Good for the Body, Good for the Soul

This week is NFP (natural family planning) week, coinciding with the anniversary of the release of Humanae Vitae. I don’t often think about NFP, as I’m unmarried. But I do like to bring it into conversations when birth control is brought up, just tiny reminders that there are options not found in pharmacy aisles. As someone who doesn’t practice it I don’t feel like it’s my place to sell it.

However, as a Catholic, I do take issue with how it’s often pitched as “Catholic birth control,” a loophole allowed by the Church to get the same result. As with so many things, intent matters. One must be open to life, even if there are serious financial or medical reasons to space out births. Procreation must always be a component of the sexual act, even if the act does not result in a pregnancy.

However, putting aside the philosophy for the moment, an interesting thing is happening: NFP has started to gain admirers outside of devoted Catholic circles. Women have started to see the dangers in hormonal methods (mood swings, masking underlying health problems, and increased risk of blood clots, cancer, and stroke). That, along with the cost, has led some to seek more natural birth control methods which don’t treat a functional female body as something that needs a medical cure. NFP relies on a woman (and her partner) paying attention to her body. She learns to recognize the signs of fertility and make decisions accordingly.

NFP can be used to achieve or postpone pregnancy. Its use to achieve pregnancy is gaining use among couples who have been on hormonal birth control for years and then decide to have a child. Going off hormonal birth control can create big emotional and physical changes. Learning to know her body’s natural signs helps process those adjustments. 

Technology is making natural methods easier to track and more and more accurate per woman. Recently, a Swedish nuclear physicist made the news when her fertility app, Natural Cycles, was approved by the European Union as a certified method of birth control. Modern NFP methods are 99.6% effective when used correctly. Although I’ll admit, correct use is harder to come by when it rests on each individual’s dedication to tracking and subsequent decision making. But no one is claiming it’s the easy method. 

NFP also destigmatizes fertility. Birth control isn’t a matter that the woman “takes care of.” The couple engages in conversation about tracking and when it is/isn’t good for them to be intimate. Morality and consequence and desire are all open to discussion, and commitment to practicing NFP is a mutual endeavor. 

I think it’s interesting—and good—that NFP is gaining more attention outside of a religious context, because it is so much more than “Catholic birth control.” It encourages respect for the body and respect between individuals.