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Listen to an audio version of this piece here.

We understand the controversial nature of the problem. Millions of Americans believe that life begins at conception and consequently that an abortion is akin to causing the death of an innocent child; they recoil at the thought of a law that would permit it. Other millions fear that a law that forbids abortion would condemn many American women to lives that lack dignity, depriving them of equal liberty and leading those with least resources to undergo illegal abortions with the attendant risks of death and suffering.

From Justice Stephen Breyer’s majority opinion in Stenberg v. Carhart in 2000. The ruling struck down a Nebraska law that made performing a “partial-birth abortion” illegal.

When a subject is highly controversial—and any question about sex is that—one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold. One can only give one’s audience the chance of drawing their own conclusions as they observe the prejudices, the limitations, the idiosyncrasies of the speaker.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

All the cousins knew Aunt Marla’s story. Her doctors in Salt Lake City said it was unlikely she could survive a pregnancy. So she and Uncle Bill adopted two beautiful children. Then, several years later, Marla had an unplanned pregnancy. Her obstetrician refused to consider an abortion, even though keeping the baby to term might result in her preventable death and two motherless kids. Bed rest. Lots of worry. Plenty of anger directed at our very own LDS Church.

But Betsy was born. She was dangerously premature—especially so for those days. Everyone said that at birth she could have fit on a dinner plate (an image that haunted my young imagination). She wasn’t expected to survive. But she did. Perfect, whole, healthy.

This story isn’t going where you think it is. It would be understandable if Betsy herself had become an argument, an important family story, that challenged abortion. But somehow it never did. The grown-ups we kids looked up to—our parents and grandparents—were New Deal Democrats. Some had broken with the Church. Some, like my parents, were weaving their LDS faith with progressive politics in an unconventional way. We felt the gratitude they all had for the miracle that was Betsy, but we also sensed their sorrow and anger for the horrible trap Marla and Bill were in before their daughter’s birth. Hypocritical? It didn’t feel like that to us. Several years later, my family moved to the East Coast, where my father, a physician by training, had left his practice to become dean of admissions at Harvard College. On a car trip home from summer vacation, I remember my parents discussing the recent Roe v. Wade decision. As my mother drove, my father turned to us kids in the back of the station wagon (wriggling around as usual in those pre–seat belt days). Suddenly somber, he looked us in the eyes and his features sharpened. “An abortion is a very sad thing.” He paused, bracing himself. “But a child coming into this world unwanted is tragic.”

It is in this context that I grew up a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Despite being at odds with the Church’s mostly male leadership who considered abortion “one of the most revolting and sinful practices in this day,”[1] my parents found deep satisfaction and belonging in our faith community. They taught by example how to walk with my coreligionists, especially when I disagreed with them. They encouraged me to turn to my own spiritual experiences and the fundamentals of LDS doctrine when I had questions, when I felt alone in my interpretation of God’s will. Our religion has not historically been a very big tent, but a small and hardy band of politically progressive Latter-day Saints (who frequently quarrel with one another) continue to hold some space inside that tent like our hero Senator Harry Reid did. And now, as a powerful alliance of my fellow citizens, elected officials, and Supreme Court justices have begun returning us to the circumstances my aunt faced in the 1960s, I have been thinking about why I persist in the conviction, based upon my faith, that a woman’s right to control her reproductive destiny is a sacred thing.

In LDS doctrine, Eve is the hero of the Eden story. The way we tell it, she and Adam were given conflicting commandments: multiply and replenish the earth, yet stay away from the tree of knowledge. They couldn’t do both. So Eve sacrificed the static peace of the garden for the messy growth that only mortality—including the bearing of children—could provide. Ironically, we believe that Satan’s attempt to corrupt humanity actually put us on a path toward salvation. We fell forward. Latter-day Saints give Eve full credit for making the right choice, even though this was God’s plan all along. The current president of the LDS Church, Russell M. Nelson (who, like his predecessors, teaches that most abortions are sinful), put it this way: “We and all mankind are forever blessed because of Eve’s great courage and wisdom. By partaking of the fruit first, she did what needed to be done. Adam was wise enough to do likewise.”[2]

The first reproductive choice I made was deeply informed by my spiritual life.

My adolescence was blessed by the example of women in our congregation who joyfully raised large families while skillfully attending to their personal growth. True to my comfort with juxtaposition, I married my boyfriend (he converted to Mormonism) while still an undergraduate at Harvard. Our friends just shook their heads. This was the eighties: no one was getting married. But Shipley and I were all in: living an off-campus Love Story plot without the tragic ending. Also unlike most others in my cohort, I wanted babies—lots of them—ASAP, even though I didn’t have a clue as to what my career goals were.

But motivated procreators though we were, my husband and I were realistic; we couldn’t afford a child right away. I’d get my BA, support him through graduate school, and then we’d start a family.

A few months into graduate school, my husband reported a vivid dream. He was sitting in an assembly of some kind in the upper room of the iconic LDS temple in Salt Lake City, the holiest of places where we make covenants with God and honor our ancestors. In the dream, everyone was dressed in white. It gradually dawned on my husband that the man sitting next to him was the president of our church at the time—our prophet, seer, and revelator Spencer W. Kimball. The old man turned to my husband, put his hand on his knee, and in his trademark gravelly voice said, “You know, I think it’s time you and Erika start a family.”

That was all it took. We stopped the birth control and figured the Lord would provide. What we didn’t know was that it would take us almost two years to get pregnant. Our first child arrived six months after my husband’s graduation, at which point we had a good salary and health insurance.

The irony that I was completely receptive to a man’s dream about a man’s instructions concerning what my man-God thought best is not lost on me. But more important to me than the gender of the messengers was the experience of God speaking to me about my unique situation, a basic tenet of Latter-day Saint doctrine. The good news that “the heavens were not closed” is an essential part of our religion’s origin story. Farm boy Joseph Smith took to heart a scripture from the Book of James and went to the woods to ask God a question about which church he should join.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.[3]

When Joseph Smith walked out of those woods, he later reported a vision: God had a glorified body of flesh and bones. Like the heretical Christian mystics of centuries ago, Latter-day Saints embrace imago Dei, humans in the image of God, as an all-encompassing principle. Not only are our intellect and spirits divine, but we believe our bodies are as well and have the potential to be glorified in the hereafter. We go so far as to believe that ultimately, in the world beyond this one, we have the capacity to become gods. This doctrine, while understandably troubling to many Christian faiths, abides deeply in me. “As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be,” proclaimed church President Lorenzo Snow in the 1880s.[4] So what we learn from God about the bearing and raising of children in this life, we consider a prelude to becoming godlike creators in the hereafter.

Human agency, access to divine inspiration, and the holy responsibility of bringing children into this world: these are core LDS beliefs that, when it comes to abortion, result in my struggle with the institutional LDS Church.

On a balmy September evening in 2020, a text popped up from my neighbor Anne: I need to talk about abortion. She suggested a walk with me and our friend Katherine. My husband and I had just tuned in to the first US presidential debate of that election and the shouting had begun. I was happy to leave.

We three women are in the same congregation. I’m an old mom with adult kids and grandkids; Katherine has four school-age children. She leans left politically, and as we started talking, she expressed her frustration with pro-life stances that don’t include government support for low-income, single parents. Anne is younger, a doting mother to three-year-old Jacob. He was now thriving, but this little boy had spent six scary weeks in the hospital close to death with a respiratory condition. Anne and her husband dearly hoped for a second child but were unsure if that would ever happen. She was torn. She wanted to support women in the awful place of an unwanted pregnancy; her Christian principles informed her reluctance to shame or blame. But those same principles celebrated the magnificence of God’s creation—even his potential creation. It was very hard for her to feel okay about easy access to abortion. She was a careful consumer of social media but couldn’t ignore the horror stories she’d read online about late-term procedures.

As Katherine and I listened to Anne, we all felt gratitude for that moment. In contrast to the campaign vitriol that was being broadcast, streamed, memed, and tweeted in real time, we could show up in real life for each other. As the sky darkened and the stars emerged, I talked about my miscarriages: sad, early-week interludes during my childbearing years. I remember my private panic at a Christmas party when I discovered I was bleeding. Once home, I lay in bed with the quilt my mother had bought for her anticipated grandchild. When I closed my eyes, I saw a female spirit leave my presence and return to some cosmic waiting room—a cartoonish yet comforting vision. I was spared the deep sorrow that others endure; at that time, I had two little boys who were keeping our family humming. It took another year for my daughter to arrive, then our third son, then another miscarriage (this time on Thanksgiving), and at the end of a sixteen-year reproductive run, our second daughter, baby number five.

We stopped in the dark at a playground, and the lights blinked on. I remembered another story, one unique to my faith tradition. In the Book of Mormon (LDS scripture as opposed to the Broadway musical) there is a scene where Christ speaks to a prophet named Nephi on the American continent. Nephi has been praying for his people, who are under death threat for believing the prophecies of Jesus’ imminent birth on the other side of the world. Nephi is comforted when he hears the voice of the Lord saying, “be of good cheer . . . on the morrow come I into the world.”[5] Jesus the spirit speaks to Nephi, while Jesus the unborn awaits birth in Bethlehem. I explained to my friends that this story resonates with my own experience of bringing children into the world. Mortal incarnation is a process, not a moment. It belongs to me and my God.

When we three parted that night, we hadn’t convinced each other of anything except that this time together was precious.

Last December, as I was preparing our empty nest for the Christmastime return of children and grandchildren, I found myself in need of something heavy to flatten out the curving edge of a basement rug. I turned to a shelf of neglected college books and found Michelangelo, the Painter by Valerio Mariani. It is a comprehensive tome, much of its attention given to the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The book gave a satisfying thump as I dropped it onto the carpet, the perfect tool for the job. It lay there, weighing down the carpet for a week until, prompted by my recent search for understanding around creation, I lugged the book upstairs.

Curling up in my reading chair, I opened the book on my lap. Carefully turning the pages, I made my way through colorplate after colorplate to The Creation of Adam, an image that has become iconic in Western culture. The Lord is on the move through the cosmos to bring life to Adam. The wind blows back God’s hair and beard. His celestial clothing ripples. Bearing him up and attending to his royal drapery, seraphim and cherubim play entourage.

I have always loved this painting for its contrast: God’s overflowing force of creation approaches Adam’s lifeless body. Adam’s delicate, downturned hand awaits quickening. But this time around, I saw more. Adam’s body lies in beautiful Renaissance repose, yes, but lifeless? No. His muscles are defined; his flesh is the same golden chiaroscuro tones as the Lord’s. Adam’s eyes do not stare blankly; he’s looking straight at God. Certainly his heart is beating. Yet just as certainly, something is still missing. Although Adam’s body looks youthful and strong, he has no soul.

I look back at God and his crew. Tucked under his arm is a figure different from the angels. A mature woman. It’s Eve, and she’s paying close attention to God’s outstretched hand. It is as if he has told her, “Watch how I do this; it’s going to be your job from now on.” Her eyes are fixed on the most famous detail of this fresco: the fingers that almost touch. Tonight, I am drawn to the space between the fingers: the space between God and the fully incarnate human. I believe that space belongs to women. It is heartbreaking when the state lays claim to it.

I am grateful for the early training I received in managing the tension between my personal spiritual experiences and whatever the current policies of my church may be. I’ve been at this way too long to abandon either my politics or my church. And at this polarized time in American history, people like me—pro-choice members of conservative faith communities—have a special role to play. We can bear witness to the sanctity of female reproductive agency, not in spite of but because of our religion. We can march, fund, and vote in the public square. But it is crucial that we do all these things while staying in relationship with our pro-life brothers, sisters, and siblings within and without our churches. We do this best the way we always have: by serving, praying, and caring together. Like saints in a Renaissance painting who gather round an altar, we must engage in holy conversation, pondering God’s will for a mother and a child.

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

^[1] Spencer W. Kimball, “Guidelines to Carry Forth the Work of God in Cleanliness,” Apr. 1974.

^[2] Russell M. Nelson, “Constancy amid Change,” Oct. 1993.

^[3] James 1:5.

^[4] Eliza R. Snow, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Company, 1884), 46. See also The Teachings of Lorenzo Snow, edited by Clyde J. Williams (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1996), 1–9.

^[5] 3 Nephi 1:13.

[post_title] => Eve’s Choice [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 56.3 (Fall 2023): 133–150
But Betsy was born. She was dangerously premature—especially so for those days. Everyone said that at birth she could have fit on a dinner plate (an image that haunted my young imagination). She wasn’t expected to survive. But she did. Perfect, whole, healthy. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => eves-choice [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-11-13 17:30:40 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-11-13 17:30:40 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=34923 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 25875 [post_author] => 1823 [post_date] => 2020-04-28 23:18:32 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-04-28 23:18:32 [post_content] =>

On a shelf in my office, I have a small red container marked “Chichester’s English Red Cross Diamond Brand Pennyroyal Pills.” I bought it in a moment of curiosity after learning that Utah’s newspapers once advertised abortion pills. The inside of the tin features a woman reclining on a moon. She promises consumers that Chichester’s pills “are the most powerful and reliable emmenagogue known” and are “safe, sure and always effectual.” Students rarely, if ever, notice the box, which sits in front of a Christmas ornament honoring Jeannette Rankin, an early female politician and pacifist from Montana, and next to a potato scrubber. Even if they did, it is unlikely that they would guess that it was a container for abortion pills. 

Since graduate school, I have been friends with several women whose academic work focuses on reproductive justice. In a particularly poignant piece, my friend Lauren MacIvor Thompson connects a man “punching his wife when she didn’t undress fast enough for sex” to his support for a fetal heartbeat bill.[1] Although I have been interested in the history of abortion and contraception for several years, I have not joined my colleagues in publishing on the subject. I feared that I would not be able to write a piece that was interesting to both academics and popular audiences and that the politically divisive nature of the topic would alienate people I needed to support me as a junior scholar. 

My friends’ engagement with public history, however, has convinced me of the need to engage with wider audiences. On social media and in an article published in the New York Times, for example, MacIvor Thompson has argued for the importance of detailed historical analysis when discussing abortion and birth control. Her deft exposition of the coded language that women used to discuss abortion in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries demonstrates the need for historical expertise when analyzing women’s history.[2] Discussions of abortion and birth control within Latter-day Saint communities, however, often lack the historical awareness for which MacIvor Thompson and others have called.[3] This essay is an attempt to provide an overview of scholarship on the history of contraception and abortion as it relates to Latter-day Saint women. 

Before the mid-nineteenth century, most people did not consider a fetus to be “alive” before it quickened, nor was first-trimester abortion illegal. Most authorities considered birth control and abortion to be under the purview of midwives and part of women’s health care.[4] Latter-day Saint understandings of women’s bodies and pregnancy closely mirrored those of other Americans at the time. In this essay, I discuss this history, present evidence that Latter-day Saint men sold abortion pills in the late nineteenth century, and argue that it is likely some Latter-day Saint women took them in an attempt to restore menstrual cycles that anemia, pregnancy, or illness had temporarily “stopped.” Women living in the twenty-first century are unable to access these earlier understandings of pregnancy because the way we understand pregnancy has changed as a result of debates over the criminalization of abortion and the development of ultrasound technology. Reconstructing this history is important, however, because it provides a context for our own discussions of women’s bodies and reproductive rights. Too often, these discussions are ahistorical, and Latter-day Saints and their neighbors act as though society has always understood women’s bodies, pregnancy, and the origins of life in the same way. 

One of the things that I have learned from my colleagues is that abortion was once fairly common and unremarkable. Until recently, there was no way for a woman to know for certain that she was pregnant until she felt the baby quicken or move. A woman whose period had stopped might be experiencing malnutrition or illness, or she might be pregnant.[5] If women saw the cessation of their menses as a sign of ill health, they could take medicine to restore their menstrual flow. Sometimes these medicines induced an abortion; at other times, they likely provoked menstruation in women who were anemic or malnourished. It was impossible to distinguish between these two outcomes. As historian John Riddle argues in his own discussion of the issue, a medieval woman “could not possibly know whether she had assisted a natural process or terminated a very early pregnancy.” Nor would she have framed the question in that way. In the medieval period, women and doctors did not see “pregnancy” as starting “at conception or implantation.” [6] Indeed, early signs of pregnancy were ambiguous. According to an online exhibit by Tatjana Buklijas and Nick Hopwood, women in the medieval and early modern periods lived “perched between good growth and evil stagnation” of their bodily fluids.[7] The authors make the same point as Riddle about differing definitions of pregnancy and the inability of women in that time period to differentiate between an early abortion and late menstruation. The ambiguity in which women lived was a part of their daily experience and points to the gap between their experiences and ours. 

Women have long practiced contraception and abortion. John Riddle describes an affair between a Catholic priest and a widow in fourteenth-century France that has provided scholars with information about late-medieval birth control. Inquisition records suggest that the priest often brought “with him [an] herb wrapped in a linen cloth” whenever they had sex. He placed it on “a long string,” which hung from her neck “between [her] breasts.” It is unclear how exactly the herb worked, but Riddle argues that the priest likely placed it in her vagina.[8] Although the priest was eventually accused of heresy, these accusations should not blind us to the existence of birth control in medieval Europe. Medieval women used a variety of contraceptive methods, including the withdrawal method, to prevent pregnancy.[9] A ninth-century medical text also contains directions for restoring the menses.[10] Centuries later, women in the nineteenth-century United States used teas made from pennyroyal to induce miscarriages. One of my students tells a story of her rural Wyoming grandmother making her own pessaries in the 1930s, which an unfortunate visitor once mistook for treats (much to his dismay).[11] What these examples demonstrate is that knowledge circulated between women in a variety of places and contexts about how to prevent pregnancies and how to use items from their kitchens to do so. 

Understandings of abortion and pregnancy began to change in the mid-nineteenth century. Male physicians launched a campaign to redefine how women thought of their bodies and abortion.[12] Historians like Jennifer Holland, Leslie Reagan, and Judith Leavitt have argued that the campaign was ultimately about the prestige of male doctors and academics who sought to establish themselves as authorities over women’s reproductive health.[13] In the 1850s, the American Medical Association (AMA) began a campaign to criminalize abortion and discredit midwives. In an article on “criminal abortion,” the AMA asserted “the independent and actual existence of the child before birth, as a living being” and urged people to protect that life.[14] The famous American phrenologist Orson Squire Fowler accused a particularly famous purveyor of female pills of “destroying the lives of both mothers and embryo human beings to an incredible extent.”[15] He advocated for her arrest in print. “If human life,” he wrote, “should be protected by law—if murderers should be punished by law’s most severe penalties—she surely should be punished, and her deathly practice be at once arrested.”[16] In the second half of the nineteenth century, states began to pass laws criminalizing abortion. It is important to note here, as Holland has done, that the emphasis on the “life” of the fetus “was not a result of any advancements in embryonic knowledge. In fact, there were none during these campaigns.”[17]

The first generations of Latter-day Saints developed their understanding of pregnancy during this tumultuous time period. Their understandings of the body, however, do not fit easily within this timeline. On the one hand, Latter-day Saints believed that the soul was not created at the same time as the physical body. Instead, they believed that the soul existed before it became embodied in human flesh.[18] Orson Pratt, for example, argued in 1853 that human souls “were present when the foundations of the earth were laid” and “sang and shouted for joy” as they watched creation. He believed that an individual’s body became enjoined with their soul in the womb.[19] Two decades later, Brigham Young identified quickening as the moment when a fetus became alive during a funeral sermon for a Latter-day Saint named Thomas Williams. He told the mourners that “when the mother feels life come to her infant, it is the spirit entering the body preparatory to the immortal existence.”[20] These statements by Young and Pratt were perfectly consonant with the understandings of pregnancy widely accepted during the early modern period, which had placed the beginning of life at quickening and accepted abortion in the first trimester as a return of menstruation. 

Latter-day Saint leaders, however, also made speeches denouncing abortion despite the fact that their theology did not necessarily require doing so. In 1867, Young explicitly decried attempts to avoid infanticide through “the other equally great crime.” Some scholars have interpreted his statement as a reference to abortion, but he could also be referring to birth control.[21] In 1884, Erastus Snow lauded Latter-day Saint women for refusing to patronize “the vendor of noxious, poisonous, destructive medicines to procure abortion, infanticide, child murder, and other wicked devices.”[22] Snow and Young never explicitly define abortion, but it appears that they accepted the arguments of the American Medical Association decrying abortion even as they rejected their position about when life began. 

It is important, however, not to just examine the sermons and speeches of elite Latter-day Saint men. Although Latter-day Saint leaders railed against abortion, there is evidence that some of their female followers took medications to regulate their periods and did so without much censure. In 1896, a Latter-day Saint female physician named Hannah Sorensen published an obstetrical textbook designed to provide women with information about their bodies. She had attended medical school in Denmark in the 1860s before converting to the LDS Church and traveling to Utah, where she set up a practice.[23] Sorensen accused the Latter-day Saint patients she saw in her practice as having “a terrible misunderstanding in regard to foetal life.” Perhaps with dis belief or even disdain, she wrote, “Many believe it is no sin to produce abortion before there is life, but there is always life.”[24] Her descriptions of her encounters with Latter-day Saint women suggest that some of them agreed with their contemporaries that quickening represented the soul coming into the body of an infant and did not see early abortion as a moral issue. 

Like their counterparts throughout the United States, Utah newspapers advertised abortion pills. Increasing restrictions on abortion and birth control meant that the advertisements used euphemisms to refer to the pills’ effects, but they were ubiquitous. A quick newspaper search using the database Newspapers.com reveals advertisements in a long list of Utah newspapers, including the Salt Lake Tribune, the Daily Enquirer (Provo), the Standard (Ogden), the Wasatch Wave (Heber), the Ephraim Enterprise, the Broad Ax (Salt Lake City), the Transcript Bulletin (Tooele), and the Deseret Evening News (Salt Lake City).[25] Reed Smoot, a future Utah senator and member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, owned a drug company in Provo that sold Mesmin’s French Female Pills. An ad in the Provo Daily Enquirer styled the pills “The Ladies’ Friend” and promised “immediate relief of Painful, and Irregular Menses, Female Weakness etc.”[26] The Deseret Evening News assured women in 1910 that Dr. Martel’s Female Pills could be found “for sale at all drug stores.”[27] And, as a final example, a British convert named William Driver stocked Dr. Mott’s Pennyroyal Pills in his store in Ogden, Utah.[28] Although I have been unable to find a direct statement from a Latter-day Saint woman describing her experience taking female pills, it is likely that some women did so. Otherwise, Hannah Sorensen would have had no reason to lodge her complaint and Latter-day Saint businessmen would not have stocked them. 

Sorensen found this situation troubling. In her obstetrical text book, she dismissed the idea that it was “no sin” to have an abortion before quickening by arguing that “life” existed “from the moment of conception.”[29] She also tried to convince Latter-day Saint women of the rightness of her position by giving classes on the subject. The notes that women took during her lectures and classes give us a window into changing Latter-day Saint attitudes about women and pregnancy. The George Teasdale collection contains the notes that Rosa B. Hayes took while listening to Sorensen lecture in 1889. Her notes locate the origins of pregnancy in the first moments after conception. Immediately after this event, she notes, “great changes take place in the system, causing many little troubles and ailments.”[30] “All ther [sic] nature,” she continued, “is in sympathy with, and lends assistance to develop the new being.”[31] She encouraged any pregnant woman to “ask Him to help her observe all the rules of nature, keep her mind placid, and contemplate on the future of her offspring.”[32] Women were to avoid eating “pork, pickles, beans, onions, bacon, unripe fruit, mustard, horse radish, cabbage, tea, coffee and all other stimulants.”[33] Sex was also forbidden as was her usual routine of “hard work.”[34] This new understanding of pregnancy encouraged women to see their bodies as vessels for potential life. It is difficult to know how Latter-day Saint women as a whole responded to Sorensen’s lectures and classes. While women like Rosa Hayes welcomed Sorensen’s information, others likely rejected it as nonsense. The latter were unlikely to leave records of their opinions.

By the late nineteenth century, attitudes surrounding abortion had already begun to change. Within a few decades, Latter-day Saint women would experience increased pressure to have large families. The Relief Society Magazine published a series of statements from members of the Quorum of Twelve on birth control in its July 1916 issue. Rudger Clawson called the decision to limit family size “a serious evil”—“especially among the rich who have ample means to support large families.”[35] Joseph Fielding Smith argued that “it is just as much murder to destroy life before as it is after birth.”[36] Likewise, Orson F. Whitney wrote that “the only legitimate ‘birth control’ [was] that which springs naturally from the observance of divine laws.”[37] The frontispiece featured a collage of young children and infants as an explicit argument for the value of children. It is difficult for women born in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries to imagine how women living in earlier time periods experienced pregnancy. Modern photography and ultrasound technology have transformed how we understand early pregnancy. In 1965, Life magazine published an emblematic set of photos of the fetus. The images invited people to imagine fetuses at each stage of development. One depicted an eighteen-week-old fetus, in the words of one historian, “radiant and floating in a bubble-like amniotic sac.” The same historian continues, “It is the image of a sleeping infant, eyes closed, head turned to the side, petite and glowing against a black background flecked with star-like matter.”[38]

Around the same time, doctors began to “see” inside the womb using ultrasound technology. Newspapers around the United States printed articles about the innovation’s promise: one woman from a Boston suburb discovered that she was having twins; a doctor in Colorado urged its use in conjunction with amniocentesis to diagnose Down syndrome; and an Alaska hospital used it to predict difficult deliveries.[39] Ultrasound has given us the illusion of direct access to the womb and has created the idea that the infant is a separate patient from its mother.[40] Before the mid-twentieth century, women did not have access to these technologies and saw early pregnancy as an indeterminate state. 

