The Deception of Contraception: Finding Fault in an Infertile Age

Until the 1930s, almost every single religious community – including mainline Protestants – stood firm against the growing presence of contraception within the family setting. Today, only the Catholic Church remains unmoved on the issue, considering contraception as something that leads, in the words of Pope John Paul II, to “conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality” (“Silent Voices”). Today, we have lost sight of the negative consequences of birth control, not only because it is so readily available, but also because we attest that the ways in which we raise our families are ours alone, not to be influenced by the opinions of the church, any church. What our overly medicated society fails to realize is that the choice to insert contraception into the marriage bed is deteriorating the very fabric of marriage itself.

A couple’s decision to use contraception to prevent pregnancy can no longer be isolated from the increasing rate of marital problems (i.e. skyrocketing divorce rates) in the United States. Indeed, the divorce rate for those using contraception in marriage (regardless of religious affiliation) currently peaks at around 50%. By stark contrast, couples using Natural Family Planning have a divorce rate of only 4% (“Physicians for Life”). Natural Family Planning, or NFP, involves the husband and wife keeping track of the woman’s fertility rates by charting her temperature and other physical signs on a daily basis; this a testament to the Catholic Church’s traditions of keeping marriage a holy sacrament. Although I still contend that the methods of family planning (be they contraception, NFP, or other) should remain a private decision between husband and wife, I also argue for a more thorough exploration of how the use of contraception within marriage damages the foundation of marital unity, and, by extension, the social and political welfare of the people at large.

Contraceptive drugs are often claimed to be 99% effective in preventing pregnancy. In fact, statistics show closer to a 7% "failure" rate for contraceptive drugs, with the condom itself having a 15% "failure" rate. In contrast, couples using NFP in marriage have a success rate of 98%, meaning that only 2% of those using Natural Family Planning became pregnant without meaning to. With these startling statistics, one wonders how contraception would gain such a footing in our society. The truth of the matter, however, is that the accessibility of contraception has now made the thought of not using it passé. After all, if so many couples are using contraception to prevent pregnancy with reasonably positive results, why is it so wrong in the eyes of the Church?

There are a number of reasons why the Church challenges the use of contraception in marriage, including the high risk of harmful physical effects, and, on a more economic level, the burgeoning cost of supply. The primary reason that the Church favors Natural Family Planning over contraception, however, is that a contraceptive marriage cannot achieve the “oneness” that a husband and wife are meant to achieve. With contraception, the husband and wife are separated before they even get the chance of being united as one in sexual union. Contraception divides the pair – the woman to her pill, the husband to his condom. Why discuss the possibility of having a baby through intercourse when using a contraceptive is so easy to do?

The barriers set in place by contraception negate the intimacy of sexual intercourse in marriage by promoting the idea that pregnancy is an issue that need not be discussed if both parties have taken the correct steps to prevent it on their own. Although I am not suggesting that this is the case for all couples using contraception in marriage – indeed, many couples may keep the walls of communication open by discussing family planning on a regular basis, thereby achieving their own “oneness” in marriage – but I do contend that the surplus of contraception is making it too easy for couples to simply have sex with their partner whenever they want instead of taking the time to discuss the consequences. That is what NFP does – it makes you yield your own sexual urges for the benefit of open communication. It is about listening to your partner first, then your body.

Through the NFP process, the husband and wife are able to give of their whole selves every time they have intercourse, with the knowledge that the steps they have taken to get there have not been as two separate individuals, but rather as one unit. A person’s “whole self” means not just one’s body, then, but also one’s gift of fertility; seen in this way, a person using contraception during sex is withholding a component of their whole selves. Natural Family Planning, on the other hand, maintains that each partner’s reproductive gift will be present during every sexual act they share. By offering their fertility and their body, couples using NFP recognize that we, as humans, cannot control our fertility by “blocking” it with contraception, but rather that we should elevate our fertility by offering it to our partner as a gift during sexual union. Indeed, if fertility can be misrepresented as an infection to be attacked (as it with contraception), then it is no wonder that pregnancy is so often linked with abortion.

Natural Family Planning is just that – natural. Those who use NFP are not working against the way God has created them, but are simply observing a cycle that God Himself created in the woman by limiting their intercourse to the wife’s natural periods of infertility during a month. Although many view the option of having sex whenever one wants as a key “bonus” to being married, Natural Family Planning recognizes that being made “in the image of God” constitutes an awareness of respect both to our partner and to ourselves. As divorce rates continue to climb in America, we must ask ourselves if we are willing to yield our physical urges in order to achieve a more contented family structure, and whether or not we can do that with contraception.