There are further claims made by the advocates of natural family planning. Unlike most forms of artificial contraception, NFP requires both husband and wife to take responsibility for limiting the number of births. This becomes the occasion for discussion in areas in which too many couples communicate very little. NFP requires that both wife and husband increase their understanding of the wife's reproductive cycle and in fact develop a greater awareness of her body. One common result of this awareness is an appreciation of, even awe at, the power to bring new human life into existence. Various books have described how NFP has enriched and revitalised the sex life of spouses, so there is no need to elaborate on the topic here. Complaints have been made against NFP that it amounts to sex-on-schedule, and as such contradicts its claim to be natural. To consult symptoms before proceeding to sexual intercourse, they say, robs sex of the spontaneity that it should have. What is meant by "spontaneity" here? If it means simply the insistence of a physical drive, then why should we preserve spontaneity at the expense of other values? Other impulses anger, fear, gluttony or insobriety - can produce equally insistent urges, and we are well advised to think before acting on them. Surely it is an effect of moral virtue to modify these drives and channel them in the service of the total person. Suppose, however, that the insistence stems not from pure physical impulse, but it is the personal attraction between husband and wife that demands physical expression. We value impulsive gestures between friends and, presumably, between spouses. However, any friendship, and any spousal relationship, is made up not only of impulsive gestures but of many actions and series of actions that require planning and deliberation, and we do not value them less because they are not spontaneous. When spouses do feel a strong impulse to express their love physically, the virtue of chastity will mean that, when it is appropriate to express it sexually, they will do so, and when that is not appropriate, they will have at their disposal a variety of other ways to express their love.
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