It is difficult to recapture the uncertainty that existed around early pregnancy in the nineteenth century. It is impossible to remove ourselves from the technologies and cultural concepts that shape our relationships to our bodies and pregnancies. I became pregnant with my second child at a difficult time in my life. I had just started a tenure-track job and was struggling to connect to people at the university. After I took the pregnancy test, I remember thinking that no matter what happened that it would be me and this child. My thoughts were directed at an embryo that was just a few weeks old. Although I like to imagine those thoughts as completely my own, they were made possible by decades of imagining the fetus as a separate being. Changing understandings of pregnancy have also shaped how Latter-day Saints relate to their bodies. Like their non-Mormon sisters, Latter-day Saint women initially placed the beginning of life in the womb at quickening and likely used a variety of herbal remedies to regulate their periods and pregnancy. Debates over abortion in the second half of the nineteenth century politicized women’s control over their bodies and created the idea of conception as the moment in which individual human lives began. The current stance of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on abortion is that “human life is a sacred gift from God” and that “elective abortion for personal or social convenience is contrary to the will and the commandments of God.”[41] It is important to remember, however, that Latter-day Saints have not always agreed on when life began and, as a result, have not always accepted that early abortion is a sin. It is important to ground our discussions of abortion and reproductive rights in a historical context. Too often, these conversations proceed as though our understandings of women’s bodies and the nature of life within the womb are self-evident. 

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[1] Lauren MacIvor Thompson, “Women Have Fought to Legalize Reproductive Rights for Nearly Two Centuries,” History News Network, June 9, 2019, https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/172181. Dr. MacIvor Thompson has also pointed out in private conversations with me that heartbeat is inaccurate and puts the word in quotation marks in her own article. At six weeks of gestation, the fetus does not have a fully formed heart. Instead, what we see on an ultrasound is the electrical activity of the cells that will eventually become the heart. For a full explanation of the misleading nature of the term “heartbeat” and its use in contemporary politics, see “Doctor’s Organization: Calling Abortion Bans ‘Fetal Heartbeat Bills’ is Misleading,” Guardian, June 5, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/05 /abortion-doctors-fetal-heartbeat-bills-language-misleading. 

[2] See Lauren MacIvor Thompson (@lmacthompson1), “1/Good morning! I am compelled to write my first ever tweet thread because @CokieRoberts on @NPR this morning stated that she could not find abortion ads in 19thc newspapers and therefore historians are just playing at pro-choice politics,” Twitter, June 5, 2019, 6:26 a.m., https://twitter.com/lmacthompson1/status/1136247963817304064; and MacIvor Thompson, “Women Have Always Had Abortions,” New York Times, Dec. 13, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/13/opinion/sunday/abortion-history-women.html. 

[3] I have chosen to use the Church’s style guide as much as possible for this article. Since I am not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it seemed important to try respect the Church’s wishes as much as possible, especially when dealing with a sensitive topic such as this one.

[4] Tatjana Buklijas and Nick Hopwood, “Experiencing Pregnancy,” Making Visible Embryos (website), http://www.sites.hps.cam.ac.uk/visibleembryos /s1_1.html. 

[5] John M. Riddle, Eve’s Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 26.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Buklijas and Hopwood, “Experiencing Pregnancy.” 

[8] Quoted in Riddle, Eve’s Herbs, 22–23.

[9] Maryanne Kowaleski, “Gendering Demographic Change in the Middle Ages,” The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, edited by Judith M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 190. 

[10] Jessica Cale, “Sex, Contraception, and Abortion in Medieval England,” Dirty, Sexy History (blog), July 17, 2017, https://dirtysexyhistory.com/2017/07/30/sex -contraception-and-abortion-in-medieval-england/; Hunter S. Jones, et al., Sexuality and its Impact on History: The British Stripped Bare (Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword History, 2018), 62. 

[11] Andi Powers, “Bitter Lessons,” High Altitude History (blog), Mar. 8, 2017, https://historymsu.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/bitter-lessons-andi-powers/. 

[12] Jennifer L. Holland, “Abolishing Abortion: The History of the Pro-Life Movement in America,” American Historian, Nov. 2016, https://tah.oah.org/november-2016/abolishing-abortion-the-history-of-the-pro-life-movement-in-america/.

[13] Holland, “Abolishing Abortion;” Leslie J. Reagan, When Abortion was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867–1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); and Judith Walzer Leavitt, Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750–1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). 

[14] Cited in D. Brian Scarnecchia, Bioethics, Law, and Human Life Issues: A Catholic Perspective on Marriage, Family, Contraception, Abortion, Reproductive Technology, and Death and Dying (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 280. 

[15] Orson Squire Fowler, Love and Parentage: Applied to the Improvement of Offspring (New York: Fowlers and Wells, 1852), 68. 

[16] Ibid.

[17] Holland, “Abolishing Abortion”; Reagan, When Abortion was a Crime; Leavitt, Brought to Bed.

[18] Terryl L. Givens, When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence in Western Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). 

[19] Orson Pratt, “The Pre-existence of Man,” Seer 1, no. 2 (February 1853): 20. Thank you to Matthew Bowman for pointing me toward this source. 

[20] Brigham Young, July 19, 1874, Journal of Discourses, 17:143. 

[21] Brigham Young, Aug. 17, 1867, Journal of Discourses, 12:120. See Peggy Fletcher Stack, “Surprise! The LDS Church Can Be Seen as More ‘Pro-Choice’ than Pro-Life on Abortion. Here’s Why,” Salt Lake Tribune, June 1, 2019, https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2019/06/01/surprise-lds-church-can/; and Lynn D. Wardle, “Teaching Correct Principles: The Experience of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Responding to Widespread Social Acceptance of Elective Abortion,” BYU Studies Quarterly 53, no. 1 (Jan. 2014): 112.

[22] Erastus Snow, Mar. 9, 1884, Journal of Discourses, 25:111–12. Although I have consulted the Journal of Discourses for these citations, many of them have been previously refenced by Lester Bush, and readers would do well to reference his work. See Lester E. Bush, Jr., “Birth Control among the Mormons: Introduction to an Insistent Question,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 10, no. 2 (1976): 12–44. 

[23] Robert S. McPherson and Mary Lou Mueller, “Divine Duty: Hannah Sorensen and Midwifery in Southeastern Utah,” Utah Historical Quarterly 65, no. 4 (1997): 336. 

[24] Hannah Sorensen, What Women Should Know (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon & Sons Company, 1896), 80.

[25] In this case, I used Newspapers.com to find these examples, but a similar search could be performed using Chronicling America (chroniclingamerica.loc.gov) or any number of sites. 

[26] Advertisement, Daily Enquirer 7, no. 88, Apr. 10, 1893, 2, available at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42896775/. 

[27] Advertisement, Deseret Evening News, Sept. 12, 1910, 9, available at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42896791/. 

[28] Advertisement, Standard, May 2, 1893, 2, available at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42896809/.

[29] Sorensen, What Women Should Know, 80. 

[30] Rosa B. Hayes, Midwife Instruction Book, 1889, p. 24, George Teasdale Papers, box 21, folder 5, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. 

[31] Ibid., 24. 

[32] Ibid., 26.

[33] Ibid., 29.

[34] Ibid., 31.

[35] “Birth Control,” Relief Society Magazine 3, no. 7 (July 1916): 364.

[36] Ibid., 368. 

[37] Ibid., 367. 

[38] Ann Neumann, “The Visual Politics of Abortion,” The Revealer (blog), Mar. 8, 2017, https://therevealer.org/the-patient-body-visual-politics-of-abortion/ For the original images, see Lennart Nilsson, “Drama of Life Before Birth,” Life, Apr. 30, 1965, 54–71.

[39] Respectively, “Ultrasound Tells Mom ‘Twins Due,’” Ogden Standard-Examiner, Nov. 14, 1971, 12, available at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42901981/; Joanne Koch, “Tests are Urged for Late Pregnancies,” Daily Times-News (Burlington, N.C.), Jan. 28, 1976, 11A, available at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42902070/; and Diane Simmons, “Hospital Squeeze is Result of More Patients, More Deliveries,” Fairbanks Daily News, Mar. 24, 1976, A-11, available at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42902070/. 

[40] For analyses of the role ultrasound has played in changing pregnancy, see Barbara Duden, Disembodying Women: Perspectives on Pregnancy and the Unborn, translated by Lee Hoinacki (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993); Malcolm Nicolson and John E. E. Fleming, Imaging and Imagining the Fetus: The Development of Obstetric Ultrasound (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013); and Sarah Dubow, Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

[41] “Abortion,” Gospel Topics, accessed Sept. 29, 2019, available at https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/abortion?lang=eng. 

[post_title] => The Other Crime: Abortion and Contraception in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Utah [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 53.1 (Spring 2020): 33–47
In this essay, I discuss this history, present evidence that Latter-day Saint men sold abortion pills in the late nineteenth century, and argue that it is likely some Latter-day Saint women took them in an attempt to restore menstrual cycles that anemia, pregnancy, or illness had temporarily “stopped.” Women living in the twenty-first century are unable to access these earlier understandings of pregnancy because the way we understand pregnancy has changed as a result of debates over the criminalization of abortion and the development of ultrasound technology. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-other-crime-abortion-and-contraception-in-nineteenth-and-twentieth-century-utah [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-10 23:03:52 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-10 23:03:52 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=25875 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 10343 [post_author] => 2147 [post_date] => 2018-03-21 22:37:08 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-03-21 22:37:08 [post_content] =>

Any organism (animal or plant) living on Earth today or any organism that lived on Earth in the geologic past is largely the product of its genes, which in turn are inherited from two parents—or, in the case of asexual reproduction, one parent. No other parents can produce this organism. Hence, if each organism is patterned precisely after a spiritual precursor, as we are commonly led to believe by some interpretations of Moses 3:5, only one set of parents can produce this organism in the temporal world. Carried further, this scenario means that all of our spouses and children are predestined from the spirit world and that we really have not exercised free agency in selecting a mate or in having children in this life. It also means that each plant and animal that has ever lived on Earth was predestined to come from one or two specific parents. This would also seem to require that events in Earth history are predestined, because specific events are necessary to bring predestined individuals into contact with each other in the right time frame. 

But how can a predestined or deterministic temporal world be consistent with traditional LDS belief in free agency? From the very onset of the restoration of the LDS Church, Joseph Smith taught that God "did not elect or predestinate."[1] As Bruce R. McConkie states, "Predestination is the false doctrine that from all eternity God has ordered whatever comes to pass."[2] Determinism advocates that all earthly events are controlled by prior events (usually in the premortal existence), but not necessarily by God. Although L. Rex Sears makes a case for compatibility of free agency and determinism, Blake Ostler shows that his arguments are easily refuted.[3] Also, many basic LDS doctrines are at odds with both predestination and determinism. 

Although free agency and predestination/determinism are generally considered mutually exclusive, LDS teachings and scriptures often do not clarify inconsistencies in these concepts as applied to the preexistence and to God's foreknowledge. In this paper, I examine and explore ways to reconcile inconsistencies by proposing a model for premortal spirits. The viability of the model can be tested against scriptures and scientific observations. If we find factual information that the model cannot explain, then it must be modified or abandoned. The model I propose is that premortal spirits are not predestined for specific mortal bodies, an idea earlier suggested by Frank Salisbury.[4] At present, I know of no evidence, scriptural or scientific, that would require rejecting the model outright. As with scientific models, however, future information may require modification or rejection. 

I also discuss questions about cloning, abortion, evolution, and extinction related to the predestination question. This contribution, however, is not intended to be a discussion of predestination, free agency, or God's foreknowledge, all of which have been discussed from an LDS point of view in recent articles and books, many of which are cited herein. 

The Spiritual Creation: Spirit-Body Relationships 

Many LDS writers have speculated on how spiritual and temporal bodies are related. Most conclude that the earthly body is identical or nearly identical to the spiritual body.[5] Parley P. Pratt was one of the earliest LDS theologians to comment on this subject: "The spirit of man consists of an organization or embodiment of the elements of spiritual matter, in the likeness and after the pattern of the fleshly tabernacle. It possesses, in fact, all the organs and parts exactly corresponding to the outward tabernacle."[6] The most definitive statement is by the First Presidency in 1909: "The spirit of man is in the form of man, and the spirits of all creatures are in the likeness of their bodies."[7] Also, almost all Mormons agree that spirits have gender, a concept most recently stated by President Gordon B. Hinckley in general conference: "All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose."[8]

However, as discussed by Duane Jeffery and Jeffrey Keller, the gender of an earthly body is not always clearly defined.[9] For instance, what is the gender of spirits who reside in the bodies of hermaphrodites (individuals with male and female sex organs) or in individuals who were males in the preexistence, but in this life have a female body and are raised as females? What about individuals who undergo a sex change? Could it be that some individuals may have a spirit gender different from their temporal gender? 

Premortal Spirits: A Testable Hypothesis 

There may be a way around the predestination problem if the spirits God creates are not predestined for specific organisms. In this case, a premortal spirit is really a nonspecific spirit in that it is not intended for any specific organism but can be placed in any one of many different organisms in a similar taxonomic group at approximately the same degree of complexity within this group. For instance, very simple spirits would be placed in unicellular organisms (like bacteria), while very complex spirits would be placed in mammals. However, because all gradations exist between taxonomic groups, there also must be all gradations between spirits. An important implication of the premortal model is that no premortal spirit, simple, intermediate, or complex, is predestined to be placed in any specific organism. When nonpredestined spirits are placed in embryos of humans they would develop along with the embryo and fetus. These spirits inherit individual mental and spiritual attributes from the intelligences they contain. As a human grows and develops during his or her lifetime, his or her spirit also "grows," at least in terms of mental and spiritual capacities, if not in terms of size and shape. It is now the specific spirit of its host, and only one such organism will ever live on this planet or any place else. For instance, the spirit that was placed in the embryo or fetus that became Joseph Smith was not predestined for Joseph; but once placed in that embryo or fetus, it became the specific and eternal spirit of Joseph Smith. 

We are told in Abraham 5 and in Moses 2 and 3 that God created everything spiritually before it was created temporally. Just what this means, however, is not entirely clear, since the time interval between the two creations is not specified. It could be billions of years or it could be microseconds. In referring to Abraham 3:22-28, Joseph Fielding Smith favored a long time between the two creations: "We were all created untold ages before we were placed on this Earth."[10] However, perhaps not all human spirits were present when the plan of salvation was presented in the preexistence. There are no scriptures to my knowledge that eliminate the possibility that spirits are still being created. We are told that God creates spirits from "intelligences," which have always existed (Abr. 3:22-23; D&C 93:29-30). A minority viewpoint in the LDS Church, as championed by Bruce R. McConkie, who followed Joseph Fielding Smith on this point, is that "the intelligence or spirit element became intelligences after the spirits were born as individual entities."[11] As Joseph Smith taught, however, "Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle."[12] According to B. H. Roberts: 

Intelligences are uncreated entities; some inhabiting spiritual bodies; others are intelligences unembodied in either spirit bodies or other kinds of bodies. They are uncreated, self-existent entities, necessarily self-conscious. . . . They possess powers of comparison and discrimination—they discern between evil and good; between good and better; they possess will or freedom. . . . The individual intelligence can think his own thoughts, act wisely or foolishly; do right or wrong.[13]

Thus, in Roberts's view, intelligences must possess self-consciousness, the power to compare, and the power to chose one thing instead of another. Whether intelligences possess gender, however, is not known. As summarized by Rex Sears: "The God of Mormonism lives in a universe and among intelligences not of his own making. God acquires the ability to predict our behavior only by getting to know us; when meeting an intelligence for the first time, as it were, God does not know if things will work out with that intelligence."[14]

We know very little about how or when spirits were created or whether they are still being created, a fact that has a bearing on the question of predestination. It is a common belief among Mormons that God placed each intelligence in a spirit intended for a specific temporal organ ism as suggested by Doctrine and Covenants 77:2: ". . . that which is spiritual being in the likeness of that which is temporal; and that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual; the spirit of man in the likeness of his person, as also the spirit of the beast, and every other creature which God has created." This sounds a lot like predestination. 

However, this interpretation is critically dependent upon when the spirits were created. If they were created at or near the time of the temporal creation, it is not surprising that they would have the "likeness" of the organism in which they were to be housed. In this case, predestination is not an issue. But if spirits are created long before their temporal hosts, we are faced again with the predestination question. If we have a large "spirit pool" containing spirits of all forms of life, this would seem to predestine that all these forms of life must appear on Earth. Yet if mortal organisms are the products of evolution, which is a random process (see below), there is no reason that hosts for premortal spirits should have appeared on Earth. This observation strongly implies to me one or both of the following scenarios: (1) most or all spirits were not created eons before the temporal creation but were created at or near the time that their temporal hosts were created; or (2) God creates spirits as generic groups with no one spirit intended for a specific temporal organism. 

Still another question is just how God decides which spirits to place in which mortal bodies. Some human spirits are placed in fetuses with inherited diseases or missing body parts. Some go into children born into rich families. Others go into children born into poor families. Some go into black children, others into white children or other races. Some go into females, others into males, bisexuals, and homosexuals. Some spirits enter bodies that are members of primitive societies, whereas others enter bodies in highly technical societies of the twenty-first century. Clearly not all humans have equal chances of survival or comparably enjoyable lives. Does God discriminate against some spirits and favor others, based perhaps on their performances in the preexistence? 

Although many LDS members believe that our status and the nature of the body we have in this life depend on our performance in the preexistence, I do not share this point of view. The God I believe in is fair and does not purposefully discriminate among spirits. Just how he decides which spirit to place in which body is unknown. One possibility is that he randomly selects spirits or intelligences, thus giving each one an equal chance at where it ends up in this life. A common LDS belief, although not well-supported by scripture, is that the "choicest" spirits are reserved for the latter days. However, this belief again brings up the predestination question—i.e., some spirits are predestined for the latter days. 

Can the idea of nonpredestined premortal spirits be accommodated within LDS doctrine? I think it can; and in the following sections, I test the concept against various LDS scriptures and teachings and explore more fully the ramifications of such an idea.

The Preexistence 

The relationship between the spiritual creation and the temporal creation has a close bearing on the nonpredestined spirit model. There are several interpretations about which scriptures refer to the spiritual creation and which to the temporal creation.[15] Milton R. Hunter, Bruce R. McConkie, and Joseph Fielding Smith interpret Abraham 4-5 as referring to the spiritual creation and Moses 2-3 and Genesis 2 as recording the temporal creation.[16] In contrast, J. Reuben Clark and W. Cleon Skousen read the Moses and Genesis accounts as referring to the spiritual creation, saying little about the temporal creation.[17] Others seem to think that both the spiritual and temporal creations are recorded in Moses and Genesis.[18] Despite these differences, most LDS scripturalists agree on two aspects of the creation accounts: (1) the temporal creation was patterned at least in some degree after the spiritual creation, and (2) all living things were created spiritually before they were created temporally. 

A critical question for the nonpredestined spirit model is just how closely the spiritual creation served as a "blueprint" for the temporal creation. If the correspondence was exact, as some believe,[19] we are again faced with the predestination problem. On the other hand, if the spiritual creation was simply a general outline for the temporal creation or if spirits are created at or immediately before the creation of their temporal hosts, we may be able to sidestep the predestination issue. In either case, I suggest that the spiritual creation was and is the creation of spirits not predestined for a specific temporal home. 

We are told of a great war in the preexistence (D&C 29:36-38; Rev. 12:7), suggesting that at least some part of the spiritual creation preceded the temporal creation. If the great war story is taken at face value, it would appear that approximately one third of the hosts of heaven followed Satan, and thus their spirits will never enter earthly bodies. The other two thirds of the spirits, however, have been or will be placed in earthly bodies. Joseph Smith and other Church presidents made statements suggesting that some human spirits "excelled" in the preexistence and that their placement in a specific terrestrial body reflects, at least in part, their progress in the preexistence.[20]

How does a great war and the progression of spirits in the preexistence constrain the nonpredestined spirit model? If interpreted literally, it implies enough time between the spiritual and temporal creations for at least some humans to have progressed while they were in the spirit world. James E. Talmage also implies this concept.[21] Single spirits, much like single soldiers in an army, have individual differences because they house intelligences with individual differences. Given the opportunity in the premortal spirit world, some spirits may have significantly advanced, while others did not. 

One of the problems with the great war story, however, is that the spirits who followed Christ and elected to take on a temporal body would seem to have been predestined from that time onwards. If evolution is the process by which organisms appeared on Earth, which seems likely (see below), then evolution had to give rise to a very specific group of mortal humans to house these spirits. Given the random nature of evolution, such a scenario is highly improbable. 

One way to get around the predestination problem is if the word "spirit" in the scriptures that refers to premortal existence is misinterpreted. Could these scriptures really be referring to "intelligences," the precursors of spirits? If so, the great war in the preexistence would have occurred before God created spirits. In the same light, it is possible that the progression in the "spirit world" referred to above is really progression in the "intelligence world." There is no obvious reason why progression could not occur in intelligences; in fact, such development would be consistent with the principle of eternal progression, a commonly cited LDS doctrine. 

Foreordination and Foreknowledge 

The nonpredestined spirit model also helps solve problems related to foreordination and foreknowledge. Foreordination, which is a rather unusual LDS teaching, is the concept that certain spirits were called or as signed in the preexistence to carry out certain functions in this lifetime. Doctrine and Covenants 138:55-56 states that many of the "noble and great ones . . . were chosen even before they were born." We can get around the predestination problem with the caveat that, if spirits are fore ordained to fulfill some duty in this life, they can elect not to do so by exercising their free agency.[22] Another factor to be considered is the possibility that some individuals may not be worthy to carry out their foreordained callings. In either case, the spirit is not predestined for a calling in the mortal world. 

If intelligences and spirits can progress in the premortal world, there is no reason that God cannot assign or ask specific intelligences or spirits to perform specific tasks when they arrive in this life.[23] God might pick individual intelligences or spirits that have excelled in certain ways in the preexistence and foreordain them for similar earthly endeavors.[24] However, foreordained intelligences or spirits are not predestined for specific mortal bodies. McConkie argues that God foreordains certain people for certain earthly missions because of the knowledge he has acquired through ages of observation that the person so ordained has the talents and capacities to perform the required task.[25] Perhaps God placed a fore ordained spirit in the embryo that would become Joseph Smith simply because Joseph would be born at the right time and the right place to accomplish the foreordained duties of reestablishing the Church.[26] If Joseph had not met the challenge, however, some other individual of this time period and in this geographic location would have been given that opportunity. 

As with predestination, an absolute foreknowledge of God seems inconsistent with free agency. As nicely summarized by Blake Ostler: "A major problem arises if God foresees precisely what must happen. For if I am morally responsible for an action, I must also be free to refrain from doing that action. But if God knows what my action is before I do it, then it is not genuinely possible for me to do otherwise. If the premises are accepted as sound, then foreknowledge and free agency in the stronger sense of freedom of alternative choices are not logically compatible."[27]

Is the idea that a premortal spirit can be placed in any earthly body (and not predestined for a certain one) inconsistent with the concept that God has a foreknowledge of the future? It would seem to be if God's foreknowledge is absolute. In an LDS context, the question of the degree of God's foreknowledge has been extensively discussed.[28] One interpretation of God's omniscience is that he knows everything that can be known and knows how he will respond to various possibilities in the future but does not have an absolute foreknowledge of the future.[29] His omniscience, however, is not limited by what cannot be known at a given time. Talmage suggests that God's foreknowledge is not absolute and does not necessitate predestination but that "God's foreknowledge is based on intelligence and reason. God foresees the future as a state which naturally and surely will be; but not as one that must be because He has arbitrarily willed that it shall be."[30] B. H. Roberts also suggests that God knows all that is known, which includes all that is or has been, but that he does not know the future in an absolute sense until it arrives.[31] Ostler supports the concept of "existentially contingent omniscience," meaning that God now knows all possibilities but does not know precisely which possibilities will be chosen in the future.[32] For free agency to exist, alternatives in the future must exist. They must be real alternatives and not just "apparent" alternatives as would be the case if God had an absolute foreknowledge. If these interpretations of God's foreknowledge are correct, then premortal spirits are not predestined for a given mortal body nor for a given mortal event. 

