1. Introduction
2. Responsible Parenthood
3. Responsible Procreation
4. Responsible Parenthood: Teachings of the Church.
4.1 Casti Connubii
4.2 Pius XII
4.3 Vatican II
4.4 Pope John XXIII
4.5 Pope Paul VI
4.6 Humane Vitae
4.7 Letter to the Families
4.8 CCC
4.9 Responsible Parenthood linked to Moral Maturity
5. Natural Family Planning
5.1 Merits of the NFP
5.2 Demerits of NFP
6. Artificial birth control
7. Moral Difference between NFP and Artificial Methods
1. Introduction
The concept of responsible and prudent parenthood is a topic of recent wide discussion. Responsible parenthood is not a euphemism for contraception. Responsible parenthood is not a euphemism for contraception. It only means that the number of children must be determined by intelligent choice on the part of the parents. It concerns the transmission of life of education of children. In fact it implies many things including the duty of right of the couples to plan the size of their family, recognizing their duties that arise from marriage. Such duties are of two types: first of conjugal love; and second of procreation and education of children. For example, physical and psychological health of the wife, age and help of the born children etc may have to regulate the transmission of life. There is a criticism from the scholars that -Church does not consider the modern trend; -Church does not change her position. Before we consider the various aspects of responsible parenthood, we shall review the magisterial approaches towards responsible parenthood.
2. Responsible Parenthood
As an elementary remark is it said that apart from or in addition to procreation the marital act has meaning in itself. Such meanings will surely vary from couples to couples. It is also context specific to a large extent some of the primary meanings of the marital act include an expression of conjugal love, mutual commitment, personal healing and celebration of life. These meanings can be fruitfully and adequately sustained only in the context of marriage. Because in marriage they commit themselves to each other in an everlasting bond. Having said this we have to remark that we can’t under rate procreation as one among many possible meanings. Procreation remains the most direct and principal ends of marriage.
In the contemporary situations couples find it difficult to harmonize the two demands of conjugal love and transmission of life. Conjugal love may sometimes demand control over the transmission of life. Such situations includes (1) medical or physical reasons that would prevent the wife from becoming pregnant anymore. 2) The lack of necessary time between one pregnancy and the next. 3) The demands of upbringing children in view of loving and caring them sufficiently, the couple’s economic situation, social situation, housing and demographic indications. Considering all these elements prudently and generously the couples should select the ideal number of their children. In other words the decision on the transmission of life should be evaluated in terms of proportionate reason due parental considerations of the couples and just and sufficient cause. Having taken their decision, i.e. having controlling for the time being the couples has to revise such decision from time to time. It is an essential element of responsible parenthood. When the situation of children ceases to exist, they have to review their decision.
3. Responsible Procreation
1. The spouses are to be strengthened in their view of the inestimable value and preciousness of human life, and aided so that they may commit themselves to making their own family a sanctuary of life:[28] "
2. Parents are to consider their mission as an honour and a responsibility, since they become co-operators with the Lord in calling into existence a new human person, made in the image and likeness of God, redeemed and destined, in Christ, to a Life of eternal happiness.(GS.50) "It is precisely in their role as co-workers with God
3. From this the Christian's joy and esteem for paternity and maternity are derived. This parenthood is called "
4. The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity, it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self- giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life. (Humanae Vitae.14)
5. A specific and more serious moral evil is present in the use of means which have an abortive effect, impeding the implantation of the embryo which has just been fertilized or even causing its expulsion in an early stage of pregnancy. (Evangelium Vitae.13)
6. However, profoundly different from any contraceptive practice is the behaviour of married couples, who, always remaining fundamentally open to the gift of life, live their intimacy only in the unfruitful periods, when they are led to this course by serious motives of responsible parenthood. This is true both from the anthropological and moral points of view, because it is rooted in a different conception of the person and of sexuality. (Humanae Vitae.16)
The witness of couples who for years have lived in harmony with the plan of the Creator, and who, for proportionately serious reasons, licitly use the methods rightly called "natural," confirms that it is possible for spouses to live the demands of chastity and of married life with common accord and full self- giving. CHRISTIAN FAITH no.2214&2221ff
