My friend Emily, the new Family Planning Coordinator in the Diocese of Madison, just emailed the link to this commentary on the TIME article and a little bit about my work in Madison. It was posted on Catholic.org by Catholic PRWire, which found it through a press release from Chicago CCL (promoting its classes). Thanks Chicago CCL for the mention! While I don’t exclusively endorse CCL, this is a great example of harnessing buzz about NFP to promote classes. Well done, Chi-CCLers.
Time Magazine Notes Another NFP Benefit: It Keeps the Rivers Clean
GLENVIEW, IL (November 10, 2009) – Sexual morality isn’t the only attraction to draw couples to Natural Family Planning (NFP) these days. Those concerned with the environment are finding that NFP doesn’t pollute the waterways with synthetic hormones and other chemicals.
A recent Time magazine author related how NFP rates high for such reasons. “Like all good Catholics, my husband and I had to attend church-run marriage prep before we tied the knot last year,” wrote Kathleen Kingsbury in Time’s Oct. 26 issue.
“I was surprised, however, during the hard sell on natural family-planning, that this updated version of the rhythm method was being advertised not only as morally correct but also as ‘organic’ and ‘green.’ I was even more surprised when I found out that some of the most popular instructors of NFP — known in secular circles as the Fertility Awareness Method — are non-Catholics who praise it as a means of avoiding both ingesting chemicals and excreting them into rivers and streams.”
The article, sprinkled with terms such as phthalates and bisphenol, also looks into the use of chemicals in the makeup of sex toys and tracks a trend of earth-friendly production materials in these products.
The article also says that the Catholic Church is catching on to the organic trend. “People pay $32 for eye cream because they’re told it is good for them and the planet,” says Jessica Marie Smith, whom Time says repackaged the NFP program at the diocese of Madison, WI. “We figured we could do the same with NFP.”
Ingest, Poke and Patch
In an article on the Madison diocese’s website, “Green is the New Black: How NFP is good for your soul and the earth,” Smith, the diocese’s [former] family planning coordinator, says, “Doesn’t it seem interesting that we’ll go to great lengths to ensure our meat, dairy and other grocery products are ‘all natural’ and hormone free, but then we’ll turn around and ingest, poke or patch our bodies with all sorts of synthetic hormones, the ramifications of which we’re still discovering?”
The NFP Facebook group has been one of several great NFP discussion places on the web, and now there’s a new group specifically for NFP Instructors. It’s new, but give a go, and check it out, NFP teachers/ practitioners.
Dustin over at Engaged Marriage did a blog entry on the TIME piece, “Green Sex, anyone?”, which has yielded more than a couple comments, most profusely visited upon by commenter named crow who, among his many words, recommends natural abortafacients to his pro-life audience, copies and pastes from 4th-hand source web sites for his evidence and proof, and manages not to address the problem of falling fertility rates that are imploding the world’s economies.
I’d be much more interested in “dialogue” (generous term, Dustin–listening to crow is like trying to drink out of a fire hose spewing rocks) if commenters like crow 1) cited actual scientific sources, 2) addressed the issue of falling fertility rates, and 3) acknowledged that pro-fertility and pro-family people might actually know something about environmental causes and care about them.
Dustin’s more patient than I am. At this point, crow’s just being a combox rioter, throwing his links like rocks over the fence, not really caring what’s happening on the other side or who he’s inflicting with his myopic opinions. Hey, I’m all about recycling, buying locally grown food, sustainable construction, new fuel technologies, saving water and everything associated with being a good steward, but when you can’t even address what people are saying to you and listen–human beings, like yourself, born of a woman–that’s the end of the conversation and the continuation of prayer and fasting.
This is a hot topic these days. Overpopulation alarmists don’t want you to see it, and will quote all the online articles and second rate scientists they can find to prove otherwise. Still doesn’t help the fact that they’re wrong. Watch this preview and see what you think.
While not the best piece of cinematic art out there (review coming super soon), it’s got truth, science and a compelling message on its side. We need more people and investors willing to put this message out there, and directors/ producers like Rick Stout and Barry McLerran to do it.
I like that she puts the words “liberal Catholic” and “conservative Catholic,” thereby questioning the validity of political terms imposed on theological terms (The Church is not liberal or conservative; it’s Catholic–Universal). While she supports a person’s choice to choose natural methods of family planning (I got warm fuzzies), she remains neutral on the moral issues (namely the fact that most contraceptives are abortafacients to begin with, plus contra-love factor). I can deal with people who are against the Church’s teaching or don’t understand it, but someone who’s totally neutral? There’s nothing lamer than lukewarmness.