Before leaving this topic, it is necessary to mention the philosophy of "timelessness" in respect to God. The idea that God is timeless (in the sense that for God there is no past, present, or future) has been discussed by both Robson and Ostler.[33] Although a few, Elder Neal A. Maxwell among them, seem to accept a timeless God,[34] many scriptures clearly indicate that God cannot be timeless, a fact superbly summarized by Robson and Ostler.[35] I accept these arguments and, for the purposes of this discussion, do not consider a timeless God as a viable alternative. 

Premortal Appearances of Christ 

One of the most difficult challenges to the nonpredestined spirit model of the preexistence is abundant scriptural references to Christ's manifestations before his mortal birth. Although Christ (Jehovah) spoke to one or more people prior to his birth (e.g., Moses 1:2; Abr. 2:6-11; 3:11), he appeared in person relatively infrequently. One well-documented incident is his appearance to Mahonri Moriancumer, the brother of Jared: "Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh" (Eth. 3:16). 

How do these premortal appearances of Christ avoid the problem of predestination? If the voice of Jehovah in the Old Testament was indeed that of Christ and if his appearances were in his "mortal form," then the spirit of Christ must have been predestined to enter Christ's mortal body. Romans 8:29-30 suggests that God created Christ's spirit to enter a very specific human being: 

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 

Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. (Emphasis mine; see also D&C 93:21; 2 Tim. 1:9.) 

If these scriptures are interpreted literally, they imply that the spirit of Christ had the same voice and appearance as the mortal Christ long before there was a mortal Christ. 

I can see two ways around this problem that preserve the nonpredestined spirit model for most humans: (1) Christ was different from everyone else—he really was predestined for a certain mortal body; or (2) it was not Christ (Jehovah) who appeared in the Old Testament. The easiest way around the predestination problem is that it applies to everyone except Christ. Certainly Christ is a unique individual in many other ways: having God as a father yet an earthly (perhaps surrogate) mother; showing great leadership capacity in the preexistence (John 17:5); being the only person free from sin; and finally, being the Savior of all humankind. Why not add another exception to the list? In fact, the scripture quoted from Romans specifically states that Christ's spirit was predestined. Perhaps God created a spirit for Christ that could appear and speak to earthly inhabitants with a spirit body identical to the mortal body, which would appear in the future. This also implies that Christ's spirit body, which appeared as an adult to the brother of Jared, could return to some nascent state with a very small size before entering the mortal embryo Christ at a later time. 

One problem with this idea emerges if Christ is really half mortal—if half his genes came from Mary. This would seem to predestine Mary to be his mother, which in turn would predestine many events that resulted in Mary being born at the right period of time and in the right place—in short, also predestinating her ancestors. It would seem that the only way around this problem is to have all of Christ's genes come from God and an eternal mother, and none from Mary. This scenario, however, relegates Mary to the role of a surrogate mother, not Christ's biological mother. 

Alternatively, the images and voices of Jehovah described in the Old Testament may not have been those of Christ. Rather, God may have im printed in the brains of Old Testament people the image (or/and voice) of a man similar to the way Christ would look or sound as a mortal. It makes no difference in terms of the lessons taught to Old Testament people whether it was really Jehovah's spirit talking to them or some other male voice. This alternative, however, requires that God deceived the individuals in the Old Testament who believed they were hearing or seeing Jehovah. 

Cloning 

The nonpredestined spirit model may solve doctrinal problems raised by cloning. Cloning is the production of a group of identical cells or organisms that come from a single organism. The genetic "parent" of Dolly, the cloned sheep in Scotland, was the nucleus from a single adult mammary gland cell.[36] Cloning is not new but has been used since the 1970s to produce cattle for breeding.[37] One potential use of cloning is to make human "replacements" for old people or dying relatives, or to make many copies of one's children. Cloning can also be a valuable tool in studying human development, genetically modifying embryos, and developing new organ transplant methods.[38]

Humans can be cloned in at least two ways: (1) split an embryo into several segments, and new individuals develop from each segment—this is the natural method that produces identical twins—and (2) clone cells from a human, thus producing individuals identical to that human. Every cell contains the genetic information to make an entire human being. On December 14, 1998, South Korean scientists of the Seoul Fertility Clinic announced that they had cloned a human embryo.[39] They claim to have inserted a new nucleus in a human egg cell and activated the cell, which reportedly divided twice in vitro before the researchers terminated the experiment. This claim immediately set off a wave of scientific doubt and controversy. Regardless of the outcome of this claim, we are close to the time when a human embryo will be cloned. 

Most Christian religions believe in a human soul (spirit + body = soul; D&C 88:15), which brings up the question of whether it is possible to clone the soul. If a person's physical body can be cloned, but not his or her soul, what does this mean for the clone's eternal future? The only official statement of the LDS Church on cloning is ambiguous and not widely available to the general public.[40]

It is interesting to explore some of the ramifications of cloning in light of nonpredestined spirits. I can see no reason why God would refuse to place spirits in human clones and, as with any other human, each clone plus its spirit (i.e., a soul) becomes a specific human being. Although the clone would be anatomically identical or at least very similar to its single "parent," its mental and spiritual qualities could become quite different depending on various environmental factors affecting the clone during its lifetime. Also contributing to divergence from the original organism are different cytoplasm and mitochondria in the clone. We can consider God as the creator of spirits while scientists, by using genetics, could play an important role in controlling and designing the mortal bodies into which some of these spirits are placed. I do not have a problem with this idea. In fact, God may be waiting for us to develop bodies by genetic engineering or cloning to house more advanced or complex spirits that he will create. 

Can scientists clone spirits? Of course, we do not have an answer to this question since science cannot detect, identify, or even validate the existence of spirits. However, in the context of LDS doctrine, it seems that God reserves all manipulations of spirits for himself. There are probably enough intelligences or/and premortal spirits that each human-made clone can have its own God-made spirit. 

What about unicellular organisms that propagate by cell division? When a cell divides, perhaps its spirit divides also, or alternatively, God may place a new spirit in one or both of the derivative cells. 

Abortion 

Perhaps no other moral issue divides the American public more than abortion. In part, the controversy hinges on the question of when the spirit enters the body. If a spirit were predestined for a given mortal body and that body is aborted before birth, the spirit would, technically, never be able to have a mortal existence. However, in the nonpredestined scenario, abortion prior to the time the spirit enters the fetus simply means that the spirit would be assigned to another fetus. Thus, the abortion would not prevent this spirit from acquiring a body but would simply transfer it to another fetus prior to birth. Brigham Young carried this idea even further when he stated: "When some people have little children born at 6 & 7 months pregnancy and they live but a few hours then die, they bless them etc. but I don't do it for I think . . . that such a spirit will have a chance of occupying another tabernacle and developing itself."[41] Although this idea does not require that the spirits are not predestined for their first body, it is certainly consistent with this possibility, thus giving them another chance at life. 

Just when the spirit enters the body is the subject of considerable interest and discussion as reviewed by Lester Bush and Jeffrey Keller.[42] Consider three scenarios: (1) the spirit enters at conception, (2) the spirit enters at birth, or (3) the spirit enters sometime between conception and birth. In the nonpredestined spirit model, if a spirit enters the embryo at conception, then clearly abortion at any time will prevent it from having a second chance to acquire a body. However, if a spirit enters at birth, abortion could result in reassignment of the spirit to another body, provided that the spirit was not predestined for the aborted fetus. The same argument can be used for any abortion, provided it occurs before the spirit enters the body. If Brigham Young is right, some spirits may have a second chance at life if they are born prematurely the first time around. This idea, however, is not consistent with the nonpredestined spirit model, if spirits are placed in the fetuses before the premature births. 

There appear to be no unambiguous scriptures or statements by LDS prophets about when the spirit enters the body.[43] However, the official stand of the LDS Church on abortion allows us to infer an answer. Except for rape, incest, endangering the mother's life, or fatal defects in the fetus, the LDS Church has taken a very strong stand against abortion at any stage during fetal development.[44] Does this imply that the spirit enters the embryo at the time of conception? If so, it would suggest that, at the time spirits enter the embryo, they are very small (assuming they have a size) and that perhaps they grow along with the mortal body through its lifetime. However, if spirits enter the embryo at conception, what happens to this embryo if it is later cloned, if it fuses with another embryo, or if its genes are modified? Is the spirit also cloned or fused; and if so, are there some organisms with half spirits or multiple spirits (in the case of embryo fission or fusion)? 

This scenario sounds improbable and seems to imply that spirits do not enter embryos until the embryos have developed beyond the stage that geneticists can modify them, or several weeks after conception. Also supporting this idea is the fact that 30-40 percent of human embryos are spontaneously aborted, chiefly in the first few weeks after conception. If spirits were already in these embryos, this would terminate their "life" before birth, thus discriminating against or perhaps favoring these individuals, depending on what happens to these spirits after death. In any case, unless they are recycled into another body, they are deprived of an earthly life. 

Organic Evolution 

The nonpredestined spirit model also resolves doctrinal problems related to organic evolution. Although not everyone accepts it, the evidence that life on this planet has developed by organic evolution is overwhelming.[45] No longer must we rely on a few poorly preserved fossils, for we now have a vast fossil record with many of the so-called missing links identified, and more being identified every day.[46] To complement and support the fossil record, we have evidence from genetics, DNA biochemistry, and anthropology, all of which strongly support evolution as the mechanism by which life (including human life) has developed on Earth.[47] Fortunately, it is not necessary to consider evolution and Chris tian doctrine for the origin of humans as incompatible. Kenneth Miller summarizes nicely: "Evolution was much more than an indirect pathway to get you and me. By choosing evolution as His way to fashion the living world, [God] emphasized our material nature and our unity with other forms of life. He made the world today contingent upon the events of the past. He made our choices matter, our actions genuine, our lives important. In the final analysis, He used evolution as the tool to set us free."[48]

Furthermore, LDS doctrine has the concept of eternal progression, and evolution can be considered as one example of eternal progression. Although officially the LDS Church takes no stand on organic evolution,[49] there are different viewpoints on whether evolution and LDS doctrine are compatible.[50] It is not my purpose here to summarize the vast evidence for organic evolution. As a scientist, I accept evolution as the process by which humans eventually appeared on Earth. My purpose here is to explore the significance of evolution in terms of the nonpredestined spirit model. 

In studying the fossil record over the last four billion years we see an overall progression of organisms from simple unicellular types to a great variety of complex animals and plants. Actually, the origin of humans should be considered as a process, not an event. Humans as such (the genus Homo) appeared about two million years ago in East Africa and spread to Asia and Europe soon after this time. The combined results of studies of fossil humans, genetics, and DNA indicate that Homo sapiens appeared about 195,000 years ago, when African and non-African linguistic and genetic lines separated somewhere in eastern Africa.[51] By at least 100,000 years ago, humans had moved into Asia and Australia, and sometime between 20,000 and 35,000 years ago, they had moved into Europe and the Americas. Prior to the appearance of Homo sapiens, human ancestral forms such as Australopithecus were widespread in Africa. Just how do all these hominids fit into the creation of human beings? 

One of the problems in making humans by evolution is the randomness that characterizes evolution, as Carl Sagan emphasizes: "Even if life on another planet has the same molecular chemistry as life here, there is no reason to expect it to resemble familiar organisms. . . . In general the random character of the evolutionary process should create extraterrestrial creatures very different from any that we know."[52] Hence, humans are not a necessary product of evolution. 

What does this mean for the LDS belief that humans are created in God's image? Some Christian religions avoid the problem by assuming that "image" does not mean physical image but only that our "hearts and minds are fashioned in the likeness of God."[53] Some scientists point out that genetics and selection are only two of the forces directing evolution; furthermore, the final organisms are constrained by mechanical factors controlled by laws of physics. In this case, God may have "plenty of room to operate with predictability within evolution's bounded variation."[54] Still another possibility that cannot be disproved by science is that mutations are not always random. Perhaps on occasion, God directs mutations to ensure that one evolutionary line eventually leads to humans. This occasional tweaking of the genes by God may not be recognizable in the fossil record. If this is the case, life forms that evolve on another planet may be quite different from those on Earth, as Sagan hypothesizes, but humans could still appear through an evolutionary line closely monitored and directed by God. 

As life has evolved on Earth during the past four billion years, God may have created increasingly complex spirits to enter the evolving mortal hosts without, according to my argument, any specific spirit being predestined for a specific organism. In a very general way, spirits of one degree of complexity are placed in organisms of similar taxonomy and complexity. However, because evolution produces all gradations between taxonomic groups, there also must be all gradations of taxonomy and complexity among spirits. One group of complex spirits would enter individuals in the evolutionary chain of hominins (primitive hominids and humans). According to my hypothesis, God created the most complex and highly developed spirits of this group for the bodies of Homo sapiens. 

But what if humans continue to evolve and their descendants do not look much like present-day humans? One appealing aspect of the nonpredestined spirit model for evolution is its flexibility. As new hominins evolve, perhaps by cloning and genetic engineering, God may create appropriate spirits for these individuals. Perhaps even a different species of Homo will appear in the future through the efforts of genetic engineering and cloning. 

Still another question related to evolution is that of how God acquired his physical body. As taught by Joseph Smith in the King Foiled: discourse, "[Godl was once a man like one of us and God himself, the Father of us all, once dwelled on an Earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did in the flesh and like us."[55] This statement implies that God acquired his body by a process of evolution—the same way humans acquire their bodies. Does this mean that there was another God at the time "our God" was going through his planetary existence? This idea is consistent with Joseph Smith's teachings on the "multiplicity of Gods." Furthermore, if our God created the universe with a big bang some 13.7 billion years ago, there must have been other universes, perhaps one God for each universe. In fact some cosmologists today consider the possibility of multiple universes to lie well within the province of scientific reality.[56]

Extinctions 

It is well known that many organisms have become extinct, some in the geologic past as recorded by the fossil record, and some very recently due directly or indirectly to the impact of humans.[57] Some extinctions in volve single species, such as the dodo bird, the passenger pigeon, and the elephant bird, all of which have become extinct in the last two hundred years. Others involve many life forms and are referred to as mass extinctions, with many species from different ecological environments becoming extinct within short periods of time. An important example is at the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary 65 million years ago when more than two hundred animal families became extinct, probably resulting from an asteroid impact.[58] A second example occurred at the end of the Permian 250 million years ago, when more than three hundred animal families disappeared due to a combination of geologic and climatic changes at this time. Some groups, such as the dinosaurs at the K/T boundary, disappeared entirely during a mass extinction, although their relatives, the birds, survived. 

Extinction brings up an important question: When an organism or a group of organisms becomes extinct, how does their disappearance constrain the timing of the creation of the spirits of these organisms? If these spirits were created long before the organisms appeared on Earth, what happens to them when their earthly hosts are no longer being produced? One possibility is that the spirits intended for extinct organisms "skip" a mortal existence and directly acquire an eternal body. If this is the case, however, why is a mortal existence necessary at all for any organisms? 

A more plausible possibility, I argue, is that God creates spirits for many (or all) of His "worlds" and places them in one gigantic "spirit pool" to be used as needed. In this case, if a group of organisms becomes extinct on one planet, their previously created spirits can be used on another planet in some other part of the universe. Although we cannot eliminate this possibility, I know of no scriptural evidence to support it, and evolution, as a random process, would not necessarily produce terrestrial organisms on another planet. To me the most obvious answer to this problem is provided by the nonpredestined spirit model. God does not create spirits until just before their mortal creation, with the possible exception of the human spirits who participated in the war in heaven. If spirits are created by God as needed and placed in mortal organisms, there is no residual "spirit pool" for organisms that become extinct and no predestination. 

Conclusions 

The LDS concept of a spiritual creation may predestine spirits to specific mortal organisms, thus challenging the principle of free agency. The predestination problem, however, can be avoided if the spirits that God creates are not predestined to specific organisms. Instead, premortal spirits are not intended for any specific organism but can be placed in any one of many different organisms. However, because all gradations exist between taxonomic groups, there also must be all gradations between spirits. The common idea that the spiritual creation was a blueprint of the temporal creation must be modified to avoid predestination. This adjustment can be easily made by seeing the spiritual blueprint as a very crude outline, rather than as an exact rendering of the final product. Still another way around the predestination problem would be that spirits are created at or immediately before the creation of their temporal hosts. 

Nonpredestined spirits can be foreordained, but foreordained spirits are not predestined for specific mortal bodies. The premortal appearances of Christ strongly suggest that Christ is an exception and that he really was predestined for a certain mortal body. To avoid the predestination of Mary and her ancestors, however, she must be the surrogate mother, not the biologic mother of Christ. 

There is no reason that God should not create spirits for clones. Premortal spirits placed in human clones produce a human that develops into a specific individual just like a nonclone. In the future, geneticists may play an ever-increasing role in controlling and designing some human bodies, but only God can create the spirits that go into these bodies. In terms of the nonpredestined spirit model, if abortion is performed prior to the time the spirit enters the fetus, this spirit could be placed in another fetus, and there is no problem with predestination. The great unknown is when the spirit actually enters the body. 

If mortal organisms are the products of evolution, which is a random process, there is no reason that appropriate hosts for previously created spirits should appear on Earth. This conclusion strongly implies that most or all spirits were not created eons before the temporal creation but were created at or near the time that their temporal hosts were created, or/and that God creates spirits as generic groups with n o one spirit intended for a specific temporal organism. To ensure that humans, patterned after God's image, appear in one evolutionary line, Go d may direct some mutations. Occasional tweaking of the genes by God may not be recognizable in the fossil record. However, no spirit is predestined for a specific organism; rather, spirits of a given complexity are placed in organisms of similar taxonomy and degree of complexity. Extinctions in the geologic record avoid the predestination problem if God creates spirits as needed and places them in mortal organisms. This way there is no residual "spirit pool" for organisms that become extinct and no predestination. 

A nonpredestined spiritual creation provides important insights into the well-established conflict between predestination and free agency, yet it preserves the individual as the distinct entity it was when it coexisted with God as an intelligence. 

---

[1] Times and Seasons, 2 (June 1, 1841): 429-30; Joseph Smith Jr. et al., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, edited by B. H. Roberts, 2d ed. rev., 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1902-12, Vol. 7 published 1932; 1976 printing), 4:358-60. 

[2] Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2d. ed. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), 588. 

[3] L. Rex Sears, "Determinist Mansions in the Mormon House?" Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 31, no. 4 (Winter 1998): 115-41; Blake T. Ostler, "Mormonism and Determinism," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 32, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 51. 

[4] Frank B. Salisbury, "Genetics and Some Gospel Concepts," The Instructor, November 1965, 437. 

[5] Charles W Penrose, November 16, 1884, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (London and Liverpool: LDS Booksellers Depot, 1855-86), 26:21; Mark E. Petersen and Emma Marr Petersen, Virtue Makes Sense! (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 15; Joseph Fielding Smith, Man: His Origin and Destiny (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1954), 352; James E. Talmage, "The Earth and Man," The Instructor, December 1965, 477. 

[6] Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1893, fifth printing), 119. 

[7] LDS Church First Presidency, "The Origin of Man," Improvement Era 13 (November 1909): 78. The First Presidency then consisted of Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, and Anthon H. Lund. 

[8] Gordon B. Hinckley, "Stand Strong against the Wiles of the World," Ensign, November 1995, 102. 

[9] Duane E. Jeffery, "Intersexes in Humans: An Introductory Exploration," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 12, no. 3 (Autumn 1979): 107; Jeffrey E. Keller, "Question: Is Sexual Gender Eternal?" Sunstone 10, no. 11 (1985): 38. 

[10] Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, compiled by Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954), 1:76. 

[11] McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 387; emphasis mine. 

[12] Joseph Fielding Smith, ed. and comp., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1979), 353-54. 

[13] B. H. Roberts, The Truth, the Way, the Life: An Elementary Treatise on Theology (San Francisco: Smith Research Associates, 1994), 287. 

[14] Sears, "Determinist Mansions in the Mormon House?" 141; emphasis mine. 

[15] For an excellent review, see Blake T. Ostler, "The Idea of Preexistence in the Development of Mormon Thought," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15, no. 1 (Spring 1982): 59. 

[16] Milton R. Hunter, Pearl of Great Price Commentary (Salt Lake City: Stevens & Wallis, 1948), 74; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 170; Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:75-76. 

[17] J. Reuben Clark Jr., Church News, December 29, 1956, 10; W Cleon Skousen, The First 2000 Years (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1953), 19.

[18] Hyrum L. Andrus, Doctrinal Commentary on the Pearl of Great Price (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1967), 138-41.

[19] James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1975), 189-94. 

[20] McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 290-92. 

[21] Talmage, The Articles of Faith, 189-94. 

[22] McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 290-92; Daniel H. Ludlow, A Companion to Your Study of the Doctrine and Covenants (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1978), 98; Sears, "Determinist Mansions in the Mormon House?" 126-27. 

[23] Sears, "Determinist Mansions in the Mormon House?" 141. 

[24] Joseph Fielding Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 365.

[25] McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 290-92. 

[26] Joseph Fielding Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 365.

[27] Blake T. Ostler, "The Mormon Concept of God," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 17, no. 2 (Summer 1984): 69; see also Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2001).

[28] James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1962), 28-29; Roberts, The Truth, the Way, the Life, 477-78; Kent E. Robson, "Time and Omniscience in Mormon Theology," Sunstone 5, no. 3 (1980): 17; David H. Bailey, "Mormons and the Omnis: The Dangers of Theological Speculation," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 37, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 41; R. Dennis Potter, "What Does God Write in His Franklin Planner? The Paradoxes of Providence, Prophecy, and Petitionary Prayer," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 37, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 51-55. 

[29] Ostler, "Mormonism and Determinism"; Robson, "Time and Omni science in Mormon Theology," 17. 

[30] Talmage, Jesus the Christ, 28-29; emphasis mine. Robson, "Time and Omniscience in Mormon Theology," 17, also argues for this position.

[31] Roberts, The Truth, the Way, the Life, 477-78. 

[32] Ostler, "The Mormon Concept of God," 71; Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, chap. 10. 

[33] Robson, "Time and Omniscience in Mormon Theology," 17; Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, chap. 11. 

[34] Neal A. Maxwell, Ail These Things Shall Give Thee Experience (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1979), 37. 

[35] Robson, "Time and Omniscience in Mormon Theology," 17; Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, chap. 11. 

[36] K. H. S. Campbell, J. McWhir, W. A. Ritchie, and I. Wilmut, "Sheep Cloned by Nuclear Transfer from a Cultured Cell Line," Nature 380 (March 7, 1996): 810-13. 

[37] G. B. Anderson and G. E Seidel, "Cloning for Profit," Science 280 (May 29, 1998): 1400-1401. 

[38] I. Wilmut, "Cloning for Medicine," Scientific American, December 1998, 58-63. See also related documents on the National Human Genome Research Institute website, http://www.genome.gov. 

[39] M. Baker, "Korean Report Sparks Anger and Inquiry," Science 283 (January 1, 1999): 16-17. 

[40] Don LeFevre, Church Public Communications, March 21, 1997, quoted in Courtney Campbell, "Prophecy and Citizenry: The Case of Human Cloning," Sunstone 21, no. 2 (1998): 14. 

[41] Quoted in Wilford Woodruff, Wilford Woodruff s Journal, 1833-1898, typescript, edited by Scott G. Kenny, 9 vols. (Midvale, Utah: Signature Books, 1983-85), 5:66. 

[42] Lester E. Bush, "Ethical Issues in Reproductive Medicine: A Mormon Perspective," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18, no. 2 (Summer 1985): 41; Jeffrey E. Keller, "When Does the Spirit Enter the Body?" Sunstone 10, no. 2 (1985): 42. 

[43] Keller, "When Does the Spirit Enter the Body?" 42-44. 

[44] Gordon B. Hinckley, "What Are People Asking about Us?" Ensign, November 1998, 70-72. 

[45] Kenneth R. Miller, Finding Darwin's God (New York: Harper-Collins, 1999). 

[46] Kent C. Condie and Robert E. Sloan, Origin and Evolution of Earth (Upper Saddle River, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1998); Ian Tattersall, Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998); Bernard G. Campbell, Human Evolution: An Introduction to Man's Adaptations, 4th ed. (Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1998); Trent D. Stephens and D. Jeffrey Meldrum, Evolution and Mormonism: A Quest for Understanding (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001). 

[47] Scott Freeman and Jon C. Herron, Evolutionary Analysis, 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2004); Ernst Mayer, What Evolution Is (New York: Basic Books, 2001); Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, and Alberto Piazza, The History and Geography of Human Genes (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994). 

[48] Miller, Finding Darwin's God, 253. 

[49] William L. Stokes, "An Official Position," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 12, no. 4 (Winter 1979): 90-92. The "official position" is that there isn't one. 

