Open to Life: What is Wrong with IVF? (I)

If you are new to this series, I recommend starting at the beginning: Open to Life Series: What is Openness to Life?


In Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan, the Bishops remind us that when using technology to “create” human beings, the “[c]hildren begin to be seen less as gifts received in a personal communion of mutual self-giving, and increasingly as a lifestyle choice, a commodity to which all consumers are entitled.”

In vitro fertilization (IVF) in particular is a gravely immoral, dehumanizing, and even a medically risky procedure. “This procedure [IVF] is so far from a loving act of the spouses that it can even be used to conceive a child if neither of them is alive, for the body of neither one is involved in the act of generating this life once sperm and egg are obtained and stored” (Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology). The medical problems range from the extremely high death rate of embryos to the increased risk of birth defects to human error resulting in the doctor implanting someone else’s child in the woman’s uterus.

Death Rate
The death rate for lab-created embryos is very high. “Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine reported in 2005 that 85% of embryos transferred to a womb in IVF are never born alive.” [Emphasis mine] This does not even account for the embryos not implanted – which include those that are lost, thrown away, die during freezing or thawing, or are killed for research. “The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, reporting annually on IVF clinics across Europe that provide preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to screen out genetically impaired embryos, concludes that in 2004, out of 24,371 embryos fertilized, only 749 (3%) survived to produce a fetal heartbeat.” – Note that is a 97% death rate and this does not even encompass the whole pregnancy through a live-birth! Compare these numbers to the estimated 50-75% of all natural pregnancies that end in miscarriage. (This number includes those who miscarry within the first two weeks of implantation and do not miss a period.) (Quotes from Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology)

Another form of death for embryos that are implanted is through selective reduction (the medical term for the abortion that takes place when too many children grow in their mother’s uterus). Sometimes it is the embryos or fetuses that are not developing as well that get aborted, but other times all look healthy and just the “conveniently positioned” children are chosen to die. This is done to give a better chance of live-birth for the remaining children or because the couple/mother only want one or two children.




Photo from California IVF: Davis Fertility Center

 

Birth defects
Birth defects are also a concern for both intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and IVF. In In Vitro Fertilization: The Human Cost states, “A 2005 study following children conceived at multiple IVF centers up to age 5 found: ‘A higher proportion of ICSI and IVF children required surgery (24% ICSI, 22% IVF, 14% natural conceptions) particularly genitourinary surgery other than circumcision.’ After adjusting for age and country, risks of major malformation were 2.8 times higher for ICSI children and 1.8 times higher for IVF children. Even in the neonatal period, minor malformations had been more common in IVF and ICSI children (15%) than in naturally conceived children (8%).”

Also, in November [2008] the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a paper reporting that "babies conceived with IVF or with a technique in which sperm are injected directly into eggs [ICSI], have a slightly increased risk of several birth defects, including a hole between the two chambers of the heart, a cleft lip or palate, an improperly developed esophagus and a malformed rectum” (In Vitro Fertilization: The Human Cost).


Up Next on Friday: What is Wrong with IVF? (II)

For full texts of the documents used, see my Open to Life Series: Introduction

Open to Life: What is Wrong with ARTs?

If you are new to this series, I recommend starting at the beginning: Open to Life Series: What is Openness to Life?


I want to start with a quote from Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology:

God is love. Made in God’s image and likeness, we human beings are created by love and for love, called to share God’s unconditional love with each other and the world. … Keeping this vision in mind, we can understand that some aspects of the vocation of marriage and parenthood cannot be delegated to others or replaced with technology. Because we are made in God’s image, we are called to imitate him by letting new life arise from the loving union that makes two persons “one flesh.” Children are not parents’ possessions to manufacture, manipulate, or design; rather, they are fellow persons with full human dignity, and parents are called to accept, care for, and raise them to be new members of God’s family and his Kingdom. Children deserve to be “begotten, not made.” In love, hope, and prayer, then, let us be open to God’s gift of life and love in marriage, with profound respect for the dignity of all God’s children.

6 week old baby (still considered an embryo)



Most forms of assisted reproductive technology are immoral. These include artificial insemination, using donor eggs and/or sperm, surrogate motherhood, in vitro fertilization (IVF), intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), cryopreservation, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).

