In the past, when one judged that one’s wife was not ready for another child, I would imagine that one simply did not engage in the marital act.

Read a good priest’s views on it:

http://www.trosch.org/nfp/abomination.html

This is inline with Fr. Hardon’s position and any traditional priest grounded in traditional moral theology.

I do not think that NFP is like other medicinal advances because while there is always a duty to seek healing; NFP is merely information that informs a decision. The real dilemma seems to be created by the Church’s teaching that sex and marriage have a “unitive” end rather than simply a procreative end. If we draw an analogy to eating, we might say that while meals certainly builds community and fellowship, and while the taste of food and the act of satisfying our hunger is pleasurable, the real purpose of food is sustenance, and that eating for other reasons is ultimately disordered. Some might disagree and say those other aspects are of equal importance. Which is true of sex? Is the purpose of sex procreation, though the act is both unitive and pleasurable? Or are the unitive and procreative aspects both equal purposes of the act? I am personally very confused by this issue.

Furthermore, NFP often differentiates itself from birth control by insisting that it is “open” to life and God. But many people wonder how meaningful this “openness” is when NFP is designed to inform them precisely when it is statistically impossible to conceive life- ie when openness to God seems almost meaningless. (Even if conception is not impossible, the odds are right up there with birth control devices.) The point is that while “openness” seems important, NFP does not seem to foster it. However, “openness” has become the criteria for discerning virtuous sex, and so people naturally ask what it really means? The conclusion is generally that sex is “open” to life and God in an individual act when it either intends to be procreative, or at least is not trying to avoid procreation, and it is open to life and God over a lifetime when it is willing to embrace all the children God intends for them to have. And because not having children seems antithetical to the purpose of marriage, as well as unthinkably drab, the conclusion is simple: In order to be open to God, we should constantly have procreative sex. (Women beware!)

A hypothetical question that may be informative is whether a married couple could licitly abstain from all sex and devote their lives to prayer and service? (It seems like there are examples of this in the early Church, but I could be making that up.) I wonder if the Church would simply say that this is not their vocation. What if that couple that has already had one child then makes that decision? What about 5 children?

I wonder what you think about what people must have done in the past, long before NFP, when it came to “demanding one’s wife simply to have another baby”?

Did married people then refrain from sex altogether? Or is NFP a medical advance which spares us natural trouble, like the alleviation of certain diseases which people had to deal with in the past, but do not now?

Perhaps there is now a difficult prudential judgement about when the woman has had enough time to recover from one pregnancy, whereas in the past, without NFP, one had to put the matter exclusively in God’s hands?

If you leave it up to nature, breast-feeding limits fertility by supressing hormones. It acts as a natural “spacer” which keeps successive children about 2 years apart. Likewise, NFP shows that about half of any given ovulation is infertile cycle. So the question basically boils down to whether this specific knowledge that NFP teachers promulgate to their students makes those the intercourse of those student’s sinful because now it is done with the knowledge that it is not statistically likely to result in children? Is this statistically reality in contrast to a claim of openess?

I am not sure, but I do have two observations…

1) We are called to have children, and we are called to live chastely. Our society is sex-crazed, and gives the impression that everyone should and can have intercourse whenever they want (ie. all the time). Traditional Catholics have to be careful that in the name of a healthy fecundity, they are do not imply that God’s will is synonomous with their sexual impulses. In other words, it may be true that we are only meant to have sex when we are trying to have children, but it is certainly untrue that we should have all the children that result from our uncontrolled desires. NFP has been a blessing to many because it teaches that sex is neither their’s to manipulate, nor a drive to be constantly indulged. It must be subjected to reason in line with the Church.

2. Pregnancy and birth is an incredibly difficult physical experience, in a word it is exhausting. Caring for a new-born is also extrodinarily tiring. I was not really aware of this reality until my wife had our first. Demanding that one’s wife simply have another baby as soon as she can is not compassionate, may be dangerous, and is certainly not wise. It makes sense to wait both until she fully recovers, and also until there is ample energy and ability to adequately care for the present child and the next one simultaneously.