my attention span is poor today, and this is lengthy.
What is this person saying of cases where a couple have tried to follow church teaching (ie...following nfp guidelines)- have found it ineffective and unreliable.
The couple cannot keep having a baby every year, and abstinence/celibacy is not an option.
Both of your responses reflect a humanistic and to some degree materialistic viewpoint on what the author sees as an issue of faith. It is materialistic in the sense that the good that is being considered is the material wellbeing and comfort of the couple and more broadly, the family, rather than its spiritual well-being and God’s will. First of all, abstinence/celibacy is always an option if we believe that we have free will and are not simply hapless victims of biology. Secondly, who is to say what value there is in a human life? Even (and often especially) a life in poverty and suffering can bear fruit that we cannot preconceive. Lastly, we usually only grow when faced with adversity, and as we know, a larger than “convenient” family certainly provides its fair share of adversity!