There is what the LDS Church STATES in the Handbook, and then there is what they actually DO when they think no one is watching. I want to use the personal experiences I’ve had all my years living in Rexburg as a student, employee, congregant, and employee spouse to show you this. Consider that the Handbook serves many purposes, and it sends messaging to both outsiders and insiders. SLC can easily distance itself from its past “oh we don’t teach that anymore! look at our handbook!” and then sometimes act contrary to its stated position when they have the desire and ability to do so without too much blowback.

PROVO vs. REXBURG

As a newlywed in 2001 I started working full-time in BYUI President Bednar’s Office. After a few years as the receptionist I realized babies weren’t coming and I went back to school for a bachelor’s degree. (Advanced education for women? This was impractical idea for women based on their role in this life, was now wholly necessary for me! I mean, yes, I’d gotten a 31 on my ACT but who cares because God made me to only be a Mother in Zion! I digress!) Upon returning to school at BYUI after my AAS in Office Systems Management from Ricks College, I chose accounting because the history and English classes were asking me to weigh gray moral issues. That made me uncomfy and as my married ward’s Relief Society President, I felt justified in telling the teacher that The Spirit was telling me I shouldn’t read 1984.

Anyways (as I’ve learned with my newly diagnosed AuDHD, I tend to make my short points long so I will get on with it) I was in Brother Ames’ auditing class that year. He had just come out of an all-faculty meeting where Pres. Bednar reported to them what the CES Board of Trustees had told him when he was down in SLC. Pres. Bednar told all of the gathered BYUI faculty that the Board of Trustees actually LOVED BYU-Idaho. Rexburg was their favorite campus because they didn’t have the same worldly constraints BYU had in Provo and “they could basically do what they wanted here.” Provo has rankings and worldly academic expectations and eyes of the world on it, the more “extreme” desires of SLC just wouldn’t play there. But Rexburg? That was their sandbox. The experience you have in Rexburg is exactly what SLC would prefer to institute everywhere if they could. I’ve run into lots of folks in online Mormonism, especially folks associated with BYU in Provo, who think Rexburg is full of a bunch of self-righteous nut jobs with a religious superiority complex because we’re so isolated (or insecure. or whatever). Consider that Provo is how they STATE things in the handbook, and Rexburg how they actually DO things when granted more freedom.

BIRTH CONTROL

I know my mother’s generation grew up with frequent preaching over the pulpit about the evils of birth control and limiting the numbers of your children. I remember when I got married in 2001 our Ricks College bishop told us that the number of children we have is between us and the Lord. So the handbook STATES it supports its members using their agency in determining the number of children for their family. But what did the church DO when it had the ability to control it’s members fertility? All we need to do is look at Church insurance policies at DMBA! until 2/1/2023 it would only cover birth control for women if they already had produced 5 children or they were over the age of 40. While enjoying a general reputation of being so hands-off for decades, they literally manipulated women’s lives to squeeze out as many offspring as possible from them until a level that they deemed was enough. BYUI professors and Rexburg OBs were ordering black market IUDs from Canada because we didn’t enjoy a planned parenthood nearby like BYU employees had. So the leaders very much had strong feelings against birth control, and when they had the power to control it in members’ lives without much negative blowback, they absolutely did. Until 2023! In fact I’m not even sure the majority of leaders making the decision are now pro-birth control agency; or if they just came to face the fact the public blowback of the DMBA policy was no longer tenable. My own story of the detrimental effects of the DMBA policy were highlighted on the @dmba_stories instagram account a few months before the policy was changed. (My story includes dmba twins, degenerative disc disease, a rapid repeat pregnancy 21 months apart, very deep postpartum depression, 8+ years of nervous system burnout, untold financial stressors–mind you, BYUI has only given us inflation raises over 15 years of employment–and a family that has been far from strengthened by not having full agency over our reproductive choices.)

