If that's what you mean, then you are right. For instance, injecting something into your sex organs to make your copulations sterile, would be wrong even if it were a whopping big dose of your very own natural hormones. Or using a condom to block the fertility of an act of intercourse would be wrong, even if you could pick condoms right off a tree.
It's not a question of "natural" vs "artificial" in that sense. It's a question of using a good means to a good end. If it's a good, prudent decision not to have a baby, then one should do that without attacking a baby (abortion) AND without attacking the fertility (contracepting your sex acts).
It's the latter -----changing the nature of honest-to-God sex ---- which constitutes the objectionable aspect of contraception.
And this is distinguishable from the question: are you trying to avoid/postpone a pregnancy? Because that in itself is not sinful. There can be very good reasons to want to avoid/postpone a pregnancy. And if there are good reasons, one can do this with perfect innocence, as long as the way you do it (the "means") is also good.
What I'm doing here, is distinguishing means from ends. If the end is justified (we're refraining from kids for now) and the means is good (we're refraining from fertile sex for now), then God bless you, all is well.
If my "INTENTION" is to bring home enough money to feed my family, that is a good thing. I may get a job, bring home my salary, and feed my children. The job is a licit way to achieve a licit thing.
On the other hand, I could rob a bank and get enough money to feed my family for a whole year. That is an illicit way of achieving a licit good thing.
The same is true for child spacing. If my children would literally starve if my wife were to get pregnant, it is morally licit to space children until I could afford to feed them.
NFP would be a morally licit way to acieve this necessity.
But artificial birth control is intrinsically evil. It can never be morally licit to have recourse to artificiaql contraception.
So to answer your question, the INTENTION in having recourse to EITHER artificial family planning OR "natural" family planning could be illicit or licit. One may be sinsul, one may not.
However, the method itself, in the case of artificial birth control, is intrinsically illicit, i.e. regardless of intent is it gravely sinful.
However, NFP itself is morally neutral. It becomes morally illicit when the intention itself is illicit.
4 main reasons for having recourse to NFP.
1--Physical/ mental health---a pregnancy could kill you or so physically impair you as to prevent your fulfillment of your duties in your state in life---NOT because of a widening wasteline or drooping skin! Or psychological health, i.e., mom would literally have a nervous breakdown if she became pregnant---not because she "just couldn't stand being home with the little kids all day without the personal fulfillment of her professional job..."
2--Financial constraints---your child will starve if you have another. Wanting a bigger house or designer SUV just does not cut it!
3--work on the mission fields by one or both spouses that would proclude having children temporarily
4--active persecution or war---i.e., you or your child likely to die by coercive abortion, in concentration camp, in acts of war, etc.
Clearly we say these reasons must be SERIOUS, not trivial. Only the couple and their confessor can truly decide what truly constitutes grave reason.
We've had couples sit through my talk on this subject and literally say, "Gee, we thought we were being good Catholics just for deciding to use NFP. Now we realize we don't even have grounds for recourse to NFP," then tell us a month or two later they're pregnant.
NFP vs Contraception
Spacing children may be a desirable goal that does not violate God's laws in certain serious situations such as those outlined above. But the means of achieving the goal differ.
One is intrinsically evil (abortion, abortifacient contraception, barrier methods, sterilization) while one is morally neutral (Natural Family Planning.
In one, an act is performed (sex) but its natural outcome is artificially foiled.
In the other, no act is performed (simple abstinence during fertile times) so there IS no act, therefore the practice is morally neutral.
It is then the intention of using NFP that constitutes its relative moral licitness or illicitness.
If NFP is used in a selfish manner, it too can be sinful.
If it is used only in grave circumstances, it is not sinful.
The difference is real.
Dieting (decreasing caloric intake, the "act" of NOT eating) is a moral and responsible means of losing weight to maintain the body's health.
Bulimia (the ACT of eating, them vomiting) is rightly called an eating DISORDER.
An ACT is performed (eating in this case) and its natural outcome (nutrition) is foiled by expelling the food from the body.
Likewise contraception is a disorder. An ACT is performed (sex) and its natural outcome (procreation) is foiled by expelling the sperm or egg or both (abortifacient contraceptives) from the body.
Contraception is to NFP what Bulimia is to dieting.
But just as dieting can be misused (anorexia) so too can NFP be misused in a sinful manner
You were the person who insisted that “Natural” family planning was more effective than any “Artificial” means, thus convincing me that Roman Catholic teaching could ignore intent even in achieving the same ends.
No, I was distinguishing between contraception and non-contraception. Natural family planning does not contracept. The difference between it and condoms or the Pill is that they do contracept, NFP does not.
The “natural” in NFP misleads some people to think that the distinction is that one is natural and the other is not.
It’s true that the one is natural and the other is not.
But that’s secondary. The real difference is that one contras something and the other does not contra anything. The latter’s naturalness consists in not contra-ing.
NFP is NOT natural contraception whereas the Pill is artificial contraception. One is contraception and the other is not.