Depending on their culture or how they were brought up, many believers are uncomfortable talking about family planning.
Some are confused on the subject because of inadequate or inaccurate teaching, while others have an uneasy feeling that there is something sinful about trying to “plan” such an intimate and “holy” undertaking as having children.
This being the case, it is important to understand what family planning means and what it does not mean.
Simply stated, family planning involves making deliberate decisions in advance to avoid unwanted pregnancies and to limit the size of one’s family to the number of children that the parents can adequately love, provide for, nurture, train, and protect.
Carrying out these decisions requires specific, concrete actions aimed at prevention.
In other words, family planning includes birth control.
The most common means of birth control today are the condom, the diaphragm, and the birth control pill, all of which prevent pregnancy by preventing sperm cells from the male from fertilizing the ovum from the female.
Birth control prevents the conception of a new human being.
Family planning focuses on prevention and advance control of childbearing. It has nothing to do with the deliberate termination of pregnancies.
Therefore, abortion is not family planning. Neither is it birth control or health care.
Abortion is immoral and sin because it is the deliberate destruction of existing human life.
As such, it goes against the direct design and intention of God.
There was a time when large families were the norm and even necessary for survival, particularly in agriculturally based societies.
Infant and child mortality rates were so high due to disease or injury that parents needed to produce many children in order to ensure that some would reach maturity to help work the farm as well as carry on the family line.
In today’s industrialized society and current economic realities, family planning and
birth control simply makes good sense. This is also true in many third-world cultures with pervasive poverty and malnutrition where population runs rampant because of ignorance and lack of access to legitimate birth control options.
Family planning focuses on prevention and ADVANCE control of childbearing.
It has nothing to do with the DELIBERATE TERMINATION of pregnancies.
There are at least three questions regarding family planning that every couple need to answer together, preferably before they get married, but certainly no later than in the early months of their marriage.
First, “Do we want children?” For a variety of reasons, some couples opt not to have any children.
Whether it is for career reasons, concern over health risks, the danger of passing on hereditary health problems, or whatever, this is a decision that each couple must make for themselves.
If a couple decides that they do want children, the second question they must answer is, “When?”
This is a very important question.
There are several major factors to consider in determining the timing for starting a family, such as maturity, whether one or both partners are in school, and whether a steady job and income are in place.
In order to grow up healthy, children need a home environment that is stable financially, emotionally, and spiritually.
A third question a couple needs to answer with regard to children is “How many?” One of the most significant factors to consider here is the couple’s financial means.
Very simply, the more children a couple has, the more it will cost to raise and care for them properly.
For example, a household that brings in an income of $300.00 a week cannot reasonably expect to provide for ten children.
It is the parents’ responsibility to determine not only how many children they want, but also how many children they can realistically support.
Raising children is a serious and important matter to God, and parents are accountable to Him for how they treat and care for their children.
“If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8).
God is not opposed to the idea of couples having a lot of children, but He does expect and require them to love, support, and provide for those children in a responsible manner.
It is the parents’ responsibility to determine not only how many children they want, but also how many children they can realistically support.
Birth control can be a blessing, especially for young newlyweds who need time to adjust to each other and establish their household before bringing children into the picture.
For couples who desire no children or who have all the children they want, procedures are available to prevent a further conception:
a vasectomy for the man or tubal ligation for the woman. All of these are blessings of technology that are invaluable for helping married couples make wise and informed decisions concerning the size of their families.
