NFP Saved My Life and My Marriage

By JoAnna  Wahlund 
Catholic Stand

The following is a series of blog comments posted by Heidi in the comboxes at the blog Little Catholic Bubble. I found her story so moving and inspirational that I asked her if I could consolidate her comments into a blog post in honor of NFP Awareness Week, and she graciously agreed. I’ve done some editing to the text that follows, but the substance of the story is hers.

Heidi blogs at Bringing Theo Home, which is about her family’s journey to adopt a little boy with Down Syndrome from Hong Kong. Theo came home last month, just a few weeks after Heidi gave birth to her fourth biological child.

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JoAnna  Wahlund  has five terrific kids here on earth, two saints in heaven praying for her, and a wonderful husband of 12 years who supports her in all things. By day, she is a content editor for a global information company; by night, she enjoys defending the Catholic faith online (in between her duties as chief cook and bottle washer for La Casa Wahlund). She blogs at http://a-star-of-hope.blogspot.com.

HUMANAE VITAE: NFP VS. CONTRACEPTION

By Kevin Aldrich
Catholic Stand

This is the fifth in a six-part series on Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s profound and heroic 1968 encyclical. The series’ introduction is here. The question of “responsible parenthood” as the Church defines it is taken up here. Questions about the unitive and procreative meanings of sex and why they should not be separated are discussed here. Questions of conscience are taken uphere. This post will examine why NFP and contraception are so different, even though they kind of look the same.

For the sake of simplicity, natural family planning (NFP) is any of the methods by which married couples can determine when the wife is potentially fertile, so that they can practice periodic continence (abstinence) if they don’t desire pregnancy. Under contraception, I will include anything the couple does before, during, or after the marital act to attempt to render it infertile.

WHAT KINDA LOOKS THE SAME WHEN YOU COMPARE NFP AND CONTRACEPTION?

What is the same when comparing the use of NFP and contraception is that in both cases the couple has made a decision to try to avoid pregnancy. As we discussed in the last column, the couple ought to have made a decision in conscience that they have a serious (just) reason to postpone having a child at this time.

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Kevin Aldrich lives with his wife and seven children in Springfield, IL. He writes screenplays, TV pilots, novels, non-fiction books and articles, and English and religion curricula. He blogs for the Year of Faith at http://www.doctrinalhomilyoutlines.com/.