I appreciate that she’s trying to be loving and to extend an olive leaf, but her amicable branch is a thinly disguised vine of vitriol. There’s nothing more dangerous than indifference. A few words from wiser souls:
Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.–Our Lord Jesus, Gospel according to St. Matthew 10:34
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.–George Bernard Shaw, Nobel Prize Laureate
Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all — the apathy of human beings.–Hellen Keller, author, political activist, lecturer
Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference. –Edmund Burke, philosopher & statesman
At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.–Soren Kirkegaard, philosopher & theologian
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.–Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, Nobel Laureate & author
It’s worth checking out for a minute. Take the “What’s your method?” pole, and comment away! There’s a nice potpourri of the usual unsubstantiated overpopulation claims, bad theology of marriage & sex (the r who “have no authority on the sex issue”), but there are a few nice counter comments. My favorite is,
As a website that promotes progressive forward thinking for 20-30 year old Catholics, I invite you to think forward to Dr. Janet Smith’s take on contraception and natural family planning…
A recent article in a Denver weekly by Susan E. Wills, Esq. Unfortunately, the print is a little small, but it’s a good piece. The danger of contraception is not news to me, but one of the top search terms to find my blog consistantly is “dangers of birth control,” so I think it’s news to someone.
I would hardly call one quote the big time, but you know, it’s a play on words.
This 700 word piece, “Sex & the Eco-City” on Time’s online addition [spoiler alert/warning to the uber-pious and sensitive souls--reverence for sex is sparse] by Kathleen Kingsbury, 04′ graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and Catholic, is hardly a ringing endorsement for the benefits of natural methods of family planning, but at least it’s on the radar in a fairly positive way instead of the usual condescending and ignorant or halfway correct way.
I’ve read Kingsbury’s other work online at Time and elsewhere, and her work seemed fairly balanced and well written. Objectively, while I’m appreciative for the NFP mention (here’s a solo-feature spot on NFP), I’d hardly say it did NFP any justice. I know there wasn’t space for a full-on explanation, but she described NFP as the sympto-thermal method (fine, but incomplete), never mind that there are several other methods out there, and though the Church strongly endorses it under good circumstances, there are other NFP/FAM users out there. Not to mention the fact that many, many people use NFP to diagnose and treat infertility and women’s wellness issues with a higher success rate than mainstream methods and IVF.
Honestly, when she contacted my old work for an interview after she found the Go Organic brochure online, I received the impression that the piece was on green family planning options, not environmentally friendly sex toys. I probably would have thought twice before doing the interview if the opening pitch had been, “Hey, I’m doing a piece on alternative sex toys. Can I work NFP in, and then I’ll massage the message with unsubstantiated claims endorsing zero population growth?”
My guess is that the editors saw the original piece, and thought “This is too soft–can we sex it up a little, and since I don’t agree with the Catholic Church [never mind that fertility awareness isn't just a Catholic thing] about things, we’ll stick in some stuff on ZPG.”
Did you read the article? What did you think? I’m thinking of writing in (letters@time.com), but I’m not sure if it’ll do any good. Perhaps if they get enough emails. How would have *you* written a “Green Sex” piece?
It’s one of the better articles I’ve read, refuting point-by-point the major objections to Fertility-Based Methods of Family Planning (FABM’s) as a legitimate method of family planning and fertility treatment.
One of the strengths of the article–and NFP fans may disagree–is it’s honesty about the lack of data on the benefits of FABM’s: increased communication, enhanced intimacy (the honeymoon effect), increased respect for their partner and other psycho-spiritual effects. While there’s loads of anecdotal evidence, it’s true that the statistical evidence is lacking. This doesn’t mean that the positive effects don’t exist; I believe they do. However, as I stated in a previous piece on promoting NFP, more studies are needed, and those studies need to be published.
I might know statistics and a fair study when I see one, but I don’t know the name of the grants and publication game. Any med students, doctors or academics out there who have any suggestions?
One small step for NFP, one giant leap for NFP-kind. Keep it up, Drs. Pallone & Bergus!
There are a few stores/ web stores that inspire me. You know, they don’t just sell or feature cute stuff; they just embody beautiful, lovely and creative. One of them is the online community Etsy. Though there are definitely less lovely things on Etsy, there are some really fabulous finds. Well, I typed “natural family plannning” in the ‘ol search engine, and found this.
Now, there’s a debate about whether or not menstrual beads (Cycle Beads) are good for the NFP movement because they are essentially a modern, slightly modified version of the Rhythm method, or so I’ve heard (I’ve not taken the class). Anyone who’s a little familiar with the contemporary NFP movement knows that people’s stereotype of the Rhythm method is one of the biggest things holding back progress in the wider culture.
Yet, despite this, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence (and I believe a study or two–does anyone know where to find them?) that menstrual beads work, and work well. They’re marketed largely in developing countries because of lower literacy levels (no charts) and little expense (pennies apiece at cost), but somehow it’s caught on here as well. What’s your thought? Yay or nay?
| Catholic PRWire
