Guest editorial
Natural Family Planning book, by one of the pioneer couples of the movement.
What’s the best antidote to our sex-crazed society? What can we do about it?
If you ask a wise person, you’ll learn that the root of the problem is the separation of the life-giving and love-giving aspects of the marital act. In other words, when the possibility of children is purposely excluded, sex becomes a playground with pleasure-alone as its aim. What results is abortion, homosexual behavior, a man’s disrespect for the woman, child predators and so on.
In a healthy society, sexual misbehavior of these kinds is unacceptable. But once contraception is accepted, history shows that a pandora’s box is opened, and all kinds of sexual immorality become commonplace.
It stands to reason that teaching natural family planning is one of the best antidotes to this problem. Natural family planning (NFP) respects the union of the man and woman in their most intimate moment. When practiced unselfishly, NFP is acceptable under Catholic teaching. When engaged couples take a series of classes in the method, they often find themselves coming off the Pill, or cancelling their plans to use it, and enjoying a new-found freedom.
Pioneers John and Sheila Kippley
One of the pioneers of natural family planning, from way back in the 1970s, are John and Sheila Kippley. Their website is Natural Family Planning Intl. The site says:
NFP is a way of following God’s plan for achieving and/or avoiding pregnancy. It consists of ways to achieve or to avoid pregnancy using the physical means that God has built into human nature.
NFP consists of two distinct forms:
- Ecological breastfeeding. This is a form of child care that normally spaces babies about two years apart on the average.
- Systematic NFP. This is a system that uses a woman’s signs of fertility to determine the fertile and infertile times of her cycle.
Couples seeking to avoid pregnancy practice chaste abstinence during the fertile time of her cycle.
You can teach yourself how to practice both forms of NFP by using the short and easy-to-read manual…
Read more and give a donation at Natural Family Planning Intl.