Saint Louis University, a Jesuit school and my alma mater, recently hosted Dr. Hanna Klaus, an OB/GYN doctor and director of the Natural Family Planning Center. Dr. Klaus spoke on the enduring truth and relevance of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae as part of the SLU conference “The Legacy of ‘Humanae Vitae’: 40 Years.” Here’s a write-up of Dr. Klaus’ talk from the St. Louis Review Online:
As a young physician at Washington University in the early 1970s, Dr. Hanna Klaus was given a book on natural family planning.
It was a guide to the Billings ovulation method, a gift from Cardinal John Joseph Carberry to Catholic doctors in St. Louis. He distributed it on the heels of Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical, “Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life),” which reinforced the Church’s teaching on artifical contraceptives.
“Most threw it in the trash,” Klaus speculated. “But I didn’t. It was the beginning of a long journey learning much more about not only the medical, but the personal and spiritual aspects of conjugal love.”
Klaus was in St. Louis last weekend, where she spoke to nearly 20 medical professionals at a July 25 conference at St. Louis University that celebrated the 40th anniversary of “Humanae Vitae.”
“The Legacy of ‘Humanae Vitae’: 40 Years” was sponsored by SLU’s School of Nursing, Continuing Nursing Education, and the archdiocesan Office of Natural Family Planning.
Today, 80-year-old Klaus, a member of the Medical Mission Sisters, is considered by many to be a pioneer in modern natural family planning. The ob/gyn, who also performed her medical residency in St. Louis in the 1950s, is director of the Natural Family Planning Center of Washington, D.C. She also heads Teen Star, an international program that teaches teens about sexuality in the context of adult responsibility.
The soft-spoken woman did not mince words as she described to doctors, nurses and other medical professionals at the conference that fertility should not be treated as a disease.
“There is no justification for using a powerful drug which may have undesireable short or long-term consequences, just to isolate a normal function from the body.”
Klaus recalled the “epiphany” she had after an encounter with a medical student who came to her family practice at Washington University in the 1970s. The young woman was having problems with her period, previously had a bad reaction to the pill and did not want to use any barriers when having intercourse.
“She became upset and cried, ‘Why do I have to change myself around to have sex? Why can’t I be me?’” That set Klaus on a path to look for a natural method of family planning. It wasn’t long after that she received Dr. John Billings’ book from Cardinal Carberry.
In 1973, Klaus was one of several people who helped found the Aware Center, which provided instruction on the Billings method, in the basement of St. Joseph Parish in Clayton. Today, the center is based at St. Anthony’s Medical Center in South County.
In the beginning, introductory sessions hosted anywhere from 18-20 people, said Klaus. Clients were there because they wanted to be faithful to the Church’s teaching.
Others, she said, wanted something besides artificial contraceptives to regulate pregnancies.
“We just asked people if they wanted to try to achieve or avoid pregnancy.”
“Humanae Vitae,” she said, spelled out for doctors what was considered “out of bounds,” but she added that it didn’t explain what could be done to help women regulate their pregnancies.
“That’s because the technology did not exist then as it does now.” That all changed when a woman’s cervical mucus eventually was discovered and accepted as a way of indicating fertility, she noted.
Forty years since its issuance, Klaus said, not only have the arguments of “Humanae Vitae” subsided, but also “it’s as if the encyclical never existed. Very few use NFP for faith reasons. The majority use natural methods for ecological or economic reasons.”
She agrees with those who say that Pope Paul VI was prophetic in “Humanae Vitae.” Marriages are on the decrease, infidelity is on the rise, STDs and abortions are up and there’s been an overall loss of respect for human dignity, she said.
But Klaus is encouraged by women, especially in the developing world, who are beginning to view their fertility as a gift and are resisting efforts to suppress it medically or surgically.
“The use of any barrier during marital relations reduces the act to only one dimension,” she said. “Unfortunately, this diminishes the couple by reducing it to the level of becoming sexual objects … the very opposite of the mutual self-giving and acceptance of one another inherent in a consciously open sexual act.”
She told health care professionals to encourage their patients to gain a better understanding of their bodies. The human body speaks the truth, she said, and deserves respect.
“Keep it simple,” she reminded them. “And when people tell you (NFP) doesn’t work, tell them you have different information.”
“When we stop trying to separate sex from procreation, our society will stop trying to arrest psychosexual maturation at the level of early adolescence,” she said. “We can then hope to have a society composed of adults who know how to delay gratification and accept responsibility for their actions.”
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