4. Responsible Parenthood: Teachings of the Church.
4.1 Casti Connubii: From the time of Pius XI, the Xa had accepted the right of the couples to plan the size of their family. Casti Connubii recognized that every marital act does not necessarily lead to procreation; still such acts also licit. Pius XI was actually reacting to the Lambeth conference of the Anglican Church. That conference also admitted that the couples had the right to restrict the transmission of life. The number identified are (1) complete abstinence from marital life. Even if it is practiced it can reduce the quality of life of the couples. Secondly, unnatural or artificial methods are considered immoral and unchristian (no. 56):
Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, to whom God has entrusted the defence of the integrity and purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which surrounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of her divine ambassadorship and through Our mouth proclaims anew: any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offence against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.
So other methods could be used in the light of Christian principles. CHRISTIAN FAITH no.2202-08
4.2 Pius XII while admitting the right of the couples to regulate the size of their family held that in certain cases a pregnancy could be an error or injustice or immorality.
4.3 Vatican II
The council admitted that there can be instances in which the couples are not obliged to harmonize the two ends of marriage namely conjugal love and procreation. For example, psychologically or physically ill wife, then modern expensive life style also may demand controlling the size of the family. In such situations according to GS 51 couples should be led by human Christian responsibility. In planning their family they have to consider first welfare of the couples, secondly welfare of the children, including children to be born.
GS 51: The council realize that married people are often hindered by certain situation in modern life from working out their married love harmoniously and that they can sometimes find themselves in a position where the number of children cannot be increased, at least for the time being: in cases like these it is quite difficult to preserve the practice of faithful love and the complete intimacy of their lives. But where the intimacy of married life is broken, it often happens that faithfulness is imperilled and the good of the children suffers: then the education of the children as well as the courage to accept more children are both endangered.
….the church wishes to emphasize that there can be no conflict between the divine laws governing the transmission of life and the fostering of authentic married love.
……in questions of birth regulation the sons of the Church, faithful to these principles, are forbidden to use methods disapproved of by the teaching authority of the Church in its interpretation of the divine law.
GS no 50 states that whenever Christian spouses in a spirit of sacrifice and trust in divine providence (1cor 7:5) carry out their duties of procreation with generous human and Christian responsibility, they glorify the creator and perfect themselves. CHRISTIAN FAITH no.2214-15&2217
4.4 Pope John XXIII
He appointed a six member commission to study about responsible parenthood in 1963. It was called the “pontifical commission on population, Family and birth.” Paul VI in 1966 expanded this commission to 34 members. After a series of studies and deliberations the commission could not reach a unanimous position. In 1966 it produced a divided report as majority and minority. Very briefly the rather progressive majority group recognized other methods than rhythm method for controlling the size of the family. However both the majority and minority report held that responsible parenthood is a fundamental obligation of couples in view of their life situation. The majority report stressed the objective criteria proposed by Vatican II namely “human person has to be viewed in his/her totality integrally and adequately.
4.5 Pope Paul VI
In 1967 the encyclical ‘Poploruem Progressio by Paul VI admitted right of the couples to plan their family considering their obligations towards the children already born and the community in which they live.
No 37 states: It is true that too frequently an accelerated demographic increase adds its own difficulties to the problems of development: the size of the population increases more rapidly than available resources, and things are found to have reached apparently an impasse. From that moment the temptation is great to check the demographic increase by means of radical measures. It is certain that public authorities can intervene, within the limit of their competence, by favoring the availability of appropriate information and by adopting suitable measures, provided that these be in conformity with the moral law and that they respect the rightful freedom of married couples. Where the inalienable right to marriage and procreation is lacking, human dignity has ceased to exist. Finally, it is for the parents to decide, with full knowledge of the matter, on the number of their children, taking into account their responsibilities towards God, themselves, the children they have already brought into the world, and the community to which they belong. In all this they must follow the demands of their own conscience enlightened by God's law authentically interpreted, and sustained by confidence in Him.