[50] Stephens and Meldrum, Evolution and Mormonism; Duane E. Jeffery, "Seers, Savants and Evolution: The Uncomfortable Interface," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, nos. 3-4 (Autumn/Winter 1974): 41; Stephen and Kathy Snow, Dow Woodward, N. L. Eatongh, and Duane E. Jeffery, "Seers, Savants and Evolution: A Continuing Dialogue," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 9, no. 3 (Autumn 1974): 21.

[51] Condie and Sloan, Origin and Evolution of Earth; Tattersall, Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness; Campbell, Human Evolution; I. McDoug all, F. H. Brown, and J. G. Fleagle, "Stratigraphic Placement and Age of Modern Humans from Kibish, Ethiopia," Nature 433 (February 17, 2005): 733-36. 

[52] Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), 284.

[53] Miller, Finding Darwin's God, 275. 

[54] Stephens and Meldrum, Evolution and Mormonism, 200. 

[55] Stan Larson, "The King Follett Discourse: A Newly Amalgamated Text," BYU Studies 18, no. 2 (1978): 201. 

[56] M. Rees, Just Six Numbers (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 166-71.

[57] Condie and Sloan, Origin and Evolution of Earth; Tattersall, Becoming Human; Campbell, Human Evolution. 

[58] Condie and Sloan, Origin and Evolution of Earth, 371.

[post_title] => Premortal Spirits: Implications for Cloning, Abortion, Evolution, and Extinction [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 39.1 (Spring 2006): 1–18
Perhaps no other moral issue divides the American public more than abortion. In part, the controversy hinges on the question of when the spirit enters the body. If a spirit were predestined for a given mortalbody and that body is aborted before birth, the spirit would, technically,never be able to have a mortal existence. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => premortal-spirits-implications-for-cloning-abortion-evolution-and-extinction [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-11 00:44:38 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-11 00:44:38 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=10343 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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When I grow up I want to be a mother and have a family,
One little, two little, three little babies of my own. 
Of all the jobs for me I'll choose no other, I'll have family, 
Four little, five little, six little babies of my own. 

Janeen Brady[1]

For over a century little girls in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have grown up hearing messages like those taught in this song that was popular when I was in Primary: babies are wonderful, have as many babies as you can—at least six—and motherhood is the only work you should choose. Following the same theme, lessons with titles like "Motherhood, a Divine Calling," which stress childbearing as a woman's first duty, are taught to sixteen and seventeen year old girls in their Sunday classes.[2] Until the late nineties Relief Society manuals included regular lessons on women's sacred responsibilities as mothers, often with a reminder that women are accountable to God for how well they fulfill this important calling. Such messages are ubiquitous in the programs, lessons and talks for women in the LDS church. 

In this paper I will explore official and unofficial messages that the LDS church has sent to girls and women about childbearing during the twentieth century and the effect those messages have had on women's reproductive choices. First, I will examine the theological framework of these messages, which appears in all commentary and which grounds the issue as a basic principle of LDS belief. Next, I will chronicle some of the most influential statements made by leaders of the church regarding family planning, noting the widely divergent pronouncements over time and the various interpretations of the principle those pronouncements represent. Third, I will investigate actual family planning practices among 200 active women in the church during the twentieth century. My analysis will be based on women's real decisions and lived experiences as expressed in their own voices. Finally, I will assess how closely these women's practices correspond to the pronouncements made by church leaders. It will be important, as part of this assessment, to discuss the ways in which these women have negotiated their relationship with the institutional church regarding their reproductive choices. 

The Principle

On the most fundamental level any position taken by LDS church leaders on the issues of motherhood and childbearing has its source in LDS theology. Such theological warrants come from canonized scripture and LDS beliefs about pre-mortal and post-mortal life.[3] All theological justification behind statements on the family is rooted in the first chapter of Genesis. 'And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth."[4] Latter-day Saints see Adam and Eve not only as their literal historical ancestors, but also as prototypes of each man and woman on earth. What was commanded by God for the primal couple "is still in force"[5] for their descendants since "that commandment has never been altered, modified, or canceled."[6] In fact, as the commandment to multiply and replenish is understood to have been temporally first of all commandments to Adam and Eve, so it has taken on the meaning of being the first, or primary, commandment to all married couples.[7]

Beyond interpretations of Genesis, commentary about family planning is also based on uniquely LDS belief. According to LDS theology there are myriads of Heavenly Father's spirit children still awaiting mortal bodies. In a famous and often quoted statement Brigham Young explained, "There are multitudes of pure and holy spirits waiting to take tabernacles, now what is our duty?—to prepare tabernacles for them: to take a course that will not tend to drive those spirits into the families of the wicked. . . .It is the duty of every righteous man and woman to prepare tabernacles for all the spirits they can."[8] According to Brigham Young then, we are to make as many mortal bodies as we can for the spirits who are waiting their turn on earth. Leaders of the church also remind us that "The family concept is one of the major and most important of our whole theological doctrine. Our concept of heaven itself is little more than a projection of the home and family life into eternity."[9] Thus, it is common to hear that "the ultimate treasures on earth and in heaven are our children and our posterity."[10]

These doctrinal precepts, which together have been called a "pronatalist theology," constitute the basic principle upon which all statements by church leaders regarding childbearing are founded.[11] The principle is that procreation is a good that should be pursued. But, what does the principle mean in practice? The principle of procreation says nothing about how soon, how often, or how many children one must have. Except for the implication to have more than one child, there is no quantifier inherent in the principle.[12] What then does the principle indicate about contraception? Although principles are basic, unchanging truths that have moral implications, principles must be interpreted to be applied. Interpretation of principle is no simple task. In fact, interpretations of the principle of procreation have been as varied as the people whose statements set church policy. 

The Pronouncements

Most statements about fertility regulation from church leaders in the nineteenth century were vague and only euphemistically referred to contraception. Brigham Young warned against "attempts to destroy and dry up the fountains of life"; Erastus Snow likewise worried about the Saints "taking villainous compounds to induce barrenness and unfruitfulness" and told them not to use "devices of wicked men and women" that caused "apparent sterility."[13] During the nineteenth century, however, parenthood for the majority was assumed. As positive encouragement, various blessings of posterity, such as long life, were promised as rewards. 

One of the earliest extended statements employing negative motivation explicitly to counsel against birth control was made by George Q. Cannon in 1894. 

There is one thing that I am told is practiced to some extent among us, and I say to you that where it is practiced and not thoroughly repented of the curse of God will follow it. I refer to the practice of preventing the birth of children. I say to you that the woman who practices such devilish arts . . . will be cursed in their bodies, cursed in their minds, cursed in their property, cursed in their offspring. God will wipe them out from the midst of this people and nation.[14]

Although the "most significant limitations on Mormon family size may well have been infant mortality and maternal morbidity,"[15] President Cannon's statement implies that members of the church had already begun using methods to avoid parenthood. 

By the first two decades of the twentieth century, contraception had become a topic of much discussion. This interest may have been partly due to the 1901 church statistical report that indicated that the LDS birth rate had dropped significantly. Although the emphasis on population growth was not explicitly referred to as an objection to contraception, in an official statement Joseph F. Smith wrote, "I do not hesitate to say that prevention is wrong." President Smith linked contraception with negative results in the larger society. He wrote, "It brings in its train a host of social evils. It destroys the morals of a community and nation. It creates hatred and selfishness in the hearts of men and women. . .it causes death and decay and degeneration instead of life and growth, and advancement."[16]

As strong as these statements sound to contemporary ears, LDS attitudes during this time did not differ largely from mainstream America. Even Theodore Roosevelt worried about the decline in the American birth rate and popularized the then common expression "race suicide" to condemn contraception.[17] Between 1910 and 1920 there was great furor and debate over this issue nationally. By 1913 feminist activist Margaret Sanger had organized a national movement to legalize birth control and free American wives from compulsory childbearing and enforced maternity.[18] Although Sanger was considered a radical, many women supported the movement in varying degrees.[19] According to Susa Young Gates, even within the Relief Society, the subject caused "animated and sometimes heated discussions."[20] Due to the sisters' interest in this debate, Gates, editor of the Relief Society Magazine, requested statements from the church. After publishing commentaries from six apostles in 1916, she asked the First Presidency if they approved of these statements. In response, the First Presidency gave their "unqualified endorsement and commended the sentiments to members and nonmembers. . .everywhere."[21] 

These statements, all publicly endorsed by the First Presidency, include, among other things, a specific prescription for family size. Elder Rudger Clawson wrote, "woman is so constituted that, ordinarily, she is capable of bearing, during the years of her greatest strength and physical vigor, from eight to ten children, and in exceptional cases a larger number than that. She should exercise the sacred power of procreation to the utmost limit."[22] Joseph Fielding Smith stated, "[W]hen a man and woman are married and they agree to limit their offspring to two or three, and practice devices to accomplish this purpose, they are guilty of iniquity which eventually must be punished."[23] Elder George F. Richards likewise wrote unequivocally, "My wife has borne to me fifteen children. Anything short of this would have been less than her duty and privilege."[24]

Elder David O. Mckay issued warnings about the consequences of contraception for the marriage relationship. He wrote, "The desire not to have children has its birth in vanity, passion and selfishness. Such feelings are the seeds sown in early married life that produce a harvest of discord, suspicion, estrangement and divorce."[25] President Joseph Fielding Smith warned about the eternal consequences of contraception in the next life warning that "those who attempt to prevent their offspring from coming into the world in obedience to this great command, are guilty of one of the most heinous crimes in the category. There is no promise of eternal salvation and exaltation for such as they."[26] He later clarified, "Those who willfully and maliciously design to break this important commandment shall be damned. They cannot have the Spirit of the Lord."[27]

Should prevention of children be medically necessary to preserve the health or life of the mother, some counsel was given. Elder Orson R Whitney wrote, "The only legitimate 'birth control' is that which springs naturally from the observance of divine laws, and the use of procreative powers, not for pleasure primarily, but for race perpetuation and improvement. If this involves some self-denial on the part of the husband and father, so much the better for all concerned."[28] In an earlier statement, Joseph Fielding Smith had stated that even in cases of sickness, "no prevention is legitimate except through absolute abstinence."[29] In its letter, the First Presidency makes an even stronger suggestion than abstinence within marriage. "It is so easy to avoid parenthood, if people wish to do so. . . . Men and women can remain unmarried. That is all there is to it."[30]

During the twenties and thirties the topic of birth control received little attention from the leaders of the church in official statements.[31] The relative silence may have been due to an initial increase in the birth rate in the 1920s. Nevertheless, both Mormon and non-Mormon birth rates declined steadily from 1933 to 1935,[32] which was most likely a result of economic necessity caused by the depression. Despite the dictates of the church regarding having a large family, the economic reality mitigated such behavior.[33] Polls from the period show that the majority of American women believed in birth control.[34] LDS women were no different. A 1935 poll of 1,159 Brigham Young University students shows that 89% said that they believed in birth control of some form.[35]

During the 1940s the church again spoke out on the issue. In a December 1942 essay in the Improvement Era, John A. Widtsoe outlined the forbidding consequences of using contraceptives. He wrote, "Since birth control roots in a species of selfishness, the spiritual life of the user of contraceptives is also weakened. Women seem to become more masculine in thought and action; men more callous and reserved; both husband and wife become more careless of each other."[36] As in the earlier statements solicited by Gates, Widtsoe emphasized family size, writing that "[W]omen who have large families are healthy throughout life. . . . [L]arge families are the most genuinely happy," and reminded members that to "multiply and replenish the earth means more than one or two children."[37] For all of these pro-family directives and strong condemnation of birth control, Widtsoe explained that when ill health makes birth control necessary, "careful recognition of the fertile and sterile periods of woman would prove effective in the great majority of cases. Recent knowledge of woman's physiology reveals the natural method for controlling birth."[38] Widtsoe's comments indicate the beginning of a shift in attitudes toward sexuality since this is the first time anything other than marital abstinence is condoned to prevent conception.[39] Despite Widtsoe's progressive thinking, his article did not represent major changes in Mormon leaders' official stand. 

The baby boom that followed World War II in the 1950s and 1960s influenced the size of Mormon and non-Mormon families alike. LDS families averaged four or more children even though it seems that birth control continued to be widely used among church members.[40] Although no significant shifts occurred during the fifties, subtle changes were taking place. In 1960 President Hugh B. Brown broadened the acceptable reasons for prevention by the use of just one word. He wrote, "The Latter day Saints believe in large families wherever it is possible to provide for the necessities of life. . .and when the physical and mental health of the mother permits."[41] Although Brown explicitly advocated the pro-family principle and indicated that large families were more desirable, including mental health as a consideration in family size created more space for individual variation than any previous statement. There were competing views at this time from church leaders, however. In 1958 the un-official but standard reference work Mormon Doctrine was published, in which Bruce R. McConkie quoted Joseph Fielding Smith, saying, "Those who practice birth control . . . are running counter to the foreordained plan of the Almighty. They are in rebellion against God and are guilty of gross wickedness."[42] While acknowledging the liberal perspective of Brown, one must be clear that McConkie's views were more common among church leaders, who continued their general condemnation of contraception. 

With these few exceptions, during the fifties and early sixties, church leaders made very few statements on this topic. This is remarkable when viewed against the larger American landscape. By the mid-1950s there was a growing concern regarding overpopulation, which contributed to a revival in Neo-Malthusian efforts at population control. At the same historical moment, the first oral contraceptive became easily available. In 1960 the birth control pill was approved by the Food and Drug Administration and quickly swept the nation. Over the next five years, federal funds were set aside for birth control and thirty-six states established family planning programs.[43] Birth control had won public support. By 1965 both the national and the LDS birth rates had dropped to record lows, rates lower even than in the depths of the depression. 

Although various leaders denied the population explosion, there was no official response to the birth control pill from the church hierarchy until April 1969 when the First Presidency sent a formal letter to bishops and stake presidents. This statement, often called a "masterpiece of diplomacy," has been since used by people on all sides of the opinion spectrum to justify vastly differing family planning practices.[44] Nevertheless, phrases such as "it is contrary to the teachings of the Church artificially to curtail the birth of children," and "those who practice birth control will reap disappointment by and by" make the statement seem conclusive on the subject of birth control despite the controversy about what the ambiguous word "artificial" may or may not mean.[45] Although other phrases such as "the mother's health and strength should be conserved," and "married couples should seek inspiration and wisdom from the Lord" ostensibly mitigate the stronger statements, the explicit overall directive remains clear. 

This letter precipitated a deluge of sermons on the same topic.[46] That same month, Elder Ezra Taft Benson gave explicit counsel, "The world teaches birth control. Tragically, many of our sisters subscribe to its pills and practices when they could easily provide earthly tabernacles for more of Father's children. There are couples who think they are getting along just fine with their limited families but who will someday suffer the pains of remorse when they meet the spirits that might have been part of their posterity."[47]

Spencer W. Kimball was one of the most vocal opponents of birth control at the time. In a 1971 General Conference address he said, "loud, blatant voices today shout 'fewer children' and offer the Pill, drugs, surgery, and even ugly abortion to accomplish that. Strange the proponents of depopulating the world seem never to have thought of continence!" Besides the continued theme of advocating abstinence as the only acceptable fertility regulation, President Kimball frequently associated the Pill with abortion. Speaking to the Relief Society in 1975, President Kimball said, "Much that comes to your consciousness is designed to lead you astray. It is to tempt you. . . .[T]here is the pill. There is abortion." Later in the same talk, President Kimball said, "Those things that endanger a happy marriage are infidelity, slothfulness, selfishness, abortion, unwarranted birth control. . .and sin in all of its many manifestations."[48] Along with his counsel "not to postpone parenthood" or "limit your family as the world does," President Kimball elsewhere taught that "sterilization and tying of tubes are sins."[49]

Pronouncements on the principle of procreation were not limited to the 70's, however. Church leaders have continued to stress the command "to multiply and replenish the earth." As recently as 1993 Elder Dallin Oaks quoted President Kimball in General Conference, saying, "It is an act of extreme selfishness for a married couple to refuse to have children when they are able to do so. How many children should a couple have? All they can care for! Exercising faith in God's promises to bless them when they are keeping his commandments, many LDS parents have large families."[50] In 1995 the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve issued the Proclamation on the Family which states that, "God's commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force."[51] Likewise, there are still occasional reminders from the pulpit that postponing children for educational or economic reasons is not condoned. 

Although an examination of the basic principle of procreation and the history of pronouncements from church leaders on contraception provides theological and historical context for contraception among Latter-day Saints, the personal dimension needs attention in order for us to fully understand the issue. What effect have the principle and pronouncements had on the women of the church in terms of their daily practices? In what ways have the pronouncements influenced their deliberations and decisions? How have the women of the church understood the principle? 

The Practices

In order to begin to answer some of these questions, I conducted an Internet survey during July of 2003 in which approximately 200 women participated, ranging in age from 22 to 92. Although all consider themselves active and faithful members of the LDS church, they have made very different reproductive choices. As with any survey, there are limitations to mine. The sample number is not statistically significant and, therefore, cannot be used to draw broad conclusions about LDS women as a group. Furthermore, I did not control for education, income, or location of residence, all of which can play a role in birth rates and childbearing practices. Nevertheless, in these women's responses distinctive patterns do emerge regarding family planning attitudes. As a member of the church, each woman has inherited both the principle of procreation and a cultural context informed by a long history of strong pronouncements that necessarily affect the way she acts and interacts within her community.

Although I was predisposed to organize these narratives into the two most obvious groups: those who use birth control and those who don't, the complex interweaving of motives and purposes in the stories I received defied such simplistic categories. Therefore, I found it more true to the women's responses to divide the surveys into groups that reflect their priorities and the source they appealed to in determining practice. Thus, distinctive and sometimes contradictory practices exist regarding contraception within each group. 

First Group: Prioritizing Pronouncements

The first group among the women is comprised of those who prioritize the pronouncements of the prophets. Responses that fall into this general category show deference toward church leaders and a desire to be obedient. Making their decisions accordingly, most of these women choose not to use birth control. Carolyn from Washington (age 51) writes, 

"I made the decision to leave how many children I had up to the Lord. I had seven. I have never regretted that decision. After listening to and reading what the prophets had to say, it seemed to me that the decision was not really up to me, based on my needs, but a decision to be made by consulting the Lord seriously and prayerfully, and that children should never be postponed or avoided for selfish (monetary) reasons." Such responses are not limited to older women who were bearing children during the years—70s and 80s—when church leaders were making their strongest statements against birth control. Rachel from Arizona (age 28) writes, "I am presently a few weeks from having my seventh baby. My oldest child is nine years old. We have chosen to leave our contraception, or lack thereof, in the hands of the Lord. We have read many times the quotes by many prophets and leaders of the church throughout the years. We feel they are very clear when they say that the commandment to multiply and replenish the earth is still in full force." 

Some women emphasize perspective in their narratives. Louise from Arizona (age 56) narrates an experience that is similar to many responses I received. She writes, "38 years ago my husband and I were struggling college students. It was the days of The Pill and we were waiting until things were "better" to start our family. President Joseph Fielding Smith gave a talk in General Conference about not putting off having a family—I cried through most of it. The next day my pills disappeared. Less than a year later, the Lord blessed us with a beautiful daughter. Over the next twelve years, we added five more daughters and one son. We didn't always have the fanciest or finest, but one of the greatest things we ever gave them was one another." Joalene from Arizona (age 57) likewise writes, "We were married by President Kimball, when he was an apostle. He counseled us not to put off having a family. We had nine children in the next fourteen years and still managed to get a professional degree. There were times when I thought I was going to go crazy. My perspective became even clearer when our youngest son got his patriarchal blessing and was told that our family was organized in the pre-existence." 

Interestingly, even women who are now in their childbearing years quote statements made decades ago, but with important additions. Jennifer (34) from Washington writes, "We feel that having children is a sacred duty and to refuse is, as Joseph R Smith said, a violation of our sealing covenants we have made. That being said, it is a matter of intense prayer and fasting and consultation." Despite the strong word "violation" she quotes from Joseph R Smith, Jennifer's modification to the statement allows some room, at least, for "consultation." In contrast, Marta from Japan (age 33) writes, "My husband and I have six children. We have been married for ten years and have seen many ups and downs, but we have never used birth control. We strive to live by covenant, not convenience, and to follow the counsel of the prophets, who have said on many occasions not to put off your family for schooling and 'to live together naturally and let the children come.'" 

Other women followed their leaders not out of deference but under duress, and sometimes with mixed feelings. Norma from Florida (age 50) writes, "We had two sons, starting immediately after we were sealed. At that time in our stake you didn't get a recommend unless you were using no birth control. I don't regret a moment. On the other hand, had we waited until my husband completed his education, we would have been able to better provide for our family." Norma doesn't regret her children, but she admits that she may have made different decisions had there not been adverse consequences for using birth control. Rochelle from Utah (age 40) writes, "From the time I can remember I have heard from the pulpit that it is our privilege and our duty to bear children and raise up families to the Lord. As a young woman there was part of me that presented one gender giving this counsel to the other gender while acknowledging that the mother would bear the greatest responsibility in nurturing these children. There seemed to be no forum for the gender being counseled to give feedback or to voice their concerns, to be heard. I still struggle with this. However, I am nothing if not obedient, and I love my children." 

Beyond following the prophet, some women complied with their local leaders' counsel or even suggestions from other ward members. Stacey from California (age 52) writes, "When my husband and I were newlyweds in 1978, we decided to wait for a while to begin our family. However, a few months after our marriage. . .the elder's quorum president chastised me for waiting to have children. He told me that I was being disobedient to Heavenly Father's commandments. I'm not usually timid about standing up for myself, but for some reason, perhaps out of respect for his "stewardship" over us, I decided to change our plans. I became pregnant soon after, and although I love my son with all my heart, I still regret listening to this man." Describing a similar situation, Melody (age 42) writes, 'After our second child, a sister in the church told us that if we were to choose birth control, we would lose our temple recommends and good standing in the church. At the time it terrified me, and we went on to have seven more children. We have struggled financially all these years. I wonder if we would have been better off to have four or five children and be able to offer them more." 

Interestingly, the follow-the-prophet method of family planning, in which pronouncements are highly valued, resulted in some women's choosing to use birth control. Judy from Utah (age 37) writes, "We were wisely advised by our stake president at the time of our marriage to be conscientious in our family planning. He told us that it is not healthy for a woman to have baby after baby, but rather to let the body heal and prepare properly and be healthy." Ann from North Carolina (age 62) writes, "President David O. McKay said that children are a blessing. So I decided that if a child would not be a blessing in my life, I should not have a child." Still other women want more specific guidance. Renee from Minnesota (age 34) writes, "Sometimes I wonder how many children the Lord wants us to have. I'm not sure how it all works, as far as.. if I don't have more children, am I denying a spirit to be born into our family when it was pre-ordained to be mine? I wish the Prophet would give us clearer direction in that area. I know we are supposed to use our free agency and be prayerful about the issue, but it would be nice to have more concrete words from the Lord." 

Second Group: Prioritizing Personal Revelation

The second group among the women's narratives includes those who identify their personal religious experience as playing the most important role in their reproductive decisions. These women value the principle of procreation itself. They show a deference to what is perceived to be God's commandment on the subject, and they often refer to "multiplying and replenishing" in their narratives. Women in this group may also point to LDS theology about the pre-mortal world as motivation. While some of them cite official counsel, they do not necessarily look to prophetic pronouncement as the only legitimate interpretation of the basic principle. These women feel enabled through their personal experience with the divine to interpret the principle for themselves. 

Some of these women still decide not to use birth control. Desiree from Florida (age 47) writes, "Deciding to have six children was Heavenly Father's idea, not ours. What gives me strength is knowing that Heavenly Father told us both at separate times that this was His desire and did so in a way that we could not deny or ignore it." Kila from California (age 46) writes, "I love my children, all eleven of them. They range from 28 to 23 months. I worry about the fact that if I didn't have my children, where would these spirits go? To a druggie, prostitute, or be in a child abuse situation? I always try to go to the temple and ask the Lord if there are any more up there waiting to join our family. Lately he has informed me that there is one more coming soon. I'm willing to follow his direction. I tried to talk the Lord into letting me adopt my last one, but that is not the answer for me at this time." 

As we might expect, there are also women who feel endowed with power from God to interpret the principle themselves who do choose to use various forms of birth control. Angie from Arizona (age 47) writes, "I have always felt the decision to have or not to have children is a choice made by the couple with the help of the Holy Ghost. Birth control is a personal choice. Permanent solutions like tubal ligation and vasectomy are also personal choices. This, like other decisions, is a matter of faith and prayer." Although Angie emphasizes personal choice, individual decision is not removed from the Holy Ghost, faith, and prayer. Some women received specific spiritual impressions regarding their family planning. Tauna from Colorado writes, "When we started praying about starting a family, we both felt the same answer, 'start trying in January.' We used birth control when prompted; we stopped using it when prompted. No matter what method you use to prevent or promote pregnancy, as long as it is done with prayer and guidance from our Heavenly Father, you are doing it correctly." 

