Posted on 07/11/2013 1:20:45 PM PDT by dangus
Failure rates of common birth control methods:
Symptom-based fertility awareness ("modern Natural Family Planning"): 1.8%
Cervical cap: 6.7%
Combined oral contraceptive pill: 8-9%
Note: "Combined" oral contraceptive pills combine estrogen-based drugs with abortifacients. So without "undetected miscarriages" (i.e., dead babies), this rate would be higher.
Ortho-Evra patch: 8-9%
Nuva Ring: 8-9%
Diaphragm: 12-16% (depending on source)
Male Latex Condom: 15-18% (spermicide-treated, depending on source)
Coitus Interruptus: 18-22% (depending on source)
Rhythm Method: 24-25% (depending on source)
Contraceptive Sponge: 24-32% (depending on whether the woman had been previously pregnant)
Spermicide: 28% (without condom)
Please note the following:
> Condom use is no more effective than coitus interruptus.
> An 18% failure rate does NOT mean that only 18% of women who use this method will ever get pregnant. It means that it reduces pregnancies 82%. So if a women would normally get pregnant after an average of three months without using a condom, she will now get pregnant after only sixteen months.
> Even presuming failure rates are completely independent, using a male condom with a contraceptive sponge combined is still THREE times LESS effective than modern NFP. (15% * 32% is 4.8%, compared to 1.6%)
Now, I believe that you should consider "typical-use" failure rates. But a lot of people reading this are probably jumping out of their seats to deny that condoms have a 18% failure rate. But the "perfect use" failure rate is still higher than the typical-use failure rate for modern NFP, and still three times higher than perfect-use NFP. And I believe that "perfect use" is completely unrealistic: the male partner has to hold the condom on with his hand while he does a one-hand pushup over his partner. And no double dipping without showering between acts!
Also worth noting, the standard-days rhythm method, carefully used, has a failure rate LOWER than the typical-use condoms, plan B, contraceptive sponges, combined diaphragm and spermicide, Nuva Ring, or combined oral-use contraception, and even perfectly used contraceptive sponges, cervical caps, diaphragms, Plan B, or common applications of spermicide.
So why are so many people so convinced that artificial contraception is necessary to prevent overpopulation?
I believe the problem is this: NFP reminds people of the need for responsibility. But modern sexuality is all about compulsivity. What artificial contraception provides
The discussion is akin to gun control proponents decrying how often guns “go off while cleaning”. The statistics used fail to ascertain proper normal use vs sheer stupidity.
“And I believe that “perfect use” is completely unrealistic: the male partner has to...”
And there we have proof the author is an idiot. If you (men) have to hold it on, it’s the wrong size. Get something that fits and maybe it will work right.
Using a condom is NOT like playing Russian roulette for the simple fact that a woman is only fertile a few days out of the month - and some months NO egg is released. If you still insist on using the Russian roulette comparison, to be fair it would be more like spinning the cylinder, then firing but no ones head is being aimed at. ;o)
She is fortunate to have that blessing. It doesn’t usually happen.
NFP is still birth control.
That which we call a rose by any other name.
How hypocritical to condemn every other form of birth control but the Catholic church approved one.
Shades of annulment......
Or their cycle was not like clockwork, like yours was.
That makes a big difference.
I know far more women whose cycles are subject to external factors, like illness or stress, than not.
Here's the way I explained it on an old Catholic forum:
NFP CAN BE and often IS used, and even TAUGHT, in a sinful manner. Yet it is NOT and can NEVER be inherently sinful as artificial contraception is so.
NFP itself is NOT inherently sinful, and anyone claiming otherwise is not only misrepresenting post-conciliar but also pre-conciliar Catholic moral theology.
To say that NFP is ALWAYS sinful is just as wrong as to say that NFP is NEVER sinful.
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
(Note: The quotes of the early church fathers can be researched in their entirety, courtesy of Calvin College.)
191 AD - Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor of Children
"Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted." (2:10:91:2) "To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature" (2:10:95:3).
307 AD - Lactantius - Divine Institutes
"[Some] complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children, as though, in truth, their means were in [their] power . . . .or God did not daily make the rich poor and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on any account of poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from relations with his wife" (6:20)
"God gave us eyes not to see and desire pleasure, but to see acts to be performed for the needs of life; so too, the genital ['generating'] part of the body, as the name itself teaches, has been received by us for no other purpose than the generation of offspring" (6:23:18).
325 AD - Council of Nicaea I - Canon 1
"[I]f anyone in sound health has castrated [sterilized] himself, it behooves that such a one, if enrolled among the clergy, should cease [from his ministry], and that from henceforth no such person should be promoted. But, as it is evident that this is said of those who willfully do the thing and presume to castrate themselves, so if any have been made eunuchs by barbarians, or by their masters, and should otherwise be found worthy, such men this canon admits to the clergy"
375 AD - Epiphanius of Salamis - Medicine Chest Against Heresies
"They [certain Egyptian heretics] exercise genital acts, yet prevent the conceiving of children. Not in order to produce offspring, but to satisfy lust, are they eager for corruption" (26:5:2 ).
391 AD - John Chrysostom - Homilies on Matthew
"[I]n truth, all men know that they who are under the power of this disease [the sin of covetousness] are wearied even of their father's old age [wishing him to die so they can inherit]; and that which is sweet, and universally desirable, the having of children, they esteem grievous and unwelcome. Many at least with this view have even paid money to be childless, and have mutilated nature, not only killing the newborn, but even acting to prevent their beginning to live [sterilization]" (28:5).
393 AD - Jerome - Against Jovinian
"But I wonder why he [the heretic Jovinianus] set Judah and Tamar before us for an example, unless perchance even harlots give him pleasure; or Onan, who was slain because he grudged his brother seed. Does he imagine that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of children?" (1:19).
