The moral difference between Contraception and Natural Family Planning

Many people have difficulty understanding the teaching of the Church with regards contraception. Young people in general seem to have difficulty in understanding what the moral difference is between contraception and Natural Family Planning. I came across this article today which I thought provided a very good explanation of the moral differences between the two.

It was written by Doug McManaman in 2008. Doug is a Deacon and a Religion and Philosophy teacher at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, Ontario, Canada. Read it at source by clicking here or read it below:

"For the past twenty years I have had to find ways to make the Church’s teaching on contraception intelligible and convincing for young people, and I believe that I have done so - at the price, mind you, of a very dry presentation. It is much easier to teach adolescents about the immoral nature of contraception than it is adults—especially after 100 hours of philosophy. Adolescents do not have a decade or more of contraceptive choices behind them that they feel they must defend, and so they tend to be more open to the truth about this issue - but certainly not so open as to forgo a good fight. That is why I am convinced that the best time to begin teaching people about the moral difference between contraception and NFP is adolescence.

Morality is not about choices that promise to bring about an external state of affairs most conducive to the quality of life one desires for oneself or others. Rather, it is about the making of character. We determine our character, our moral identity, by the free choices that we make, and our very destiny is determined by the kind of persons we have made ourselves to be. The goal of the moral life is to fully become the persons God intends us to be: persons entirely open to the complete spectrum of basic human goods. It is through their freely chosen relationship to these goods that human persons determine their overall orientation towards the Supreme Good (God).

We are not “what we eat”, but we are “what we choose”. If I choose to steal, I become a thief, and if I choose to lie, I become a liar. If I choose to kill, I am a killer. A thief, or a liar, or a killer, has a deficient relationship to human goods, and thus to Goodness Itself (God).

Now homicide is primarily in the will. Although an animal can kill, it is not capable of homicide; for animals have no will. The will is the rational appetite, but animals are not rational, only sentient, and so they pursue only sensible goods, such as the smell of raw meat, but not intelligible goods like truth, beauty, or integrity. Only a sane human being is capable of homicide.

But one need not actually kill anybody physically in order to acquire the moral identity of a murderer. I may intend to kill my wife, hire a contract killer to do the work—one who just happens to be an undercover cop—, and be led to believe that my end has been achieved, when in fact it has not, nor will be. By willingly concluding such a deal, I take on the moral identity of a killer (I am a killer), even though the killing, physically, never occurred. What makes the act murderous is the relationship between my will and the human life it bears upon. That will is contra-life. Morally speaking, there is no difference between concluding that deal with the undercover cop and actually succeeding in killing my wife, only a physical one.

What does this have to do with contraception? Contraception is not homicide—unless of course we refer to the free decision to use abortifacients, which are not, strictly speaking, contraception. What contraception and homicide have in common, however, is precisely a contra-life will. This does not make contraception an act of homicide, but if the contra-life intention renders homicide morally evil, then its presence in the act of contraception will render the latter morally wrong.

But is NFP not contra-life as well? Both have as their end the avoidance of a pregnancy.

Indeed, both might envision the same end, but the means employed to realize that end are morally different. Consider two married couples, both of whom, we will assume, have a good reason not to have another child (at least temporarily). We call one “Couple C” (for contraception), the other “Couple N” (for NFP). Firstly, both couples consider engaging in sexual union.

Couple C	Couple N
1. Consider the sex act	1. Consider the sex act

But they realize that, if they engage in the sexual act, they might initiate new life—and they have a good reason not to. So, they project a possible baby as a consequence of intercourse.

Couple C	Couple N
1. Consider the sex act	1. Consider the sex act
2. Project possible baby is result	2. Project possible baby is result

At this point the couples choose differently. Couple C chooses to have sex and chooses to take steps to prevent the possible baby from becoming an actuality. Couple N simply chooses not to have sex. Consider the table below.

Couple C	Couple N
1. Consider the sex act	1. Consider the sex act
2. Project possible baby is result	2. Project possible baby is result
3. Choose to have sex and prevent baby with contraception	3. Choose not to have sex

Couple N has chosen not to do something; for they have a good reason not to have another baby. And since intercourse is a life giving act, their decision not to have sex is in accordance with reason.

Couple C chooses to have sex, though they have a good reason not to. Already, their act is unreasonable. They then take steps to prevent that possible baby (which they have projected) from becoming an actual baby. This is contra-life. For the act is directed against a basic intelligible human good, namely potential human life. A possible baby, although not an actual baby, is still a basic intelligible human good, which is why it is an object of the will. In fact, all human goods (i.e., friendship, marriage, integrity, etc) are possibilities before they are actualities. That is why the intention to act against possible human life is morally significant. A possible human life is not non-being; for when couples decide to have a baby, they are willing life, which is initially only a possibility.

In the case of couple C, the will does bear upon a real possibility, a bearing that is anti-life; hence the word ‘contraception’. It is the contra-life intention that renders homicide morally evil; by the same token that very intention renders contraception morally evil.

There is a real difference between preventing something from being and choosing not to cause something to be. In the unselfish use of NFP, the couple simply chooses, for good reasons, not to cause a baby to be. It is not possible to willingly prevent a possible baby unless one believes that a possible baby might become an actuality as a result of a life-giving action. A couple that chooses not to have sex is not preventing a possible baby, because choosing not to have sex is not a life giving act—there is no need to contracept an act that is not life-giving.

But sexual intercourse is a life-giving act, which is why contracepting couples take steps to contracept it. A baby is a real possibility if the couple chooses to have sex, and it is against this real possibility that the couple willingly acts. The problem with this is that “you are what you will”.

It is no coincidence that the increase in the production, distribution and use of contraceptives within the past forty years has been accompanied by an increase in the abortion rate—among other anti-life behaviours. Both acts have something in common, namely a contra-life will that defines them.

Finally, there is far more to the immorality of contraception than what I have outlined here. For one, the sex act embraces in itself two intelligible human goods: the unitive good of one flesh union, and human life. These two goods together constitute the single good of marriage. Thus, there is a conjugal meaning to the sex act. Together the goods form a whole, and the intentional attack on one is an attack on the other, which in the end amounts to an attack on marriage. By intentionally rendering the marriage act sterile, the two actually intend to limit their mutual self-giving (the unitive good); for their self-giving is completed in the conception of new human life. The NFP couple only accepts the limitation of their mutual self-giving; they do not intend it. The effects all this has on marriage has been and continues to be documented.

And so one of the most loving things we can do for couples, especially those about to be married, is to help them appreciate the prudence of choosing NFP over all forms of contraception. The Church seems to be the only voice left in the world urging us in that direction."