Contraception hurts couples, society, bishops say in draft document

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Contraception introduces "a false note" that disturbs marital intimacy and contributes to a decline in society's respect for marriage and for life, the U.S. bishops say in a draft document that will come before them at their fall general meeting in Baltimore.

The brief document, called "Married Love and the Gift of Life," is intended for use as a brochure and is in question-and-answer format.Developed by the U.S. bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities in collaboration with the committees on Doctrine and Marriage and Family Life, the document strongly supports natural family planning, saying it "enables couples to cooperate with the body as God designed it."

"When couples use contraception, either physical or chemical, they suppress their fertility, exerting ultimate control over this power to create a new human life with God," the draft said.

But because natural family planning "does not change the human body in any way, or upset its balance with potentially harmful drugs or devices, people of other faiths or of no religious affiliation have also come to accept and use it from a desire to work in harmony with their bodies," it added. [More]

To learn more about Natural Family Planning, go to the Couple to Couple website at http://www.ccli.org/
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