Third Group: Prioritizing Reason

Other women do not report significant spiritual experiences surrounding their childbearing decisions, but instead emphasize the role of reason in their personal interpretation of the principle. Heather from Florida (age 50) writes, "Some things you simply know are true, and I believe that there are many reasons for couples to practice birth control." Becky from Canada (age 62) writes, "Contraception should be used. I believe that God gave us a brain and expects us to use it." Kathy from California (age 45) writes, "We stopped at four because we thought it was important to use common sense when it comes to having children." Sometimes other factors play a role in choosing contraception. Marilyn from Utah (age 69) writes, "We did discuss birth control and used it, of course. I still don't know what Joseph Fielding Smith was talking about, but we got over that. We didn't want a baby every year. We couldn't take care of them! It wasn't good for my health. It just didn't fit." Other women mention the need for birth control in order to experience healthy intimacy in marriage. Nancy from Minnesota (age 46) writes, "Contraceptives can be a part of spacing a family if a couple is going to have an enjoyable sex life." Many sisters refer to their emotional or mental health as a reason for using birth control. Toni from Arizona (age 40) writes, "We used birth control to space our children so that I wouldn't be an emotional wreck." Besides these themes, low-income, poor health, and marital strife were also cited as legitimate reasons for birth control among women in this group. 

Despite the abundant anti-contraception rhetoric of the late 1970s and 80s, many of these women who were bearing children then chose to use birth control.[52] Many felt their own interpretation of the principle of procreation was as valid as pronouncements from the hierarchy. In some instances personal revelation from God or individual circumstances even overruled general pronouncements made by church leaders. How do we make sense of the discrepancy between the leaders' pronunciation and the practices of the people? 

One possible answer is that LDS women have taken prophetic pronouncements given to the body of the church as general guidelines that must be applied by individuals in different ways appropriate to their various situations. This can also become necessary when women are faced with dilemmas caused by the policies themselves. For example, several women pointed out that while church leaders have discouraged birth control, they have also discouraged debt. Many of these women chose smaller families in order to follow the precept of self-sufficiency. 

Another possibility is that women are committed to the pronatalist principle, which they perceive as eternal doctrine, but not necessarily to the anti-contraception pronouncements, which may be viewed as temporary policies. Two consistent statistics seem to support this theory. First, although there has been a movement toward greater conservatism in attitudes, polls over time show that LDS women as a group have consistently believed in and used birth control of various kinds. Second, despite the widespread use of birth control, LDS women tend to have higher fertility rates than do other women. This is true even when socioeconomic factors like income and education are considered.[53] The data indicate that LDS women may use birth control to space children but not to prevent children altogether. While many of the women in my survey used birth control, none of them advocated childlessness; those with three children or fewer felt the need to explain why they didn't have more. The theory that LDS women as a group are pro-birth control while at the same time being pronatalist is supported by an ongoing, un­scholarly, yet still revealing, Internet poll. The poll indicates that 39% of members "think that we should follow the Proclamation on the Family by only using birth control rarely. Family size can have limits so long as we multiply before we reach them."[54]

Having children is an aspect of the Mormon experience that is very public. Unlike repentance, one's experience with God in prayer, or one's understanding of the Atonement, how many children one has is hard to hide. How soon, how often, and how many are questions that can be used as a gauge of one's religious commitment or lack thereof. For this reason it is not surprising that one pervasive thread which appeared in these narratives is the feeling of being judged by others. Although sev­eral women reported feeling judged by the world for having too many children, much more common among the respondents, whether they had small or large families, was the feeling of being judged by other LDS women for their choices. The narratives report feeling judged for having too few children, not having children quickly enough after marriage, not having children often enough, and also for having too many children. Although no women specifically attributed their reproductive decisions to feeling judged, it is difficult based on the surveys to wholly reject a causal relationship between social interaction and decisions regarding family size. It is also important to note that the immediate local social context in which one lives, worships, socializes, and serves plays a major role in LDS women's lives. While none of the women explicitly recog­nized this as a factor contributing to family size, the very preponderance of surveys that report feelings of pressure or judgment must be consid­ered somewhat influential.

It may be partly in response to these kinds of judgments that church leaders have made fewer direct statements about family size in the last ten years. Certainly, they are more sensitive when they speak about fam­ily size. In her most recent talk, Carol B. Thomas of the General Young Women's Presidency manifests this new sensitivity. Quoting the song "When I grow up I want to be a Mother," with which I began this paper, Thomas recites the first and second line as written, including the pre­scription for, "one little, two little, three little babies of my own." However, she edits the third and fourth line, entirely omitting “four little, five little, six little babies of my own."[55] The omission implies a much smaller expec­tation for family size than was assumed by the song's author in the 1980s.

The most recent edition of the General Handbook of Instructions, is­sued in 1999, represents the most progressive guidelines on family plan­ning that have ever been given to the church. Some noteworthy, new counsel in the statement includes cautioning members against judging each other on their family planning decisions and an implicit indication that the nurturing of children is a responsibility of both mother and fa­ther. Most interesting for this discussion perhaps is the last sentence in which sexual intimacy is given a legitimate role for more than procreation as a "divinely approved . . . means of expressing love and strength­ening emotional and spiritual bonds between husband and wife." Besides the fact that this sentence represents a reversal from implications of previous statements, it also implies the use of birth control. For all the statement's innovation, however, one sister has interpreted the changes differently. Marta from Japan wrote, "It is true that little is said about this today, but it is our feeling that the actions of church members as a whole have nearly silenced the brethren on this matter, for if they speak out against birth control now, they will condemn nearly the entire church." While it is true that no public statement from any prophet has positively recommended the use of contraceptives, the General Handbook of In­struction indicates that the approach to this topic among church leaders have changed substantially since the early days of the church. As for church members, they have effectively voted on the subject of birth control.[56] Meanwhile, there are many other reproductive issues, such as sur­rogate motherhood and in-vitro fertilization, about which explicit pro­nouncements have not been made and for which church policy is still undetermined. As technology advances, these issues will only multiply. Perhaps these issues, like birth control, will be determined by the prac­tices of the people and their understanding of the deeper principle as much as by official pronouncements.

---

[1] Janeen Brady, "I Want to be a Mother," Beloved Songs (Salt Lake City: Brite Music Inc., 1987), 10-13. 

[2] Lesson 6, MIA Laurel Manual 2 (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1984).

[3] In the Temple endowment ceremony, there are also strong positive injunctions to have children, which indicate that multiplying and replenishing the earth enables one to have joy in this life. Since these statements are relevant to LDS interpretations of Genesis, I will limit my analysis to the scriptural text. 

[4] Genesis 1:28. 

[5] Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), 85.

[6] Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report (April 1969): 12. 

[7] It is interesting that only Genesis 1:28 is ever used in reference to family planning, especially since other Old Testament passages are stronger and more explicit. Take the example of Onan (Gen. 38:8-10), who provides a clear example of withdrawal with contraceptive intent. Not wanting to give offspring to his brother, he withdrew, showing his selfish unwillingness to honor his levirate duty. The text clearly indicates that what he did was evil in the sight of the Lord and that the Lord slew him for it.

[8] Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 4:56. 

[9] Hugh B. Brown, Relief Society Magazine (December 1965): 885. 

[10] Dallin H. Oaks, "The Great Plan of Happiness," Ensign (November 1993): 75.

[11] Tim Heaton, "How Does Religion Influence Fertility?: The Case of Mormons," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 25, no. 2 (1986): 248-58. 

[12] Ironically, one multiplied by one is only one.

[13] Journal of Discourses, 12:120-121, 20:375, 26:219. 

[14] George Q. Cannon, Deseret Weekly, 1 Oct. 1894, 49: 739; reprinted in Gospel Truth (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987), 379. 

[15] Lester Bush, "Birth Control among the Mormons: Introduction to an Insistent Question," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 10, no. 2 (Autumn 1976): 18.

[16] Joseph F. Smith, Improvement Era 11 (October 1908): 959-61.

[17] Lester Bush, "Birth Control among the Mormons," 20. 

[18] Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race (New York: Cornwall Press, 1920), 11.

[19] In her autobiography, Sanger says, "Never was there a more interesting demonstration of mental attitudes of a people than I found east and west of the Rocky Mountains on that tour in the spring of 1916." (Margaret Sanger, My Fight for Birth Control [New York: Ferris Printing Co., 1931], 145.) Interestingly, that was the same year that Gates published official statements in the Relief Society Magazine. 

[20] Susa Young Gates, Relief Society Magazine 4 (1917): 68. 

[21] The First Presidency, Relief Society Magazine 4 (1917): 68. 

[22] Rudger Clawson, Relief Society Magazine 3, no. 7 (July 1916). 

[23] Joseph Fielding Smith, Relief Society Magazine 3, no. 7 (July 1916).

[24] George F. Richards, Relief Society Magazine 3, no. 7 (July 1916).

[25] David O. McKay, Relief Society Magazine 3, no. 7 (July 1916). 

[26] Joseph Fielding Smith, Relief Society Magazine 3, no. 7 (July 1916).

[27] Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1955), 2: 85-89. 

[28] Orson F. Whitney, Relief Society Magazine 3, no. 7 (July 1916). Notice that this quote assumes that women have no sexuality. If abstinence is necessary for birth control, then the husband must use self-control, implying that abstinence would not require self-control by the wife. 

[29] Joseph Fielding Smith, Improvement Era 11 (October 1908): 959-61.

[30] Joseph F. Smith, Anthon H. Lund, Charles W. Penrose, Relief Society Magazine 4, no. 2 (February 1917): 68-69. 

[31] There were exceptions. B. H. Roberts wrote a lengthy essay on marriage in 1928.

[32] Bush, "Birth Control among Mormons," 24.

[33] Lee L. Bean, Geraldine P. Mineau, Douglas L. Anderton, Fertility Change on the American Frontier (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 251.

[34] Peter Smith, "The History and Future of the Legal Battle over Birth Control," Cornell Law Quarterly 49 (1963): 274-303. 

[35] Harold T. Christensen, "The Fundamentalist Emphasis at Brigham Young University: 1935-1973," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 17, no. 1 (1978): 53-57. 53% said they believed in birth control by artificial means. 

[36] John A. Widstoe, "Should Birth Control be Practiced?" Improvement Era (December 1942). 

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid.

[39] David O. McKay followed Widtsoe in saying, "When the health of the mother demands it, proper spacing of children may be determined by seeking medical counsel, by compliance with the processes of nature, or by continence." From "Statements of the General Authorities on Birth Control," Department of Religion, Brigham Young University.

[40] Bush, "Birth Control among Mormons," 26. 

[41] Hugh B. Brown, You and Your Marriage (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1960), 135-36.

[42] McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 1st ed. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1958), 81.

[43] Ibid., 289. 

[44] This phrase is not original, but I have lost track of its source. If, by chance, you know its author, please contact me through Dialogue.

[45] The reference to "self-control" makes it clear that abstinence is the only approved method of contraception and even then, only when the mother's health and strength re quire it. 

[46] The letter, mostly a summary of past statements including material from Joseph F. Smith in 1917, did not represent anything new. 

[47] Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report (April 1960). 

[48] Spencer W. Kimball, "The Blessings and Responsibilities of Womanhood," Relief Society General Conference, October 1 and 2,1975; Ensign (March 1976): 70.

[49] Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982), 325.

[50] Dallin H. Oaks, "The Great Plan of Happiness," Ensign (November 1993): 75.

[51] President Gordon B. Hinckley as part of his message at the General Relief Society Meeting held September 23,1995, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

[52] Although Tim Heaton and others have suggested that Mormon fertility and family planning practices are related to a particularism pronatalist theology, this essay has shown that the clear and common anti-contraception rhetoric must be included in any analysis of past practices. 

[53] Tim Heaton, "How Does Religion Influence Fertility?" 248-58.

[54] www.lds-mormon.com/polls as of 10/23/03

[55] "Strengthen Home and Family," Ensign (May 2002): 94. She continues with the rest of the verse, however, which includes the ethno-centric idea that good mothers bake cookies, give yellow balloons to, and sing pretty songs for their children.

[56] Bush, “Birth Control among Mormons,” 33.

[post_title] => Bodies, Babies, and Birth Control [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 36.3 (Fall 2003): 159–175
In this paper I will explore official and unofficial messages that theLDS church has sent to girls and women about childbearing during the twentieth century and the effect those messages have had on women’sreproductive choices. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => bodies-babies-and-birth-control [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-29 21:57:46 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-29 21:57:46 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=10638 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 16253 [post_author] => 2395 [post_date] => 2018-04-19 17:42:13 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-04-19 17:42:13 [post_content] =>

Through the mid-1960S the Utah birth rate has paralleled that of the nation as a whole. Since 1965, however, the Utah birth rate has risen, diverging sharply from the U.S. rate which has generally stabilized. The U.S. rate was probably affected by the use of new, more effective contraceptives (such as birth control pills and IUDs). The rising Utah birth rate, on the other hand, may be a reaction to the anticontraceptive statements published during the mid-1960s by leaders of the LDS Church. (See First Presidency statement of 14 April 1969 and Church News editorials during the late 1960s and early '70s.) If Church members whole-heartedly accepted these statements, one would expect to see a decline in the use of birth control among Mormons during the early seventies. 

To examine patterns of contraceptive use, we extracted all data for women who classified themselves as Mormon in the 1965, 1970, and 1975 National Fertility Studies. Unfortunately, reliable data since that time are unavailable. The National Fertility Study was discontinued in 1975 and replaced by the National Survey of Family Growth. But in that study the Church of Christ, The Church of Jesus Christ, and The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints responses have also been categorized as Mormon. To reduce any confounding influence of marital status or race, data for those women whose first marriage was not still intact and nonwhites were excluded. The sample sizes are very small (ranging from 70 to 117). Furthermore, studies of contraceptive use and fertility which contain a reliable sample of Mormons, and which permit comparisons over time, are nonexistent. Thus, the observations cannot be regarded as conclusive. 

The percentages in Table 1 do not support the hypothesis that the Utah fertility rate is a consequence of a particular Mormon theology opposed to birth control. In 1965 and 1970, the percentage of Mormon couples who had ever used birth control was comparable to that of white married Protestant couples and ten percent higher than that of Catholics. By 1975, 96 percent of the Mormons had at some time used contraceptives—a slight increase over time. Thus, the high usage of birth control among Mormons suggests that their high fertility is the result of some factor other than acceptance of an anticontraceptives ideology. 

[Editor’s Note: For Table 1, see PDF below, p. 107]

Table 2 shows the patterns and timing of the use of birth control methods among Mormons in this sample. We have ranked birth control methods according to their effectiveness and modernity with 1 being the most effective and modern and 3 being the least. Those reporting no use are ranked as 4. Each case was categorized by the one most effective method used by the respondent in the specified interval. Between marriage and the birth of the first child (the first interval), half of the women did not use any method of birth control. For the period between the first and second child (the second interval), both an overall shift toward more effective methods and a 20 to 30 point decrease in the percentage of respondents in category 4 are evident. Yet another shift toward more effective methods is evident, over time, among those who have ever used birth control. (See the third column of the table.) The difference between first-interval and second-interval contraceptive use is increased use of condoms, diaphragms, and foam. The difference over time, for those respondents who have ever used birth control methods, is increased use of the pill, IUDs, or sterilization. Considering that some of these respondents had few or no children at the time of the survey, the percentage of those who never used birth control is very low. 

[Editor’s Note: For Table 2, see PDF below, p. 108]

The major change across time is a shift toward the use of more effective and modern methods of birth control. Especially between 1965 and 1970 is this evident. Among those who ever used contraceptives, there is a 30 point increase in the use of the pill, IUD, and sterilization from 1965 to 1970. Simi lar increases were also apparent in the data for both the first- and second interval percentages. Patterns of use changed little from 1970 to 1975. It thus appears that Mormons, like other groups, accepted advances in birth-control technology during the latter part of the 1960s. 

Bush concludes that high Mormon fertility rates are more a consequence of the value Mormonism places on children than of polemics against birth con trol. He goes on to note that for many Mormons "the greatest personal impact of the Church stand on birth control has been the emotional discomfort caused by the strained rationalizations used to reconcile personal practices with their view of the Church position."[1]There is qualified support for this position. Mormons appear as likely as other religious groups to practice some form of birth control and are willing to try the most modern, effective methods. Yet they continue to have substantially larger families than the national norm because they adopt contraceptive use relatively late. 

For some families, delaying birth control until after the arrival of the first or second child is undoubtedly consistent with a desire to begin a family soon after marriage. In other cases, however, failure to practice birth control during the first and/or second birth intervals may be based on a belief that to do so would be contrary to Church teachings. Perhaps only when these individuals are faced with the reality of caring for children do they reconsider the accept ability of birth control. In these cases, an anticontraceptives theology may result in shorter birth intervals and subsequent higher fertility than would occur in the absence of the theology. Whatever the rationale, there is no evidence in these data that the use of birth control methods by Mormons has decreased since 1965.

---

[1] Lester E. Bush, "Birth Control Among the Mormons: Introduction to an Insistent Question," DIALOGUE 10 (Autumn 1976): 12-44.

[post_title] => Contraceptive Use Among Mormons, 1965-75 [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 16.3 (Fall 1984): 108–113
For some families, delaying birth control until after the arrival of the first or second child is undoubtedly consistent with a desire to begin a family soon after marriage. In other cases, however, failure to practice birth control during the first and/or second birth intervals may be based on a belief that to do so would be contrary to Church teachings. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => contraceptive-use-among-mormons-1965-75-2 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 19:35:46 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 19:35:46 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=16253 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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“Tomorrow we’ll do it, then,”  said the obstetrician, peeling off his sterile gloves. "Call me at 7:30 to be sure the hospital can handle us." With a pat to my thigh intended to convey confidence and reassurance, he left the examining room. I would not see him again until the end had begun. 

We had been together, he and I, more than just the nine months of this adventure. A hesitant, no longer young bride, I had weaseled my way into his already full practice with protestations that "if we're going to do it at all, we have to do it right away." He specialized in infertility, and somehow that made him worth the effort. At the pre-marital examination he had pronounced all in readiness, and then shocked sudden tears to my eyes with the announcement that "medically I should advise you not to have children." He recited statistics about Down's syndrome and older mothers, backing study with study, overwhelming me in those few moments with mathematics and the moral dilemmas concurrent with amniocentesis and IUDs, with abstinence and abortion. "Whatever you and your husband decide," he added, "I'll go with you." 

Returning six months later, lab report in hand, the pregnancy "pos" box checked, I read in his face a practical mix of congratulation and dismay—how nice, but he really didn't need one more pregnant woman this month. The dismay faded with subsequent visits. We talked of his progenitors, Pratts and Romneys they were, from the Mexican colonies, and of my work in the Church's history division, writing accounts of just such stalwarts as his ancestors. Of the pregnancy there was little mention; things were "progressing nicely," and I was given to understand that the complaints that went with my condition were simply to be endured. Was I not, after all, a daughter of Eve in sorrow bringing forth my children, I thought angrily after one more visit diminished, again, my hopes for relief from the interminable nausea. "Doesn't the Bendectin work?" sympathized the nurse. 

Now at last the pregnancy would be over. Back at my office I had cleared my desk before leaving for the appointment; colleagues there would be pleased not to see me tomorrow. 

By eight the next morning we were at the admissions desk. "Yes?" asked a white starched nurse. "I'm here to have a baby," I explained. She led me off for the routines which hospitals impose on people who come there. I had never had an enema before. 

By the time Dale had filed the admission forms with the computer-head of the hospital, I was gowned and bedded in a narrow room surrounded by a bank of monitors. Competent people began attaching me by various cords to the hospital machinery: the intravenous first, to my arm, then the plastic tube to my spine. I welcomed that one, having been reassured by my doctor that, since we were too busy for breathing lessons, and since he fully expected me to demand some anesthetic when it would be too late to inject it, why not plan on the epidural block. It will be nice, I thought, to be awake, but numb. 

"Will you sign here, please," smiled the young resident as he pushed a clip board toward my I.V.'d arm. "Your doctor has agreed to let you be part of our study." I was getting used to being a guinea pig, but Dale had questions. "Oh, there's nothing experimental in the pill itself," the resident explained. "We just need to know how much dosage at what stage is best for inducing labor." Dale signed, I swallowed, and the process was made immediately irreversible, despite nervous jokes of "Are you sure you want to go through with this?" 

From some intern's sleeve appeared a white plastic device resembling an outsized crochet hook. "Just to break the sac," he explained, as though invading private space were nothing at all. Two more cords wired me to the machinery of the system. The fetal monitor beeped encouragingly, and, hardly minutes after my ingestion of the pill, the swinging arm of the second monitor began to indicate contractions. "Here comes one," Dale would say. "Shut up," I thought. The pain surged through my abdomen, swelling to an intensity I had never experienced, then relenting. "Just tell me when it starts to peak out, will you?" I hoped that he wouldn't feel rejected that I didn't want his warnings. Bonding between husband and wife during labor was important, the book had said. 

In the spaces between, I tried to think of other things, but birthing will not be upstaged. The scene from a B-rated movie played across my thoughts, an Indian woman, crouching and grunting in a copse of aspen and then emerging impossibly soon after, her child bundled in her skirts, to present her son to his father. Too neat, I thought. Then I remembered another Indian birthing story that seemed, in comparison, genuine. In a lecture series on women's issues, a Navajo nurse-social worker had been an invited panelist. I recalled nothing of her assessment of the medical problems of Indian women, but remembered having been deeply moved by her account, told and retold in familiar ways, of the birth of her father.

It was so different then, there, to that mother, Hasbah, birthing her fourth child in a hogan. None of the impersonal white sterility of this hospital, none of the tubes and wires which even now linked me to systems I might never need. Only the red cord sash which the medicine man had tied to the sacred west beam of the hogan for Hasbah to cling to when the pains came hard. 

None of the white-suited mob of unknown faces as here; instead her oldest daughter, watching over the coffee can boiling on the oil drum stove, assuring the cleanliness of the pocket knife with which the cord would be cut, the string with which it would be tied; her husband, in and out of the hogan as he dug the oval hole in the dirt floor in front of the sheepskins which were the delivery mat; her mother, rubbing between her hands the cedar bark—soft, very soft, for the baby's diaper—and placing it on the sheepskin blanket; Old Man Manygoats, his blessingway chants, slow, monotonous, rhythmic, singing the baby out. And finally, her uncle, his strong arms around her waist giving gentle downward pressure. Everyone loved and loving, each involved intimately in the event now taking place on the birthing mat. Another contraction, a hard one; Hasbah grabbed the sash belt. Her mother coached her on. She grunted as she pushed again. She let her baby come gently, her mother helping, expert and smooth with her hands. A son. The vigorous cry filled the hogan. The grandmother laid the baby in the fluffy sheepskin. She wiped his face and back. Old Man Manygoats sang the chant of the corn pollen boy. Grandmother cut the cord and tied it. She wrapped the baby and gave him to his mother's breast.[1] My eyes teared in anticipation of my own coming moment. 

"She's crowning!" bellowed the nurse, having once more invaded that space no longer private. "Where's the doctor?" "Didn't you call?" "Oh, damn." "Well, let's take her into delivery." 

By the time Dale returned, gowned and scrubbed, I was lost in my own body, in a world I had never known so well. The epidural block had not worked—it had seemed odd that deadened pain should be so fierce—but I was above caring. I felt the muscles move to my command. I pressed, relaxed, and pressed again, moving all the world in my own belly. I felt the baby press, I panted "not yet," I held him for the moment, confined in the birth canal, while some functionary did his thing with the scalpel. He signalled his completion of the episiotomy. Now! I opened, pressed, and eased my child from the moist darkness of my body into the dry brightness of this unfriendly world. We would meet later, I promised, and I would make it up to him. 

They whisked him away, out of range of my astigmatic vision. Across the room I could make out wild thrashing arms and legs in the isolette. "Go at it, baby. You've waited a long time for that." 

I was glad the delivery room crew had other things to do, that Dale had other places to look. The grin on my face, I knew, must be grotesque. I wrapped my arms around myself and closed my eyes. Dale left to share his happy news at the office. 

The recovery room nurse was a soul from the past, ministering supreme in this roomful of women. A nineteenth-century midwife, I mused to myself, as she calmly went from mother to newer mother with her homely comforts, her warm messages. The lace of her Mormon garment through the white uniform seemed somehow anachronistic—Patty Sessions would have had plainer. But her ministrations were as caring as those of the midwife. 

She could have delivered my baby, I thought, remembering other midwives I had read about. It would have been comforting to have spent a confinement among such women, to have been blessed by them. A sacred washing and anointing of women before their delivery had been common even up to the time of my own birth. I wondered if warm Relief Society hands had pressed their blessings on my mother's modest body, if the fetus that was to become me had felt the surge of spirit from those sacred words. 

I had earlier found the text of such a blessing, carefully penned into a Relief Society minutes book nearly a century ago. There at my desk in the church archives, cars humming by outside my window, I had read the blessing. Parts of it reverberated now: 

. . . we wash you preparatory to your safe delivery and speedy recovery, for life, health, salvation, for yourself and your offspring, asking God the Eternal Father that His holy spirit may attend this ordinance. 

