No Reason to Reject Standard Days Method

WASHINGTON, D.C., JAN. 25, 2012 (Zenit.org ).- Here is a question on bioethics asked by a ZENIT reader and answered by the fellows of the Culture of Life Foundation.

Q: The Standard Days Method (SDM) of Natural Family Planning (NFP) was introduced by Georgetown University and uses a bead counting method. Some Catholic doctors and priests have criticized the SDM for some/all of the following reasons:

1. It is not natural because a computer model was used to calculate the days of abstinence.

2. It is endorsed by USAID (which has links to abortion funding).

3. The original research paper left open the possibility of using a back-up method during the fertile period.

My question is: Can Catholic licitly teach and practice the SDM? -- Fr. JM, Southeast Asia

E. Christian Brugger offers the following response:

The Standard Days Method of fertility awareness is a newer and more precise variation of the older calendar (rhythm) method that used the length of a woman's menstrual cycle to estimate when fertility was most likely to occur.

Promoters of the SDM state that the newer method is only reliable for women whose cycles range in length from 26 to 32 days. Women outside this range are encouraged to use another method. Those who fall into that range and who wish to avoid pregnancy are advised to abstain from intercourse on days 8-19 of their cycle. These are the days, according to the method, when they are most likely to conceive. SDM literature reports that when the method is used correctly it has a 95% rate of effectivity.

WASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 11, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Anyone interested in the rise of the phenomenon of public dissent by Catholics from the Church’s moral teaching in the last 40 years is familiar with the controversy generated by the publication of the papal encyclical "Humanae Vitae" issued by Pope Paul VI on July 25, 1968.

That publication was preceded by five years of careful review on the part of the Pope on all sorts of questions related to the regulation of birth. Part of that review was entrusted to a study group made up of ecclesiastics and experts, popularly referred to as the "Papal birth control commission."

Patrick McCrystal’s Who’s at the Center of YOUR Marriage…The Pill or Jesus Christ? Contraception’s Disintegrating Effect on Marital Harmony, is a very helpful book, rooted in the author’s and his wife’s personal experiences and research. In 1993 McCrystal, an Irish pharmacist, resigned his position in an Irish drugstore rather than fill prescriptions for the “contraceptive” pill.  Disappointed to find that no one would hire a pharmacist with pro-life views in “Catholic” Ireland, McCrystal’s profession led him to a new vocation. He and his wife Therese became actively involved in the Ireland Branch of Human Life International, where he served as its Director from 1997 to 2004 and decided to write this book in 2008, upon the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae. The book was published in 2009 in Dublin by Human Life International Ireland.

WASHINGTON, D.C., DEC. 1, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Now that the media furor has subsided regarding Benedict XVI's remarks about male prostitutes and condoms, I thought a brief consideration of one relevant unsettled question in Catholic moral theology might be valuable to ZENIT readers.

The journalist Peter Seewald and Pope Benedict are named as co-authors of the book, Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times, published by Ignatius Press. In it Seewald asks Benedict a host of questions on such matters as these: What caused the clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church? Was there a "cover up"? Have you considered resigning? Does affirming the goodness of the human body mean a plea for "better sex"? Can there be a genuine dialogue with Islam? Should the Church rethink Catholic teaching on priestly celibacy, women priests, contraception, and same-sex relationships? Is there a schism in the Catholic Church? Is there any hope for Christian unity? How can the Pope claim to be "infallible"? Is there a "dictatorship of relativism" today? [1]

WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPT. 8, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a question on bioethics asked by a ZENIT reader and answered by the fellows of the Culture of Life Foundation.

Q: If a husband and wife have a baby as a result of contracepted sex, was their marriage consummated?

What if spouses use contraception intending to minimize but not entirely impede the possibility of procreation? Have they contracepted? Especially if they actually conceive a baby as a result of the behavior?

How much in other words does your argument rely on the physical act of contraception as blocking consummation and how much are you presuming that the act shows a particular intention that would foreclose consummation? Maggie Gallagher -- Washington, D.C. (http://www.marriagedebate.com)

E. Christian Brugger offers the following response.

WASHINGTON, D.C., JULY 28, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a question on bioethics asked by a ZENIT reader and answered by the fellows of the Culture of Life Foundation.

Q: Does a contraceptive act of sexual intercourse fulfill the Canon Law requirements for Consummation? Regards, SG. A. -- Cape Town, South Africa

E. Christian Brugger offers the following response:

WASHINGTON, D.C., JULY 14, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a question on bioethics asked by a ZENIT reader and answered by the fellows of the Culture of Life Foundation.

Q: Can you tell us what is the latest Church teaching about couples seeking a Catholic marriage, wherein one or both of the spouses are impeded from having children by a tubal ligation and/or vasectomy? Can a priest assist at such a marriage, if he were to know about the situation? Or is it enough that he ask them to consider a reversal? Seems like these cases are becoming an epidemic, and every priest seems to be handling this question differently. -- Fr. I.S. Belleville, New Jersey, USA

E. Christian Brugger and William E. May offer the following response: 

WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 16, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a question on bioethics asked by a ZENIT reader and answered by the fellows of the Culture of Life Foundation.

Q: Are there any conditions to follow Natural Family Planning (NFP) by a married couple, or is there blanket approval by Catholic Church? Wouldn't NFP be against life if the intention of the couple involved in sexual act is just pleasure and not life, provided they don't have any valid reason to postpone pregnancy? In this case, can NFP be also considered similar to using condoms? Thanks and Regards -- D.R.P, Bangalore, India. 

E. Christian Brugger offers the following response:

In 2006, Cardinal Carlo Martini, retired archbishop of Milan and a respected biblical scholar, expressed his opinion that it was morally permissible and prudent for married couples to use condoms when engaging in genital intercourse to prevent transmission of HIV. In doing so, he made his own the view of Dominican Cardinal Georges Cottier, the former theologian of the Pontifical Household, and a number of bishops.

“I want to have children with you.”  These are the opening words of the U.S. Bishops’ new document on reproductive technology, Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology,
issued on November 17 (www.usccb.org/LifeGivingLove/lifegivinglovedocument.pdf ).  The document is addressed specifically to married couples suffering from infertility and considering their options.  It attempts to balance a sincere empathy for their bitter experience of loss with clear guidance on ethically legitimate alternatives: “The Church has compassion for couples suffering from infertility and wants to be of real
help to them.”  The text acknowledges the temptation they can experience to cut a ‘faustian bargain’ in order to secure the object of their desperate desires.  And it encourages them to hope in God even in the face of human disappointment.  Specifically, it asks whether certain forms of assisted reproduction are consistent with the flourishing of marriage and with the duties we owe to nascent human life.  In the words of the statement: “Some solutions offer real hope for restoring a couple’s natural, healthy ability to have children. Others pose serious moral problems by failing to respect the dignity of the couple’s marital relationship, of their sexuality, or of the child.”

When God made man, he did not make a conscious subject aware of itself as a self to which he then added a body as an afterthought. Rather, when he made man, "male and female he created them," and he blessed them, saying: "Be fertile and multiply" (Gen 1:27-28).