Natural Family Planning and Population Control

Along with thousands of other women, I have used Natural Family Planning safely for years. It does require some sexual abstinence each month, but I prefer that to the health risks associated with the Pill and IUD.

The “careful monitoring of cervical secretions” is not complicated at all, but becomes a part of body awareness to the woman. Zero Population Growth’s patronizing attitude toward women of the Third World is an insult to women’s intelligence. Planned Parenthood and its ilk have refused for years to provide comprehensive information about Natural Family Planning, which requires no purchase of pills or equipment and whose success is documented. Why should the Family of the Americas Foundation be forced to foist IUDs and pills on women, for example, in Catholic countries in South America, when Natural Family Planning would be much more suitable?

NFP (which is quite different from the old “rhythm” method) will not result in more suffering, as contended by Zero Population Growth, but rather in dignity and respect for the individual, rather than condescending disdain for the non-white populations of the world.

MARY B. CURTIUS

Santa Ana