Artificial insemination replaces the marital act and usually requires illicit means of semen collection. It can even involve donor sperm (and eggs), which brings a third party into the marriage. This certainly dissociates the act of love between husband and wife and is gravely immoral ("Infertility and Reproductive Technologies", 7).

Surrogate motherhood also involves introducing a third party into the marriage. This again dissociates the act of love between husband and wife and is gravely immoral. Sometimes the surrogate is contracted and money is exchanged. “This objectifies the surrogate woman’s body making her into a rented incubator and it likewise reduces the child to a commodity" ("Infertility and Reproductive Technologies", 7).

Because of the many problems (both moral and medical) associated with in vitro fertilization, I will address it separately in my next few posts.


Up Next on Wednesday: What is Wrong with IVF?

For full texts of the documents used, see my Open to Life Series: Introduction

Open to Life: Assisted Reproductive Technologies

If you are new to this series, I recommend starting at the beginning: Open to Life Series: What is Openness to Life?


Doing the research for this post completely shocked and saddened me. I only looked up articles and documents related to reproductive technologies on Catholic websites (mainly the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ site). Nevertheless, what I found on there was beyond words.

One of the worst things I read was how New Jersey passed a law in 2004 making it legal to clone embryos, implant them into women, and then abort them for use in research. Yes, you really did read that correctly. Here is the link. There is actually a whole page full of links related to this topic, but I did not have the courage to read them after that.

Why is it that we do not hear of all these “scientific advances” and research studies in the news? Could it really be that no one in the news media cares about these issues?

We must remember that God’s ways are not our ways. There is holy mystery in God’s choosing to bring human life into being in one manner and not another (ART and the Family).

There is a reason why the Catholic Church teaches that it is immoral for technology to replace the marital act and it is not because of where the use of these procedures will lead. It is because life is sacred, the marital act is holy, and nothing should come between the union of man and woman in their sharing of the creation of new life with God. We may think that warnings of future problems will change people’s minds and hearts, but prophetic warnings from Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae did not prevent people from using contraception. (I will talk about this in a coming post.)

Very few assisted reproductive technologies available today are moral. Those that are include medications that help with fertility and surgeries that repair or reconstruct reproductive organs or that remove blockages. Natural family planning charting (using the sympto-thermal method) is one of the best ways to help identify specific fertility issues in women.


Up Next: What is Wrong with ARTs?

For full texts of the documents used, see my Open to Life Series: Introduction

Open to Life: Chesterton and Birth Control

If you are new to this series, I recommend starting at the beginning: Open to Life Series What is Openness to Life?


Because I admire Chesterton and his penchant for always writing Truth, I wanted to share what he had to say about birth control. Chesterton was very much against the idea of birth control. He saw what the outcome of its use would be as did many others (including Pope Paul VI who I will talk about later). In The Well and the Shallows, Chesterton said this about propagandists of birth control:

There are not many things that move me to anything like a personal contempt. I do not feel any contempt for an atheist, who is often a man limited and constrained by his own logic to a very sad simplification. I do not feel any contempt for a Bolshevist, who is a man driven to the same negative simplification by a revolt against very positive wrongs. But there is one type of person for whom I feel what I can only call contempt. And that is the popular propagandist of what he or she absurdly describes as Birth-Control.

You may remember a portion of this quote I used to have on my side bar. It comes from an essay entitled “Obstinate Orthodoxy” in his book The Thing: Why I am a Catholic.

If those called free-thinkers are sentimentalists, those called free-lovers are open and obvious sentimentalists. We can always convict such people of sentimentalism by their weakness for euphemism. The phrase they use is always softened and suited for journalistic appeals. They talk of free love when they mean something quite different, better defined as free lust. But being sentimentalists they feel bound to simper and coo over the word "love." They insist on talking about Birth Control when they mean less birth and no control. We could smash them to atoms, if we could be as indecent in our language as they are immoral in their conclusions.



Picture Credit:
The American Chesterton Society

From Social Reform versus Birth Control, Chesterton states,

The Birth-Controller does not bother [with high society], for the perfectly simple reason that it is not such people that he wants to control. What he wants to control is the populace, and he practically says so. He always insists that a workman has no right to have so many children, or that a slum is perilous because it is producing so many children. The question he dreads is "Why has not the workman a better wage? Why has not the slum family a better house?" His way of escaping from it is to suggest, not a larger house but a smaller family. The landlord or the employer says in his hearty and handsome fashion: "You really cannot expect me to deprive myself of my money. But I will make a sacrifice; I will deprive myself of your children."

