Natural Family Planning

Natural Family Planning (NFP) is approved by the Catholic Church as a morally sound way of achieving and avoiding pregnancy in the appropriate circumstances. Natural Family Planning refers to a group of family planning methods that are based on fertility signs of a woman’s body. Various methods teach couples how to use these observations to interpret the woman’s cycle and know when she is most likely to conceive, thus providing them with the opportunity to either achieve or avoid pregnancy.  Because the well-known “Calendar Rhythm Method” does not take each particular woman’s cycle into consideration, modern Natural Family Planning cannot be compared to this more primitive method.

The Catholic Church teaches that a married couple may use the various forms of Natural Family Planning as they determine and plan for their family size ( Humanae Vitae 16). The spouses must turn toward God in prayer and use the virtue of prudence as they practice responsible parenthood, “With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time” ( Humanae Vitae 10). When practicing responsible parenthood, the spouses must remember that the Church considers children as the primary blessing of marriage and that they must reflect on their motivations so that they are not inclined to selfishness (CCC 1652, 2368).

While NFP and contraception are both used to avoid conception, they have fundamental differences. When contraception obstructs a woman’s cycle or the act of intercourse, it intentionally uses a natural biological process in an unnatural way. This means that by impeding the woman’s natural cycle and the natural end of the sexual act, a couple acts against the way in which God created human beings. It is important to note that fertility is not an illness that must be treated. A couple using NFP to interpret the signs of a woman’s cycle works in harmony with natural biological processes and simply abstain from intercourse during fertile periods and engage in intercourse during infertile times in order to avoid pregnancy.  Although contraception is always sinful, methods of NFP can be used in sinful ways. When a couple uses NFP to avoid conception without a serious reason to avoid children, they do so with a contraceptive mentality. This is an improper use of the science of NFP.

Natural Family Planning offers many benefits to married couples. First of all, and most importantly, NFP allows couples to follow the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding spousal love and the gift of children. While artificial contraceptives have many side effects including depression, allergic reactions, acne, weight gain, nausea, headaches, infertility, increased risk of breast cancer, stroke, and heart attack, NFP does not have any of these side effects. By learning about the woman’s cycle, the couple becomes more conscious of the way she is created and can easily be made aware of any irregularities with the woman’s cycle that may lead to health concerns. NFP, which has a 97-99% effectiveness, gives couples the information they need to more fully understand a woman’s fertility in order to effectively plan for their family. Finally, married couples who use NFP have a 95% success rate of having loving and lasting marriages.