Advantages of Natural Family Planning,” brochure by Father Paul Marx, O.S.B. Ph.D., as appears in The Facts of Life, by Brian Clowes, Ph.D., (Human Life International™, 2001), p. 98.1
(1) NFP does not interfere with the natural reproductive system and process designed by God.
(2) NFP is morally acceptable to all religions and cultures.
(3) NFP avoids the use of mechanical devices or powerful hormones which may have harmful effects.
(4) NFP is among the most effective methods of nonpermanent fertility regulation known when learned and used properly — up to 99 percent, as described in, “Contraception.”
(5) NFP is virtually free of charge, whereas contraceptive and abortifacient methods cost anywhere from $616 to $2,520 U.S. dollars annually. This point is particularly crucial in areas of developing countries where health care is rudimentary and expensive.
(6) NFP strengthens marriage and family. It allows husband and wife to have the dignity of actual stewardship of the gift of fertility according to their unique circumstances. It fosters sexual self-control, which is central and essential to human freedom, true love and maturity. It also sets a good example of chastity in married life for teenaged children.
(7) NFP is aesthetic. Of all of the methods of fertility regulation, only NFP allows the couple to make love as God and nature intended. It is amusing that “lovemaking manuals” try to work condoms, diaphragms, and various messy jams and jellies into the act of making love — “getting rigged to make love,” as one noted gynecologist calls it. It is an enduring contradiction that many of the same people who pride themselves on the “natural” aspects of their lives don’t hesitate to pollute their bodies with drugs and devices, and cannot let the most intimate aspect of their existence be truly natural and human.
(8) Finally, NFP, unlike all contraceptive and abortifacient methods, lets women and men learn about their bodies and work with them, rather than remaining ignorant and subduing them with chemicals. And NFP allows husbands to more intimately understand the psychology of their wives by understanding the nature of their menstrual cycles.
1 HLI always reminds couples that NFP is not simply a method of “natural” birth control. The Church clearly teaches that NFP is the only method couples may use to space births, but even this method is to be employed only “for grave reasons.” In our pastoral care of engaged couples, we must make sure that they understand the mind of the Church on this matter. Note the teaching from Humanae Vitae, paragraph 16, which says: If, then, there are serious motives for spacing births, motives deriving from physical or psychological condition of husband or wife, or from external circumstances, the Church teaches that it is then permissible to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions and to make use of marriage during the infertile times only, and in this way to regulate births without offending the moral principles that we have just recalled.
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