What Do You Mean, "Contraceptive Mentality"?

At the least suggestion that the use of NFP to avoid pregnancy might be influenced by a “contraceptive mentality”, a chorus of voices takes up the refrain:

“NFP is NOT contraception!”

Okay: it’s not…technically.  A contraceptive action would be one “which either before, at the moment of, or after marital intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation, whether as an end or as a means” (Humanae Vitae, 14).

It’s clear that simply abstaining from marital relations is not a contraceptive act, and there is nothing in Church teaching that generally prohibits a couple from agreeing to forego marital relations at any particular time.

I don’t disagree with this distinction between contraception and periodic continence. But I don’t agree that to say that “NFP is not contraception” also means that a couple using NFP cannot possibly have a “contraceptive mentality”.

Perhaps “contraceptive mentality” is an unfortunate choice of words. We can change that. We can use the phrase “birth control mentality” instead, because the point I’m trying to make is that NFP is, in fact, birth control – the regulation or spacing or even limiting of births within a family.  And while the “means” is not the same as contraception, it obtains the same “end” – fewer children. The secular world knows this; “contraception” and “birth control” are used pretty much interchangeably, and everyone know that “contraception” usually means the “birth control pill” (though there are other methods, of course).

Now I hear the shouts of “NFP is NOT Catholic birth control!” But I respond that it certainly is. If NFP is being used to avoid pregnancy, then it is being used to control, or regulate, the procreation of offspring. And if NFP is being used to achieve pregnancy, then it is being used to control, or regulate (in this case, foster) the procreation of offspring. To deny that the element of human control is introduced here is absurd. (For the purpose of this article, I am choosing to keep the focus on the use of NFP to avoid pregnancy.)

The point is that NFP is now touted as licit birth control (meaning control over the spacing of births), at the expense of the teaching on the need for “serious reasons” to use it, and the virtue of producing a large family. Probably one of NFP’s saving graces is the fact that the method can “fail” quite easily due to the fact that God has indeed seen to it that abstaining during the woman’s fertile time is difficult (God’s providence at work?).
 
When its promoters point out that NFP is “as effective” as various forms of contraception “if you follow the rules”, they employ the same language and imply the same kind of thinking as we see in those who advocate the use of contraception. When it is proclaimed that NFP is "99% effective" there is no other way to understand "effective" except as "successful in preventing conception". Is it correct to call this a “contraceptive mentality”? Really, whether that label fits any, most, or all NFP users is a moot point. In quibbling over the label, we deny the fact that we Catholics have bought into the current cultural myth that family “planning” is better than family “happening”.

In some respects, debating NFP is a secondary issue. Without confronting the "birth control" mentality that is behind it, we remain stuck fighting the "symptoms" rather than the "cause." NFP is only an issue because "birth control" has entered discussions of marriage as an authentic Catholic value. The "extreme cases make bad law" phenomenon is here in spades: what should be an exceptional situation has become a "way of life" – as evidenced by the fact that dioceses and parishes are requiring NFP classes for couples intending to marry in the Church.
  

If I can be a little silly here…there is no "industry" organized around defining all the reasons why "missing Mass on Sunday" can be acceptable. There are legitimate reasons for "missing Mass on Sunday" but we don't have entire apostolates focused on ways to take advantage of the laws governing the issue of "keeping the Sabbath holy." Likewise, NFP ought to be "exceptional”, but it has become "normative."

The discussion of “serious reasons” for using NFP is an important part of this picture.  There is no litmus test for what constitutes a “serious” reason to avoid pregnancy for a period of time, but if you read more than one or two lines of the documents that address this, you will see that they imply a degree of “seriousness” that is neglected in most current discussions of NFP.

For instance, in his Allocution to Midwives, Pope Pius XII discusses the “limitation of the act to the periods of natural sterility” in this way (my emphases):

…[T]he moral lawfulness of such conduct of husband and wife should be affirmed or denied according as their intention to observe constantly those periods is or is not based on sufficiently morally sure motives. The mere fact that husband and wife do not offend the nature of the act and are even ready to accept and bring up the child, who, notwithstanding their precautions, might be born, would not be itself sufficient to guarantee the rectitude of their intention and the unobjectionable morality of their motives.

The intention the couple brings to the situation is important. Thus, the fact that NFP is not technically contraception does not mean that a couple cannot use it with a contraceptive intention. If the couple intends not to conceive…hmmm…you can finish the thought. As Michael Malone puts it in TheCase Concerning Catholic Contraception,

Is one not led to ask: If you are doing your scientific best to keep from having any children at this period in your life – even though God could make you pregnant against your will – can any couple consequently claim, with any honesty, that they are genuinely being “open to life” as traditionally demanded by the Church? (p. 17)

Returning to the  Allocution to Midwives, consider this description of marriage from Pope Pius XII (my emphases):

The matrimonial contract, which confers on the married couple the right to satisfy the inclination of nature, constitutes them in a state of life, namely, the matrimonial state. Now, on married couples, who make use of the specific act of their state, nature and the Creator impose the function of providing for the preservation of mankind. This is the characteristic service which gives rise to the peculiar value of their state, the bonum prolis. The individual and society, the people and the State, the Church itself, depend for their existence, in the order established by God, on fruitful marriages. Therefore, to embrace the matrimonial state, to use continually the faculty proper to such a state and lawful only therein, and, at the same time, to avoid its primary duty without a grave reason, would be a sin against the very nature of married life.

This is a key point, because in today’s society we are constantly bombarded with the myth of overpopulation. This myth has been making itself felt for decades, and it reared its head in Humanae Vitae:

The changes that have taken place are of considerable importance and varied in nature. In the first place there is the rapid increase in population which has made many fear that world population is going to grow faster than available resources... (par. 2)

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There is plenty of evidence that the overpopulation myth is in fact a myth, and perhaps there is some progress in counteracting the falsehoods of the myth. Still, the fact remains that many people seem to think that family size should be limited for the good of mankind, since the earth allegedly won’t be able to support us all.  The answer? Limit family size. The means? Contraception, primarily.

But any form of birth control will do the trick. The important thing, apparently, is to practice “responsible parenthood”. In that phrase “responsible parenthood”, we see another abrupt change in the Church’s view of marriage: in documents prior to Humanae Vitae, the phrase was “generous parenthood”.

Perhaps the fear of overpopulation was an impetus for the transformation of “generous parenthood” to “responsible parenthood” in Humane Vitae. The phrase “responsible, generous, and prudent parenthood” occurs several times as well, but, interestingly enough, the working title of the Majority Report from the HV commission was “Responsible Parenthood”. I’ll be examining that issue in another post.

Still, the bottom line is that even though the term “responsible parenthood” seems to have cast a different light on the procreative end of marriage, the constant teaching of the Church remains, as expressed in Humanae Vitae, that couples

…are not free to act as they choose in the service of transmitting life, as if it were wholly up to them to decide what is the right course to follow. On the contrary, they are bound to ensure that what they do corresponds to the will of God the Creator. The very nature of marriage and its use makes His will clear, while the constant teaching of the Church spells it out.

It seems to me that we need to re-examine the will of God for marriage and return to the active promotion of large families. It’s pretty simply, really: Just don't think about family planning. Just be married, love your spouse, and do what married people do and have done from the beginning of time!

That would begin to counteract the contraceptive…or birth control… mentality of our society. 

Click on the NFP tab at the top of the page for a list of other NFP posts on this blog.