Natural Family Planning and Future Generations

This is the third day of the 17-day 2012 Olympics. This post isn't about those events. I figure other folks are doing a fine job of covering the world's big sports fest:

• London 2012 Olympics
  (Official website)
• London Olympics 2012: Indian men archers lose 27-29 to Japan
  India Today (July 28, 2012)
• London 2012 Olympics: Ryan Lochte wins 400m individual medley as pool king Michael Phelps loses out
  Duncan White, The Telegraph (UK) (July 28, 2012)
• " 'Use your body for the glory of God,' archbishop tells Olympians"
  David Kerr, CNA/EWTN News (July 28, 2012)
• London Olympics opening watched by record 40.7 million Americans
  Reuters (July 28, 2012)

Instead, I'm going to write about NFP.

Those three letters, "NFP," stand for for National Financial Partners Corporation, and Nurse Family Partnership, but "National NFP Awareness Week" is about Natural Family Planning. The 'awareness week' ends today, so I'm getting involved at the last minute: and that's another topic.

Natural Family Planning, or NFP, is sort of like 'Vatican Roulette;' except that NFP:

• Is being used
• Works

"Vatican Roulette?"

The idea that Catholics have babies because we're too stupid to know any better has been a cherished part of American culture for a long time. You may have run into someone who is American, a Catholic, and apparently clueless about where babies come from. But that individual doesn't represent the Catholic Church.

Neither do I, for that matter. I'm "some guy with a blog," and one of more than a billion of the world's living Catholics. We're a diverse lot:

• "Diversity in Unity: Two Millennia and Counting"
  (April 18, 2012)
• " 'We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites...' "
  (August 5, 2011)
• "Unity, Diversity, and Being Catholic"
  (August 26, 2010)

Getting back to sex, Catholic style, and where babies come from.

Humans: Two Basic Models

I'm a practicing Catholic, so I believe that human beings come in two basic models: male and female. The physical union of male and female is how we get new human beings: and this is a good thing. (Genesis 1:26-27)

Don't get the wrong idea from that reference to Genesis. I'm Catholic, so I take God's creation 'as is.' I think that "...the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God..."
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 159) I've been over this sort of thing before:

• "The World isn't Flat"
  (June 9, 2012)
• "Eden - and - Adam and Eve Weren't German?!"
  (May 16, 2012)
• " 'In a State of Journeying' "
  (January 18, 2012)

"Rational and Therefore like God"

Maybe acknowledging that human beings are sexual creatures, and that babies get started when the parents physically unite, doesn't seem very 'spiritual.' I've been over that before, too. (March 5, 2012)

The Catholic Church says that human beings are:

• Animals
  • A special sort of animal
    • Endowed with reason
    • Capable of
      • Understanding
      • Discernment
    (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1951)
• People
  • Rational and therefore like God
    • Made in the image and likeness of God
    (Catechism, 1700-1706)
  • Created with free will
  • Master over our actions
    (Catechism, 1730)
  (August 31, 2011)

I think that human sexuality is okay: and that human beings are rational creatures, capable of deciding what we do. More the point, that's what the Church says. (Catechism, 369, 1700-1706, 1730, 1951)

Working With Our Bodies

Here's a pretty good overview of Natural Family Planning:

• NFP is a way of following God’s plan for achieving and/or avoiding pregnancy. It consists of ways to achieve or to avoid pregnancy using the physical means that God has built into human nature.
• NFP consists of two distinct forms:
  1. Ecological breastfeeding. This is a form of child care that normally spaces babies about two years apart on the average.
  2. Systematic NFP. This is a system that uses a woman's signs of fertility to determine the fertile and infertile times of her cycle.
     (NFP: Natural Family Planning)
• Couples seeking to avoid pregnancy practice chaste abstinence during the fertile time of her cycle.

I think NFP/Natural Family Planning is a good idea. I also think it works: and it's the method my wife and I use to regulate the size of our family.

Decisions, Children, and Motives

"Regulating" doesn't necessarily mean "limiting." It's possible to use NFP to keep from having children: or make the most of a couple's fertility.

For some folks, depriving themselves of children might be a dire necessity. Others might believe they must limit their family to one or none 'for the environment.'

I don't know if 'saving the environment' by having one or no kids is still popular. That fashion doesn't make sense to me, and that's yet another topic.

My wife and I have four surviving children. That's not a 'mistake.' We like having children. I also think that having children is a blessing: not a 'burden:' on parents, or on the world.

Population Crisis 2012

I still run into warnings about overpopulation, overcrowding, and how awful it is that so many folk live in poverty.

I agree: about poverty. The rest, not so much. Particularly since pictures intended to stir emotions about overpopulation generally show folks with distinctly more melanin in their skins that I have.

My ancestors came from northwestern Europe, and I have no problem with that. But I also do not think that the world would be a better place if folks who don't look quite like me stopped having 'too many' babies.

That's because I take what the Church says seriously: Love God; love your neighbor; everybody's your neighbor. (Matthew 22:36-40; Matthew 5:43-44;  Mark 12:28-31; Luke 10:25-30; Catechism, 1825)

Besides, now that we're into the second decade of the 21st century, a remarkable number of folks have noticed a 'downside' to not having kids: one that should have been obvious. And that is yet again another topic.

Related posts:

• Sex, responsibility, and all that
  
  • "College Kids, '100% Organic Sex,' and Me"
    (June 30, 2012)
  • "Men, Women, Differences, and Equality"
    (May 2, 2012)
    Particularly
    • Women aren't Men, and That's Okay
  • "Sex Isn't a Product for Consumption?"
    (June 8, 2011)
    
  • "Sex, the Practicing Catholic, and Vatican Roulette"
    (June 5, 2010)
  • "Marriage, Catholic Beliefs, and This Catholic"
    (September 24, 2009)
    Particularly
    • Read the Book! It says be Subordinate to Each Other!
• Population and change
  • "Population Explosion, Birth Dearth, and a Changing World"
    (June 9, 2012)
    Particularly
    • Fallout From 'The Population Bomb'
    • Japan's Population Crisis, 2012
    • More Statistics - or - The Incredible Shrinking Countries
  • "My Take on the News: Condoms; Incredible Shrinking Countries"
    (November 4, 2011)
    Particularly
    • Condoms, AIDS, and Getting a Grip
    • Population Crisis, Maybe: Big Changes Coming
      • Human Beings: We're Not Stupid
      • Silly Ideas, Then and Now
      • Big Demographic Changes Ahead
  • "7,000,000,000 People, More or Less: Why I'm Not Alarmed"
    (October 31, 2011)
  • "The Center of 'True Development' "
    (April 9, 2012)
    Particularly
    • Poverty, People, and the 'Surplus Population'
    • 'Helping the Natives,' Culling the Herd
    • Poverty, People, and Getting a Grip
• Social justice
  • "Untouchables, a Missing Bishop, and Charities at Risk"
    (July 13, 2012)
    Particularly
    • Caste, Human Trafficking, and Traditions
      • 'Meddling' With India's Traditions
      • Caste, Law, and Ethics
      • Law, Culture, and Human Rights
  • "Upset Applecarts: A Hopeful Sign"
    (March 5, 2012)
  • "South Sudan, the Táin Bó Cúalnge, and Working for a Better World"
    (January 6, 2012)
  • "Sustainable African Development: And Swift's Modest Proposal"
    (May 6, 2010)
  • "Good News from Africa: But Some People Won't Like It"
    (March 17, 2009)