Pointless Poll- If you are Catholic, do you use contraception?

[ofhippo]

Just being nosy.

You don't need to do a poll for this one, you just look round Catholic parishes and see how many families there are with 7, 8 or more children. Answer: not very many.

Of course they might all be very very good at counting to 28.

No. Never have, never will as I believe that it's wrong. I have used a Persona machine - but only to help with conception, not to prevent it.

I get quite annoyed when health professionals point out that I "ought" to be using contraception (I have a connective tissue disorder that causes complications in pregnancy) and they get quite sniffy when I say "No thanks". I've had HVs suggest that my husband "...need never know..." (as if it's his decision!) and insinuate that I'm a bit stupid for not even considering it.

I am and I do! and I've now been sterilised.. Even in Ireland (where I'm from) there are very few people having large families unlike my parents who had 6.. I think to each their own and I would commend someone for sticking to their guns in what they believe.
My Mother secretly went on the pill after baby n 3 and got a DVT she believed she was getting her punishment!

I am and I do.
I disagree with the church on this and a number of other matters.

Frogs I'm just thinking in my parish I have one of the largest families and I have 3.. my friends church I attend sometime which is baptist they all have 4..

yes I do

we were talking about this last nught at our discussion group and all of us realsied that we have never been told by a priest that we shouldn't and if we were, there would be a mass exodus of people out of the door!

no, though I have on medical grounds(after mcs)

So what is the arguement against contraception ?

(I'm not a Catholic, obviously)

The argument against artificial contraception (eg: pill, coil, barrier methods etc) is that it prevents conception from taking place at all - therefore stopping life before it begins. Catholics believe that life begins from the second of conception (hence the arguments against abortion and the morning after pill) and that all sexual encounters should be open to the possibility of conception taking place - it is not our place to deny life from forming at any stage pre- or post-conception only God can do that.

Obviously, not all encounters are open to conception, because of the woman's cycle, so the church actively encourages natural methods of contraception like the Billings Method, or use of a Persona machine to plan your family. Marriage vows include the vow to "...accept children lovingly from God..." and this means not using contraception and accepting that natural planning methods are not as effective as artificial ones.

I am no theologian, so I hope I've not made any silly mistakes here but the above is the Church's opinion as I understand it - I'm happy to be corrected if I've made any errors!

Incidentally, I have one child and am pregnant with my second. (I have been married for eight years and lost four babies through miscarriage). Pregnancy is fraught for me, both with danger to the baby and danger to my own health but I firmly believe that God watches over us and that He doesn't give you more than you can cope with. If I'm pregnant, it's because that child is meant to be and who am I to interfere with that?

Saying all this - I firmly believe that it is not my place to judge others and I think that everyone has to square their own circumstances and beliefs with their own conscience and that if anyone has chosen to use contraception, or do anything else that gose against the teaching of the church, then that it's between them and God.

I am a (rather lapsed, but for a long time quite devout) Catholic, and I don't have a problem with contraception - I don't think it's particularly wrong - but having said that I don't really use it either, which is a bit odd, so maybe the teaching went deeper than I thought! I am single at the moment, but when not I was prone to quite careless employment of the withdrawal method plus the occasional condom at the last minute - so obviously asking for it a bit really; I suppose we both felt it wouldn't be a disaster or we would have taken more care. I do chart my cycles though (taking temp etc) which helps with knowing how much risk you're running at any given time.

Yes, of course. If I ever sleep with H.

Also to add - despite being quite lapsed myself I still have quite a few serious practising Catholics as friends and I know that many of them use natural family planning, which is NOT the same as the rhythm method and is much more reliable (known for non-Catholics as 'fertility awareness method' - though obviously non-Catholics might use another method when they're fertile rather than abstaining), and it really does work very effectively if you take the trouble to do it properly. I agree with others that priests never make much of contraception any more - I think most of them would be quite surprised if you confessed it for instance - but at least a proportion of the reasonable-sized families among committed Catholics are probably down to natural family planning.

im catholic and i have 3 dc ..... i take contraception as i was v ill with my last baby afterwrds (i nearly died) and have had 3 c sections i did chat to the priest about this as he casually asked would i have any more children .......i said probably not and explained why and he accepted it and said that some aspects of catholicism are very dated and to be a good catholic means doing whats your best in your interests and that i cannot be judged in making a decision to keep my own health and being alive to be a mum to the children i have.

my stepsister has had 5 succesfull pregnancies

Its to do with sexuality being a gift from God thus being a highly significant part of our lives. Sex in a permenent, commited relationship is a source of love and trust but the seperation of sex from procreation trivializes it. The church position is that seperating sex and love and new life by the use of contraception diminishes life from an individual standpoint and for society as a whole ie the sexualization of society has lead to greater infidelity and marriage breakdown etc and an increase the acceptability of rape in general and date rape in paticular.

