National NFP Week: Part 1 - Why Artificial Birth Control is Wrong

This child is clearly a
product of NFP and some seriously
crunchy parents.

Hello again! After my light-hearted and approachable post on the growing epidemic of juice-loving toddlers, it's time to reach deep into the heart of what makes me crazy again! This is an extremely Catholic, extremely pro-life, extremely crunchy post. Be warned. Still reading? Huzzah!

Of all the things I do, my choice to avoid all forms of artificial birth control is by far the most shocking to most people. In honor of National NFP (Natural Family Planning) Week, I'm going to talk a little about why. What? No birth control? At all? That's right - I don't take the pill, I don't use condoms, and I am against vasectomy and tube-tying. In fact, I think all of these things are immoral. To me, it's the most obvious and honest extension of the pro-life mentality. Almost all forms of birth control are abortive at least some of the time, meaning that they cause a fertilized egg to be unnaturally expelled or create an environment in the womb that makes it impossible to continue growing. If you believe that life begins at conception, that means that these kinds of birth control end life*. Abortive forms of birth control include hormonal pills ("the pill" in all it's forms) and hormonal IUDs, to name just a couple.

*If you don't think of conception as the beginning of life, I would really like to talk to you about why. Maybe you think of it as life, like a parasite has life. My question then is: when does that life progress to the point of having the same rights as a human? Or simplier even, when does it have a soul? Is it when the heart starts beating? When the embryo moves? When the baby is born? I have heard them all, and I can't for the life of me (pardon the pun) understand any of them. Biology says that conception is the beginning. Anything else seems to just be half-hearted unresearched personal philosophy.  But I'll save that for another day.

So what about other forms that don't allow fertilization? Barrier methods (condoms, cervical caps) and sterilization (vasectomy, tied tubes) have some really horrible cultural side effects: they make sex purely recreational, create a false sense of security, and foster an attitude of pregnancy as a disease. The more you look into it, the history of our society and how it has thought about sex for the last 100 years, you see that birth control has caused a breakdown in our understanding of our place in the world. We are sexual creatures. But we are also moral, logical, reasonable creatures. That's what makes us different from, say, a bonobo monkey.

The Duggar Family has become famous
based on their "quiver-full" mentality.
Do they have the right idea? I say no.

This does not mean that I want, or even plan to have, 15 children. Though couples that embrace pregnancy in this way (by not taking any measures to space or avoid pregnancy) have grasped the basic idea of "life is good," they are, in my opinion, missing the point. The whole idea is to love children, from the moment of conception on, and to treat them as gifts to be treasured and nurtured. Having too many children can hurt them all. They may not get the resources they need - financially, emotionally, or even physically - to grow up in the best possible environment. For example, if a 6 year old girl spends most of her day caring for the basic needs of her younger siblings, she is not being allowed to learn, experience and grow in a way that will give her the best chance at a great life. The key is to balance it. Love life, love children, welcome them as the gift they are, but value the ones you already have enough to not "crowd them out."

I realize that I'm simplifying this so much that if this is the first time you've heard of this line of belief, it probably sounds like complete malarkey. It goes against absolutely everything that our society teaches about sex, love, babies, marriage, etc. It took me a long time to get to the point of even understanding - much less believing - this school of thought, often referred to as the "culture of life." I'm not here to convince you of these thoughts with just a few paragraphs. I'm just hoping to open your mind a bit.

Enter NFP. Natural Family Planning is a deep subject. I'm just going to have to write a whole new post on this one. Sufficient for now to say that it's not your mom's rhythm method, it's so medically-minded that it will make the pill look elementary, and it will change your life for the better. How? Here's a fun fact: the divorce rate for couples that practice NFP? 5%. No, I didn't forget a 0.

Got you hooked? Stay tuned - my next post will be a simple top ten reasons why I love NFP. Thanks for reading!