“The church has a moral problem with contraception itself-it lessens the integrity of the sex act” by mechanically barring the possibility of children, Sweeney said. Why then is NFP not also objectionable, since it allows couples to have sex on days when they know almost certainly they won’t conceive? The church favors NFP because it believes sexual intercourse should always be open to the possibility of procreation, and that barriers to conception, such as the pill, condom or diaphragm, are unnatural and sinful. The longer the period of sexual abstinence, the lower the risk of pregnancy. When the mucus changes, a couple ceases genital contact they may resume sex six to 12 days later, when the unfertilized egg has died. The mucus change means ovulation is about to occur the temperature rise means it has occurred.

“We’re dealing with the reality of real women” who don’t always practice NFP perfectly.Ī woman practicing NFP tries to identify the fertile period of her menstrual cycle by noting two signs of ovulation: changes in her cervical mucus and the monthly rise in her body temperature. “When NFP purists say ‘98%,’ it’s false advertising,” Bender said. Other studies have found NFP to be only 80% effective. When the Pittsburgh diocese advertised its NFP program on radio, “We got a lot of callers, but the callers did not turn into practicers,” reported James Bender, director of the diocese’s family planning bureau.Ĭatholics “don’t really know what (NFP) is, or they don’t believe it’s possible to control their sexual urges, to abstain periodically,” said Walter Sweeney, director of the New York archdiocese’s NFP program.Īlthough theoretically NFP is 98% effective, almost as reliable as the birth control pill, Bender said his program had been able to achieve no more than 90% effectiveness, which means that in a year, 10 of 100 women will accidently become pregnant. The 1982 Survey of Family Growth found only 8% of married Catholic women and 4% of all American women had used NFP or rhythm. Still, few of the the nation’s 52-million Catholics use or even fully understand the method.

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