FAIRFAX, Va. — The web-site of Tepeyac Family Center in Fairfax, Va., makes a bold statement that may well put off some patients.

“No contraception, abortion or abortion inducers will ever be dispensed or recommended,” says the site, www.TepeyacFamilyCenter. com.

While the center is unabashedly holistic and Christ-centered, Dr. John Bruchalski, the driving force behind Tepeyac, didn't always practice this kind of medicine. In addition to a full menu of contraceptive services and surgical interventions, he performed abortions.

But a visit to Mexico's shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe launched a process that changed his life — and his practice of medicine. In gratitude, the former abortionist named the center after Tepeyac, the small hill where Our Lady appeared to the astonished St. Juan Diego.

Deciding to stop prescribing contraceptives and performing sterilizations is something even Catholic physicians struggle with. But Bruchalski is part of a growing list of obstetrician-gynecologists and medical practices that only offer natural family planning. The center offers “resources that promote awareness of natural methods of fertility and an understanding of the menstrual cycle as a healthy event.”

Indeed, the New Jersey-born doctor teaches a regular, monthly NFP class. Anyone can attend to learn a woman's body signs that distinguish the fertile days from the rest of the cycle, most of which is infertile.

By a different route, Dr. Mary Davenport became an NFP-only OB-GYN in El Sobrante, Calif., in the San Francisco area. As a 1960s college student, she applauded the promise of the sexual revolution, went on the pill (which she continued taking for two decades) and later, as a physician, readily prescribed contraceptives. For nearly three years after finishing her residency, she performed abortions despite a personal dislike for the procedure.

But by the late 1980s, especially after the life-changing experience of her son's birth, Davenport was uneasy. She was especially troubled by some patients' promiscuity.

“The pill helps to keep people in a condition of perpetual adolescence,” she said. “It's not good for them; it's not good for society. I didn't want to be contributing to the problem.”

They Set a Date

Davenport, who is a recent Catholic convert, was open to considering an alternative and, after learning about natural family planning, made her office available to a group that gave NFP classes. Still, despite her own misgivings, she continued writing pill prescriptions and fitting women for diaphragms.

“I couldn't figure out how to be an OB-GYN without providing contraception,” she said.

After studying at the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha, Neb., where she met nearly a dozen NFP-only physicians, Davenport finally saw how to change. Thanks to helpful advice, she set a date to stop prescribing contraception and thereafter provide only natural family planning.

“A few patients were upset by my decision, but most accepted it,” she recalled. “Some were even influenced by it.”

By contrast, Dr. Daniel McDonald, with practices in Irving and Denton, Texas, became an NFP-only provider unexpectedly. After a long period of personal and spiritual reassessment, he decided Jan. 1, 2002, would be his start date as an NFP-only physician. He planned an orderly transition, including telling his partners and sending letters to all his patients several months in advance.

But before he could execute his plan, McDonald made his first good confession in years. The following day a patient came in for her pill prescription renewal.

“I suddenly realized that my previous day's firm purpose of amendment would be meaningless if I wrote it,” McDonald recalled. “So I refused.”

The repercussions were immediate. McDonald's partners were even less prepared for his NFP-only approach than he was. Ultimately, his action prompted a separation from the group, causing an immediate, sharp hit to his income.

Little by little, however, as word spread in parish, home-schooling, NFP and other communities, new patients began calling.

“Business has been inching upward,” he reported.

If so, that's the good news. The reality?

“It's difficult to earn the same income as an NFP-only physician,” said Dr. Kim Hardey, who remembers the day his wife handed him a pastoral letter written by Bishop Glennon Flavin, former bishop of Lincoln, Neb. Two sentences were particularly upsetting: “Catholic physicians and others who prescribe contraceptives or recommend their use are cooperators with those who use them. Such cooperation is gravely sinful.”

Giving Up a Home

Hardey was angry. “Do you realize what this means?” he exploded, gesturing toward the family's lovely home and yard. “All this will be gone!”

But the tragic death of his son Brad, struck by a car two years earlier, had been the beginning of a profound spiritual odyssey that included the realization that being “personally opposed” to contraception was no longer enough. When Hardey confronted the challenge of becoming an NFP-only provider, Bishop Flavin's pastoral letter became a beacon that helped him meet it.

And, just as he predicted, Hardey's beautiful home and yard were soon gone, but not for the reason he'd thought. The family moved from Alabama to Lafayette, La., where there is greater patient and physician support for NFP-only providers. Hardey has never regretted his decision — or its aftermath.

Dr. Robert Scanlon says regret would be surprising.

“As a medical doctor, you want to first do no harm medically or spiritually,” he said.

The Huntington, N.Y., physician remembers Father Daniel McCaffery of Oklahoma's NFP Outreach (www.nfpoutreach.org) was especially helpful to him during the period he confronted the contraception challenge in his own medical practice. Later, as Scan-lon stood in St. Peter's Square in Rome, he realized his gift of faith was the result of sometimes-enormous sacrifices made by many men and women over many centuries.

“I decided that if I had to be a voice of conscience and of contradiction, so be it,” he said.He's never regretted his decision.

“There's richness in the relationship of couples who use natural family planning,” he marveled. “It's something I see now but didn't see before. And once you really get it, there's no going back.”

Nona Aguilar writes from New York City, New York.