God's Gifts
Doctor's faith plays role in no longer prescribing artificial contraceptives

By Kenny Keane, Globe staff reporter
Posted January 9, 2003

DENISON - Throughout his career as a family-practice physician in Denison and even during his residency, Dr. Paul Matthews had been prescribing oral contraceptives.

However, something kept tugging at him. He knew in his heart that what he was doing was wrong, and he wanted to find a way to remove this burden he had been carrying for so many years.

"From the beginning, that's not the way I was raised. My parents were strong holders of the Catholic faith and raised us very much in that tradition," Matthews said. "I was raised learning that children are a blessing, and they aren't to be looked at any other way. They are all gifts from God. That's a strong foundation."

It was from that foundation that he finally made the decision within the past year to stop prescribing oral contraceptives.

"Slowly over the years, not just here in Denison but even in residency, I began to change the way that I practiced and was more and more limiting who I would prescribe these things to," he said. "Until finally it just really hit me that I can't keep doing this if I'm trying to be true to my faith."

Matthews and his wife Laura are members of St. Rose of Lima Church in Denison, and as a father of seven, he said it was an eye-opener for him with his children growing older.

"What am I going to tell my kids?," he wondered. "How can I tell them that this is wrong when here I'm prescribing it myself?"

Although he had already made his decision, he said a very good friend of his, Ruth Ellis of Ida Grove, helped him to be more at ease with what he was doing. Ellis used to work at the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha, where Matthews attended two rounds of physicians' training about the various methods of natural family planning.

During the course, Matthews learned about the "Creighton Model" of natural family planning from Dr. Thomas Hilgers, the instructor of the physicians' training. He said that Dr. Hilgers has identified and brought to light the scientific basis for natural family planning.

"I'm a scientist at heart. I wanted to substantiate for myself why I was doing this," Matthews said. "The course was just kind of the final stepping stone to solidify in my mind that this was the right thing to do, and there was a scientific reason for it as well.

"Of course, it's completely sanctioned by the church in keeping with the tradition, Scripture and so forth. That was very important to me, too."

From the course, Matthews said he is now able to prescribe natural family planning with more confidence and with more of a basis. He is able to point to the "Creighton Model" with brochures to hand out to people, and he also has the support of a fertility care practitioner, Becky Behrens, to whom he refers couples to teach this specific method.

Matthews said he knows there are many others out there like himself who are sort of drudging through the doldrums of the day with this big weight on their shoulders knowing that it's not right but continuing. For those who would like more information, he said they could call the Pope Paul VI Institute at (402) 390-6600, or visit the following websites: www.popepaulvi.com - or - www.creightonmodel.com.

"It is a bold step to take, but what incredible freedom I have experienced," he said. "If you have this nagging feeling in your heart that something isn't quite right, you need to ask God for guidance to find out what it is exactly that's nagging you and what you should do about it.

"It's hard for me to even say it now, but I was part of the culture of death because of what I was doing. That's what I finally had to come to terms with. You're either all right or not right at all."