What is the difference between artificial birth control and Natural Family Planning? Morally, aren’t they really the same thing?
The Church teaches that, as human beings, our sexual nature is something powerful and special: through the sexual act, we share in God’s life-giving power, generating a new human person infused by God with an immortal soul destined to be with Him eternally. Thus we become co-creators with God; because of this, the sexual act is sacred. The Church further teaches that there are two ends to the sexual act within the context of marriage: the procreative and the unitive. While the sexual act is intended always to be a unifying force between husband and wife — “the two become one flesh” — it must also always be open to the possibility of life should it be God’s will to create a new person. For this reason, any artificial means used to frustrate the life-giving character of the sexual act is immoral. Barrier forms of contraception such as the condom or the diaphragm are intended to prevent fertilization and thus conception. In the Old Testament, we hear of God’s abhorrence of contraception i