4.6 Humane Vitae
HV began analysing the existing socio-economic situation in which there was scarcity of food, job, housing etc. It also recognized that costly education also demands a control on transmission of life and responsible parenthood (HV 2).
Evaluating the social condition in which the couples live, together with prudence and generosity they have to think about the physical, psychological and social development of their family and their children. In the light of this evaluation they have to take right decision about the size of their family. Planning and controlling the size of the family is not something permitted to the couples but demanded from them by the Church. Only those couple who are conscious and generous of their parental vocation as a convent and conjugal love can take responsible decision on their parenthood. In short decisions about responsible parenthood should not be selfish but generous. If selfish, it is immoral. This is very clear form HV no. 10:
Hence conjugal love requires in husband and wife an awareness of their mission of "responsible parenthood," which today is rightly much insisted upon, and which also must be exactly understood. Consequently it is to be considered under different aspects which are legitimate and connect with one another. In relation to the biological processes, responsible parenthood means the knowledge and respect of their functions; human intellect discovers in the power of giving life biological laws which are part of the human person [9]. In relation to the tendencies of instinct and passion, responsible parenthood means that necessary dominion which reason and will must exercise over them. In relation to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised; either by the deliberate and generous decision to raise a numerous family, or by the decision, made for grave motives and with due respects for the moral law, to avoid for the time being, or even for an indeterminate period, a new birth.
Responsible parenthood also and above all implies a more profound relationship to the objective moral order established by God, of which a right conscience is the faithful interpreter. The responsible exercise of parenthood implies, therefore, that husband and wife recognize fully their own duties towards God, towards themselves, towards the family and towards society, in a correct hierarchy of values.
In the task of transmitting life, therefore, they are not free to proceed completely at will, as if they could determine in a wholly autonomous way the honest path to follow; but they must conform their activity to the creative intention of God, expressed in the very nature of marriage and of its acts, and manifested by the constant teaching of the Church. CHRISTIAN FAITH no.2220&2225
4.7 Letter to the Families
No. 12 presents that sincere self-denial of the spouses is the total self-giving of the marriage. Spouses should be responsible for their fatherhood and motherhood -spouses should take the responsibility of the new life. Mutual self-giving is important -the aim of the total offering of the spouse is a combination of love and procreation. It should be integrated together. Birth control is good for the society, the nation, family, but it should be based on the moral law.
4.8 CCC: Marriage is ordered to parenthood as its crowing glory (1652)
4.9 Responsible Parenthood linked to Moral Maturity
1. Morally correct regulation of fertility (HV 16 natural rhythms)
Biological rhythm which belongs to the natural order
Responsible parenthood, which, according to the Creator’s design, is inscribed in the natural order of human fecundity
The concept of a morally correct regulation of fertility is nothing other than the rereading of the language of the body in truth.
2. Self-denial
Spouses who follow natural rhythms, expresses themselves in a mature way before the demands of responsible parenthood. For instance HV no 21 says that “responsible parenthood is connected with a continual effort and commitment, and that it is put into effect at the cost of a precise self-denial.”
3. Right conscious is the true interpreter
lowering the number of births in their family must be established by taking into account not only the good of one’s own family, even the state of health and the means of the couple themselves, but also the good of the society to which they belong, of the church, and even of the whole of mankind.
Responsible parenthood as an expression of a high ethical value. It is not limiting the children; it means the willingness to accept the larger family
-Responsible parenthood implies a deeper relationship with the objective moral order instituted by God - the order of which a right conscience is the true interpreter (HV 10)
4 Moral Maturity
-the truth of responsible parenthood and its implementation is linked with the moral maturity of the person
One can see the ethical problem here. By separating the natural method from the ethical dimension, one no longer sees the difference between it and the other methods (artificial means) and one comes to the point of speaking of it as if it were one a different for of contraception. They are two methods
5. Lawful regulation
-natural regulation of fertility that is lawful and morally right HV no 21: this self-discipline brings to family life abundant fruits of tranquillity and peace...it fosters loving considerations for each other.
