Interestingly, this page puts the perfect use failure rate at 2%, and more importantly, the typical failure rate at 25%. And if you want a nice peer-reviewed study that looks at what women actually do, then there’s this, which puts periodic abstinence (the actual substance fof NPF “Just don’t have sex for half the month!”) at 21%. Whether you believe these numbers or Stanford (or it’s varying year by year), telling poor women to buy a bunch of charts and thermometers, attend classes, and go without for the up to six months it can take to chart their cycles and a week or two every month still doesn’t reduce pregnancy.

And if you want a more detailed breakdown, the Mayo Clinic puts the average use failure rate for basal body temperature at 80%, the the calendar method at 13%, and counting your cycle on a string of beads at 12%. They don’t have any numbers for combined use, but doing everything at once appears to decrease effectiveness, as opposed to with easier artificial methods.

On another note, a friend who is morally opposed to contraception got pregnant on NFP. Had a terrible pregnancy, too – months upon months of non-stop morning sickness. I haven’t heard from her recently but I wonder if that experience will change her views on birth control.

“natural” family planning…is the only family planning method that is 100% effective.

Suuuure it is. And the wine really is transubstantiated into Christ’s blood, too.

What do you call people who practice “natural family planning”? Parents.

I do have a compromise: teach woman the “natural” family planning the Catholic Church likes. It actually works when followed correctly; in fact it is the only family planning method that is 100% effective. That way women won’t feel the need to have the government — or anyone else — buying them abortions.

Dude, they don’t call it “Vatican Roulette” for nothing.

As for pocket-picking — I’m sure you’ve renounced your right to collect Social Security, right?

I do have a compromise: teach woman the “natural” family planning the Catholic Church likes. It actually works when followed correctly; in fact it is the only family planning method that is 100% effective.

Where the heck did you learn that it’s 100% effective? Link to a scientific study, please?

Actually, NFP has a pretty high failure rate for a variety of reasons. A recent study, which I don’t have the time to look up right now, found that many women ovulate twice in a single month — meaning that if they’re using NFP and assuming they’re only ovulating once, they have a pretty decent chance of getting pregnent.

Women’s health isn’t a “compromise.” That’s the point. It’s not up to ideological detractors to decide what kind of healthcare women should have access to, even when it comes to preventing pregnancy. It’s up to women and their doctors.