Married Catholics today often struggle to understand the moral difference between using contraceptives to avoid a pregnancy and using Natural Family Planning (NFP).
NFP relies on sexual abstinence during fertile periods in a woman’s cycle, as assessed by various indicators like cervical mucus or changes in body temperature.
NFP and the Catholic Church
To many, the Church’s prohibition of contraception seems to be at odds with its acceptance of NFP because in both cases, the couple’s intention is to avoid children. That intention, however, is not the problem, as long as there are, in the words of Pope Paul VI, “serious motives to space out births.”
