Rooted In Life
Here’s something Tom and I come back to often: you can’t really separate the pro-life conviction from how a couple lives out their fertility. They’re not two different things. They’re the same thing. NFP is rooted in life.
If we believe every human life is sacred — and we do — then fertility, the very source of new life, can’t be treated as a problem to be managed or suppressed. To get back to fundamentals: sex leads to babies. Babies are eternal souls. This is a serious matter. Once a couple really hears that — not just nods at it but lets it sink in — everything else about NFP starts to make sense. NFP takes the pro-life conviction all the way to its root: that God is the author of life and offers us the tremendous gift of being co-creator with Him.
“I am the Lord, the Maker of all things — your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb.” — Isaiah 44:24
St. Pope Paul VI saw this clearly back in 1968. Humanae Vitae not only a document about birth control, it was also a prophecy. He warned that separating the life-giving meaning of marriage from the love-giving meaning would lead to more abortion, more exploitation of women, more erosion of human dignity. He was right. Contraception and abortion share the same starting point: this new life is unwanted, and I have the right to prevent or end it. One intervenes earlier than the other, but the mentality is the same.
Real Freedom
Our culture has been telling couples for decades that responsibility means controlling fertility. We are continually told that virtue means you are solely in charge. That narrative might work – for a while. And then life happens. Circumstances arrive that remind us, gently or not so gently, that we are not God. For a couple who has staked their peace on the illusion of control, that moment can be devastating.
NFP offers something different. We’ve watched it happen in our own classes — the moment a couple goes from anxious and uncertain to truly confident in what their bodies are telling them. That’s what good education does. It helps couples rightly order their understanding of their gift of fertility and of life and says: you are part of God’s beautiful plan. Real freedom — not freedom from God’s design, but freedom within it.
That’s why NFP education isn’t a footnote to the pro-life mission. It’s central to it. Culture is formed one marriage at a time, and NFP forms the heart, not just the behavior. What a gift to be part of that work!
Written by Katie Zulanas, CCL Executive Director. This article first appeared in Family Foundations magazine, a benefit for donors to the Couple to Couple League. For engaged couples, find CCL’s NFP for Marriage Prep here. Find CCL’s PeakDay STMethod for married couples here.