The crux of your argument seems to reside in the
differences between those who choose to do something and those who
choose not to do something. The couple choosing NFP rightly "choose to
abstain", but the heart of NFP is not when couples abstain but when
they do not abstain and choose to use the conjugal act for
non-physically procreative purposes. Nor is it clear why
non-procreative is different from contraceptive, or how we can call the
not concieving a side effect when it is the purpose of practicing NFP
to begin with.
It is puzzling how an act in natural family planning
which we intend to be non-procreative and is, indeed, because of our
planning anti-procreative, can be called an something like
non-procreative. And when NFP proponents say, "The further intention
to avoid conception does not cause infertility since the act is found
to be infertile on its own", we might note that in actual fact the act
is infertile, but this is different from saying nature intends the act
to be infertile so we can use the conjugal act in a way it will be
infertile. The days that are infertile in a woman's cycle are days in
which nature is working diligently to prepare the egg and move it to
the proper place, and after the fertile days remove it so a new egg can
be prepared. Should we call these days devoted to preparing for
fertility days which nature intends to be infertile, as if she wants to
thwart her procreative designs, or should we call them days which are
accidentally infertile because of the nature of human fertility ?
If
natural family planning involves no intention to prevent an act of
intercourse from being procreative, just why do people practice it at
all? Certainly, refraining from intercourse is not contraceptive
intercourse, but the real purpose of natural family planning is not
refraining, but insuring that the conjugal act is not procreative. How
can an act of intercourse in the infertile period not have an
antiprocreative intention, since that is why the act was chosen for
that time?
If a couple undertakes to carefully plot by
temperature and time when the marital act will be infertile because
they will and intend the act to be infertile, can we say that they have
done nothing to "close off" the possibilities of the act achieving its
natural ordination? Can we say that "procreation is simply not
available to spouses for reasons beyond their control."? They know or
fervently hope they know when procreation is available and when it is
not, and they are precisely trying to eliminate procreation.
If
a couple has sexual intercourse with an openness to procreation-they
realize a child can be conceived, and they take no steps to prevent
this conception - and the act is infertile because, unknown to them,
they did it during the infertile time, then they have left the act open
to procreation. But if they intend not to have a child, and they
deliberately act so as to have sexual intercourse when they know or
hope the act will be infertile, how can we say the act is still open to
procreation? Subjectively by their intentions and objectively by their
calculations they strive to close the act to procreation.
Women
by nature are certainly sometimes fertile and sometimes not. But this
does not mean there is a God-given natural method of family planning,
for then we have to ask why God waited until the time of Pius XII to
reveal it. It is easier and more correct, I think, to argue that the
patterns of human fertility are designed to aid procreation, and not as
a natural means of avoiding procreation. The patterns of fertility are
per se ordered to procreation and per accidens infertile. And in
natural family planning the good of procreation is not available
because we will it to be not available.
But just what is the
content of this total self-giving that can be found in a couple
practicing natural family planning and not in one using certain
contraceptives? It can't be the generation of new life, for that takes
place in neither, nor can it be a subjective giving in love in view of
the children they have or will have in the future, for that can happen
in both cases
If your arguments fail to make a case for
distinguishing between certain contraceptives and natural family
planning, Humanae Vitae and its defenders have been unable to do it
before you. And the reason that these attempts have failed is because
it cannot be done.
The condemnation of contraception is based
squarely and firmly on the nature of the marital act. Unfortunately,
these arguments, which I believe are valid as far as they go, are
equally effective against natural family planning. Let us call this
analysis of the marital act and the condemnation of contraception, the
essentialistic tradition of the Church - meaning nothing more by this
than an analysis that focuses on the essence of the marital act - and
this is a long and venerable tradition. But the initial approval of use
of the fertile periods as a form of natural family planning by Pius XII
in his address to the midwives was not based on such an analysis of the
marital act, and it is a document that would repay the kind of careful
attention that you have given to Humanae Vitae. In it the Pope asserts
the legitimacy of rhythm for a variety of different concrete reasons
like health and economics, but despite the common impression, he never
directly compared the morality of contraception with the morality of
rhythm. What he compared contraception to is the case of a couple who
use the conjugal act also in the days of natural sterility "anche nei
giorni di sterilitá naturale", and therefore "do not impede or
prejudice in any way the consummation of the natural act and its
further natural consequences" i.e., a couple that acts with procreative
intent without picking and choosing days. They have sexual intercourse
"also in the days of natural sterility", but not only in the days of
natural sterility, and this certainly is different from contraception,
and natural family planning, as well. Does Pius XII approve rhythm
because of an analysis of the nature of the conjugal act? I think not.
He does so drawing and developing in a new way an equally venerable
tradition in the Church which we can call the existential tradition on
the use of the conjugal act which said that various reasons can allow
the use of the conjugal act even when there is no possibility of
procreation. |
