From: forgach@noao.edu (Suzanne Forgach)
Subject: Re: More questions for Suzanne or other pro-life parent
Originator: forgach@gemini.tuc.noao.edu
Organization: National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Tucson, AZ, USA
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 00:02:25 GMT

From article <1992Aug21.131126.2147@brandonu.ca>, by mcbeanb@brandonu.ca:
> In article <1992Aug20.223004.13850@noao.edu>, forgach@noao.edu (Suzanne Forgach) writes:
>>From (Brian McBean):
>>> 
>>> Excuse my ignorance (I don't read all articles on ta), but what is NFP, and
>>> why do you have to wait til her first cycle?  
>> 
>> Natural Family Planning.   Certainly she will know about it, but she cannot
>> possibly observe her own body's cyclic fertility changes (much less chart
>> them) if she doesn't even have cycles yet.
> 
> Well it's easy to get into the theoretical aspects.  You could even
> consider allowing her to see you chart everything.  It would be
> a good preparation.

I never thought of that, and indeed I might very well show her my own charts
someday, but I prefer charting my own, thank you very much.


>>> Why not educate her before
>>> and spare her the fear and ignorance, even if it only lasts a day or so?
>> 
>> Oh puleez.   She will have neither ignorance nor fear.  It's just physically
>> impossible for a female with no cycles to chart cycles.
> 
> Unless she charts another female who happens to have cycles.

Again, no thanks.  She will have her own soon enough.  She will not need
mine to practice on.  Anyway, the odds are for two females living together,
that we will be in synch.

  
>>> Also, just wondering if this education includes info about contraception
>>> because if she were provided with that in the first place, then maybe she
>>> wouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place, and none of your
>>> grandchildren will have been killed.
>> 
>> Natural Family Planning is AS effective in avoiding pregnancy as that
>> popular contraceptive the "pill" for married regular participants in sex.  
>> Even moreso for a pre-teenage virgin.
> 
> No, I'm sorry, but this is wrong.  NFP requires consistent attention be
> paid to your body, and that you must refrain from sex during certain times.

Oh?  Bodily self-awareness very _easily_ becomes a life long habit, one you
soon cannot even imagine being without, and from that self knowledge springs
the knowledge of when you can and cannot achieve a pregnancy.  It is not
ever considered "refraining from sex", since you are so much more sexually
aware of your own body than most of your contemporaries, and so instead is
viewed as _embracing_sex_, knowing when you will or will not conceive.


> It's success can only be charted by the determination and patience of the
> user.  

In fact, it's success is in direct proportion to the users' love and respect
for their own bodies.


> With the pill, you just have to remember to take it, and assuming
> you do, there's just a fraction of a chance of failure.

With the pill, you have to remember to rearrange your owns hormones on
a daily basis, day in and day out, and even if you do it "perfectly", your
odds of avoiding pregnancy are not a wit better than if you had simply
educated yourself to your own body's workings via modern NFP.


> Brian McBean  -  McBeanB@BrandonU.Ca

Suzanne Forgach
Newsgroups: talk.abortion