Catholic Influence on Family Planning: A Study in the Context of Catholic Communities

Abstract

This article deals with the relationship between Catholic Church and family planning, with the goal of identifying the impact of the first on the second. The research is descriptive and analytical from literature review on issues related to family planning and a field research with the implementation of the instrument for Planning of parentality in the context of bioethics. In total were evaluated 863 questionnaires related to the pregnancy of the first child and 614 relate to the pregnancy of the last child. One of the results of the research points out that more than half of the respondents (63.4%) assigned note zero or 1 to the question presented: Did religion influenced in the choice of contraceptive method? However, the percentage of assigned full marks for the planning of pregnancy of the first child is 42.3%. Conclusions: this article reveals a positive balance in relation to the role of religion in the search of a parental responsibility, because it identifies that the official position of religious leadership does not exhaust the list of possibilities for reflection on religion itself on family planning. The research demonstrates that the Church's position on choice of contraception is accompanied also by a posture for a parental responsibility and agreed planning. The final consideration that this article allows us to do is that religion is a major factor in a program that seeks to promote family planning.