A few years ago, I home taught an older gentleman. His daughter was recently married, and discovered that the baby she was carrying had serious medical issues. The baby was missing the right side of her body, and the doctor told the couple that the baby would be born alive, but live just hours due to so many medical issues. The mother still had months to go in her pregnancy. The doctor was correct. The baby was born with serious problems, the father gave her a name and a blessing in the labor and delivery room, and the baby died after just an hour or so. The couple has gone on to have another healthy baby.
I find myself hearing of a similar situation with a distant relative. Ultrasounds show the baby is seriously deformed. I don’t have all the medical information, but from what I understand the situation is similar, the child is expected to live just hours after birth, and this is the first child for this couple too, who have had a difficult time becoming pregnant. I believe the mother is about 3 months along in her pregnancy, so she still has a considerable time to go.
It is pretty well-known that the LDS stance on abortion is that it is acceptable “when the life or health of the mother is judged by competent medical authority to be in serious jeopardy”, as well as when pregnancy ” is the result of incest or rape.” In preparing for this post, I checked the church policy found on LDS.org, and was surprised to find that abortion is acceptable “when the fetus is known by competent medical authority to have severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth.” The official statement is highlighted in bold below.
Church leaders have said that some exceptional circumstances may justify an abortion, such as when pregnancy is the result of incest or rape, when the life or health of the mother is judged by competent medical authority to be in serious jeopardy, or when the fetus is known by competent medical authority to have severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth. But even these circumstances do not automatically justify an abortion. Those who face such circumstances should consider abortion only after consulting with their local Church leaders and receiving a confirmation through earnest prayer.
I’m actually encouraged by the church’s stance on this issue, as I wasn’t aware of this exception. I’m sure this would be a heart-wrenching decision to make. I wonder if it would be easier at 3-4 months of pregnancy, rather than waiting for the birth at 9 months.
Is this in line with other evangelical, protestant, or Catholic positions? What are your thoughts on this tough issue?
Wheat & Tares 
I’ve found that the LDS church’s official position is very moderate compared to other Christians. Our stance has no place in the personhood amendment movement, which would qualify every existing embryo as a person. This means full legal protections for embryos.
My child was born via IVF and I’ve shared my experience online. We had complications during IVF and 31 eggs were experimentally frozen, after they became embryos only 1 of them survived to a blastula stage. After sharing this with some right wing Christians I was called a baby killer bc the embryos died. Many churches don’t approve of IVF, which was developed via medical experiments with embryos.
Officially the church is a lot more liberal in this gray area with embryos/fetuses than members are on the ground.
I think we have a fairly moderate stance all things considered.
Thank God for your relative’s legal right to make this heart-wrenching decision for herself.
There can be few things more heart-breaking than the loss of a child. Even worse is that loss inside its mother’s belly, especially under dire circumstances as MH described for his HT family and relative. The Church’s position that it’s largely a decision between the patient mother and her OB is correct and it’s hard to see how it could be otherwise. Just as the Lord ‘ordained’ our ‘rulers’ (hopefully democratically elected but not so in the Apostle Paul’s day when he wrote his counsel in his epistles) to ensure order and peace among men, so He has likewise ‘ordained’ (e.g., allowed to come forth) medical practitioners to deal with difficult situations like this.
The Church HAS at times caught flak from fanatics who self-style as “Pro-Life” but are more “Anti”-abortion, even to the point of obvious detriment to mother and child. I recall a protest at the Manti Temple BoM pageant in 2002 where some anti-LDS demonstrators, making pests of themselves as usual, raised this very issue. Sure, we counsel our members to procreate copiously, but to do so with wisdom, the mother’s health being of prime consideration in same. In 35 years of Church membership I’ve never heard of women being counseled to put their health in jeopardy for the sake of bringing to term an ill-advised pregnancy.
Even Bob Dole, at least in the Simpsons universe (impersonated by Kodos the Rigellian whom I voted for in ’96 so don’t blame me) found that a fanatical stance on abortion either way didn’t work:
Were California to experience a dearth of administrative talent insofar as a Governor is concerned (some say by electing “Moonbeam” for a FOURTH term, we have), and I were nominated, I’d push forth legislation that regulated only medical practitioners, and even then within their respective self-regulating organization (like CMA), with regard to the necessity of a woman obtaining an abortion (this assumes that Roe v. Wade were overturned which, though it ought to be, won’t likely happen), leaving the issue where it belongs, between doctor and patient, but still setting forth a basic “pro-life” policy that isn’t unlike what the Church states.
