Religion: New Life for Family Planning

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In practice, N.F.P. is not quite that easy. Its users must undergo a training period, usually of about four months. The couple must be strict about abstaining from sex during the woman's fertile days, which can be difficult in societies in which males are taught to be macho and consider abstinence an insult to their manhood. By contrast, the IUD and the Pill require little if any training and follow-up procedures. Moreover, because of its simplicity as a means of limiting family size, sterilization is actively promoted by government-sponsored programs in India and elsewhere. Frances O'Gorman, a Canadian-born Catholic lay worker in Brazil's spirit-crushing favelas, says that most women in such desperate circumstances find it hard to rely on N.F.P. techniques. "They may be cheap and easy to use," O'Gorman says, "but natural methods are more suitable for the middle or upper classes, where the husband and wife can discuss family planning. Life in the slums is a whole different reality."

A 1986 study showed that only 4.3% of Brazilian women used N.F.P.; they preferred sterilization (27%) and the Pill (25%). In India an estimated 10 million people have been introduced to the Billings method over the past decade. But experts believe that for every five couples who faithfully maintain N.F.P. records and charts, an equal number of husbands and wives trying to practice N.F.P. do not.

The church's attempt to promote N.F.P. is often frustrated by indifference or opposition by international agencies and governments. In June a conference in Bangkok, which included both WHO and the United Nations, examined the ethics and human values in family planning. Vatican officials were not allowed to speak officially, but they did submit a withering attack on the "contraceptive imperialism" of agencies and companies that impose IUDs, pills, antifertility vaccines and other products on illiterate women without warning them of the potential medical dangers. "It's dated," says Father Peter Elliott, an executive with the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family, for priests to tell women to use contraception depending on their consciences. "Women don't want to use it because it's become a question of their health. People are fed up with being exploited."

Church officials emphasize that their promotion of natural family-planning methods is for all people. "These are not Catholic methods," notes Father Elliott. "They are used in Pakistan and China too, but through our morality, we have become the promoters of natural family-planning methods. The church finds she has a mission to the world to make the method of spacing births known."