"But she will be saved through motherhood, provided women persevere in faith and love and holiness, with self-control."

---1 Timothy 2:15

Natural Family Planning (NFP) is accepted by the Catholic Church for married couples to regulate births when there is a true necessity to do so. Because it is not well understood, NFP is assumed by many to be ineffective.

They remember hearing about the old "rhythm method" of the past and think that nothing has improved since then. And many health care providers today are skeptical of "natural" or "homeopathic" procedures, because surgery, drugs and hormones have become the norm in reproductive care.

When a woman visits a gynecologist, she is typically questioned about what kind of artificial birth control she is using, or whether she or her partner has been sterilized. There are ample pamphlets available on the wide selection of contraceptive pills, injections, patches and hormonal implants, but one would be hard-pressed to find any printed information on NFP in the average clinic.

In a society that promotes preventative medicine, it would seem that NFP should be a top priority in modern healthcare. The health risks associated with hormonal contraceptives are nothing to take lightly. The list of adverse effects on the pharmaceutical inserts is outright frightening. NFP, on the other hand, has no health risks, is cost effective, and is acceptable within all religions.

The Catholic Church does not expect families to produce as many children as is humanly possible, but it does expect families to be open to bringing new life into the world. Why withhold fertility from God, if one has surrendered all else? NFP does not frustrate the marital act of self-surrender and openness between married couples and God, as do artificial contraceptive barriers and hormonal regulators. NFP simply makes use of the natural cycles of fertility and infertility to achieve pregnancy, or to avoid it when there is a serious reason to do so. In NFP, there is always openness to God and to life.

Today a number of NFP models are available, and various studies have shown an effectiveness rate that is in the 97-99 percent range, according to the Couple to Couple League International (www.ccli.org). Outside of direct sterilization, there is no contraception on the market that can claim 100 percent effectiveness. In addition, hormonal contraceptives (pills, Depo-Provera injections, IUDs, patches and implants) all have the potential to prevent implantation of the newly fertilized egg. (Read the fine print of the pharmaceutical inserts). As Catholics, we respect life from conception (fertilized egg) to natural death. Natural family planning causes no interference with a newly conceived life.

The cutting edge NaPro (Natural Procreative) Technology of Dr. Thomas W. Hilgers, an OB/GYN physician and founder of the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction in Omaha (www.popepaulvi.com), has shown remarkable success in treating such conditions as infertility, repetitive miscarriages, pre-menstrual syndrome (and post-partum depression. This technology is both morally acceptable for Catholics and on par with currently accepted medical reproductive practices in terms of effectiveness.

In his first letter to the Corinthians (7: 5), St. Paul mentions periodic abstinence in marriage: "Do not refuse one another except by agreement for a season, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again lest Satan tempt you through lack of self-control." At times God may have plans for us that do not fit our own agenda. Perhaps a future child is destined to accomplish something great in the world.

In a 2003 homily at the Florida Respect for Life Conference in Miami, Bishop Victor Galeone of St. Augustine recalled an interview with Professor Janet Smith, an expert in Catholic moral teaching on contraception. Dr. Smith gave a brief summary of a distressing pattern seen in many American marriages today:

"There basically is no such thing as dating and courtship except in the smallest of religious circles. Now there is 'coupling' and 'hooking up' and 'living together,'…multiple sexual partners before marriage; a two- or three-year period of cohabitation, all the while contracepting; two or three years of contracepted sex after marriage; suspending with contraception for a short period of time in order to conceive the first child; return to contraception; suspending contraception to conceive the second child; then the wife or husband gets sterilized; they get divorced."

This is indeed a very dismal scenario, along with a divorce rate in the United States of around 50 percent (up to 70 percent in California). Based on a scientific survey in 2000 by Dr. Robert Lerner from the University of Chicago, the divorce rate for couples using Natural Family Planning as opposed to artificial birth control was estimated to be less than 3 percent (www.physiciansforlife.org). The positive aspects of natural family planning alone make it well worth the time and effort of serious consideration for married couples.

Yet in today's society, artificial birth control is largely the norm while NFP is considered to be countercultural --- which calls to mind St. Paul's letter to the Galatians (1:10):

"Am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ."

Natalie Kigerl is a parishioner at St. Mary Church, Palmdale, and a professed member of the Order of Secular Discalced Carmelites in Alhambra. She currently works as a registered nurse in the OB/GYN department at Kaiser Permanente, and volunteers nursing and ultrasound services at a pro-life center affiliated with the Right to Life League of Southern California.