Over the past 18 months, I’ve worked closely with the development of the database for our high risk maternity program. Listening to some of the stories of what these families are going through has made me extremely appreciative of the Church’s relatively moderate stance. I wish more members understood and agreed with it (most Mormons I know swear that they would never abort under any conditions).
What I’ve really come to appreciate in my experience is that aborting a deformed fetus early is safer for the mother (that we don’t have a higher maternal mortality rate in the western world is a miracle), and usually offers better prospects for her fertility afterward. And that’s to say nothing of the change in quality of life that comes after all the medical bills and intensive care that can last years and lifetimes if the child survives birth.
I, for one, will never question a mother’s/family’s decision to abort. No matter what the circumstances, every abortion is a tragedy, and they need to be met with mourning.
I agree that Mormons are definitely much more moderate concerning abortion (and even gay marriage) than many militant evangelicals. I think this is further reason why evangelicals don’t like Mormons. (Did you all see that a group of evangelicals canceled an event with Jana Reiss BECAUSE Jana is Mormon? http://janariess.religionnews.com/2015/03/09/mormons-evangelicals-sigh/ Some of them are just crazy!)
A friend miscarried in her first trimester and was very upset. Praying a bout it, with her individual case, the answer she received was that this boy would need a healthier body. And a couple of years later, she indeed had a healthy baby boy. And years later, I can see why this young man needs a physically healthy body to earn a living.
My sister miscarried with a baby girl. The next child born was a boy. It doesn’t always work out that nice, especially if we consider “Gender is an essential characteristic of [an] individual.”
Soooo your god is powerful enough to cause a baby to be miscarried if their body is not healthy enough, but not powerful enough to just give the baby a healthy in the first place?
When my sister was pregnant with her first they discovered some abnormalities with the fetus that were not allowing its organs to develop properly. The doctors told her that her baby would not be able to live on his own after birth. She was extremely upset, but also has an overdeveloped sense of guilt and sometimes extreme ideas about what is right and wrong. She decided it would be a grievous moral sin for her to abort the baby. She decided to carry it to full term. At her next doctors appointment things had taken a turn for the worse and she was informed that her life was in serious jeopardy if she continued the pregnancy. This only strengthened her resolve to continue to full term. After meeting multiple times with her bishop she decided that it would be okay for her to terminate the pregnancy. I am so grateful for that bishop and the supporting church policy that convinced her it was not a sin to terminate a doomed pregnancy to save her own life.
Kullervo, i know you like to play the role of curmudgeon, but i am not a fan of making fun of someone else’s prayers to make a theological point. Could you rephrase in a way that is less mocking?
If you think about it, technically the church is pro choice, because they support abortion remaining legal in certain circumstances. Obviously not all, but we wouldn’t support an outright ban.
#12 – I would hardly consider the Church “pro choice” as the phrase is commonly used. Au contraire, ma souer, if a member has an abortion for reasons of convenience (as opposed to health), she and anyone that participates is considered to have committed a serious sin and subject to discipline.
The Church understands, though, that the sledgehammer approach to banning ALL abortions, regardless of reason, is unreasonable and defies sensible practice of Obstetrics. Pro-Life is just that (though the Church itself shies away from specific labels, it stands on its own), including the life (and health) of the mother.
To add to my earlier comment, I think we generally have an approach that is both pragmatic and reasonable.
However to balance your statement Douglas: “In 35 years of Church membership I’ve never heard of women being counseled to put their health in jeopardy for the sake of bringing to term an ill-advised pregnancy.”
That might be because you were never in YW. I recall a grim story in one manual growing up specifically about a mother for whom bringing to term a baby would mean death, and how she wrote a diary for that baby knowing she would die. Not sure what the point of that was in a YW manual. It seemed to me to rather romanticise the very sad situation.
In my ward, at around the same sort of time, there was a less active member expecting a baby found to be suffering from cancer, who opted to wait until the birth. I have to hope she made the correct choice for her. The cancer killed her. That could have happened anyway, I guess. Treatments have improved a lot in the intervening years.