Summary: Catholic health care recognizes that couples should use their procreative capacity responsibly - couples should reasonably decide to avoid pregnancy. They should be provided with appropriate knowledge and skills to enable them to determine times of fertility and infertility so that they themselves can decide when to engage in sexual intercourse.
-an understanding of modern methods of natural family planning increases a couple’s knowledge of the reproductive cycle and thus enables them more easily to take responsibility for their marital life.
5. Natural Family Planning
Natural Family Planning is based upon the biological fact that women are most time infertile. In every menstrual cycle, even when allowance is made for the survival of spermatozoa, during the days of infertility an act of sexual intercourse cannot cause conception.
There are three main natural methods. 1) The Rhythm methods discovered by doctors Orgino and Knaus, in 1924. It is known as rhythm because of the physical rhythm or pattern of the female cycle ovulation. The method is based on the calculation of the expected date of ovulation according to the calendar. 2) Later came the Temperature or Sympto-Thermic Method, which consists in the taking of the body temperature every morning and recording it on a graph: a deviation of half-a –degree indicates the approach of ovulation. These two methods were not taught with sufficient accuracy, so that the smallest error in calculation resulted in a pregnancy. 3) The Ovulation method, first propounded in 1949 by an Australian couple, Dr. John and Dr. Evelyn Billings, and continually developed by them during the last decades of the century, from the insights and experience gained by them in their marriage guidance and counselling. This method relies on the identification by a woman of a symptom which predicts ovulation, namely, the secretion of a particular type of mucus from the glands of the cervix (neck) of the uterus.
There are more than 25 methods to understand the ovulation. (Cf. John Iype, Ningal Ashikkunna Kuttikal, Malayalam p. 33-37
5.1 Merits of the NFP Cf. John Iype, Ningal Ashikkunna Kuttikal, Malayalam pp. 38-45; Felix M. Podimattam, Responsible Parenthood p. 38-39
1. NFP places responsibility on both partners
2. Those who use NFP have reported an enhanced sense of personal dignity resulting from awareness of their own body and its rhythms.
3. That abstinence from intercourse can help a couple learn to have confidence in the strength of their love for each other and to express it in a variety of ways, without that preoccupation with total orgasm which is proving to be a source of tension for many men and women today.
4. That periodic abstinence removes something of the sexual routine expect sterilizing and it does not have the obvious disadvantage of a sterilizing operation.
5. That when properly practiced, it can be as effective as any method expect sterilization.
6. It has no medical risks unlike other methods namely, pills and IUD
7. It does not require regular medical checkups in order to avoid side effects.
8. In this method there is no irreversible and drastic change in the body, no chemically induced hormonal change.
9. No special barrier to male penetration, no interruption of intercourse.
10. Aesthetically and medically, NFP far surpasses other methods of fertility control.
11. Psychologically the couples are satisfied.
5.2 Demerits of NFP : Cf. John Iype, Ningal Ashikkunna Kuttikal, Malayalam, p. 46-51; Felix M. Podimattam, Responsible Parenthood, p. 39-63.
1. In terms of a presumptive standard 28-days menstrual cycle NFP means no sexual relations about 10 days.
Incidently, illness, pregnancy, work, fatigue, and consideration for one’s own mate impose much necessary abstinence. This discipline is inherent, necessary, and appropriate to the couple’s life together. However, when even more abstinence becomes the only means to avoid pregnancy, then abstinence can endanger the couple’s unity.
2. NFP methods force a constant calculation and worry which is psychologically debilitating and tends to undermine the couple’s stability and introduces fear and conflict in their relationship.
3. Since the population is high, the present teaching regarding NFP is irrelevant in practice. There are no enough trained instructors.
4. NFP is highly effective under ideal conditions, it is hardly so in ordinary conditions. Many couples claim to have tried it without real success, and NFP pregnancies do occur.
Recent studies have shown that 48 hours is only the average life span of the sperm, some sperm can still be viable in the mucus of the cervix after the intercourse as long as 7 or s days. Ovum can live for 1 day.
