Yet, this method of “birth control” is of a decidedly different nature — “supernatural family planning,” as Fr. Hardon has called it, which applies equally well to married women. For, the fact is God has a marvelous plan for a woman’s reproductive potential, a plan that comes to marvelous fruition when human freedom and human love harmoniously unite in the creation of a new soul.

The idea of “love” as understood by practicing Catholics is that union of a man and woman within the bonds of matrimony for the mutual satisfaction of each and to bring children into the world – the unitive and procreative purposes – both of which must be present for “love” to flourish.

The idea of “birth control” was introduced and fought for by some leaders of the movement for women’s suffrage, who sought to split the unitive from the procreative. Margaret Sanger was key to birth control’s promotion, publishing as she did booklets on the subject for married women and challenging authority by sending these booklets through the U.S. Postal Service in contradiction of the Comstock Laws on the books since the 1870s. In the early 1930s, Miss Sanger and others, including Kate Hepburn, the mother of the actress by the same name, introduced birth control into Connecticut’s inner city community health clinics, so poor women who allegedly could not afford many children, would learn to space and reduce the number of births. But, in the process they served to deprive these same women and their spouses of the love necessary for the family to flourish. The soundness of this assertion is at the crux of the argument against artificial birth control. But, does artificial birth control really kill love? If only we could satisfactorily answer that question, we might have a shot at renewing our culture.

The other day, as I observed another precious child bob and weave down the aisle of my church, I reflected on how much Jesus loved little children. “Do not keep the little children from me,” He said. And, it seemed to me, this love underscores the logic of the Church’s teaching on human sexuality. To rob sexual power of the opportunity to bring “these little ones” — these little loves — into the world is decidedly contrary to Jesus’ sympathies as expressed in the Gospel.

Yet, when you consider the burden that an additional child might impose on some families, it is also quite clear that married couples would have recourse to use “natural family planning” to space births when to do otherwise would prove too great a burden on a family. At the same time, the impulse to use sexual power for self-gratification sometimes renders the use of such natural birth control more a product of wilting generosity than the objective realization concerning the inadvisability, economic and otherwise, of bringing another child into the world at a particular time. For, ours is a society of sexual and material sophisticates whose minds often live far from the thought of God’s design to bring precious new life into the world. Then, after rejecting the generous way, how often the same sophisticates find the flame of love extinguished and, restless, cast about for new love that will gratify them — a scenario that is so complicated and so lacking in child-like simplicity.

Perhaps the easiest question for child-bearing couples when it comes to “birth control” and “family planning” is the following — By our actions, are we selfishly denying Jesus another little one, which He desired to have close to Him? What a wonderful way to convert birth control into supernatural family planning!

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