What is Natural Family Planning (NFP)? This series on the 50th Anniversary of Humanae Vitae has and will continue to explore what NFP is. It may be helpful to consider at first what NFP is not. NFP is not an identity or a lifestyle. Using NFP, or “being a natural family planner” is not like being Italian or a vegetarian or a millennial. It is not a part of who you are or what defines the couple’s collective marital identity. It is not a trendy way of life.

NFP is a tool. A very useful tool, at times. At other times, it may be a tool that collects dust in the garage. But at all times, through the varied circumstances of married life, and the many unforeseen turns life can take, NFP is a really good tool to have around in your back pocket. The Church, in her wisdom, has provided for married couples a precept of reason and an instruction on how to exercise the will. Like any other moral act, NFP as a tool and as a precept of reason, calls on the individual to discern what is good and to use good means to achieve that end. NFP is nothing else than a practical application of the Church’s moral teaching in the context of married life and family size.