The ovarian cycle of the woman is equally unpredictable.
5. NFP does not promote the ascetic discipline which the clerical moralists believe it will. Abstinence can be enforced by NFP just as it can be enforced by absence or imprisonment.
6. The naturalness of NFP is questionable. Some of the scholars argued that NFP appears to be as artificial as any other contraceptive. The intention is cold –blooded exclusion of children.
7. NFP is based on false biology. It is very strange that procreativeness should be defined only in terms of the operation of the sperm as it travels into the uterus, but the presence or absence of the ovum is deemed irrelevant to the definition of procreativeness.
8. In designating NFP as natural two different things are confused: the woman’s ovular cycle, which is indeed natural in the sense of being a biological phenomenon, and the infertile period method which has been invented by human intelligence and is therefore artificial or manmade.
9. To many married people, there is a betrayal of their dedication precisely in the indiscriminate childbearing on the one hand or the alternative of calendar spaced love-making or total abstinence, on the other.
10. The obligation to limit the size of the family is an ordinary obligation imposed on all married couples by the more basic end of marriage which demands that children be brought up in a human way relative to the social conditions of times.
11. Its openness to procreation is not openness to safe and healthy human life. It causes a disproportionate waste of zygotes and even a disproportionate frequency of spontaneous abortions.
To sum up, NFP is a solution in the case of some couples, but it cannot be accepted as a general solution to the problem of birth regulation.
6. Artificial birth control
Unlike the NFP the couples use artificial methods to regulate procreation. They knowingly control the natural functioning of the sexual organs for not to be fully functioned as resulting in procreation. These methods are against the nature. There are a lot of artificial means such as: Interrupted Intercourse, Condoms, Loupe, Diaphram, Spermicides, Pills, and Sterilization etc.
7. Moral Difference between NFP and Artificial Methods
Even if both the methods are aiming the same effect as to control the procreation there is big difference of morality between them. In NFP we follow the natural order of sexuality. Because the human sexuality it self provide a period of time when pregnancy could not happen. And these ‘dry’ days are not regulated by human, so having intercourse in that time is open to procreation but nature prevents. Thereby persons do not hold the responsibility. But in the use of Artificial methods persons act against the natural order and there by not open to the ends of marriage; procreation. That is why the Church has on many occasions stated the artificial means as immoral. The Church always affirms that every conjugal act must remain open to the transmission of life and that any action which in its anticipation, realisation, or in the consequences of the conjugal act proposes an end or as a means to render procreation impossible, such an action is intrinsically evil. (Humane Vitae 11 & 14) As for artificial means of limiting the family, the popes have on many occasions them as immoral. (Casti connubii no, 56; Humane Vitae14; Veritatis Splendor 80 ) [Further addition can be done after reading class note on Marriage chapter 4 topics no. 4&5]. CHRISTIAN FAITH no.2236 page918
CHRISTIAN FAITH page no.898 there is a topic at the bottom as RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD is very useful for us in answering this question. Especially the first five sub topics numbered;
1- 2214, 2220
2- 2214, 2219
3- 1841, 2215, 2247
4- 2220,2236,.2244
5- 2217
6- 2204, 2225, 2236
7- 2202,2209, 2222, 2223, 2236
1 comment:
Systematic NFP can be used by ordinary couples when there is a sufficiently serious reason to do so. One NFP method you failed to mention is ecological breastfeeding, God's way of spacing babies. Eco-breastfeeding is the only type of breastfeeding that provides an extended natural infertility. Taking nature as the norm, nursing mothers should go one or two years or more without any menstruation; to have a menstrual period within three months after childbirth should be the exception. To get free instruction on The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding and also the sympto-thermal method, one need only go to www.nfpandmore.org to download the "How To" manual. It's in an easy question-answer format and over 90% can learn this method easily from the printed word. If anyone is interested in promoting breastfeeding, there is also a free brochure to download for this purpose. Sheila Kippley, volunteer for NFP International
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