There were blessings for each member of the body, for each function, all articulated in a blend of the practical and the sublime utterance: 

. . . that every cord and muscle may be strong and healthy, that the marrow of your bones [be] warmed up by the spirit of God. . . . That your heart might be comforted and that no cold might settle upon [your] bosom and that your milk may be pure and filled with nourishment. 

Anticipating what had been a most serious threat to my sisters in the past, the blessing prayed against premature delivery. 

that [your womb] might be strengthened and the ligaments thereof that it may retain what is there-in deposited to its full time and bring forth in perfection. 

How easily such concepts had slipped from the lips of nineteenth-century Saints: perfection was for the gods, I had often reminded myself. 

We ask that your child might be perfect in every limb and joint and muscle . . . 

And so would he be, my child? 

That it might be beautiful to look upon, that its nerves may be strong, that it may be happy in its spirit, . . . that it may be free from spot or blemish, that it may be filled with faith from its mother's womb.[2]

The holy blending of the magnificent and the mundane that is a woman's blessing had poured over me, and I felt the strength of sharing, the continuity of sisterhood. The office secretary, poking her head into my alcove, had wondered at the water on my cheeks. Someday I would tell her of the washings of love which span decades. 

Now, ecstatic beyond sleep, I was moved readily back to my room, watching, as I passed, my name being erased from the blackboard now filled with names of others in a long listing of delivery room comings and goings. In the bed adjacent lay my roommate. Two beds opposite were empty. After not much preliminary talk with my neighbor I sensed some deep grief beyond her telling. When the nurse arrived with the woman's baby, I knew. "She doesn't look funny, does she?" the mother pleaded. The lower ears, the slanted eyes. "No, of course not," I answered. I did not lie. She had a newborn loveliness that Down's syndrome could not alter. The baby's father came in, in his bishop's voice playing out complacencies about this "special angel," this seventh child whose difference neither parent had in the slightest anticipated. He left his wife uncomforted. 

Into the evening we talked, she and I. I had read some things she needed to know, and she had some fear, some anger, but mostly a bottomless sorrow which she could barely speak. To be a mother so many times, secure in her skills, and then to find herself dependent on a nurse to be taught how to feed a child who cannot synchronize the sucking with the swallowing. She was where I was, having to learn firsthand the mother things. 

Underneath it all, the talking and listening, lay in me an urgency which finally burst out. "Oh, I wish they'd bring my baby!" I cried. "Why didn't you say?" my new friend replied. "I'll call the nursery for you." 

George came in with the wheeled crib. Our friend, as well as pediatrician, he was a welcome sharer in this first holding of my first born. "He's beautiful," George announced, "and normal." Then, in very doctory tones, he instructed, explained, assured. Touching the baby's hand in parting, he hesitated. "Maureen, look," he said. "This line on his palm is continuous. Downs babies often have that." Tears sprang. Through many months afterward I would caress that line, reminded of the healthy mind with which our Daniel had been blessed, of how easily it could have been otherwise. 

George left, my roommate turned to sleep, and the nursery attendant, after a brisk warning not to risk falling asleep with the baby in my arms, left us. Now at last, was the moment of my peace. The nameless child fit himself into the crook of my arm as he had so many months nested in the warmth of my womb. Only now there was no squirming, no jabbing of leg or arm, no eagerness for separation. Oh, this is better, we seemed to say to each other. And I resented the others, the everpresent others, who had until now kept us from this moment. 

Why the coldness of it all, why the white sterility, the metallic intrusions into our process? The machines, the strangers, the unfamiliar walls. Reason intervened: what if things had not gone so well? What if you needed instruments? or oxygen? How many babies had been saved because of the warnings of a fetal monitor? Or delivered Caesarean when things went wrong? Infant mortality among nineteenth-century Mormon women was about ten percent; the facts injected themselves into my reverie.

The midwives, for all their comforting presence, had been helpless in so many cases. Juanita Brooks had written of Grandma Leavitt, midwife in the remote Mormon community on the Arizona strip. The birthing was not going well, once, and there was no earthly help beyond the midwife's own experience. Theresa Leavitt provided the details: 

Grandma was called to Littlefield to take care of Alice Strausser Knight, wife of Edward Knight, with her first baby. She could see that she must have help, so she sent Theresa for some Elders, and she brought back the two Frehner brothers, Albert and Henry.

They administered to her, but still things were not working right, so she sent Theresa to get Harmon Wittwer and Parley Hunt who were camped by the school house on their way north with a load of salt. It was in the middle of the night, but Theresa woke them and told them they were needed badly over at Knight's.

Now there were four men all holding the Melchizedek Priesthood kneeling around her bed and asking for the Lord's help. Grandma said she wanted everyone to take part in prayer, one after another, and not to stop praying until this child is born.

Only one or two had prayed when she stopped us. "Something is wrong here," she said. "Someone in this group has hard feelings against each other, and I want them to make it right so that we can be united and the Spirit of the Lord made manifest and this child can be born."

No one said a word for a few seconds, and then brothers Albert and Henry Frehner got to their feet and said they had a bitter quarrel that day, and were not speaking to each other. They stood there and with tears in their eyes asked each other's forgiveness.

Then they all kneeled again, and the praying went on, but not for long. These two brothers had hardly finished before the baby was born.[3]

That was the backup support, I realized. Priesthood. And I had known that, too. Early in the pregnancy, when the nausea was preventing me from the level of productivity my work required, Dale had blessed me through his priesthood privilege. I had already learned to listen carefully to his words— they were short, simple and, experience had demonstrated, either inspired or confirmed from above. This blessing, going beyond what I thought was my need—to be able to do my work—pronounced almost as an afterthought that "the baby is healthy." That was all, but it was enough. Fears of Down's syndrome left me, and I was free for the rest of my term to anticipate in peace the birth of my normal baby boy. Amniocentesis could have told as much, I realize, but this was better for me. My own intuition—I had not even bothered listing girls' names among the boys'—and Dale's pronouncement had replaced mystery with knowledge, fear with comfort. 

So this was birthing, this crazy-quilt of contrasts, of senses and feelings in chaos, coming occasionally to rest, as now, with a sleeping son in the crook of my arm. Had I won the grand prize? or was there a bigger and better one behind another curtain? Hasbah, Alice Knight, the women washed and anointed, the ones with surgical deliveries, my roommate, did they have it better? or even different? So much we had shared: the sisterhood of women at birthing times; the practical rituals, pleasant or unpleasant, necessary or unnecessary; the religious rites and their invoking of the divine; our private moments of self-knowledge, when, by whatever process, our bodies have borne their burden; and the public acknowledgement of the oneness of the human family. 

And I had known it all. Had experienced the sisterhood, had participated in a ritual as old as seeding wheat, had sensed the link, to powers beyond my own, had found my own soul, had felt God. 

---

[1] Ursula Wilson, "Tom Knocki, Son of Hasbah," from a panel presentation 20 November 1975 in "Utah Women: Roots and Realities" series. Notes in the author's files.

[2] Oakley Second Ward Relief Society Minutes, 1901-1910, Church Archives, Historical Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. 

[3] Theresa Leavitt, as quoted in Juanita Brooks, "Mariah Huntsman Leavitt. Midwife of the Desert Frontier," in Forms upon the Frontier: Folklife and Folk Arts in the United States, edited by Austin Fife, et al. (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1969), pp. 125-26.

[post_title] => Birthing [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 14.4 (Fall 1981): 117–124
So this was birthing, this crazy-quilt of contrasts, of senses and feelingsin chaos, coming occasionally to rest, as now, with a sleeping son in the crookof my arm. Had I won the grand prize? [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => birthing [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-28 16:05:56 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-28 16:05:56 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=16403 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 16052 [post_author] => 2352 [post_date] => 2018-04-18 18:06:50 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-04-18 18:06:50 [post_content] =>

This presentation is not "the" Mormon perspective but the point of view of "a" Mormon. "The" Mormon point of view, at this moment, does not exist on the subjects under discussion. Certainly many Mormons hold strong views on these subjects, and some argue their views reflect those of the Church.[1] Rather, I mean that if one were to write, as I did, and ask the First Presidency—which is solely entrusted with the authority to establish official Mormon Church policy—if it has "a position, or a doctrine . . . relating to the subject" of any of the four medical processes this symposium addresses, one would receive an answer stating that the Church has not "taken an official position with respect to the issues raised by the scenarios." If, mildly surprised that this should be so despite the explicit or implicit overtones of abortion in two of the four scenarios, one writes again, highlighting this problem, he or she will be referred without elaboration to the "current official policy of the Church with respect to [abortion]" and advised that "the scenarios . . . should be viewed in light of this policy" (Gibbons 1982, 1983). 

With this as one current bottom line, let us now look to history to review the Mormon view of heroic intervention and modern medicine in general, then examine in a little detail the Mormon record on birth control (the most closely related issue on which much doctrinal history exists), abortion, and other related subjects. To the extent that generalizations emerge from this review, I will hazard a guess as to what they might portend for the future Mormon perspective on reproductive medicine. 

Heroics in Medicine

Although not prominent on the agenda of early Mormonism, medical ethical questions, loosely defined, were an early and persistent concern within the Church. The first and most conspicuous of these involved what was then termed the heroic medical practice of orthodox physicians. Joseph Smith and his colleagues regularly condemned what they viewed as dangerous heroics in the treatment of disease. 

Given the state of the medical art at this time, this view was pragmatic; but the justification went well beyond what otherwise might have been labelled common sense. As biblical literalists, Mormon leaders felt doctrinally bound to the advice of James who counseled the sick to "call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord" (James 5:14). Should an additional step be necessary, according to a revelation announced by Joseph Smith in 1831, sick believers who "[had] not faith to be healed [by priesthood administration] . . . shall be nourished with all tenderness, with herbs and mild food" (D&C 42:43)—guidelines again in harmony with biblical precedents. 

Authoritative counsel reinforced these implicitly anti-heroic guidelines in unequivocal terms. During the Mormon trek west, for example, Brigham Young, acting as president of the Church after Joseph Smith's death, advised members of the Mormon Battalion: "If you are sick, live by faith, and let the surgeon's medicine alone if you want to live, using only such herbs and mild food as are at your disposal" (Tyler 1969, 146). 

At least at the theoretical level, the anti-heroic ethic extended to the most severe cases, such as that of Elizabeth Morgan, a fifty-five-year-old convert living in London in 1842. She had a "spasmodic affection" which one day developed into an inflammation of the bowel. Despite a rapid deterioration in her condition, treatment was limited to anointing "with oil in the name of the Lord, . . . sage tea with Cayenne pepper, [and] leeches." All efforts failed and the "beloved sister" died. 

The lessons drawn from these developments were revealing. The coroner feeling the "remedy . . . worse than the disease," and shocked that no "medical gentleman" or "surgeon" was called in, "had his doubts whether [the case] was not one of manslaughter." A jury was convened to investigate but "after some deliberation returned a verdict of 'natural death,' with a hope that the present inquiry would act as a caution to [the Mormons] how they acted in such cases for the future." The Mormons viewed things differently. They reprinted a London Despatch article on the story in their own official journal and added a hyperbolic editorial observing that "what gives deep interest to the fact [of Sister Morgan's death] and adds solemnity to the scene is that she died a 'natural death!!!!!' " Among the litany of unnatural alternatives cheerfully suggested was "the privilege of being killed through the administration of the learned medical faculty" ("She Died" 1979, 86-89). 

With the passage of time, orthodox medicine became more "scientific," herbalism fell into disrepute, and Church opposition to regular medical doctors began to erode. Late in his life, Brigham Young sent young Mormons back East to be educated in leading orthodox medical schools and hospitals. Under the influence of this growing cadre of well-educated physicians and a few regular physician emigres, "scientific medicine" came to dominate the Utah medical scene. By the turn of the century, the Church had fully embraced modern medicine. The increasingly heroic "state-of-the-art" medicine espoused and practiced at this time was judged not so much by a doctrinal yardstick as by—in the words of Apostle James Talmage—the "intelligent exercise of common sense" (Talmage 1922, 3). In the words of a Deseret News editorial accompanying the opening of a well-equipped Church-sponsored hospital in 1902, "Remedies are provided by the Great Physician or by Nature as some prefer to view them and we should not close our eyes to their virtues or ignore the skill and learning of the trained doctor" (Smith 1979, 50). 

While divinely sanctioned herbalism was discarded during this general accommodation, orthodox therapy and priesthood blessings came to be seen as adjuncts to each other, especially when a serious illness was involved. Again, the words of Apostle Talmage, "We must do all we can, and then ask the Lord to do the rest, such as we cannot do. Hence we hold the medical and surgical profession in high regard. . . . When we have done all we can then the Divine Power will be directly applicable and operative." This symbiotic relationship has continued within Mormonism to the present day. On 19 February 1977, in the face of a resurgence of nineteenth-century anti-medical "fundamentalist" theology among some Mormons, the Church News repeated editorially that "our belief in the divine power of healing should in no way preclude seeking competent medical assistance." 

Looking back on this, Mormons—including, I expect, most Mormon physicians—would say that the Lord had merely commended to the early Saints the most effective and safest treatments of the day and that later Church leaders were simply responding, under inspiration, to changed circumstances. While the case for herbalism, even in 1830, is at best debatable, for our pur poses the important point is that general medical judgments were demonstrably pragmatic, even though they were couched in a doctrinal vernacular. This is the same standard against which the Church today seems to evaluate the propriety of even the most heroic medical measures. It is no longer, as it once was, a priori, a matter of doctrine. Rather—to paraphrase Talmage—it is a question of common sense and technical feasibility. 

While a very sympathetic relationship has been present between modern, often heroic medicine and Mormonism throughout the twentieth century, there have been a few points of discordance. Most typically, they have been issues involving human reproduction.[2]

Birth Control

The national ferment of the sixties and early seventies over abortion is an instructive parallel to the birth-control controversy of a half century earlier. The term "birth control" itself derives from this period, which also saw the first formal statements by the Mormon hierarchy on the subject. These statements, as in the case of the first comments on abortion, were made rather early in what was a radical reform movement, and at a time when many aspects of contraception were illegal. 

Joseph F. Smith was the first LDS Church president to address in any detail the question of what was then termed "prevention." Having heard as early as 1900 that "steps were being taken," even among Latter-day Saints, "to prevent . . . spirits being tabernacled," he spoke regularly on the subject for nearly two decades (CF April 1900, 39-40; Bush 1976). 

One of his earlier statements was written in response to a physician's inquiry in 1908 as to whether it was ever right "intentionally to prevent, by any means whatever, the spirits . . . from obtaining earthly tabernacles?" Smith's response was that "in a general way, and as a rule, the answer to this question is an emphatic negative. I do not hesitate to say that prevention is wrong." In addition to bringing in its wake selfishness, and a "host of social evils," it would also "disregard or annul the great commandment of God to man, 'Multiply and replenish the earth' " (1908, 959-61). 

While the tone and substance of much that he said derived from the un differentiated perspective of the nineteenth century, he also added a caveat reminiscent of the new pragmatism with which the Mormons viewed medicine in general: "I am now speaking of the normally healthy man and woman. But that there are weak and sickly people who in wisdom, discretion and common sense should be counted as exceptions, only strengthens the general rule." The thinking at this time was further from our own than this might suggest: Smith concluded that in such exceptional cases th'e only legitimate preventive was "absolute abstinence." 

While Smith held to the same basic view throughout his presidency, which ended with his death in 1918, his last extensive counsel on the subject introduced another exception to his general condemnation of "this evil practice:" "I think that [curtailing the birth of children] is a crime whenever it occurs," he advised the women's Relief Society in 1917, "where husband and wife are in possession of health and vigor and are free from impurities that would be entailed upon their posterity. I believe that where people undertake to curtail or prevent the birth of their children that they are going to reap disappointment by and by. I have no hesitancy in saying that I believe this is one of the greatest crimes in the world today" (317-18). 

Smith's successor, Heber J. Grant, presided over the Church during Utah's depression years, which had begun in the early twenties, a decade earlier than for the nation. During these years, the birth rate among Mormons declined precipitously, dropping to levels not again reached until the advent of "mod ern" contraceptives in the sixties. However, senior Church authorities said relatively little in response to this unprecedented evidence of intentional family limitation; even then, advice was generally given only in personal correspondence. 

J. Reuben Clark, of the First Presidency, in 1933 wrote privately in response to an inquiring correspondent that the Church did not have an official position on birth control (Quinn 1983, 158). 

Several years later, on 1 May 1939, a similar letter from Heber J. Grant set forth his views. He first invoked the counsel of his predecessor, Joseph F. Smith, then added, "Married couples who, by inheritance and proper living, have themselves been blessed with mental and physical vigor are recreant in their duty if they refuse to meet the natural and rightful responsibility of parenthood. Of course, in every ideal home the health of the mother, as well as the intelligence and health of the children should receive careful consideration" (Grant to Haymore). 

In 1942, the influential apostle John A. Widtsoe advised a personal correspondent that "as far as I know the Church has not expressed itself as to birth control" (Widtsoe to Klinger). Later that year he published an important essay on birth control in the Improvement Era forthrightly entitled "Should Birth Control Be Practiced?" It was a remarkably even-handed treatment of the subject, clearly reflecting another phase in the evolution of leader ship thinking on the subject. Instead of rejecting economic arguments out of hand, he rather found them "seldom convincing." Equally interesting, he implicitly rejected total abstinence as the sole recourse open to those with legitimate grounds for controlling fertility. His advice was that "a careful recognition of the fertile and sterile periods of woman would prove effective in the great majority of cases" (1942, 801, 803). 

Four years later, Apostle David O. McKay (1946) in private correspondence carried this position a step further in advising that "when the health of the mother demands it, the proper spacing of children may be determined by seeking medical counsel, by compliance with the processes of nature, or by continence." While some Mormon authorities were—and still are—willing to label birth control "gross wickedness" (McConkie 1958, 81; Smith 2:86- 89), McKay's much more tolerant view was the dominant perspective after he became president in 1951. The high-water mark in this direction can be found in the writings of his counselor Hugh B. Brown who wrote in 1960 that "the Latter-day Saints believe in large families wherever it is possible to provide for the necessities of life, for the health and education of their children, and when the physical and mental health of the mother permits" (135-36). 

Ultimately, probably at Brown's prompting, the First Presidency issued a formal statement on 14 April 1969—-the first and only formal statement by the First Presidency specifically on the subject of birth control. In this McKay, Brown, and Nathan Tanner wrote: 

The First Presidency is being asked from time to time as to what the attitude of the Church is regarding birth control. . . . 

We seriously regret that there should exist a sentiment or feeling among any mem bers of the Church to curtail the birth of their children. We have been commanded to multiply and replenish the earth that we may have joy and rejoicing in our posterity. 

Where husband and wife enjoy health and vigor and are free from impurities that would be entailed upon their posterity, it is contrary to the teachings of the Church artificially to curtail or prevent the birth of children. We believe those who practice birth control will reap disappointment by and by. 

However, we feel that men must be considerate of their wives who bear the greater responsibility not only of bearing children, but of caring for them through childhood. To this end the mother's health and strength should be conserved and the husband's consideration for his wife is his first duty, and self-control a dominant factor in all their relationships. 

It is our further feeling that married couples should seek inspiration and wisdom from the Lord that they may exercise discretion in solving their marital problems, and that they may be permitted to rear their children in accordance with the teachings of the gospel. (First Presidency 1969) 

This masterpiece of diplomacy effectively combined the essence, if not the bottom lines, of the guidance issued throughout the twentieth century into one ultimately ambiguous statement which in essence transferred full responsibility from the Church to the individual member. Their success is indicated by the fact that Mormons across the entire spectrum of possible attitudes toward birth control cite it in defense of their beliefs. Beyond reiterating the strong pro family tradition which has sustained nearly all Mormon commentary on the subject, the statement thereby placed specific behaviors above ecclesiastical review. 

In a larger sense, perhaps, Church leadership also thus ratified the collective judgment of rank-and-file Mormons. For years, surveys of active Mormons had found a large majority either using or planning to use contraceptives; and by the late sixties, when the First Presidency statement was issued, Mormon birth rates were at historic lows, ranging between 26 and 28 births per thousand. 

The point to be made is not that the Church capitulated on the issue of birth control, but rather that a change in societal perspective was accompanied, eventually, by a similar change within the Church. In fact, the Church did not really capitulate on its more fundamental concern—that procreation and family life lie at the heart of human beings' reason for being. While this is now interpreted in the context of a very broadly defined medical concern for the well-being of the total family, there still has been no formal sanction of arbitrary spacing of births because of educational or economic goals. 

The positive injunction given to Adam and Eve to multiply and replenish the earth was really the foundation of all Mormon commentary on birth control. And Mormons at large obviously have responded to this ideal. While unmistakably influenced by changing socio-economic circumstances—much like their non-Mormon contemporaries—Mormon families still collectively average one and a half additional children per family—a distinction held throughout the twentieth century. 

Those who have followed McKay to the presidency of the Church have been both more outspoken and more conservative in their commentary on birth control. As expected, however, they chose not to revise the formal guidance already issued on the subject. While the new emphasis may have been associated with a brief rise in the birth rate of Mormons in Utah in the late 1970s, it seems not to have influenced the overall usage of contraceptives within the Church (which by the end of childbearing seems ultimately to approach 90 percent). A recent study based on a small sample from the 1975 National Fertility Studies found that 96 percent of reporting Mormons had made use of birth control (Heaton and Calkins 1983). Though this is somewhat higher than previous reports, surveys since 1935 have found the majority of Mormon respondents either endorsing or using birth control (Bush 1976, 32). Indeed, the most recent guidance on the subject of birth control in official Church forums is essentially indistinguishable in tone and substance from that which appeared in the sixties. The most extensive such commentary appeared in the Ensign's "I Have a Question" column in August 1979. In a thoughtful response to the question, "Is there not any kind of 'gospel family-planning,' for lack of a better way to say it?", noted Mormon obstetrician Homer Ellsworth first rejoiced in "our spiritual obligation, to bear children and to have a family" and decried family limitation for "selfish" reasons. "But, on the other hand," he continued (in part), 

we need not be afraid of studying the question from important angles—the physical and mental health of the mother and father, the parents' capacity to provide basic necessities, and so on. If for certain personal reasons a couple prayerfully decides that having another child immediately is unwise, the method of spacing children—dis counting possible medical or physical effects—makes little difference. Abstinence, of course, is also a form of contraception, and like any other method it has side effects, some of which are harmful to the marriage relationship. (Ellsworth 1979, 23—24)[3]

Abortion

Although there was no formal statement of Church policy on abortion until very recently, the views of early Church leaders on the subject were very clear: abortion was synonymous with murder. Polemically, at least, no distinction was made between "foeticide," the "destruction of embryos," or abortion on the one hand, and "infanticide" or "infant murder" on the other. John Taylor, for example, spoke with some regularity of "pre-natal murders," or "murders . . . committed while the children are pre-natal;" of infants killed "either be fore or after they are born;" and of murdering children "either before or after they come into the world." Similar language can be found in the related ser mons of nearly all late nineteenth-century Mormon leaders (Bush 1976, 14-16, 42 note 104). 

Given this perspective, it is not surprising that the Church viewed those involved in such "hellish" practices as under grave condemnation. George Q. Cannon of the First Presidency in 1884 was perhaps the most graphic: "They will be damned with deepest damnation; because it is the damnation of shed ding innocent blood, for which there is no forgiveness. . . . They are outside the pale of salvation. They are in a position that nothing can be done for them. They cut themselves of! by such acts from all hopes of salvation." John Taylor had given the same message in 1881: "They are murderers and murderesses of their infants . . . and you that want them, take them, and you that do will go along with them, and go to perdition with them, and I tell you that in the name of the Lord" (JD 22:320). 

Despite this seemingly categorical stance, the condemnation of abortion was not absolute. A few years earlier, in 1876, amid the national anti-abortion crusade which fueled much of the Mormon commentary, Utah had passed an anti-abortion statute. The criminal penalties were not as severe as one might have expected from the sermons. Those convicted of having an abortion received one to five years; those performing an abortion, two to ten. More importantly, there also was an explicit exemption in cases where abortion was "necessary to preserve [the] life [of the mother]." {Utah Code Annotated, sec. 1972, 1876; sec. 76-7-301 et seq. 1973.) 

In actual practice, abortion seems to have been very uncommon in the Mormon community. After the period of intense national agitation ended, the subject largely disappeared from Church commentary for nearly a century. When it reemerged, the social and medical context was radically different from that faced by John Taylor. 

The twentieth century brought an unprecedented public acceptance of active intervention in the reproductive processes. Infant mortality had declined precipitously, so there no longer was a need to have "insurance" children to guarantee a "full" family surviving into adulthood. Society became increasingly mobile and urbanized. Those with large families encountered emotional and economic challenges from which their parents and grandparents seemingly were spared. And family limitation through birth control, despite a controversial entry into the national arena, became increasingly acceptable—even within the Mormon community. 

