Can't have any of the kiddies learning things like this - might cut into condom sales and wipe out Planned Parenthood's largest source of income:

London, Mar 1, 2007 / 12:05 pm (CNA) - German scientists are now confirming what many Catholic couples have known for some time - the natural family planning method known as STM works. Scientists have been taken aback by a new study which found STM to be as effective, if not more so, than the contraceptive pill in family planning.

For years married Catholics have used the natural family planning method known as the symptom-thermal method (STM) as a morally licit means to maintain the sexual part of their conjugal relationship while at the same time decreasing the chances of having additional children due to “physical, economic, psychological, or social conditions.” The Catholic Church teaches that natural family methods can be used in a moral manner if the couple remains open to the blessing of children – something which the Church sees as essential to the vocation of marriage.

The new study brings light to the scientific effectiveness of STM, while ignoring its moral uses.

The symptom-thermal method enables couples to identify accurately the time of the woman's fertile phase by measuring two indicators — her temperature and observing cervical secretions. In the largest prospective study of STM, researchers found that if couples either abstained from sex, as required in STM, or used a barrier (condom, etc) method during the fertile period, the rate of unplanned pregnancies per year was 0.4 percent and 0.6 percent respectively.

The research was published in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction.

Out the 900 women who took part in the study, including those who had unprotected sex during their fertile period, 1.8 per 100 became unintentionally pregnant.

For an artificial contraceptive method to be rated as “highly efficient,” there should be less than one pregnancy per 100 women per year when the method is used correctly, explained Petra Frank-Herrmann, managing director of the natural fertility department at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.

How about that? Learn about how things work, and then live your life as God intended, and you can eschew rubber products and various hormonal pills. Who would have thought that life works without the "helping" hand of modern contraceptive science? Next thing you know, we might even figure out that a two parent family works best for raising kids.

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