Also from Social Reform versus Birth Control:

The very name of "Birth Control" is a piece of pure humbug. It is one of those blatant euphemisms used in the headlines of the Trust Press. It is like "Tariff Reform." It is like "Free Labour." It is meant to mean nothing, that it may mean anything, and especially some thing totally different from what it says. Everybody believes in birth control, and nearly everybody has exercised some control over the conditions of birth. People do not get married as somnambulists or have children in their sleep. But throughout numberless ages and nations, the normal and real birth control is called self control. If anybody says it cannot possibly work, I say it does. In many classes, in many countries where these quack nostrums are unknown, populations of free men have remained within reasonable limits by sound traditions of thrift and responsibility.

And this prophetic bit (from the same),

The fact is, I think, that I am in revolt against the conditions of industrial capitalism and the advocates of Birth Control are in revolt against the conditions of human life. What their spokesmen can possibly mean by saying that I wage a "class war against mothers" must remain a matter of speculation. If they mean that I do the unpardonable wrong to mothers of thinking they will wish to continue to be mothers, even in a society of greater economic justice and civic equality, then I think they are perfectly right. I doubt whether mothers could escape from motherhood into Socialism. But the advocates of Birth Control seem to want some of them to escape from it into capitalism. They seem to express a sympathy with those who prefer "the right to earn outside the home" or (in other words) the right to be a wage-slave and work under the orders of a total stranger because he happens to be a richer man. By what conceivable contortions of twisted thought this ever came to be considered a freer condition than that of companionship with the man she has herself freely accepted, I never could for the life of me make out. The only sense I can make of it is that the proletarian work, though obviously more senile and subordinate than the parental, is so far safer and more irresponsible because it is not parental. I can easily believe that there are some people who do prefer working in a factory to working in a family; for there are always some people who prefer slavery to freedom, and who especially prefer being governed to governing someone else. But I think their quarrel with motherhood is not like mine, a quarrel with inhuman conditions, but simply a quarrel with life. Given an attempt to escape from the nature of things, I can well believe that it might lead at last to something like "the nursery school for our children staffed by other mothers and single women of expert training."  [emphasis mine]

Up Next: Assisted Reproductive Technologies

For full texts of the documents used, see my Open to Life Series: Introduction

Open to Life: Contraception and Medicine

If you are new to this series, I recommend starting at the beginning: Open to Life Series What is Openness to Life?


Contraception is any action, drug, or device that interferes with conception. Many things fall under this blanket, including sterilization, condoms, diaphragms, jellies, IUDs, hormonal birth control, or any act that does not allow conception to take place within the marital union.

There are many reasons not to do engage in these all things, but I will stick with the most popular forms of birth control today. Of all women in America at reproductive age who have been or are sexually active, more than 98% of them have used contraceptives according to the CDC report: “Use of Contraception and Use of Family Planning in the United States 1982-2002”. The most popular form of contraception in the nineties was surgical sterilization (“The Contraceptive Revolution and Its Fruits”). Today the most popular form of birth control is the oral contraceptive pill (CDC).

Sterilization
According to the CDC report, 3.4 million men and 10.3 million women in America have been surgically sterilized. According to multiple studies, many of these people regret the procedure. Of women who are sterilized, up to 73% of accidental pregnancies that occur will be ectopic pregnancies, which result in either a tubal removal and subsequent death of the unborn child or the death of both mother and child. These women are also more likely to have increased menstrual flow and increased pain, and are more likely to be hospitalized for menstrual related disorders (“The Contraceptive Revolution and Its Fruits”).

For men, according to two large studies completed by the Harvard Medical School, those with vasectomies have a 56% increase risk of prostate cancer later in life. In addition, 50% of men with vasectomies will develop antibodies to sperm, and almost 70% of men who have a vasectomy reversal will develop them. Sperm antibodies reduce the amount of sperm available in the testes and subsequently reduce the chance of conception.