There is also the point about respecting all human life which would apply to the post fertilisation contraception. Whilst 'Thou shallt not kill' applies to everyone, there is a paticular need to protect those whose right to life is deemed insignificant as it puts limitations of the freedoms of the strong. This does not only include the unborn but also the old, the sick and the poor etc.

I only have 2 dcs after 5 years. I thought that it was down to my fantastic natural family planning skills but have been trying for no 3 for ages so I suspect that we are probably not v fertile.

So does this mean rape is a "valid" sexual encounter that has no special dispensation where contraception is concerned?
what about child molestation? should girls not be given the assistance of the MAP in these circumstances?

sorry not wanting to sound judgey- it just seems unnecessarily harsh if that is what catholics belive.

Not sure what you mean by valid sexual encounter but yes there is no special dispensation with regards rape. I think it would be difficult to say contraception is ok as long as the sexual encounter is non consensual or violent but its not ok within marriage. There isn't even dispensation with ragards HIV transmission where one half of a couple is infected and the other isn't. Its really trying to put an ideological principle to work in a flawed world.

I can see the principle behind the teaching but it falls down horribly in these areas with huge consequences for the individuals involved.

It is harsh. The Catholic church is a PR nightmare on many issues.

owch! does the catholic faith see a rape victim as a sinner then if they have had sex outside of marriage, even tho under duress?
would they have to confess?

@teakettle: "separation of sex from procreation trivializes it" is a really good point.

I'm not Catholic, but am married to one. We use NFP, partly because of his religious beliefs, but actually I think I'd stick with it even if that were not the case: I have never got on well with the pill and find all the barrier methods a bit icky and a real turn-off. I also really like the deep understanding of my own fertility that I get from NFP charting, and think it is something everyone should be aware of. Annalisa Barbieri wrote a great column in the Grauniad about it a year or two ago.

Also, if you chart properly and monitor multiple symptoms, NFP has an excellent efficacy figure - up to 98% if used properly. Of course - that's the main problem, you do have to be very disciplined to use it properly...

My dh is catholic. His mother is very strongly religious but told him to use contraception.

Even dh agrees it was introduced to ensure a healthy supply of Catholics to out-breed all other religions, and has nothing to do with sin

Being raped is not a sin as you cannot sin without intent. People who have been raped have often been treated harshly though but this is not exclusive to the catholic church. imo the increase in recreational sex has led to rape victims being treated more harshly now than before as there is a genuine lack of understanding as to why women say no when they have 'lead men on' by going on a date or whatever.

If you cannot sin without intent then why do babies require christening- they have no understanding of sin so surely have no sins to be saved from? sorry if sound really thick here but would like to further my understanding as these concepts seem so totally alien from my own faith (non christian).

(very) lapsed catholic here - babies have to be baptised because they are born with 'original sin' (a sin which taints everyone as it's inherited from adam and eve). babies who die before being baptised go to 'limbo' instead of heaven. one of the many odious beliefs which turned me firmly against catholicism. agree that the contraception ban has far more to do with creating lots of new catholics than anything else. that and this deeply misogynistic religion wanting to keep women barefoot and constantly pregnant. i've seen the health of many women in my family suffer badly from being pregnant nearly all their adult lives (some of my cousins in ireland had a baby a year and were physically wrecked as a result)

I thought 'Limbo' was no longer accepted teaching?

think I will have to go away and do some serious reading because what you have explained to me has shocked me to the core.
This kind of thought process seems to promote needless suffering whereas I had previously thought that christians basis for faith was love and forgivness, I now see that these have conditional clauses attached. To me, and am sure to many who would class themselves as christian or not, love is unconditional- so it really challanges me to think that a major world force would accept these terms and conditions for living and being accpeted by their church. I see more now as to why so many people qualify their faith as lapsed.
thanks for the lesson here.

don't know re limbo - it may have changed recently but it was certainly what i was taught before i left the church in around 1990...