To a growing number of participants in this social revolution, particularly since 1960, a logical next step was to make therapeutic abortions available in cases other than those threatening the mother's life. The reasons for this change in perception are less evident than the fact of the change. Some fundamentalist Mormons have seen it as yet another symptom of sweeping moral decay. Others found convincing the statistical evidence that, although illegal "abortionists" operated with very high mortality, therapeutic abortions in legal medical settings had substantially less maternal morbidity and mortality than pregnancy itself. 

Whatever the reasons, both medical and popular sentiment on abortion unquestionably moved substantially away from the categorical abhorrence of earlier decades. Accordingly many states revised their abortion laws. In 1969, Utah Senate Bill 121 was introduced to revise Utah's century-old statute, pro posing to allow abortions where the mother's mental or physical health (not solely her life) was at stake, where pregnancy resulted from rape or incest, or if the child was likely to have "grave or permanent physical disability or mental retardation." As a member of LDS Hospital's house staff in 1968-69, I recall numerous conversations among the hospital's physicians. Many felt that the Church would not oppose the proposed legislation—an indication of how far sentiment within the LDS community had shifted. As startling as this view may seem in retrospect, there are several reasons why it might have been true. 

To begin with, as Lohner (1967) documents, there was the practical con sideration that a somewhat liberalized policy was already tacitly in effect in most major hospitals in Salt Lake City, including the LDS Hospital itself. Only Holy Cross Hospital reported no therapeutic abortions between 1954 and 1964-. Although far from routine, abortions were being performed occasionally for the very indications the new legislation proposed to authorize. For instance, 9 percent of the abortions had been for fetal indications, and 18 percent for psychiatric. Lohner also felt that many of the 73 percent of abortions labelled "medical" were, in fact, performed for other indications. 

A second reason was a relatively tolerant attitude toward birth control on the part of the current Church leadership. Notwithstanding a long tradition which once had equated preventive measures with abortion and, thus, infanticide, the use of contraceptives was largely viewed in actual practice as principally a medical judgment. And by the standards of old, such "medical" judgments were very lenient indeed. There were also several theoretical rea sons why some relaxation in state abortion laws might have been ecclesiastically acceptable. 

First, the Church had never taken a formal stand on the subject of abortion. Given what has been said about the nineteenth-century view, this may seem a technicality, but it is not. Notwithstanding its authoritarian image, Mormonism in fact has very few authoritative doctrines. Its canon, the standard works, rarely bears unequivocally on twentieth-century issues. Principles continue to be extracted and applied, but there is always a strong subjective or "inspired" interpretive element in these applications.[4] Moreover, unless these interpretations are publicly issued by the First Presidency—which is rarely the case—they do not attain the status of formal doctrines of the Church. Even those so issued are subject to later revision, though an effort is made to avoid explicit rejection of a previously published view. The record on birth control illustrates both these points. What most often passes for "doctrine" within Mormon society is, in reality, a widely held consensus, perhaps espoused in sermon or print by Mormon General Authorities, but ultimately without formal sanction by the First Presidency. In theory, such a consensus is not binding on Church members. In practice, it is not unlikely to change. 

Second, despite the precedent of nineteenth-century Church commentary, mid-twentieth century Mormon leaders did not view abortion in entirely the same doctrinal light as their predecessors. While nothing definitive had been stated publicly, as early as 1934 Apostle David O. McKay privately expressed his opinion that the Church had not made an "authoritative answer" to the question of whether abortion should be "termed murder or not" (McKay to Nate). Later, as Church president, McKay and the First Presidency had affirmed that "as the matter stands, no definitive statement has been made by the Lord one way or another regarding the crime of abortion. So far as is known, he has not listed it alongside the crime of the unpardonable sin and shedding innocent blood. That he has not done so would suggest that it is not in that class of crime" (First Presidency 1973). In 1958, J. Reuben Clark, though generally strongly opposed to abortion, had been willing to advise a pregnant woman who had contracted German measles that on the question of terminating the pregnancy "she should seek the advice of her physicians . . . and also seek the Lord in prayer" (Quinn 1983, 158). 

Third, the view that abortion should not be viewed as murder and thus the optimism that there might be no official objection to some modest liberalization in state laws was possible because the Church also had no formal stand on another theologically relevant subject: the relationship between a noncorporeal spirit and the physical body of flesh and blood with which it is associated. Assumptions about this relationship are central to some frequently heard condemnations of abortion, but this is not true of Mormonism. 

Mortal existence, as we know it, was represented by Joseph Smith as the union of a spirit with its earthly body to form what was termed a "soul." At death, the spirit and body again separated, to be permanently reunited at the time of resurrection. Ultimately this resurrected soul accounts before God for his or her conduct on earth. 

The essence of this theological understanding obviously is not unique to Mormonism. Among other common themes, it shares the popular notion—of some medical interest—that the spirit animates the body and that death coincides with the departure of the spirit. As biblical literalists, early Mor mons might also have been expected to assume, as did many of their con temporaries, that the spirit was prenatally present, using as proof-text the familiar passage in Luke 1:44 in which Elisabeth's child "leaped in [her] womb for joy" at the news of Mary's pregnancy. The problem with this as a firm Mormon scriptural guide was a Book of Mormon episode in which the adult Christ appeared—presumably in spirit form—the day prior to his birth. 

With these paradoxical precedents, it is understandable that leading Mor mons held a variety of views over the years about timing of ensoulment—and that none of these views attained the status of a formal doctrine. Brigham Young assumed the spirit arrived at the time of quickening (JD 17:143). This view, the conventional Protestant wisdom of the day, was easier to maintain before modern science demonstrated that fetal motion was present almost from the outset of pregnancy, long before it could be detected by the mother. David O. McKay felt that the spirit joined the body at the time of birth. "Life manifest in the body before that time would seem to be dependent upon the mother" (McKay to Nate). To the best of my knowledge, no leading Mormon ever asserted the third obvious alternative—that the spirit arrived at the time of conception. 

Although McKay's position would seem intrinsically more flexible than Young's, this was not necessarily so. Young also believed, as quoted by a successor Wilford Woodruff, that "when some people have little children born at 6 & 7 months from pregnancy & they live a few hours then die .. . I think that such a spirit will have a Chance of occupiying [sic] another Tabernacle and develop itself" (Woodruff 5:109). While it is not clear where he would draw the line, he periodically ridiculed a colleague's notion that babies who died were "resurrected" into new, mortal infant bodies (Woodruff 6:361, 363; JD 12:66). Ultimately the First Presidency (1970) wrote—though it did not formally publish—that "there is no direct revelation upon the subject [of when the spirit takes possession of the body] .. . it has always been a moot question. That there is life in the child before birth is undoubted fact, but whether that life is the result of the affinity of the child in embryo with the life of its mother, or because the spirit has entered it remains an unsolved mystery" (First Presidency 1970). So far as I am aware, nothing further has been said on the subject. 

In practice, Mormon ritual has always distinguished between miscarriages or stillborn deliveries, and neonatal deaths. The former are not formally re corded in Church records; the latter are. Vicarious ordinance work, deemed essential for all humankind in Mormon theology, is never performed in the case of a miscarriage or stillborn delivery. It always is for a deceased infant. In essence, then, whatever the doctrinal uncertainties, Church practice treats birth as though it were the time when an important spirit-body bond takes place. (Parenthetically, it also should be noted that the Church has not taken any stand on the question of what constitutes a live birth, despite the obvious ecclesiastical implications. I believe in practice it simply follows the variable legal definitions current in different jurisdictions.) 

Returning then to 1969, the Church did issue a short statement on the proposed abortion reform bill, about a week after it was introduced in the Utah legislature. In this, the First Presidency stated that after "careful consideration," they were opposed "to any modification, expansion, or liberalization of laws on these vital subjects" (Deseret News, 23 Jan. 1969). And, not surprisingly, the bill was not enacted. 

Inapparent flexibility in this official opinion became evident just a few weeks later in a private letter from the Secretary to the First Presidency, on their behalf. After reiterating Mormon opposition to a liberalization in the laws, the letter added: "Nevertheless there may be conditions where abortion is justified, but such conditions must be determined acting under the advice of competent, reliable physicians, preferably members of the Church, and in accordance with the laws pertaining thereto" (Anderson 1969). Two years later in February 1971, this private counsel was given much wider circulation when a new First Presidency published an identically worded statement in the official leadership newsletter, The Priesthood Bulletin. The following June 1972, the Presidency's views were more fully elaborated in another issue of the Bulletin. Their statement at that time remains the most comprehensive official Mormon response to the question of abortion: Because of its importance to the present discussion, I will quote it in full: 

The church opposes abortion and counsels its members not to submit to or per form an abortion except in the rare cases where, in the opinion of competent medical counsel, the life or good health of the mother is seriously endangered or where the pregnancy was caused by rape and produces serious emotional trauma in the mother. Even then it should be done only after counseling with the local presiding authority and after receiving divine confirmation through prayer. 

As the matter stands today, no definite statement has been made by the Lord one way or another regarding the crime of abortion. So far as is known, he has not listed it alongside the crime of the unpardonable sin and shedding of innocent human blood. That he has not done so would suggest that it is not in that class of crime and there fore that it will be amendable to the laws of repentance and forgiveness. 

These observations must not be interpreted to mean that acts of abortion, except under circumstances explained in the preceding paragraph, are not of a serious nature. To tamper or interfere with any of the processes in the procreation of offspring is to violate one of the most sacred of God's commandments —• to multiply and replenish the earth. Abortion must be considered one of the most revolting and sinful practices in this day, when we are witnessing the frightening evidences of permissiveness leading to sexual immorality. 

Members of the Church guilty of being parties to the sin of abortion must be sub jected to the disciplinary action of the councils of the Church as circumstances war rant. In dealing with this serious matter it would be well to keep in mind the word of the Lord stated in the 59th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, verse 6: "Thou shalt not steal; neither commit adultery, nor kill nor do anything like unto it." 

This statement clearly stops short of defining abortion as murder, finding it rather "like unto it"—possibly in the sense that some might consider a fetus not to be identical with human life in the normal usage, but like unto it. As such, abortion was usually to be viewed as a "most revolting and sinful practice." On the other hand, the statement was clearly more liberal than, for example, the existing Utah law at the time and, excepting only the cases of fetal abnormalities and incest-related pregnancy, was compatible with the un successful legislative reform introduced three years earlier. 

While a panel of federal judges held in 1971 that Utah's abortion law was constitutional, the statute obviously did not withstand the 1973 Supreme Court ruling which in essence struck down all state laws on the subject. In the wake of this development, the Church reissued its 1972 guideline; and over the past decade, it has periodically republished an essentially identical official statement. 

With the advent of the Kimball presidency in late 1973, abortion regained the prominence in sermon and print it had been given a century before. Abortion was again a national issue, and President Kimball regularly cited it in a litany of grave sins besetting society. Although the characteristically hyperbolic Church News editorials which accompanied this renewed attack (for example, that of 17 May 1975) occasionally suggested that spirits assigned to aborted fetuses would lose their chance for an earthly experience, I believe this view was generally (and correctly) assumed to be without official basis.[5] It was more the tone than the substance of Church discourse that changed during these years. 

One quasi-official departure from the limitations of the 1972 statement was evident in 1976, when the Church distributed to all Mormon congregations a very graphic filmstrip reinforcing its opposition to abortion. In addition to the proscriptions already outlined in the official statement, the following new counsel was included as part of an accompanying discourse by President Kimball entitled "A Visit With The Prophet" which was reprinted in the Church News, 27 March 1976, p. 6: "Occasionally the question of pregnancy by rape will be asked. Medical evidence indicates that this is an extremely rare situation. But regardless of how the pregnancy was caused, abortion would greatly compound the wrong. An unborn baby must not be punished for the sins of his father. Letting the baby be born and placing him in an adoptive home would surely be a better solution for an unfortunate situation." 

Despite the extensive distribution of the filmstrip and explicit guidance of the accompanying talk, the Church at this time did not officially depart from its former stand—a paradox which illustrates some of the problems in assessing an authoritative or authoritarian religion with few formal doctrines. That there had been no binding departure from previous guidance was clear within just a few weeks when the First Presidency reaffirmed its previous policy on abortion in an "official statement" which contained identical exceptions to those specified in 1972. Among these, of course, was "pregnancy . . . caused by forcible rape and producing] serious emotional trauma in the victim" (Church News, 5 June 1976, p. 3). 

This is where things stand at present.[6] Interestingly enough, the First Presidency never has specifically condemned the termination of pregnancies involving seriously defective fetuses. Rather, they chose the indirect condemnation of not exempting such cases from a general indictment of abortion. In his re marks accompanying the 1976 filmstrip, President Kimball did assert that "no one, save the Lord himself, has the right to decide if a baby should or should not be permitted to live." One can presume therefore that he personally would counsel strongly against intervening in such cases. Nonetheless, the First Presidency appears to have intentionally avoided singling out this difficult issue for unequivocal condemnation, despite periodic inquiries from concerned physicians on this specific subject or on the related use of amniocentesis. 

My impression is that this quasi-silence on the part of the Church coincides with a continuing evolution in perspective among both Mormon physicians and patients, an evolution of just the sort previously seen under similar circumstances on the question of birth control. While I do not see any wholesale rejection of the implied Church counsel against terminating demonstrably abnormal pregnancies, there nonetheless already has been some change in attitude. At the anecdotal level, for example, I am aware of local Church leaders who have availed themselves of amniocentesis for high-risk pregnancies within their own families and of others who plan to do so. They say that they would have gravely abnormal pregnancies terminated, arguing that this option pro motes larger families, for without it they would not risk further pregnancies. Similarly, though perhaps a distinct minority, there are also otherwise conservative, highly orthodox Mormon physicians who recommend or perform these studies with the same intent. There is, of course, also a growing medico legal obligation to at least discuss amniocentesis, as an option in high-risk pregnancies, but the motivation is deeper than this. 

While I do not know of any reliable statistics on the subject, one LDS obstetrician, not in Utah, estimated that in the general area where his practice was located, about half of the LDS women pregnant after age forty requested amniocentesis. This figure seems generally consistent with a recent Centers for Disease Control study which found that about 10 percent of Utah women pregnant after age thirty-five also sought amniocentesis—a figure about half the national average (Sept. 1982). It is also compatible with the figures given at this symposium by Dr. Robert Fineman, which were that nationally about 80 percent of pregnancies found to have genetic abnormalities were terminated, and in Utah about 66 percent. While proportionately few amniocenteses reveal abnormalities, in some areas it apparently is not as rare as one might suppose for LDS women discovering significant fetal abnormalities to have these pregnancies terminated. 

Despite official Church guidelines encouraging ecclesiastical action against those involved in abortions, I have yet to learn of any Church courts held when known fetal abnormalities were involved. On the contrary, I understand that inquiries about cases of such extreme fetal abnormalities as anencephaly have received unofficial, tacit endorsement. Outside of Utah, one suspects such agonizing personal problems are not infrequently dealt with, or more accurately, not dealt with, entirely by local leaders who counsel the family involved, but indicate that the final moral judgment must reside within the family. 

Eugenics

A counter-theme which runs through much of the material on birth control relates to the question of "impurities." As early as 1917, Joseph F. Smith sanctioned marital abstinence when the husband or wife was not "free from impurities which would be entailed upon their posterity." This same caveat can be readily traced throughout the twentieth century, right up to the First Presidency statement of 1969, which in fact quotes Smith verbatim on this point. 

A related concern can also be identified in early Church history. Apostle Parley P. Pratt, for example, wrote in Key to the Science of Theology—a study second only to the standard works in defining Church doctrine for nineteenth-century Mormons—that "a wise legislation, or the law of God . . . would not suffer the idiot, the confirmed, irreclaimable drunkard, the man of hereditary disease, or of vicious habits, to possess or retain a wife" (1855, 167). Although Utah's Mormon-dominated territorial legislature apparently wasn't sufficiently wise to enact such legislation, the still predominantly Mormon state of Utah eventually did so in 1925. A statute passed that year, in the wake of a national enthusiasm over eugenics, provided for the sterilization of institirtionalized individuals (including infants) who were "habitually sexually criminal, . . . insane, mentally deficient, epileptic, or .. . afflicted with degenerate sexual tendencies," if "by the laws of heredity [they were] the probable potential parent of socially inadequate offispring likewise afflicted" (Utah Code Annotated Sec. 89-0-1, 1925; Sec. 64-10-1 after 1953). 

While such "a taint in the blood"—to use Widtsoe's phraseology—if "known to be capable of transmission, should be hemmed in and not allowed further propagation," the historical Mormon solution to this issue always has been at the other end of the spectrum. Healthy people should have more children. And to whom had the Lord promised good health? It was just this sort of positive "eugenics" which justified Mormon polygamy. Or, as Brigham Young said in 1856 in terms not infrequently heard even today, 

I have told you many times that there are multiudes of pure and holy spirits waiting to take tabernacles, now what is our duty?—to prepare tabernacles for them; to take a course that will not tend to drive those spirits into the families of the wicked, where they will be trained in wickedness, debauchery, and every species of crime. It is the duty of every righteous man and woman to prepare tabernacles for all the spirits they can. (JD 4:56) 

There is thus a eugenics heritage within Mormonism which may be doubly relevant to the scenarios at hand. First, there is a clear precedent for taking otherwise unacceptable measures to avoid encumbering awaiting spirits with predictable defective "tabernacles." Second, there is a strong tradition which seeks to provide the best possible chance for "good" people to become parents.[7]

Sterilization

Aside from the narrowly-defined exemptions for eugenic reasons, until recently Mormon Utah rejected all grounds for sterilization. Even the tolerant McKay administration opposed an effort to liberalize a state law which as late as 1969 was interpreted as allowing only eugenic sterilizations. The same First Presidency statement which opposed any change in state laws on abortion also opposed a bill which would have authorized voluntary sterilizations "where medically necessary to preserve the life or prevent a serious impairment of the mental or physical health of the patient or spouse." (Deseret News, 23 Jan. 1969). While this legislative initiative failed, judicial review a few years later determined that no prohibition against such sterilizations actually existed in Utah law. Unlike the case of abortion, this did not bring about a formal statement of guidance from the Church. 

In 1976 the Church Commissioner of Health prepared a short statement on sterilization, obviously patterned after the guidance on birth control—and taken almost verbatim from privately issued First Presidency guidance, which stated, "The Lord's commandment imposed upon all Latter-day Saints is to 'multiply and replenish the earth.' Nevertheless there may be medical conditions related to the health of the mother where sterilization could be justified. But such conditions, rare as they may be, must be determined by competent medical judgment and in accordance with laws pertaining thereto" (Bush 1979, 100, 106). Although one Mormon authority warned two years later that those submitting to vasectomy might be ineligible for participation in temple ordinances, this guidance was never formally implemented. Nor have temple-recommend interviews ever officially included questions relating to sterilization (or birth control). Among other reasons, sterilization, like birth control, can be seen as medically justifiable in most cases. Moreover, the in creasing frequency with which procedures such as hysterectomy are performed for non-pregnancy-related indications (e.g., uterine prolapse, fibroids, etc.) has contributed coincidentally toward making the question of birth control moot for many women in their later childbearing years.[8]

Artificial Insemination

One might suppose that the Church would look favorably on almost any technique which would lead to successful pregnancies in otherwise infertile marriages. And this is probably true, if the semen is that of the husband. Of potential relevance to this subject is the biblical and nineteenth-century Mormon precedent for "raising up seed" to a dead husband whereby a woman sealed for eternity to him would be married for time to another man. Still, when the question of artificial insemination was first addressed by the Church in 1974, it was made clear that "the Church does not approve of artificial in semination with semen other than that of the husband" because donor semen "may produce problems related to family harmony." At the prompting of the Church Commissioner of Health, this condemnation was softened by the addition of an acknowledgment that "the Church recognizes that this is a personal matter which must ultimately be left to the determination of the husband and wife with the responsibility for the decision resting solely upon them" (Bush 1979, 97). 

In view of the record on birth control, it is not surprising to learn that there has been some additional development in the Church position on this subject. Two years later "the Church does not approve" was recast into the more positive counsel that "the Church approves of artificial insemination only in cases where the semen of the husband is used." Then, in 1977, the most recent guideline—and the only one formally published by the First Presidency—softened the wording even further in counseling that "the Church discourages artificial insemination with other than the semen of the husband." This final statement clearly implied, moreover, that births through artificial insemination were to be viewed in the same ecclesiastical light regardless of the semen's origin (Bush 1979, 101). 

Patterns from the Past

After this lengthy historical tour, it is clear that attempts to project a specific Mormon perspective on emerging ethical issues must be very tentative. Still, some useful generalizations emerge from the record to date. 

First, contrary to its media image, the Church—and specifically the uniquely authoritative First Presidency—often chooses not to express itself on issues with obvious ethical or theological overtones. This is especially true when the issues are extraordinarily complex or when important scientific questions remain unanswered. A corollary to this is that there are relatively few fixed doctrines in the Church. For example, in a 7 September 1968 statement on citizen obligations and contemporary social and political conditions, the First Presidency wrote: "The growing worldwide responsibilities of the Church make it inadvisable for the Church to seek to respond to all the various and complex issues involved in the mounting problems of the many cities and com munities in which members live. But this complexity does not absolve members as individuals from filling their responsibility as citizens in their own community" (Deseret News, 7, 11 Sept. 1968). The large number of statements issued in recent years affirming that the Church has no position on evolution is a parallel case. David O. McKay on 3 February 1959 wrote cogently, "While scientific people themselves differ in their interpretations and views of the theory, any conflicts which may seem to exist between the theory and revealed religion can well be dealt with by suspending judgment as long as may be necessary to arrive at facts and at a complete understanding of the truth" (McKay to Christensen). 

Second, when the First Presidency does comment on complex issues, the initial guidance is usually given privately, in response to questions from those most directly involved. I know of no twentieth-century exceptions to this general rule. 

Third, formal public statements by the First Presidency on medical ethical issues—those which effectively establish Church policy—generally do not appear until relatively late in the public discussion. At this point, it is not unusual for individual members and local leaders to have reached independent judgments on the questions involved. While inevitably leading to some confusion, this general process is not necessarily viewed as bad. More disruptive are the rare occasions when the first-issued public guidance contradicts that previously given in private. An example is the issue of sex-change surgery, the most recent medical ethical issue to be dealt with by the Church. Within the past few years, such surgery was privately ruled not to disqualify one for participation in temple marriage and other ordinances. Subsequent public guidance not only reversed this, but imposed on offenders (patient or physician) the severest ecclesiastical sanctions in the history of the Church. In October 1980, ecclesiastical leaders received a replacement for Chapter 8, "The Church Judicial System" for the General Handbook of Instructions (1976) which stated: "In cases of . . . transsexual operations, either received or performed, [excommunication is mandatory and] . . . no readmission to the Church is possible." Prospective converts who have had such surgery may be baptized only "on condition that an appropriate notation be made on the membership record so as to preclude [them] from either receiving the priesthood or temple recommends." Though having or performing an abortion is also potential grounds for excommunication, local leaders are allowed discretion in even bringing offenders to trial. Nor are there any prescribed restrictions on readmission. 

A fourth generalization to emerge is that the passage of time almost always sees an evolution in Church guidance on specific medical ethical issues. The public phase of this evolution invariably has been in the direction of greater conformity to the general medical/social consensus on the subject. We have seen this on the issues of birth control, sterilization, artificial insemination, abortion, and medicine in general. Note that this generalization applies to the public record only. As the instance of sex change surgery indicates, there may be a decided hardening of the official view during the pre-public phase.[9]

Fifth, to some extent this evolution is accompanied by the emergence of what in retrospect might be termed the core of ethical concern which motivated the guidance from the outset. This core is generally expressed in terms unambiguously tied to central tenets of the faith: the centrality of marriage and children; the overriding importance of maintaining family harmony and stability, and protecting the health and well-being of mother, children, and "tabernacles-to-be;" the preservation of free agency and personal accountability; and the total unacceptability of decisions based on "selfish" rationales. 

Sixth, guidance which eventually is discarded in this evolutionary process, in retrospect generally falls into one of two categories. The first is the case when a view has simply been asserted by fiat, with no effort at ecclesiastical justification—in other words, no doctrinal rationale was ever publicly offered. Church guidance on sex change surgery specifies sanctions without offering any rationale whatever. To some extent, this situation also describes the case with sterilization and abortion. 

In the second type of case, a particular view may have been justified with socio-cultural (often emotion-laden) rationales readily identifiable with former societal values. This position is most explicit in the guidance on artificial in semination but is implicit in many other statements as well. At one point in late 1976, the guidance on artificial insemination had noted that "the legitimacy of offspring of artificial insemination from semen other than that of the husband is open to question." 