Oral Contraceptives

Hormonal contraceptives are the only drugs available that stop a normal human function from working. When makers of “the Pill” made their first formulations, many women actually died – from a pill made of hormones already present in the human body! The solution … lower levels of estrogen, which caused break-through ovulation. The solution to that problem? Add in progesterone, which changes the lining of the uterus making it inhospitable to implantation of a newly conceived child, thereby causing an early abortion. Even with correct use, the breakthrough ovulation rate is 2-5% depending on the pill used. If pills are missed early in the cycle, ovulation can occur in 25-30% of cycles (“The Contraception Revolution and Its Fruits”). (All hormonal contraceptives can cause early abortions. These include the morning-after pill, the patch, implants, shots, and IUDs.)

The Pill is currently the most common contraceptive with 12 million American women and 70 million women worldwide taking it (“The Contraceptive Revolution and Its Fruits”). Nevertheless, it has many annoying and even dangerous side effects. The biggest problem is, even if a side effect only occurs in 1% of the Pill users that amounts to talking about 8.2 million women worldwide.

Some of these side effects include: headache, nausea, weight gain, lowered libido (which may never return even after stopping use), fatigue, breast tenderness, fluid retention, carbohydrate intolerance, spider veins, depression, high blood pressure, cervical ectopia (damage to the lining of the cervix), higher cholesterol, growth of fibroid tumors on the uterus, blood clots, increase risk of heart attack and stroke (for smokers), increase risk of cervical cancer, and 40-1000% increase risk of breast cancer (possibly more aggressive and appearing at a younger age).

The younger a woman is when she starts taking the Pill and the longer she takes it before her first full-term pregnancy, the higher the risk of breast cancer. Women who use the pill for four years or more before their first full-term pregnancy have a 52% increased risk of breast cancer (OSV Newsweekly Article).

Condoms
The third most popular form of birth control according to the CDC is the condom. The only medical side-effect problem associated with condoms is latex intolerance or latex allergy. However, condoms only have an 87% rate of preventing pregnancy and only a 46-82% effectiveness in preventing HIV. They offer no protection from herpes and HPV (a cause of cervical cancer) because these STDs can be transmitted through contact with areas not covered by the condom (“The Contraceptive Revolution and Its Fruits”).

** All unnatural methods of birth control have less obvious but even more serious side effects – spiritual, emotional, marital, and societal.

Natural Family Planning
Ecological breastfeeding gives the best nutrition to babies and costs nothing. Systematic NFP costs only a few dollars for thermometer, charts, and study materials. It can help a woman detect health problems early on, which can allow healing and even returned fertility for some infertile couples.

Natural family planning is natural. In a world caught up on health and the organic, no GMO, natural food craze, it sure seems hypocritical to see those same people engage in unnatural and even chemical forms of family planning.


Up Next: Chesterton and Birth Control

For full texts of the documents used, see my Open to Life Series: Introduction

Open to Life: Contraception and Society

If you are new to this series, I recommend starting at the beginning: Open to Life Series What is Openness to Life?

* The rise in:

* Adultery
* Divorce
* Premarital sex
* STDs
* Out-of-wedlock births
* “Fatherless” children
* Poverty
* Crime, drugs, and violence

* “Normalization” of homosexuality
* Legalization and subsequent skyrocketing of abortion

What do all these things have in common? Contraception.

Some of these things may seem obvious, while others might be harder to conceive. There is, however, a connection. One church embarked on this path in 1930 (as mentioned earlier) and the world has been a downhill slide ever since.

* People throughout history have been tempted by adultery, but their main deterrent was always pregnancy. What happens when this consequence is taken away? – A rise in adultery.

* What does adultery generally cause? Divorce (“The Contraception Question” by Christopher West)

* Use the same logic and apply it to premarital sex. What happens? A skyrocketing of fornication.

* With more people engaging in sexual relations, STDs are bound to become a problem. (“The Contraception Question” by Christopher West)

* Since no method of contraception is 100% effective, we now have a huge increase in out-of-wedlock births.

* To follow this further, what happens with the “unwanted” pregnancies? Women now have a “need” for abortion.

