The Art of Natural Family Planning in the Light of John F. Kippley (a Philosophical Approach)
Chapter One
PURPOSE OF STUDY
Expectedly, many scholars have pondered and are still pondering on the overall effects of family planning on the entire human race. It is based on this fact that various camps had emerged as far as family planning is concerned. There is this group that feel that it is not appropriate to embrace family planning since they feel that the world is not overcrowded and therefore, not yet the time to be talking about family planning. Even, they argue that population growth is healthy and highly recommended as a way of balancing our eco-system. The other camp is that of those who support the idea of family planning but insisted that it should be achieved through the natural
means. There are a lot of others who are against this idea as they maintain that artificial method of controlling birth is more appropriate and easier than any other method.
Yet, despite this progress, a great number of married couples hardly know the basic techniques of family planning, and many more are lacking in confidence because they remain unaware of the dramatic advances that have taken place. In addition, many of these women are always at a lost on which method of family planning to take because they are uninformed in any type of family planning. And also, it will go a long way in creating more awareness and enlightenment to those women who have been forced into adopting a particular type of family planning due to several governmental, environmental and organizational polices. This work will also serve the purpose of bringing a basic knowledge of family planning to those who are uninformed. It will also provide information and assurance that will give new confidence and hope to couples who wish to use the natural methods reliably and effectively.
CHAPTER TWO
NATURE OF FAMILY PLANNING
What Is Family Planning
Family planning according to the Oxford Advance English Learners dictionary is defined as the process of planning the number of children, intervals between births, etc in family by using birth control method. Family planning, says a character on a television show aired in Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) channel 8, Enugu, Nigeria on 16th April 1996, means having children when you want to. Further, for Williams, family planning programmes provide information and services to help people achieve their own fertility objectives. It should be noted that at the time organized family planning campaigns were first extended to the southern hemisphere in the 1950s, there was absolutely no indigenous support for them.
The family planning campaign uses incentives to persuade people to try contraceptives. Cash payments are paid to sterilization acceptors, and financial rewards or bonuses are given to upholders of family planning in the
clinic. The incentive approach was also extended to the private sector, where large employers (often multinational corporations) make it known that workers are expected to use family planning. This tactic has been widely implemented in Brazil, Nigeria and India, and is supported by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Family planning itself is a deceptive, which aims in hiding the fact that fewer children are the sponsor’s long-range and only objective. The report also suggested the use of incentives such as payment to acceptors for sterilization or disincentives such as giving low priorities in the allocation of housing and schooling to those with larger families. The incentive programmes, which have been in use in some parts of Asia for almost twenty years, works best when people are hungry. A study published in 1990 by the Population Council, a U.S. government population control contractor, examined the incentive programmes in Bangladesh. Under that programmes, persons who agree to permanent surgical sterilization are paid a fee for doing so. The Population Council’s report contains among all other cases, a story of Khairul, a labourer with a young wife and three small children. His earnings were so low, says the publication, that if Khairul fails to find employment for a single day he has to borrow money from neighbours to buy food. For two days before his surgery, the Population Council publication says, Khairul had no job and no food for the family. Still, he resisted sterilization. He sold an aluminum-cooking utensil and bought a small amount of rice, which kept the family alive for two more days. Then, in desperation, he accepted the sterilization to save himself and the children.
Origin of Family Planning
The origin of family planning is traceable to Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), an Anglican clergyman and a British economist who was the first person that raised alarm in the year 1798 that the earth’s population was growing at a faster rate which could soon outrun the earth’s resources. For a way of checkmating population growth, he suggested the issue of late marriage and total abstinence once a family reached the parents’ desired size. But then, when he made this assertion, much attention was not given to his dire warning until it seemed about to come true in a dramatic way as the world at then seemed to be reduced more and more in size because of improved means of transportation and of communications. Then, people began to become very conscious of each other such that the world suddenly appeared to be cramped, confined and overcrowded. It was this issue that Marshall Mchuhan spotlighted when he asserted that the earth has been reduced to the dimensions of a small village.
CHAPTER THREE
J. F. KIPPLEY AND FAMILY PLANNING
Here, we are going to see the views of Kippley in considering which method of family planning would best be applied into marriages for better and efficient outcome. For Kippley therefore, natural family planning when applied very well in marriages can bring about positive factors. Kippley made this assertion after his consideration on the effect of the two methods of family planning on marriages and came out with the report that artificial family planning had done more harm to the art of family planning than the natural method. For instance, in a research where he considered what happened in the U.S.A, he discovered that as from 1910 to 1977, the divorce rate were very high among couples who were practicing the artificial methods of family planning during the time Margaret Sanger organized the contraception movement in America unlike the divorce rate among couples who were into the natural type of family planning.
CHAPTER FOUR
CRITICAL EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION
Critical Evaluation
Having come towards the end of my work, the task at hand here is to access the overall worth of Kippley’s ethical and moral philosophy. In other words, giving a critical evaluation of Kippley’s thought in general.
