nfp

A recent study supports the popular opinion (used to justify the HHS birth control mandate, among other things) that providing free contraceptives to women reduces the rate of abortion:

Free birth control led to greatly lower rates of abortions and births to teenagers, a large study concludes, offering strong evidence for how a bitterly contested Obama administration policy could benefit women’s health. The two-year project tracked more than 9,000 women in St. Louis, many of them poor or uninsured, who were given their choice of a range of free contraceptives.

– Quote from NYT, based on findings in this study.

People infer that the Catholic Church is 'wrong about contraception' and should accept contraception because free contraceptives are proven to reduce abortions and unwanted pregnancies.

The text below appeared in a recent issue of The Chart, a newsletter published by the Archdiocese of St. Louis' Office of Natural Family Planning. I co-wrote the article with my beautiful fiancée, Natalie (she'll be my wife in two weeks!):

Using Natural Family Planning has helped my fiancée and I to understand her body in a new light, and has helped us grow in love. The method helps us to communicate and appreciate her signs of fertility. It has alerted us to some potential fertility issues that we can account for and discuss with her doctor before we begin our married sexual relationship. We have also been privileged to form new friendships with other couples practicing NFP.

Creighton model NFP students will recognize the dancing baby above. I am starting work on a project related to NFP, and I was in need of the image. So, being handy in Illustrator, I snapped a shot of my fiancée's chart, zoomed in on one of the dancing baby stickers, and hand-traced the lines in Illustrator.

I might clean it up a little more sometime, but for now, this will do. After a second glance, it almost looks like a cage-fighting baby. Hmm...