Rev. Walter J Schu affirms that “[b]ehind the contraceptive mentality looms a materialistic concept of the human body as an object that can be manipulated. When we live out such a view of the person and human sexuality, it is no surprise that where contraception fails abortion often follows. Sexual intercourse tends to be reduced from an act of personal self-giving to one of mutual sensual gratification freed from any tie to responsibility to new life." ("Contraception and Abortion: The Underlying Link")

* In addition, some fathers are unwilling to support the children who are born, so we now have an increase in “fatherless” children. (“The Contraception Question” by Christopher West)

* With the increase in single mothers from divorce or never having been married, poverty numbers climb. (“The Contraception Question” by Christopher West)

* “Fatherless” children are much more likely to be involved in crime, drugs, and violence. They are also more likely to have children out of wedlock and to divorce (if they marry). (“The Contraception Question” by Christopher West)

* Finally, homosexuality has no rationale against it when the act of procreation is separated from the marital union and any means of sexual pleasure is acceptable.

As stated in Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan, “By using contraception,” married couples “may think that they are avoiding problems or easing tensions, that they are exerting control over their lives.”25 At the same time, they may think that they are doing nothing harmful to their marriages. In reality, the deliberate separation of the procreative and unitive meanings of marriage has the potential to damage or destroy the marriage. Also, it results in many other negative consequences, both personal and social. 25 Married Love and the Gift of Life)


Up Next: Contraception and Medicine

For full texts of the documents used, see my Open to Life Series: Introduction

Open to Life: Contraception and Morality

If you are new to this series, I recommend starting at the beginning: Open to Life Series What is Openness to Life?


First off, we must remember natural family planning is not “Catholic birth control”. In NFP: The Complete Approach (6) it states,

Christian marriage is a sacrament in which the spouses are called to be generous to each other and to be generous with God in having children and raising them in the ways of the Lord. Marriage is for family.

Children are gifts from God. Most Christian married couples can assume that much of the time, perhaps even most of the time, God is calling them to be generous and to invite another child to share family life on this earth and to share eternity with Him. The knowledge of systematic NFP is also a gift from God, and couples should use it generously, not selfishly. [emphasis mine]

Keeping this in mind, we can now discuss contraception. Most couples today wonder what type of contraceptive they should use instead of whether they should use it. Contraception has become a part of culture and has been distinguished as the “responsible thing to do”.

However, most people are unaware of contraception’s history. Before 1930, all Christian churches taught that contraception was contrary to God’s design. It was Margaret Sanger (the founder of Planned Parenthood) who lobbied for its use, and the Anglican Church was the first to concede. But it only allowed contraception for married couples with severe difficulties. [I will talk about Margaret Sanger and her mission in a later post.] Because of this, the door opened for all other protestant churches, and within thirty years, almost all denominations accepted and some even promoted birth control.

But in the pamphlet entitled “The Contraception Question”, Christopher West asserts, “In rendering sex sterile, we take the powers of life into our own hands and make ourselves like God.” We are not God and cannot assume to be. Children are not commodities that we can produce when convenient and kill when they are not. [I will talk about science and technologies in later posts.]

Admonitions made by Popes:
Pope John Paul II stated that contraception “is to be judged so profoundly unlawful as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God” (address, Oct. 10 1983).

Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae said “To use this divine gift destroying, even if only partially, its meaning and its purpose is to contradict the nature both of man and of woman and of their most intimate relationship, and therefore it is to contradict also the plan of God and His will. On the other hand, to make use of the gift of conjugal love while respecting the laws of the generative process means to acknowledge oneself not to be the arbiter of the sources of human life, but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator.”

Pope Pius XI said on December 31, 1930, “Any use whatsoever of matrimony [the marriage act] exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin” (Casti Connubii, 56).


Up Next: Contraception and Society

For full texts of the documents used, see my Open to Life Series: Introduction

Open to Life: Why Use Natural Family Planning?

If you are new to this series, I recommend starting at the beginning: Open to Life Series What is Openness to Life?


Most people, when they hear “natural family planning”, think of the old-time, rarely reliable rhythm method. It is important to realize that present-day natural family planning methods differ considerably from the Calendar Rhythm that was taught early in the last century.

Breastfeeding as it is commonly done in the United States has little or no effect on the return of fertility. Even mothers exclusively breastfeeding, but not following any of the other six standards, can have menstruation (and fertility) return within six weeks postpartum. With ecological breastfeeding, the chance of pregnancy is almost zero during the first three months, less than 2% between 3 and 6 months, and about 6% after 6 months (assuming menstruation has not returned). The average return of menstruation is 14 to 15 months postpartum, with 72% of mothers experiencing their first period between 9 and 20 months. (NFP: The Complete Approach, 2) When menstruation returns early, there is a tendency to be infertile for the first few cycles, while those whose menstruation returns late are likely to ovulate before their first postpartum cycle.