No one may doubt the enormous achievements and contributions of John F. Kippley, both to philosophy and to knowledge in general. Consequently, my main concern here is to evaluate his stand on the method of natural family planning as a solution towards achieving and postponing pregnancies. To do this well, I will expose what I consider the merits and demerits of each of the two methods of family planning.
CHAPTER FIVE
Conclusion
Having thus seen the comparison of the two methods of family planning, I would agree with Kippley on his stand that natural family planning is better and safer to use than artificial method of family planning. My stand follows from the fact that from the comparison of the two methods of family planning. It is vividly clear and obvious that the practice of artificial method of family planning is not reliable; it is unnatural and prone to various dangers and calamities. I will then believe with J. Knight and Joan in their views concerning the dangers and evils of abortion:
If prenatal human beings are to be recognized as full-fledged persons, it follows that those who kill them for reasons less compelling than self-defense must be recognized as full-fledged murderers and treated as such. Those who are rigorously opposed to allowing elective abortion on the ground that prenatal human beings are persons must confront this implication sincerely and sensitively, and they must be explicit about what they are willing to accept as the practical implications of their position. If they are not willing to accept that those who abort should be subject to exactly the same treatment as others who murder, then they need to recognize that they do not really believe that prenatal human beings have the moral status of persons. And this is true of those who hold that such matters should be left up to the individual states, since states are not, in other cases, free to allow those who murder innocent persons to be at large in the community7.
However, even though that the practice of natural family planning would claim to be the better method in place of the artificial method of family planning, and also bringing to fore the choice and stand of Kippley in identifying with natural family planning in place of the artificial method of family planning, I must nevertheless point out the fact that there are yet problems and criticisms against the practice of natural family planning and some of these criticisms and problems so to say have been undermining the practice and the progress of natural family planning. Some of these problems and criticisms are seen below.
The first problem I will present here is the fact that the application and result
are not hundred percent effective, as some couples had conceived even when they were practicing the method normally. Again, there are calls from certain critics that some older methods of natural family planning like the Calendar and Temperature methods are no more reliable in this present age since these two methods are not always easy to count during irregular cycles, and so many couples who are into these methods have been extremely embarrassed with pregnancies even when they do not desire for that. They are of the view that these two methods should have at least been dropped and replaced with newer and more effective methods.
On the next hand, it is noted that the practice of some natural family planning are yet still affected by irregular cycles and are always difficult to calculate especially during adverse weather conditions, breastfeeding, when one is stopping the pills and other adverse and irregular conditions. It is therefore of my view that those methods of natural family planning that have been linked with these inadequacies should at least be modified and restructured so as to have taken note of irregular cycles.
Furthermore, another great problem that would ever continue to undermine the practice of natural family planning is the fact that ignorance and illiteracy had eaten deep into the human race. It is just clear that before one goes into the practice of natural family planning, he or she must be well informed about its benefits and applications for effective outcome. It is therefore a great set back towards the progress of natural family planning when a greater percentage of men cannot read nor write; how then do we expect these people to be able to do the systematic and scientific calculations that are involved in some methods of natural family planning that has to do with systematic and scientific recording of facts. It is therefore based on this reason that I would still insist that the temperature and calendar methods of family planning that involves these systematic and scientific calculations should be modified and restructured so that even the most ignorant person will be able to undergo the practice in simple and clear applications.
Moreover, for the fact that the practice of natural family planning is time wasting and time consuming, a lot of people are therefore becoming dissatisfied with the method especially when it has to do with complete abstinence of sexual intercourse on the fertility days. Consequently, those who cannot allow their sex urge to wait would have no other way but to embrace the practice of artificial family planning.
Finally, one important issue that have been learnt from the whole issue of family planning is the fact that the practice of natural family planning as we have seen, is outstanding in the sense that it can be used or applied in three ways: it can be used in preventing pregnancies; it can also be used in achieving pregnancies and lastly; it can also be used in spacing babies through the practice of ecological breastfeeding.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- AGUILAR, N., No-Pill, No-Risk Birth Control, New York: Rawson, Wade Publishers, 1980.
- BILLINGS, J., J., The Ovulation Method: Natural Family Planning, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1978.
- BROSKOWSKI, A., Management Information Systems for Planning and Evaluation in Human Services, in Program Evaluation in the Health Fields, Vol. 11; New York: Behavioral Publications, 1976.
- BROWN, J., The Facts About Abortion, Vol 3, America: Life League Inc. 1988.
- DEJOND, S., J., Contraception: The World, The Flesh And The Materialistic View Of Man, USA: Human Life International, 1992.
- DJERASSI, C., The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, And Degas’ Horse. New York City: Basic Books, 1992.
- GOLDEN, M., All Kinds Of Family Planning, Ibadan: African University Press, 1981. Contraceptive Pills, Ibadan: Claverianum Press, 1986.