NFP is Not Contraception

In this article, Theo McManigal discusses the difference between natural family planning and contraception, and why they are morally different.

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There are many people who are confused about the difference between natural family planning (NFP) and contraception. They believe that because NFP and contraception often share the same intention, which is the desire to have intercourse while avoiding conceiving a baby, that NFP and contraception are essentially the same. However, this is not true. NFP and contraception may share the same intention, but the means by which that intention is achieved are completely different. The moral object of contraception and the moral object of deliberate recourse to infertile periods are completely different because contraception interferes with the marital act by placing a barrier that prevents the sperm from reaching the egg, or it is an act that shuts down fertility within the woman or the man. NFP does not change the marital act in any way. Instead, it simply tracks the fertility of the woman and uses that information to choose to engage when she is less fertile (or most fertile if NFP is being used to maximize the odds of conception. 

One might ask what the moral difference is between waiting for the woman to be infertile and bringing about her infertility through an intervention (i.e. the pill, etc.). As Christopher West once said it a talk “one could also ask, ‘what is the difference between killing grandma and letting her die naturally?’ Just because something will come about naturally on its own, does not give a person the right to bring that about himself. To bring about infertility is to work against and violate the design of God, and therefore, to offend him (which is the definition of sin), whereas to wait until the period of infertillity comes about for the woman in accordance with the natural cycle is to work with and honor God’s design, and therefore to honor God.

Pope St. Paul VI, in Humanae Vitae, gives an official magistierial explanation of the difference between NFP and contraception when he states:

“Neither the Church nor her doctrine is inconsistent when she considers it lawful for married people to take advantage of the infertile period but condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly prevent conception, even when the reasons given for the later practice may appear to be upright and serious. In reality, these two cases are completely different. In the former the married couple rightly use a faculty provided them by nature. In the later they obstruct the natural development of the generative process. It cannot be denied that in each case the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result. But it is equally true that it is exclusively in the former case that husband and wife are ready to abstain from intercourse during the fertile period as often as for reasonable motives the birth of another child is not desirable. And when the infertile period recurs, they use their married intimacy to express their mutual love and safeguard their fidelity toward one another. In doing this they certainly give proof of a true and authentic love.”  Pope St. Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, 16

Pope St. John Paul II also reflects further on the difference between NFP and contraception in Familiaris Consortio when he says: 

“When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as "arbiters" of the divine plan and they "manipulate" and degrade human sexuality-and with it themselves and their married partner-by altering its value of "total" self-giving. Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.

When, instead, by means of recourse to periods of infertility, the couple respect the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings of human sexuality, they are acting as "ministers" of God's plan and they "benefit from" their sexuality according to the original dynamism of "total" selfgiving, without manipulation or alteration.[90]

In the light of the experience of many couples and of the data provided by the different human sciences, theological reflection is able to perceive and is called to study further the difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle: it is a difference which is much wider and deeper than is usually thought, one which involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality. The choice of the natural rhythms involves accepting the cycle of the person, that is the woman, and thereby accepting dialogue, reciprocal respect, shared responsibility and self- control. To accept the cycle and to enter into dialogue means to recognize both the spiritual and corporal character of conjugal communion and to live personal love with its requirement of fidelity. In this context the couple comes to experience how conjugal communion is enriched with those values of tenderness and affection which constitute the inner soul of human sexuality, in its physical dimension also. In this way sexuality is respected and promoted in its truly and fully human dimension, and is never "used" as an "object" that, by breaking the personal unity of soul and body, strikes at God's creation itself at the level of the deepest interaction of nature and person.”

Pope St. John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, 32

For more on this, please listen to our recent podcast episode “NFP vs. Contraception”.