Many health agencies, both national and international advise that all babies should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months because of the many health and psychological benefits to both mother and baby. Ecological breastfeeding offers the best opportunity for maintaining good milk supply for the duration of the breastfeeding period. According to NFP: The Complete Approach (6),

Ecological breastfeeding requires close mother-baby contact. This is good for both mother and baby. This best helps babies to thrive. We like to think of it as God’s own plan for baby-care and baby spacing, but it generally precludes working outside the home or being excessively busy with a home-based business. The proper care of babies takes time. The combination of mothering and homemaking is a full-time job. [Sound familiar?]

One of the many advantages of ecological breastfeeding from a purely moral standpoint is, although you need certain conditions to justify additional spacing of babies with systematic NFP, you do not need any sort of “spacing” reasons to breastfeed. When ecologically breastfeeding, you are doing what is best for your baby, and this just happens to postpone the return of fertility as well. Extended infertility is a normal, God-given side effect of following God’s plan for baby care, and it is respectable and appropriate to hope for this along with all the other advantages of breastfeeding.

What about the systematic methods of NFP? When couples follow the guidelines for chaste abstinence during the fertile period using the symptom-thermal method, they have a 99.6% chance of not conceiving based on a German study published in February 2007 (NFP: The Complete Approach, 2). Using systematic NFP to conceive also has benefits. “About 80% of couples with normal fertility conceive within six cycles, frequently one to three cycles. Couples with marginal fertility will usually conceive within six to 12 cycles” (3). This is because accurate charting helps the couple determine the most fertile time of the cycle. Charts can also be useful for getting help with infertility, as most doctors will ask for them.

Some women take the pill for “medical reasons”. However, the pill only masks the symptoms; it does not treat the illness. Many people can go years with a serious reproductive health issue (such as endometriosis), and when they want to conceive, only then will they realize they have a fertility issue. Nevertheless, charting can help explain certain physical symptoms and emotions, as well as help determine abnormalities in a woman’s health. Some women may even identify underlying health problems and find healing with the knowledge gained through charting.


Up Next: God is Love

For full texts of the documents used, see my Open to Life Series: Introduction

Open to Life: What is Natural Family Planning?

If you are new to this series, I recommend starting at the beginning: Open to Life Series What is Openness to Life?

Natural family planning (NFP) is a way of using God’s plan and, consequently, respecting Church teaching to achieve or avoid/postpone pregnancy by using the physical methods that God has built into human nature. There are two different types of natural family planning: systematic NFP and ecological breastfeeding.

The first type, ecological breastfeeding, is the form of nursing in which the mother fulfills her baby’s needs for frequent suckling and her full-time presence and the child’s frequent suckling postpones the return of the mother’s fertility (Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach, 1). Ecological breastfeeding is explained by the seven standards listed below.

Sheila Kippley created the phrase “ecological breastfeeding” to differentiate this natural and traditional form of baby care from “cultural breastfeeding” (the use of bottles, pacifiers, and baby-sitters, which contribute to mother-baby separation and less frequent suckling).

To remain infertile during breastfeeding, you must follow all seven of these standards for ecological breastfeeding. In less developed countries, these practices are customary and therefore babies are frequently spaced two to three years apart without contraception or periodic abstinence.

1. Exclusively breastfeed for the first six months of life (no other liquids and solids). After six months, slowly begin to introduce other liquids and solids.
2. Pacify your baby at your breasts.
3. Do not use bottles and pacifiers.
4. Sleep with your baby for night feedings.
5. Sleep with your baby for a daily-nap feeding.
6. Nurse frequently day and night, and avoid schedules.
7. Avoid any practice that restricts nursing or separates you from your baby. (Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing, 4)

According to NFP: The Complete Approach, “The great strength of ecological breastfeeding is that it is truly God’s Own Plan for naturally spacing babies, and it does not require systematic fertility awareness and periodic abstinence. Another great strength is that it encourages extended breastfeeding that carries many benefits for both mother and baby.” It also requires mothers to take full responsibility for the care of their babies instead of designating such responsibilities to others (something I have discussed previously). Its only weakness is the fact it is countercultural in the West and as a result will be difficult without support from the husband, family, and/or friends.

