NFP vs. Contraception

"Isn’t NFP the same as contraception if a married couple is using it to postpone or avoid a pregnancy that they are not ready for?"

The short answer is “No.” The reason is, contraception involves the deliberate frustration of the marriage act; NFP does not. In some ways, that may seem like a small difference, but in reality, the difference is huge and very important.

Traditionally, the Catholic Church has always taught that married couples have the right to “plan” their families, provided this is done in a responsible and just manner, and is done with the proper motivation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

2368  A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of births. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. (emphasis in original text)

So, it is not “birth regulation” that the Church opposes, but selfishness and any immoral means of accomplishing that.

Father Richard Hogan has written: “Some people think that a decision by a couple to time their acts of love in order to space children using NFP is the same as the decision by a couple to avoid pregnancy through contraception. This is a confusion of purposes and means. The purpose may be the same, but the means are different. The NFP couple delaying another pregnancy and the contraceptive couple delaying a pregnancy are engaging in two radically different acts...The NFP couple, while engaging in non-procreative intercourse by making use of the infertile times, give themselves to each other totally and completely as they are at that moment. The contracepting couple withholds their fertility from each other in an anti-procreative act and do not give themselves totally. Remember, love is defined as a total self-gift...Further, the contracepting couple alters either both of their bodies or one of them, and in doing so they violate the integrity of their own bodies.” (The Human Body....a sign of dignity and a gift, page 9)

Author Christopher West addresses the difference between contraception and NFP in his book, Good News About Sex & Marriage:

Suppose there were a religious person, a nonreligious person, and an antireligious person walking past a church. What might each do?

Let's say the religious person goes inside and prays, the nonreligious person walks by and does nothing, and the antireligious person goes inside the church and desecrates it. (I'm framing an analogy, of course, but these are reasonable behaviors to expect.) Which of these three persons did something that is always, under every circumstance, wrong? The last, of course.

Husbands and wives are called to be procreative. If they have a good reason to avoid pregnancy, they are free to be non-procreative. But it's a contradiction of the deepest essence of the sacrament of marriage to be anti-procreative.

To use West’s terms, NFP couples are both procreative and non-procreative, depending upon what parts of the cycle they choose to have marital relations. Contracepting couples are always anti-procreative.