INTRODUCTION:
In 1969, Ghana adopted an explicit and comprehensive population policy. The third country to do so in Sub-Saharan Africa after Mauritius (1958) and Kenya (1965).
The major factors which influenced the formulation and publication of the Population Policy were:
- The realization that rapid population growth hampers development efforts.
- The harmful effect of unplanned childbirth on the health of mothers and other offspring.
- The belief that all individuals have a right to know about Family Planning Techniques.
- The need to ensure a comprehensive and integrated approach to population matters with a view to enhancing the quality of life of the people.
After years of the formulation of Ghana’s Population Policy, substantial evidence available with promotion of awareness of modern contraceptives by the Government still shows that women continue to bear children at a negative rate. This simply means the use of modern contraceptives is very low. Health survey revealed that higher proportion of family planning users practice periodic abstinence. There was a felt need that Natural Family Planning has its role if only we could intensify our efforts especially in the supervision and evaluation of NFP/FLE programs.
In 1973, the Catholic Bishops’ issued a Pastoral Letter expressing deep concern about the way the program of contraceptive was being organized with Catholic organizations and counseled the lay faithful of the church to use Family Planning in accordance with Catholic moral, values and principles.
A committee was formed under the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference to introduce Natural Family Planning into the country. The Committee eventually managed to get the Ghana National Family Planning Secretariat to accept the principles that N.F.P. is necessary for some couples on religious, cultural, health and personal grounds and agreed to provide funds for the program.
The Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference established a Natural Family Planning and Family Life Education Program at the National Catholic Secretariat, Department of Health in 1979.
The major reason for establishing Natural Family Planning and Family Life Program is to offer couples who for various reasons – religious, cultural or personal cannot use the artificial methods of contraceptives. The methods help couples to space their births, improve the marital relationships and solve their fertility problem
The Youth were also reached by offering them with Fertility Awareness lessons, sex education, techniques on HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion and chastity with its values will equip them to handle their biological development and integrate it into their social and spiritual life.
The teaching of natural family planning is therefore of primary importance in preserving reproductive health, including the prevention of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
CATHOLIC CHURCH STANCE ON FAMILY PLANNING AND CONTRACEPTION
If It Is True That God Has Endowed Us with Our Sexual Prowess, Should We Procreate Senselessly and Unceasingly? The answer is no according to Genesis Chapter 1:28 which say “And God blessed them; and God said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and Subdue it;”
The history of Contraception is not new to say. Ancient manuscripts dating back as far 1900 BC records the use of contraceptive materials. The book of Genesis (38:6-26) carries the story of Onan who was slain by God for a practice that today we call coitus interruptus or withdrawal. A rabbi in the third century of the Christian era noted the “deadly sin of Onan”, and in the context the sin is clearly his contraceptive act.
Until 1930, all Protestant denominations agreed with the Catholic Church’s teaching condemning contraception as sinful. At its 1930 Lambeth Conference, the Anglican church, swayed by growing social pressure, announced that contraception would be allowed in some circumstances.
It is the belief of Catholics that Jesus came to redeem us and to teach us the truth about love–God’s love for each one of us and how we are to love each other.
The church’s teaching about marriage, sexuality and family planning can be found in the Documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), Pope Paul VI’s letter “On human Life” (1968) and Pope John Paul II’s letter on “The role of the Christian Family in the Modern World (1981)
Marriage is an intimate, lifelong partnership in which husbands and wives give and receive love unselfishly. The sexual relationship expresses their married love and shows what it means to become “one body” (Genesis 2:24) and “one flesh” (Mark 10:8, Matthew 19:6). The sexual union is meant to express the full meaning of a couple’s love, its power to bind them together and “its openness to new life” the procreative aspect.
Contraception is wrong because it’s a deliberate violation of the design God built into the human race, often referred to as “natural law.” The natural law purpose of sex is procreation. The pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife. The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing children.
But sexual pleasure within marriage becomes unnatural, and even harmful to the spouses, when it is used in a way that deliberately excludes the basic purpose of sex, which is procreation. God’s gift of the sex act, along with its pleasure and intimacy, must not be abused by deliberately frustrating its natural end—
Justification of problem says that the Church is not against family planning per se but opposes some of its methods. The Church’s teaching on Natural Family Planning is not only directed at Catholics, but also to other Christians, Muslims and the Community who will opt for the Natural method.
So many women have been on the Pill and lived with undesirable side effects. Many are looking for a better way that is healthier-physically, emotionally, and spiritually that eliminates health issues like headaches, weight gain and constant stress of worrying about physical well-being.
Couples are not expected to leave their family size entirely to chance, Serious circumstances to be considered – “financial, physical, psychological, or those involving responsibilities to other family members” may affect the number and spacing of children. The Church understands this, while encouraging couples to take a generous view of children.
The Church approves of Family Planning for individual parents in accordance with their enlightened conscience. For Catholics this means a conscience which has been rightly informed by Catholic values and principles.
The benefits of National Family Planning:
- It increases Intimacy between couples as “one-flesh union” God intends sex to be.
- Greater sexual Self-mastery and Maturity in sense that, virtually couples manage their sexual desires.
Christ, however, has assured us that with his help, we can control all of our actions, even our sexual ones. St. Paul tells in Galatians 5:21-23.
When a couple postpones the pleasure of being together for the greater good of each other, their children, or other family members who may need their care they are practicing sexual self-mastery. The ability to temporarily sacrifice one’s personal desires to the good of another is a sign of emotion and spiritual maturity
Compiled by Margaret Louis Tagbor (Mrs)
(Directorate of Health, NCHS)