Systematic natural family planning is the method that uses a woman’s natural physical signs to identify the fertile and infertile times of the menstrual cycle. Using this method allows you to “know the most-fertile days in the overall fertile time for achieving pregnancy. All true NFP systems use chaste abstinence during the fertile time as the method for avoiding pregnancy. The use of systematic NFP involves both the knowledge of fertility and putting that knowledge into practice” (NFP: The Complete Approach, 2).


Up Next: Why Use Natural Family Planning?

For full texts of the documents used, see my Open to Life Series: Introduction

Open to Life: Side Note

I feel so disheartened right now. I really was excited to share my new series with everyone. I felt like it was something that needed to be said because of the state of our society with the devaluing of human life and of the family and children being seen as a commodity. But the problem with the human mind is that if it is not open to an idea, then it cannot see anything outside itself. Someone cannot be forced into thinking or believing anything. Sometimes if the mind is closed, you can actually miss the most important thing in the world, even if it’s staring you in the face.

A similar thing happened to me a few weeks ago. I never realized that money as we know it does not exist. 95% of money in the U.S. is just “loans” and “IOUs” (i.e. not paper money or gold). I had read an article on distributism and money where it openly stated this fact and because my mind was closed, I completely missed it. It was only later when I reread the article, after watching a few videos and reading about money “creation”, that I saw what was right in front of my face before.

All this is to say, that although I  know my series is important, I know that most of you will not read it. And, I will have to accept that. But I will continue to write my posts and publish them in the hopes that some day you will be willing to listen to the teaching of the Church established by Christ.

Sending you peace from heaven,
A Bird (sitting lonely) on Her Nest

Open to Life: What is Openness to Life?

We must start the discussion with first things: Life is better than death. If we understand and agree on that one principle, we will see how everything will stem from that.

Being open to life is not always easy. As the saying goes, “God never said it would be easy; He just said it would be worth it.” Having a marriage that is open to children does not mean that you are open to life unless every marital act is open to life. Using contraceptives in any form, at any time, is morally wrong. However, “God has wisely ordered laws of nature and the incidence of fertility in such a way that successive births are already naturally spaced through the inherent operation of these laws” (Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI, 11).

We are all called to “be fertile and multiply” (Genesis 1:28 NAB). The Church calls every family to be generous with regard to children. It is only for grave reasons (that must respect the moral law and be prayerfully considered) that we are allowed to limit children for a certain or indefinite period of time (HV 10).

More and more we seem to have a culture of materialism instead of children. Parents are worried about paying for private schools, cars, and college instead of being generous toward children and letting God take care of the rest. In his book The Well and the Shallows, Chesterton says,

He [the child] is also a much more beautiful, wonderful, amusing and astonishing thing than any of the stale stories or jingling jazz tunes turned out by the machines. When men no longer feel that he is so, they have lost the appreciation of primary things, and therefore all sense of proportion about the world. People who prefer the mechanical pleasures, to such a miracle, are jaded and enslaved. They are preferring the very dregs of life to the first fountains of life. They are preferring the last, crooked, indirect, borrowed, repeated and exhausted things of our dying Capitalist civilisation, to the reality which is the only rejuvenation of all civilisation. It is they who are hugging the chains of their old slavery; it is the child who is ready for the new world.

Another common misconception of today is the concept of “readiness” for children. When are we ever truly ready? Will we ever have “enough” money or “enough” time? This is another one of those materialistic considerations. When people think they must have $1,000 saved to buy all the latest and greatest gadgets for baby, we know they have “lost the appreciation of primary things”.

Consequently, our society today considers parents with only three children to have a large family and rudely asks, “Are you done?” Turkeys are done, chores are done, but children? God calls us to be open to life so that He may bless us with another child.

Up Next: What is Natural Family Planning?

For full texts of the documents used, see my Open to Life Series: Introduction

Open to Life: Series Introduction

With all my discussions of truth and Chesterton, I thought I should talk about a very important topic, relevant to married and single people alike – openness to life. This will remain a very reverent discussion.

