7 Quick Takes -- NFP And Harry Potter

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Here I am, all set in just a mere 8 hours and 15 minutes, to see the LAST Harry Potter film ever. Even though I’ve had two Potter posts this week, I was going to devote my quick takes to all things Potter, when I came across this. It’s a lovely article by Jen about NFP. But what makes me want to change into the Hulk and overturn some Buicks are the comments on Jen’s lovely post.

(that is not me, though my husband might think sometimes it is)

Like, for instance, this comment:

For a long time I’ve had this nagging annoyance with the way NFP is promoted in Catholic marriage prep. It’s as if our pastors in this country assume that Catholic couples will contracept [Perhaps because about 90% of them do!], and this is the moral way to do it. I realize that a given couple may have serious reasons to restrict childbirth, but shouldn’t we be assuming that most couples don’t have a serious reason? [Excuse me, what?] We live in America, for crying out loud! [Where, apparently, no one ever has a good reason for delaying a pregnancy!]

I understand that “contracept” in the previous paragraph may be unduly harsh, because NFP doesn’t act against (contra) conception so much as provide a way to avoid conception. Which most Catholic couples, though, wouldn’t have a need to do, right?

Right moron, because Catholic couples never lose their jobs, or their health insurance, or have a death in the family, or get sick, or have their home foreclosed on, or have post-partum depression, or a mental illness, or an addiction, or a special needs-child who overwhelms their mental and physical resources. Right, Catholic couples never have a good reason for delaying a pregnancy.

Hey you over there, just in case you thought you had a good reason to avoid a pregnancy, well, you don’t. Random guy with a keyboard has spoken.

And this gem:

NFP is the practice of deliberately restricting the marital act exclusively to those times when the wife is infertile so as to avoid the conception of a child. NFP is used for the same reasons that people use artificial contraception: to deliberately avoid the conception of a child while carrying out the marital act

According to Mr. Wizard here’s definition of NFP, my daughter shouldn’t exist. Apparently if you practice NFP you can ONLY have intercourse during infertile times, did ya know? So anyone who has in fact, used NFP to conceive a child, you might want to go check and see if your child is a hologram or not, because Mr. Wizard has me concerned.

Apparently being willing to abstain for up to 30 days (or longer) in a cycle, because we’re not ready for another baby yet, is exactly the same thing as if I popped a pill everyday, manipulated my hormones, and jumped my husband whenever I felt like it. Obviously. Jackass.

If it was another part of the cycle right now, I might have actually reached through the computer screen and strangled him just for saying that.

Remember my Hulk reference? Nothing gets me fired up like morons talking about NFP.

On the one hand you have the scoffers who say, “Well, of course NFP doesn’t work, look at that family, they have six kids! No one wants six kids!” while clutching their round pink pill container and box of condoms with a vise-like death grip.

You say you *want* more than two or three children? Tosh! No one wants more than two children or three children! They’re thrust upon you by the evil Catholic Church, you poor oppressed fool.

On the other hand, you have the people who like to lambast others for “using NFP”, though they rarely specify if they’re lambasting them for using it to avoid or achieve a pregnancy, as it’s incredibly useful for both.

They trot out comments like the brilliant witticisms above, and let the judgements fall where they may.

“You say you’re in the minority of about 5-10% of Catholics who don’t use contraception?” No matter, you’re not faithful enough.

“You say you’re willing to abstain as long as is necessary in a given cycle because you’re not ready for a (or) another baby right now?” You’re weak and selfish, oh yeah, and you’re probably going to hell. I mean, long periods of abstinence, practiced after prayerful discernment, are basically the same thing as an IUD. Oh yeah, and your skirt is too short.

The cumulative effect of both of these types of comments is not to make me more sympathetic to their point of view, but to make me want to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible.

So if thumping me over the head with a papal encyclical because I’ve been married for 2.5 years and don’t have “enough” children yet, or insinuating that I’m basically a member of Planned Parenthood’s board of trustees because I use NFP is your idea of Evangelization, more power to you, I guess. Just don’t be surprised when people see you coming and walk the other way.

Did I mention I’m going to see Harry Potter in 7 hours and 30 minutes! I’m so very excited.