419 AD - Augustine - Marriage and Concupiscence
"I am supposing, then, although are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility [oral contraceptives] . . . Assuredly if both husband and wife are like this, they are not married, and if they were like this from the beginning they come together not joined in matrimony but in seduction. If both are not like this, I dare to say that either the wife is in a fashion the harlot of her husband or he is an adulterer with his own wife" (1:15:17).
522 AD - Caesarius of Arles - Sermons
"Who is he who cannot warn that no woman may take a potion [an oral contraceptive] so that she is unable to conceive or condemns in herself the nature which God willed to be fecund? As often as she could have conceived or given birth, of that many homicides she will be held guilty, and, unless she undergoes suitable penance, she will be damned by eternal death in hell. If a women does not wish to have children, let her enter into a religious agreement with her husband; for chastity is the sole sterility of a Christian woman" (1:12).
Martin Luther (1483 to 1546) -
"Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest or adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes into her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed."
John Calvin (1509 to 1564) -
Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. This wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and as cruel as shamefully has thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race.
John Wesley (1703 to 1791) -
"Onan, though he consented to marry the widow, yet to the great abuse of his own body, of the wife he had married and the memory of his brother that was gone, refused to raise up seed unto the brother. Those sins that dishonour the body are very displeasing to God, and the evidence of vile affections. Observe, the thing which he did displeased the Lord - And it is to be feared, thousands, especially single persons, by this very thing, still displease the Lord, and destroy their own souls.
(Examining sermons and commentaries, Charles Provan identified over a hundred Protestant leaders (Lutheran, Calvinist, Reformed, Methodist, Presbyterian, Anglican, Evangelical, Nonconformist, Baptist, Puritan, Pilgrim) living before the twentieth century condemning non- procreative sex. Did he find the opposing argument was also represented? Mr. Provan stated, "We will go one better, and state that we have found not one orthodox [protestant]theologian to defend Birth Control before the 1900's. NOT ONE! On the other hand, we have found that many highly regarded Protestant theologians were enthusiastically opposed to it." )
1930 AD - Pope Pius XI - Casti Conubii (On Christian Marriage)
"Any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin."
1965 AD - Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World - Gaudium et Spes, Vatican II
Relying on these principles, sons of the Church may not undertake methods of birth control which are found blameworthy by the teaching authority of the Church in its unfolding of the divine law. (51)
1968 AD - Pope Paul VI - Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life)
Equally to be excluded, as the teaching authority of the Church has frequently declared, is direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or of the woman. Similarly excluded is every action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, propose, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible. To justify conjugal acts made intentionally infecund, one cannot invoke as valid reasons the lesser evil, or the fact that such acts would constitute a whole together with the fecund acts already performed or to follow later, and hence would share in one and the same moral goodness. In truth, if it is sometimes licit to tolerate a lesser evil in order to avoid a greater evil to promote a greater good, it is not licit, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil so that good may follow therefrom; that is to make into the object of a positive act of the will something which is intrinsically disorder, and hence unworthy of the human person, even when the intention is to safeguard or promote individual, family or social well-being. Consequently it is an error to think that a conjugal act which is deliberately made infecund and so is intrinsically dishonest could be made honest and right by the ensemble of a fecund conjugal life. (14)
1993 AD - Catechism of the Catholic Church
"The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception)." (2399)
I also know that some women lie.
I think the liars are those that come up with birth control statistics that show high rates of success. I know many who got pregnant on pills, and like you I figured they didn’t take them properly. I know women who got pregnant using the Marina- and then find out most miscarry and it seems that doesn’t count as part of the Marina failure rate. I also know two women that got pregnant after getting their tubes tied. I have no idea what is going on with birth control but it seems it is not as effective as it was years ago and it should be more effective.
I have personally known so many that birth control has failed to work for that I no longer wonder why we have so many teen and other unplanned pregnancies- though I am curious why it seems in recent years birth control doesn’t work like it should.
Hypocritical claptrap is indigenous to the Catholic mind.
So much for “God will provide” if He gives us more children. The lack of faith of Catholics is astounding.
What time frame are you talking about? Birth control pills were effective for me for years as well, but I got my tubes tied in 1989 so my experience is not recent. I do not believe pills today are as effective as they were years ago. I know too many otherwise reliable people that claim the pill failed them. I think something is going on with the various forms of birth control, to me they don’t seem to be as effective as they were years ago.
ahhh...nope....the majority of estrogen in streams comes from livestock.
“The authors find that agricultural sources are an important source of estrogens in waterways because livestock produce 13 times more solid waste than humans. The animals can excrete both natural and pharmaceutical hormones. One study estimates that up to 90 percent of total estrogens in the environment could come from animal waste.
www.environmentalhealthnews.org/.../birth-control-not-major-estrogen-s...”
Preventing conception is preventing conception.
It’s just a matter of how you can justify it.
IOW, sex is bad.
And once a woman hits menopause, it's all over, eh?
No kidding.
**The lack of faith of Catholics is astounding.**
The lack of faith of Catholics non-Catholic Christians is astounding.
Oh, I know you will say -- I know this Catholic and that Catholic that contracept. But they are only CINOs if they do that.
Baloney — I had three girls in three years, and God provided.
E-e-e-vil? maybe but erroneous? Does the quality of the messenger affect the message?
The fact that both men and women have a sex drive that needs to be and ought to be fulfilled far more often than once a month, at the time a woman is fertile, demonstrates that sex is for more than childbearing.
It is what makes a man and woman *one flesh* and there's nothing wrong with sex for enjoyment between a husband and wife. It creates a bond between them that they have with no one else and helps cement their marriage together.
Malachi 2:13-16 13 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
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