Thursday, May 24, 2018

Answering a Pro-Abortion Member of the Church

Abortion is one of the greatest evils of all time--the deliberate destruction of the most innocent, defenseless human life there is, the unborn child.

Sadly, due to the cancer of moral relativism, many so-called members of the Church accept the so-called "right" to choose the termination of the life of the unborn human. Such pro-abortion ("pro-choice" is a euphemism) among those who feign being Latter-day Saints is something to be expected--Christ warned us that the Church would be a mix of wheat and chaff, but he will eventually remove the chaff and they will become the recipients of the divine wrath they are currently under.

As one example, here is one Irish member of the Church defending abortion, while explicitly rejecting medical science:



Such nonsense flies in the face of LDS teaching (cf. Russell M. Nelson and Dallin H. Oaks on the Evils of Abortion). For instance:

The Lord commanded, “Thou shalt not kill nor do anything like it” (D&C 59:6). The Church opposes elective abortion for personal or social convenience. Members must not submit to, perform, arrange for, pay for, CONSENT TO, or ENCOURAGE, an abortion . . . even these exceptions [conception in rape and incest; when a competent physician determines the fetus will not survive beyond birth] do not justify abortion automatically . . . Church members who submit to, perform, arrange for, pay for, CONSENT TO, or ENCOURAGE an abortion may be subject to Church discipline. (Handbook 2: Administering the Church [2010], p. 195)

For those who vote in favour of legislation supporting abortion and/or fund organisations such as Planned Parenthood, if they were honest, could never hold a temple recommend, as they would have to answer "yes" to the following questions from the Temple Recommend interview:


7. Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

8. Do you strive to keep the covenants you have made, to attend your sacrament and other meetings, and to keep your life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel?


Russell M. Nelson, in his April 1985 General Conference talk, Reverence for Life, wrote the following, answering such a nonsense apologetic wherein one appealed to "quickening":

The woman’s choice for her own body does not validate choice for the body of another. The expression “terminate the pregnancy” applies literally only to the woman. The consequence of terminating the fetus therein involves the body and very life of another. These two individuals have separate brains, separate hearts, and separate circulatory systems. To pretend that there is no child and no life there is to deny reality.

It is not a question of when “meaningful life” begins or when the spirit “quickens” the body. In the biological sciences, it is known that life begins when two germ cells unite to become one cell, bringing together twenty-three chromosomes from both the father and from the mother. These chromosomes contain thousands of genes. In a marvelous process involving a combination of genetic coding by which all the basic human characteristics of the unborn person are established, a new DNA complex is formed. A continuum of growth results in a new human being. The onset of life is not a debatable issue, but a fact of science.

Approximately twenty-two days after the two cells have united, a little heart begins to beat. At twenty-six days the circulation of blood begins.

Scripture declares that the “life of the flesh is in the blood.” (Lev. 17:11.) Abortion sheds that innocent blood.



While addressing this moral evil in the late 19th century, Erastus Snow said the following:


The Latter-day Saints do not imitate the examples of the Eastern cities and the old commonwealths of the Atlantic seaboard in destroying their offspring. They do not patronize the vendor of noxious, poisonous, destructive medicines to procure abortion, infanticide; child murder, and other wicked devices, whereby to check the multiplication of their species, in order to facilitate the gratification of fleshly lust. (JOD 25:111 | March 9, 1884)

Something tells me that he would not buy the whole "Well, I myself don't like abortion, but who am I to prevent someone from choosing to have one?"-nonsense.