Last week we did a presentation for the marriage preparation class at Nativity on Natural Family Planning. In preparing for the presentation we did some research. In looking at the figures, the disparity between two figures struck me. 41 percent of first marriages end in divorce. On the other hand, couples that use Natural Family Planning have essentially a 99 percent success rate. Actually less than one percent of couples who use Natural Family Planning don’t go the distance and get a divorce.
Jesus said that we can evaluate practices and people by their fruit. I think the fruit of NFP shows its superiority to contraception. NFP is sadly the best kept secret in a successful marriage.
Why wouldn’t any newly married couple choose to go the route of NFP? This is the most important relationship you have outside of God, wouldn’t you do everything you could do to set it up for success. I understand many couples we were addressing were probably already having sex and using some form of artificial contraception, but my hope is that figure caused the couples we were addressing to pause. And I would really challenge any couple that had that information and believed us who chose to ignore that stat, how much they really valued their future marriage. If you want to win, do what proves to be successful. Don’t copy something that has a 40 percent failure rate.
What are your reactions to that statistic on Natural Family Planning? Do you believe them?
I have a question: does NFP cause couples to stay together, or are couples who are predisposed to marital stability (for any reason: emotional health, relationship with God, good relationships modeled for them when they were growing up) more likely to choose NFP? I would argue the latter, though probably it works both ways.
ReplyDeleteYou guys did a good job with a challenging subject last weekend.