Below is an excerpt on natural family planning from Fr. Dwight Campbell’s pro-life homily showing the connection of contraception and abortion, January 18, 2015.
“January 22 marks the 42nd anniversary of the dreadful Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which overturned every state law in the country and permitted the killing of unborn children through abortion throughout the full nine months of pregnancy. Since that decision, between 55 and 60 million pre-born children have been killed in the womb – a veritable American Holocaust which still continues.
A few months ago Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, the chairman of the U.S. Bishops committee on pro-life activities, reported under the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare), more than 1000 healthcare plans in our country now receive federal subsidies that cover for elective abortions – which means that our taxes dollars are being used by the federal government to kill unborn babies.
How did this happen? How did it come about that we, a largely Christian nation, have killed close to one third of all the children conceived in the womb over the past 42 years? In today’s homily, I’d like to “connect the dots” – that is, paint a picture and explain how we arrived at this point in our country.
To understand what has happened, we must go back to God’s plan for love, life, marriage and the family. In our 2nd reading today, St. Paul teaches: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ, and whoever is joined to the Lord becomes on Spirit with him. [Therefore,] avoid immorality. . . the immoral person sins against his own body (1 Cor. 6:15 ff.).” This applies above all in marriage.
In God’s plan for the marriage act, there is an inseparable link between love and life – between the unitive, or love-giving aspect of the marital act, and the procreative, or life-giving aspect. This is because we are made in God’s image and likeness, and in God Himself – the three persons of the Trinity – love and life are inseparable: God’s love is always life-giving; and human love, marital love, is intended by God to reflect divine love.
In other words, in the marital act there must be a total gift of self between the spouses; husband and wife cannot hold anything back, including their fertility. Every marital act must remain open to the possibility of cooperating with God’s life-creating love, and generating new human life: a child. Vatican II teaches that in God’s plan, “authentic married love is caught up into divine love” (GS no. 48).
In God’s plan, because love and life are inseparable, one cannot have authentic marital love without openness to human life; and this is why the Church prohibits artificial birth control – whether it be contraception or sterilization.
If couples have a serious reason for postponing a pregnancy, they may use a natural means to do so. Natural Family Planning is based upon knowledge of a woman’s monthly reproductive cycle, and requires periodic abstinence – which actually helps to strengthen authentic love between spouses. When couples use NFP, every marital act remains open to life and to God’s potentially life-creating love.
To intentionally exclude the procreative aspect of marital love by some artificial means really de-forms the marital act, rendering it life-less, thereby excluding God from participating in the act. Contraceptive sex is lifeless sex, and lifeless sex is Godless sex.
Archbishop Listecki, in his “Love One Another” article from July 16, 2013, said: “The contraceptive mentality attempts to separate the act of lovemaking from procreating. There is little doubt in my mind that contraception has created a type of selfishness, especially in the lives of young married couples. The child is seen as an afterthought to their security or convenience. Large families, and for many that is more than two children in a family, are often treated as an archaic concept.”
As Pope St. John Paul II teaches in his encyclical The Gospel of Life, when the two meanings of sexual relations, unitive and procreative, are artificially separated by contraception or sterilization, “the marriage union is betrayed and its fruitfulness is subjected to the caprice of the couple. Procreation then becomes the ‘enemy’ to be avoided in sexual activity” (no. 23).
And it is precisely this anti-child, anti-life mentality of contraception that leads to abortion. St. John Paul II makes this clear in The Gospel of Life when he says: “The close connection, in mentality, between the practice of contraception and abortion is becoming increasingly obvious” (no. 13). I like to call abortion the “flip side” of contraception; people use contraception to avoid a child, and when contraception fails, as it often does, the “solution” is the “final solution”: abort the child.
The great pro-life missionary, Fr. Paul Marx, O.S.B. – for whom I was privileged to work for two years while I was in the seminary – visited close to 100 countries preaching the pro-life message. Fr. Marx said, many times, “I never visited a country where there was with nice, clean contraception, and no abortion. In any country where there was contraception, there was always abortion. Always.”
Above is the first half of the homily. For the full homily by Fr. Campbell, you may listen to the audio.
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For a good analysis of the right kind of natural family planning, review “Your Right to Know.” More information on love, marriage and sexuality is also available at the NFPI website.
Sheila Kippley