WITNESS CHAIRS

I became a baby Mormon feminist in my 30s in 2013 after moving to Rexburg during the Ordain Women drama and starting to learn what words like “pedestalization” meant. One of my earliest blogs in 2014 (linked here) explored all of the many issues I had regarding women in the church and I specifically asked for women to witness. It was important for me that women be given the authority to bear witness. Five years later in 2019 the church changed their handbook to STATE that women (and young children, naturally) could now serve at witnesses. Before, men would stand or sit to the side in positions of importance with a clear view and understanding of the proper ordinance and there would be paperwork for them to sign bearing witness that it had been performed correctly. When it came time for me to witness my own children’s baptisms or sealings I’d realized they let the woman (or child) stand to the side, and then the bishopric member would come up behind me and peek over my shoulder during the ordinance and then mark it on his paperwork as he walked away. I never have signed any document as a witness. And did you notice they took away the two witness chairs in the sealing room? I was told that isn’t it wonderful that the witnesses can now just sit anywhere in the room?! Consider me impressed (/sarcasm)! I bet women sitting in those two chairs made some men in SLC feel uncomfy inside and they thought it was the Spirit telling them to change the how they DO witnessing.

IDAHO ABORTION

I knew they were willing to micromanage things under the table, so it shouldn’t have been a shock when they pulled the strings on Idaho’s reproductive rights. Yes, I was shocked but not surprised. I’ve lived in Rexburg since 2013 and grew up in Pocatello; I’ve watched my state legislature veer to the right my whole life (even as our local legislators have been a bit more moderate, bless). The Idaho trigger law passed on the Dobbs ruling was written at a time when folks didn’t think Roe v Wade would ever go away. It was not thoughtful, it was draconian. I have watched OBs flee Idaho and read the stories of women (one with a baby with heartbeats but no brain) have to be life flighted to Utah or Washington for their abortions. It seemed nearly everyone agreed we needed to moderate the law, except the Idaho Legislature; which, keep in mind, if they had done so we would have never had needed a ballot initiative in the first place. The ballot initiative process exists for citizens to speak up and say “the legislature is not instituting the will of the Idaho citizens!” In the past I am one of the handful of people who knock on doors in Rexburg to gather signatures for ballot initiatives (I did for the Quality Education Act which passed in 2022 and for Open Primaries/Ranked Choice Voting which didn’t pass in 2024). And while I’m not sensitive to knocking on doors and being told no after a 60-90 second pitch for paying teachers more or RCV, I also knew knocking on strangers doors for this initiative in Rexburg might not be… as safe. I did cheer them on from the sidelines.

I knew the proposition rolled back laws to what they used to be under Roe v Wade and that it was a step beyond the exceptions STATED in the handbook. I also knew our handbook’s stated exceptions tended to be seen as fairly open minded compared to other conservative churches. My first job after was for Agassi Enterprises and the C-suite were democrats and they loved to debate current political issues. On the abortion issue I remember garnering begrudging respect from the CEO after sharing my position: the Church’s stated handbook exceptions. “That’s really open minded, actually!”. Unfortunately I assumed they would leave well enough alone because while they wouldn’t support the full measure, our leaders had exhibited some understanding of complexity of the issue by even having exceptions stated and encouraging parents to make decisions with their doctors and faith leaders.

After a lifetime of association with the church with inside knowledge of how the sausage is made, it really shouldn’t have been a punch to the gut to find out what they were willing to DO. When I heard about the leaked letters I spent all day working to get a copy to reporters so good journalism could be done above what the local Limbaugh wannabes had covered. Over the last week as my shock as subsided, I realized that not only is what they DO what they really believe, their actions also show the shallowness of their discernment and understanding, and their unwillingness to consider the lives and voices of women.

Do you remember how I’d shared that the church covered our round of IVF in 2017? This included paying over $200,000 to Madison Memorial Hospital for their 3 week NICU stay. Having been an IVF mama who researched the history, I knew the first test tube baby had only ever been made in the 1970s because they’d allowed legal abortion in 1967. The obstetrician who delivered the first IVF baby also was one of the few who performed abortions in the UK. You need to have legal freedom to do medical research on embryos to be able to have IVF babies.

So here I am, probably one of the few women in the church that has had their reproductive policies AND actions lead to such devastating AND miraculous results in my life. My life has been completely derailed AND I am so in love with those faces my heart aches. These babies are miracles AND I never would have them without legal abortion rights.

I’m just a girl, standing in front of her church, asking their black and white MBA brains to see her, to hear her, and to be able to embrace the ANDS of life. And yet they continue to show me that’s just not something they DO.

I remain heartbroken AND furious.