In this series, I am planning posts on:
* What is Openness to Life?
* What is Natural Family Planning?
* Why Use Natural Family Planning?
* God is Love
* Contraception and Morality
* Contraception and Society
* Contraception and Medicine
* Chesterton and Birth Control
* Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs)
* What is Wrong with ARTs?
* What is Wrong with IVF? (I)
* What is Wrong with IVF? (II)
* ARTs Related to IVF
* Theology of the Body
* What is Wrong with Fornication?
* Prophesies in Papal Encyclicals
* Eugenics and Birth Control
* Eugencis and IVF
* Eugenics and Abortion
* The Population Myth
* Closing Remarks

In my articles I have used many sources. Instead of linking sources on each article, I am going to compile them here and link to this page on each post. Feel free to read the full documents:

Casti Connubii by Pope Pius XI
Humanae Vitae by Pope Paul VI
Evangelium Vitae by Blessed Pope John Paul II
Deus Caritas Est by Pope Benedict XVI
Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan by USCCB
Married Love and the Gift of Life by USCCB
Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology by USCCB
In Vitro Fertilization: The Human Cost by USCCB
“Contraception and Abortion: The Underlying Link” by Rev. Walter J. Schu, L.C.
“The Contraceptive Revolution and Its Fruits” by John Bruchalski M.D. FACOG
The Well and the Shallows by G.K. Chesterton
Eugenics and Other Evils by G.K. Chesterton
Social Reform versus Birth Control by G.K. Chesterton
The Thing: Why I am a Catholic by G.K. Chesterton
Eugenics and Other Evils Lecture by Dale Ahlquist
Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach by John and Sheila Kippley
“Use of Contraception and Use of Family Planning Services ...” - CDC report

Some of my sources are not available for free. If you are interested, you can purchase them:

"The Contraception Question" by Christopher West
"Infertility and Reproductive Technologies: A Guide for Catholics" by Steven Bozza
“Living Together Before Marriage” by Katrina Zeno and Christopher West
Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing by Sheila Kippley
Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West

Next Post: What is Openness to Life?

Tolerance

Everyone can have his or her own opinions, beliefs, and preferences. God allows this through free will. That does not mean that all opinions, beliefs, or preferences are True. He allows everyone to “take their own journey” to the path of Truth and freedom, but not everyone is following the right path (Christians and non-Christians alike).

The world speaks of tolerance and preaches acceptance of whatever new ideas, views, beliefs, attitudes, or actions come up. They talk about “my choice”, “my decision”, or “my business” – like truth is relative and we need to tolerate and even support bad decisions. We cannot tolerate them and we should not support them. This is just another heresy that is prosperous in the “developed world”.

Tolerance leads to uncontrolled immorality. When people feel “accepted”, they are more likely to start, continue, or even worsen the behavior. We accepted teenagers having sex by passing out condoms at school and now seventy percent of nineteen year-olds¹ have engaged in this behavior. We accepted sex before marriage and now 79% percent of all teenage births are to unmarried women compared to only 13% in 1950². The sad thing is the article where I found this statistic has the secular and distorted view of them. The writer considered it a good trend that the teen birthrate has fallen from 82% in 1950 to 49% today but did not add in the correlation about the unwed mothers. The reason the birthrate has fallen in teens is because very few teens marry today and those that do usually do not have children right away and because contraceptive use and abortion has skyrocketed when compared to 1950 (when the pill had not been created and abortion was still illegal). The whole world is devaluing marriage. People have also accepted homosexuality beginning in the 1970s and now they have even gone so far as to support and protect their right to marry! We now tolerate divorce, which has only lead to frivolous marriage – I will talk more about this in a series this summer.

The world supported and even fought for “birth control” – and I will talk about where that led in my coming series. They also supported and fought for women leaving the home so they could feel free to be a wage slave.

The world thinks that tolerance is progressive. They think we are more civilized now that we tolerate everyone than when the Catholic missionaries went out preaching the good news to evangelize the world. But all this tolerance has only led us down the path to where we are today – a world full of problems. The only way to get back is to stop tolerating immortality. As Chesterton said, "Tolerance is the virtue of a man without convictions."



¹ Facts on American Teens’ Sexual and Reproductive Health
² Teen Pregnancy: Trends and Lessons Learned