We were also subject to a fireside by a member of the stake who was a member of the charitable organisation Life.
I have to agree with Hedgehog. Douglas’ comment that we’ve never prized having children over the health of the mother does not fit my experience growing up in the church.
Deciding whether to abort a baby is equivalent to deciding whether to pull life support on a family member. It is a heartbreaking, deeply personal decision. There have been times when ultrasounds and doctor predictions have been proven wrong, and babies have survived longer than expected after birth. These are the exceptions, however. My husband has worked in NICUs where parents have to choose whether to prolong a baby’s life with painful surgeries that may only buy a few months. Our gut instinct is to prolong life as long as possible, but there are cases when it becomes a mercy to let nature take it’s course. Definitely glad that the church’s stance is as open as it is, relying heavily upon personal revelation of the parents and church leaders.
Kullervoo, physical bodies require millions of things to go right in order to be viable. God respects laws of nature. Most people have minor things wrong with their bodies, and a minority have major things wrong. God has power to change all of that, but rarely does so. It is a consequence of the Fall. He has inspired many people to create medical interventions in order to help counteract or alleviate many of these natural defects. I consider those to be just as miraculous as God intervening directly.
I’m with Hedghog, I also remember hearing a story in YW about a woman who was pregnant with her 9th child who was told her life was at risk and she chose to not abort. She died and the child lived and we talked about her honorable sacrifice. And now dad has 9 motherless children (this was also before the days it was ok to use birth control).
(sigh)
#16 – there’s a huge difference between ‘faith-promoting’ rumors and anecdotes versus inspired counsel from PH leadership. Yes, that sister who perished in giving birth to child#9 was both brave and selfless, but, in the words of the Klingon Commander Kor (admittedly while under the influence of the Augment virus, according to the Trekkies), “you do not know the difference between bravery and foolhardiness”. Easy to pontificate either way. The poor woman without doubt suffered terribly, her husband and surviving children went on paying. Would it have been so terrible for her to ‘punt’ and carry on alive with eight children and her husband? She made her decision, and we can but laud her faith and selflessness, while still observing that our dear sisters are not necessarily commanded to do likewise if faced with a similar tragic dilemma. It’s hard to comprehend how great a love a Mother has for her child even at the expense of her own which is why the entire issue doesn’t lend itself to easily-defined heuristics; rather, hopefully the guidance of the Spirit.
The problem, Douglas, is that the lessons in those old manuals aren’t exactly known for nuance. Her selfless sacrifice is praised and framed as the ‘right’ choice by virtue of the fact that there is no opening for discussion about alternatives.
Sure, you might claim that it isn’t the manual’s job to open up the discussion of nuance, but the fact remains that the manuals were written for the amateur teacher. The cynic in me believes the openings for nuance were deliberately left out in hopes of framing these kinds of choice as more correct than others.
To put it more directly, the Church’s manuals show a very clear bias in the way they present information.
“the lessons in those old manuals aren’t exactly known for nuance”
Especially if lifted OUT OF CONTEXT by trollers and nay-sayers and those Nattering Nabobs of Negativism. To wit: “When the prophet speaks, the thinking is done”. NEVER said over the pulpit, but part of a 1945 Improvement Era lesson which ‘slipped’ out (considering that it was wartime, maybe the Church wasn’t going with the “A” team?) and not much later was ‘clarified’ (virtually retracted).
It’s not just “Antis” that pick and choose the words of “dead” Prophets. Many who otherwise consider themselves of the “faithful” but nevertheless cling to extreme and/or unauthorized views (like mandating that abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, is strictly verboten) are likewise guilty. Hence why (1) correlation (safety in numbers) and (2) CURRENT revelation (it’s considered ‘revelation’ if substantiated by common consent of the Church body) ALWAYS trumps prior sayings. To wit: Bruce R. McConkie weighing in with his own two cents worth on the subject of blacks and the PH (his Apostleship for six years prior to the revelation for blacks holding the PH carrying SOME weight), and then, once Official Declaration 2 came forth, saying in a speech at BYU, “Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world.” Crimna-nin-nee, if the Church had everything the Savior wanted to impart from the beginning, it would all but put the subsequent Prophets out of a job!
Numbers 11:29 “And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? I wish to God that all the LORD’S people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!”