Seventh, core beliefs themselves can be modified in accommodating new knowledge which is simply unreconcilable with the previous view. This development does not pose as much a challenge to Church authority as might be supposed. It is in fact a tenet of the Mormon faith that this sort of refinement periodically will take place. 

Developing Ethical Issues: Four New Scenarios

With these generalities as a backdrop and in the context of the history just covered, let us now turn to some developing ethical issues yet to be dealt with by the Church. 

The first scenario raises the issue of aborting fetuses with known genetic defects which will not be manifest until later in life. I think it can safely be said that, if pressed, the Church would oppose any intervention of this sort—even, for that matter, when the defect would be manifest immediately at birth. Indeed, the First Presidency is implicitly on record to this effect—that is, no exemption from their general condemnation of abortion has been granted for such cases. 

Were it not for the historical record, discussion of this point could well end here. The problem is that there is substantial historical precedent for further modification in the Mormon stance, and one can readily see several theological or theoretical reasons why this might eventually take place. 

Mormon values that would favor interdicting demonstrably abnormal pregnancies are self-apparent and require little discussion. Any measure in tended—as Widtsoe put it—to "[hem] in and not allow further propagation" of "taints in the blood" would normally be allowed by the Church, for it thereby would insure more healthy "tabernacles" for those pure spirits beginning their earthly experience. This is, after all, just the other side to counsel already given that expectant parents take no action which might cause infants to be born with defects. An example is the counsel of nineteenth-century church leaders that coitus be continued during pregnancy lest through abstinence "they might . . . entail on their offspring unholy desires and appetites" (Larson and Larson, 2:621). Expectant mothers were also warned against wishing for such harmful things as tobacco, tea, coffee, and liquor (JD 13:3). Moreover, if couples afraid to risk pregnancy because of a history of genetic disorders in the family or advanced age were thereby enabled safely to have as many healthy children as they desired, yet another Mormon ideal would be achieved. 

Objections to abortion that outweigh such benefits must of necessity be substantial. At present they are. Abortion has been officially labelled as a grave sin which intrudes in the most violent way possible into the sacred processes of reproduction. In so doing, it brings about the death of a human embryo or fetus, an act once labelled murder and now interpreted as "like unto it." Even the most cautious step toward liberalizing the grounds for abortion is viewed—probably correctly—as potentially leading to the abandonment of all ethical restrictions on its use. It is feared that the legacy of such a development could be an increasing and grossly self-serving irreverence for the sanctity of human life. In the Mormon mind, this would strike at the heart of the entire purpose of humankind's mortal existence. 

As insurmountable as these obstacles seem, it is arresting to recall that virtually identical arguments could have been made—indeed, were made many times—on the subject of birth control. It seems that neither the vigor with which such statements have been expressed nor the length of time over which they are espoused have proven infallible guides to their ultimate fate. To some extent, this situation is due to the difficulty of separating culturally mediated perspectives from those based on underlying theological absolutes, especially when purely emotional (or aesthetic) motives for holding a given belief are strong. While the distinction between culture and eternal principle is rarely easy to make, technological advances have a curious way of clarifying things. My impression is that when new, esthetically less traumatic techniques alone seem to change everything, emotional considerations (or purely scientific ones) are probably involved. For example, as unlikely as the idea may currently seem, the development of a monthly pill or intra-uterine implant which insured the viability of only defect-free conceptions (normal menstruation otherwise occurring) might well be acceptable to individuals who had "ethical" reservations to a D&C at ten weeks. 

But doesn't Mormonism have some truly fundamental, theological objection to abortion? Unquestionably the Church will always view a decision to terminate fetal life as a step with profound moral overtones. A selfish or callous decision of this sort will, I expect, always be considered a very serious sin. But when it comes to a broader condemnation or even to a fixed definition of what should be considered an "abortion," the doctrinal record suggests some oftimes unrecognized flexibility. In addition to a tradition which has accommodated a surprising degree of ethical readjustment, the Church has never really taken a stand categorically barring all abortion. Right from the outset, it has recognized legitimate indications for terminating pregnancy. The question since then never has been if there were such grounds, but always which grounds were legitimate? And the answers have varied with differing times and differing circumstances. 

In particular, Mormons have, as noted previously, important doctrinal latitude on the central question of the nature of the embryonic or fetal life potentially jeopardized. Since this issue may alone distinguish selective abortion theologically from birth control, it is worth considering a little further. 

The nineteenth-century equation of infant murder with abortion must have derived some intuitive support from the fact that infant deaths were about as common as grossly evident spontaneous abortions. Both seemed to kill perhaps 20 to 25 percent of fetuses or infants at risk. The more recent research showing that 70 to 75 percent of conceptions actually fail to survive to term, and the dramatic decline in infant mortality to near 1 percent has changed this subjective equation markedly (Mishell 1982). In terms of relative risk nine months before or nine months after birth, there is no longer much epidemiological similarity between prenatal and infant life. In a sense, the prenatal period is no longer viewed as only the process whereby human life comes into being. It now also appears to be a process designed to insure—albeit imperfectly—that only the most viable conceptions are carried to term. Thus, the pre and postnatal survival rates are inherently of an entirely different order of magnitude. 

New developments in medical sciences also have undermined other aspects of our traditional understanding. An animating role for a maternal spirit can not readily be argued when an ova is fertilized in a petri dish, even less when the ova, semen, or early embryo remains frozen but viable well after the death of the original donors. It is similarly awkward to invoke an essential role for a maternal spirit in a brain-dead "mother" sustained on life-support systems until the fetus can be delivered with some chance of surviving. Assumptions about an obligatory role for an "embryonal spirit" encounter equal difficulties when it is realized that twins may develop from what was for a number of days a single individual; or, conversely that more than one embryonal animal may fuse into a single individual (chimera) of normal appearance. A mandatory role for any discrete spirit presence at all can be argued only with great difficulty in the case of living cell cultures, perhaps fetal in origin, alive and well in a petri dish years after the death of the individual from whom they were taken. Most problematic of all is to impute a mandatory spirit presence in the cloning process whereby entirely normal animals are "created" through the bio physical manipulation of individual cells (cells which, in theory,—to under score the point—could have been obtained from cell cultures, and need not have originated in the reproductive system). 

Conceptually at least, medical science is increasingly committed to the notion that early prenatal life may be entirely understood in the bio-physical terms applicable to a cell culture. The record to date suggests that the Church eventually will take advantage of its open theology in this area and once again follow the medical consensus into a tacit acceptance of the same perspective: it may no longer assume that either a maternal or a fetal spirit is essential to prenatal viability. This would not be the concession to secularism that some would label it, but rather a recognition that demonstrated facts simply could not easily be reconciled otherwise. Should this more naturalistic view become commonplace—a development which surely will be facilitated by the wide spread use of in vitro fertilization techniques—the Mormon perspective on selected therapeutic abortions for known, serious defects would be in a position to change as well. 

If in fact the official Mormon view eventually follows such a path, it most likely will not be initially manifest through detailed new guidance on abortion. More likely, there will be acquiescence to the judgment of "competent physicians," whose judgment in turn will reflect this emerging perspective. While I cannot foresee a theological distinction ultimately being made between serious embryonal defects which will manifest at birth and grave defects which will not become evident until somewhat later, it is possible that during a transitional period such a distinction would be made. Similarly, I would expect that only the most grotesquely abnormal defects—such as anencephaly or serious glycogen storage diseases—would initially be considered grounds for intercession. Even these may well be justified ostensibly by the imputed risk to the mother of continuing the pregnancy. While I expect no public change in the immediate future, a continuation of the general societal approval of such selected abortions[10] and the inevitable development of earlier and less emotionally traumatic means for accomplishing this may well change things eventually. 

The next scenario to be considered, involving genetic engineering, is the sort of thing which in the past has been labelled by the Church a purely medical question. To the extent that its use is limited to the treatment of disease, I really cannot conceive of a predictable rationale for Mormon objections to this amazing new tool. Certainly the Church does not presently view deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as theologically any more sacrosanct than any other com ponent of the human body. If a disease can be traced to some defect repair able through such engineering, this would certainly be hailed by Church leaders as yet another scientific miracle. That it might be subject to abuse at some future time would probably not distinguish it in their minds from drugs or other treatments also subject to abuse. To judge from the past, they would still defer to responsible medical expertise as to whether the potential benefits justified the perceived risks. 

I would guess that much the same would prevail for in utero surgery. Aside from the hope it might offer as an alternative to abortion, it does not strike me as having major ethical overtones—at least in the Mormon context. One obviously must consider again Talmage's standard that such heroic intervention be moderated by the "intelligent application of common sense"; but if such procedures proved to be successful and relatively safe, Church leaders would probably view them as just another extraordinary technological development. I doubt that any guidance would be issued, even privately, on the question of prioritizing who should be treated. So far as I am aware, Mormon leaders have never considered this type of question within their official domain. If they were pressed, I would expect them to defer to the prayerful consideration of those more directly involved. 

The final scenario, in the case of in vitro fertilization is a more interesting one to assess from a Mormon perspective. It both poses a dilemma and illustrates some of the points made previously. It is at once a technique which enhances the chances of a couple's having children of their own, yet simultaneously raises—in some minds—the specter of abortion. 

So far as the official record is concerned, the Church—as I noted at the outset—has not offered and presently will not offer an opinion on the question of in vitro fertilization. If the Church's public communications arm—an alter ego of sorts—is asked, they sometimes will reply that the Church views the subject as a matter to be decided by the individuals concerned. Though both Mormon physicians and patients are apparently now involved, neither counsel nor sanctions have been publicly forthcoming. While the recent record on sex-change surgery shows this to be no sure indicator of even near-term events, the overall record on reproductive questions suggests that the Church will continue its present neutrality. 

The over-reaching Mormon concern that members "multiply and replenish the earth" could hardly be more applicable than to a technique specifically designed to make this possible. A rationale for the Church's support of in vitro fertilization therefore requires no imagination. Are the potential objections sufficient to nullify this benefit? 

Among the ethical arguments put forth against in vitro fertilization, one of the most common is that it involves aborting early embryos. One also hears that it is "unnatural," in any of several senses, and that it poses unusual risks to the children so conceived. Of the various reservations I have seen expressed, only those relating to abortion seem to relate directly to contemporary Mormon concerns. Certainly the question of acceptable risk would be considered by the Church as purely in the realm of medical and personal judgment. Nor does the Church normally distinguish between "natural" and "unnatural" medical intervention. On these two counts, the Mormon tradition is by and large fully aligned with the medical mainstream. 

What of the abortion question? By now it should be evident that this is not a simple question. While the Church could have assumed that discarding an embryo or even a fertilized egg was tantamount to wantonly committing abortion, it has thus far implicitly rejected such an assumption. Although the theological reasons for this position have yet to carry the day in the case of embryonal defects, other factors may have tipped the balance in the latter in stance. In particular, discarding a four-cell blastocyst (that is, a very early "embryo") created by in vitro techniques is much closer emotionally to preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg through the use of an IUD than it is to surgically terminating the development of a multi-week embryo or fetus. The Church never has treated use of an IUD as ecclesiastically comparable to abortion, and it seems likely to me that in vitro fertilization will be viewed in a comparable, if uneasy, limbo. With the passage of time, and increasing use of these techniques, a de facto if not ex cathedra judgment will have been affirmed that this is not an ecclesiastically proscribed form of abortion. The commonplace that grossly defective blastocysts or embryos will be among those not implanted could well be a stepping stone to interdicting somewhat older embryos that are taking nutrients from the uterine wall rather than from a petri dish. It is just this type of progression which has marked the evolution of Mormon medical ethical thinking in the past. 

In conclusion, I will say that my impression, based on admittedly limited reading, is that on science-related issues, scientists shape theology as much as theologians do. This is not so much through confrontation or default on the part of the theologians, but rather through new discoveries which directly or indirectly force modifications in the old ways of thinking. New facts have to be accommodated. Dated but inapparent sociocultural assumptions are exposed and eroded. 

This phenomenon is surely in evidence in the Mormon record. That this is so is seen, paradoxically, as a strength of the Mormon point of view rather than a weakness—because Mormons view scientific and religious truth ultimately as one and the same. The acquisition of knowledge, whether through secular or religious means, is held to be a divinely mediated accomplishment. There are, of course, some practical problems with this position; but in the final analysis, the Mormon point of view is both designed to and disposed to incorporate new truths from wherever they come. For this reason, I would suggest that in theory—and sometimes even in practice—"Mormonism" typically sees frontiers in medicine such as those we have discussed as opportunities for expanding its perspective rather than as occasions for making official judgments. 

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[1] The complex subject of what constitutes an official "doctrine" within the Mormon church is beyond the scope of this essay. In general I will use statements issued by either the President of the Church or the First Presidency as my guide to the doctrine current at any given time. A conspicuous article in an official church journal is also used occasionally to indicate at least the range of acceptable beliefs. Some useful criteria are given in J. Reuben Clark, Jr., "When Are the Writings and Sermons of Church Leaders Entitled to the Claim of Scripture?," reprinted in DIALOGUE 12 (Summer 1979).

[2] The most significant other problem to bring the Church into conflict with the received medical view came in 1900. It involved the issue of "free choice," and grew out of a Utah Board of Health initiative to require all school-aged children to have smallpox vaccinations. Al though the First Presidency clearly accepted the merits and wisdom of vaccination, other prominent Mormons, notably Charles E. Penrose, the influential editor of the Church's Deseret News, felt the procedure itself both dangerous and unwarranted. (In a sense, this was a vestige of the old anti-heroic philosophy.) Penrose, who not long thereafter became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, led a vigorous crusade against the initiative, and ultimately the Mormon-dominated state legislature banned (over the governor's veto) a compulsory vaccination program. Despite their support of vaccination, per se, the First Presidency chose not to exert its pivotal influence in support of an involuntary program. This same ingrained aversion to mandatory programs later created popular opposition to such public health programs as quarantines and fluoridation of water supplies.

[3] Since the presentation of this paper, a new edition of the authoritative General Hand book of Instructions (Sept. 1983) has been issued, including the most open-ended statement on "birth control" yet published by the Church: 

The Lord has commanded husbands and wives to multiply and replenish the earth that they might have joy in their posterity.

Husbands must be considerate of their wives, who have the greater responsibility not only of bearing children but of caring for them through childhood, and should help them conserve their health and strength. Married couples should exercise self-control in all of their relationships. They should seek inspiration from the Lord in meeting their marital challenges and rearing their children according to the teachings of the gospel. (1983,77)

This message was repeated in Gordon B. Hinckley's 29 January 1984 address on "Corner stones of a Happy Home," which subsequently was published as a brochure and delivered by home teachers to every LDS family. Hinckley added, "[The Lord] did not designate the number [of children], nor has the Church. That is a sacred matter left to the couple and the Lord." Paradoxically, as with the relatively liberal guidance of 1969, this statement follows the decline of the Mormon birthrate to the lowest level to date, 24.5 births per thousand for 1983.

[4] An instructive contrast is the distinctly different approach taken to medical ethical issues by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which, with access to essentially the same body of scripture, rarely makes categorical statements. Decisions on abortion, for example, are considered to be individual decisions. Such decisions may not be lightly made, but church leadership also "recognizes that there may be rare occasions which might make it necessary, because of the conditions of the conception or the pregnancy, to terminate a particular pregnancy." (First Presidency 1974, 57).

[5] There is an inherent tension between the Mormon belief that we will be punished only for our own sins and the idea that we can deprive a person of an opportunity to grow through an earthly experience by killing or otherwise harming him or her. The problem posed by the death of young children was handled early by assuming that all who died before "the age of accountability" (eight years) were assured exaltation. That historically this could amount to perhaps 40 percent of all births makes the attempted analogy to abortion a little more intelligible. But our present medical understanding that as many as 85-90 percent of all conceptions fail to reach eight again undermines the whole proposition.

[6] The 1983 General Handbook statement for the first time has added pregnancy from incest to the published list of exceptional cases in which abortion might be justified. The other exceptions remain pregnancy resulting from rape, and circumstances where the "life or health of the woman is in jeopardy" (pp. 77-78). As this essay went to press, Elder Russell M. Nelson, formerly a heart surgeon, spoke in April 1985 conference about "Reverence for Life" (Ensign May 1985, pp. 11-14). He acknowledged the possibility of abortion in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life, and told two stories of the choice not to abort when foetal malformation seemed certain. In the first case the child was born deaf but otherwise normal. The second child was Beethoven. He did not give anecdotal evidence of families in which the decision not to abort resulted in the birth of a seriously handicapped child. Elder Nelson chal- lenged the "pro-choice" argument, reviewed authoritative statements opposing abortion, and reaffirmed the possibility of repentance.

[7] Beyond the physically redeeming merits of adherence to its Word of Wisdom and other wise living righteously, nineteenth-century Mormons were taught that they were literally part of a "chosen lineage." In a sense, this identification was just another aspect of the effort to recreate or restore the biblical ideal. It also promoted a sense of unity and served as an emotional shield during many trying years. Though now perhaps anachronistic, this notion of being elect still appears in popular Mormon lore. Indeed, at least symbolically it is an essential part of the Mormon tradition of patriarchal blessings. In its most fully developed form, this idea extended beyond this-worldly bonds of kinship to the belief that these bonds some how existed in the pre-earthly spirit world. Certain spirits were said to be destined to be born into specific Mormon families. While not a formal doctrine of the Church, this idea nonetheless in part shapes the way Mormons view, for example, such things as the number of children "destined" for their families.

[8] The 1983 General Handbook for the first time combines Utah's legal proviso with Church counsel into what is also the first statement on sterilization to be published by the Church: "Sterilization may possibly be justified in a case where (1) medical conditions jeopardize the health of a mother, or (2) a person is born with defects or has suffered severe trauma that renders him mentally incompetent and not responsible for his actions. Such conditions, rare as they may be, must be determined by competent medical judgment and in accordance with the law." (p. 77) This, of course, endorses the exemption that the Church opposed in 1969.

[9] A subtle shift also has begun in the case of sex change surgery as well. The 1983 General Handbook advises that "a change in a member's sex ordinarily justifies excommunication," (p. 53) and exceptions under this proviso are known to have been made. Formerly the officially published guidance stated flatly, "Members who have undergone transsexual operations must be excommunicated," with the added penalties detailed in the October 1980 version of Chapter 8 (p. 2). Public counsel on such surgery will surely continue to evolve. At the least some provision will have to be made for children whose sex is "changed" as the only solution to ambiguous genitalia or some other purely medical miscue. As the Church encounters (or fails to detect prior to conversion, etc.) well-adjusted adults who have under gone elective sex-change surgery, even further moderation will probably come about. 

Another parallel is also apparent in recent counsel on oral sex in marriage. This crystalized from ambivalent or non-existent counsel to a First Presidency directive in January 1982 that married couples involved in such practices be denied access to temple ordinances, which in turn was rescinded in a follow-up directive in October 1982 that instructed local leaders to avoid inquiring into "personal intimate matters involving marital relations between a man and his wife."

[10] LeRoy Walters (June 1982) reports that according to national surveys taken 1972-80 by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, "a substantial majority of the adult population (range, 79 percent to 92 percent) finds abortion ethically acceptable in cases involving the so-called hard reasons for abortion (serious danger to the woman's health, rape, serious fetal defect)."

[post_title] => Ethical Issues in Reproductive Medicine: A Mormon Perspective [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 18.2 (Summer 1985): 42
For this reason, I would suggest that in theory—and sometimes even in practice—"Mormonism" typically sees frontiers in medicine such as those we have discussed as opportunities for expanding its perspective rather than as occasions for making official judgments.  [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => ethical-issues-in-reproductive-medicine-a-mormon-perspective [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-09-05 00:06:41 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-09-05 00:06:41 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=16052 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 16498 [post_author] => 3598 [post_date] => 2018-04-21 15:13:55 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-04-21 15:13:55 [post_content] =>

The Summer 1979 issue of Dialogue carried an article by Susan Taylor Hansen, "Women Under the Law," which generated several responses, including a letter from Helen Holmes Duncan, published in the Spring 1980 issue. Said Ms. Duncan: 

. . . I was tantalized by Ms. Hansen's statement that "certainly there are many worthy arguments against the ERA," and by her reference to "meaningful discussion of any underlying moral issues." My frustration stems from her decision to leave these areas dangling. I would be personally delighted to find a more complete discussion of such "worthy arguments," and would particularly enjoy an expanded treatment of the underlying moral issues which are apparently perceived by our church leaders. 

This response to Ms. Hansen asserts a connection between the Equal Rights Amendment and a certifiably moral issue—abortion. Although asserting a connection, my argument does not depend on whether or not the present amendment is ratified. I believe there is a connection between the way influential supporters of the amendment think about equality and abortion, and I believe that the drive for a particular definition of equality (which includes the right to an unfettered abortion freedom) will continue regardless of the success of the pending amendment. 

Hansen's legislative history lesson is some help, but she makes a serious and common error. After cautioning about uncertain interpretations, she states that "Few amendments . . . have had the same wealth of pre-passage legislative discussion of intent as has the ERA in the House of Representatives and the Senate."[1] This statement is designed to reassure us that the Amendment's purposes are well-known and that we can rely on the Court to carry out those purposes and only those purposes. Unfortunately, we can have no such guarantees, and Hansen provides us with the evidence: 

The Supreme Court, however, has thus far failed to rule that sex is a "suspect classification." To do so would be tantamount to declaring that the denial of legal rights on the basis of sex was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It would be the judicial equivalent to ratifying the ERA. . . . The fact that the Court has had ample opportunity to make such a ruling without doing so suggests that it is unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future.[2]

While not saying specifically whether or not the Court ought to perform the "judicial equivalent to ratifying the ERA," Hansen implies as much by quoting Congresswoman Martha Griffiths, who championed ERA in Congress in the early 1970s: "There never was a time when the decisions of the Supreme Court could not have done everything we ask today."[3] Hansen also says (and she should be honored for her candor) that "The Fourteenth Amendment, for example, has far exceeded the originally perceived purpose—elevating the status of blacks—and has come to serve as a tool of justice for many oppressed persons and groups."[4]

ERA proponents cannot have it both ways. They cannot comfort us by telling us of the iron bands of legislative history that will bind the courts (e.g., in the ERA cases) and then cheerily report that courts really do their best work when they break those bands (e.g., in the Fourteenth Amendment cases). 

This inconsistency may cause some of the amendment's proponents to pause, but the more sophisticated of them do not need to sort out the inconsistency because of their own view of the Constitution. To these people, the amendment can mean one thing today, another tomorrow. (I am inclined to say that today it means whatever it needs to mean in order to be approved; tomorrow it means whatever is needed to advance some cause.) To such people, abortion rights can as easily be "put" into "equality of rights" as it was put into "Due Process of Law." Of these people, Michael Oakeshott has said, 

"Government" appears as a vast reservoir of power which inspires them to dream of what use might be made of it. They have favorite projects, of various dimensions, which they sincerely believe are for the benefit of mankind, and to capture this source of power, if necessary to increase it, and to use it for imposing their favorite projects upon their fellows is what they understand as the adventure of governing men.[5]

And for these people, Constitutional meaning must change to accommodate their favorite projects. 

This permutable view of the Constitution was held by the members of the House Judiciary Committee who supported the Equal Rights Amendment. In the Committee report (signed by, among others, Abner J. Mikva, recently appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the second most powerful court in the nation), the members gave their view of the "legislative history" of the Amendment: 

Because [equality] is a symbolic word, and not a technical term, its enshrinement in the Equal Rights Amendment is consistent with our Nation's view of the Constitution as a living, dynamic document.[6]

There are a thousand maxims for legislative interpretation, but none so widely applicable as Lord MacMillan's, which ought to be pondered by supporters of any Constitutional amendment. Said MacMillan, ". . .In construing an Act of Parliament, the legislators who passed it cannot be asked to state on oath what they meant by particular words in it—for which they must often be devoutly thankful."[7] The promise of putting "symbolic words" into the Constitution is that they have imprecise meaning; lawyers and judges give them specific meaning later. This practice may serve to multiply the gratitude of legislators, but it should give no comfort to the people. "Living, dynamic documents" do not mean tomorrow what they meant in their committee reports. 

Even to the extent that ERA's legislative history seems to provide details rather than symbols, the details are contradictory. In a recent edition of America magazine, Elizabeth Alexander, a lawyer and legal advisor to Catholics Act for ERA, and Maureen Fiedler, a nun and national coordinator of Catholics Act for ERA, explained how abortion and ERA are "separate and distinct." After some obeisance to the fidelity argument, they quote Congresswoman Griffiths and Senator Bayh, and then take this paragraph from the Senate Report: 

The original resolution does not require that women must be treated in all respects the same as men. "Equality" does not mean "same- ness." As a result, the original resolution would not prohibit reason- able classifications based on characteristics that are unique to one sex.[8]

Setting aside the legislative history, Alexander and Fiedler then give us their conclusion of what ERA will mean for abortion: 

In these statements, Congress clearly expressed its intention that the Equal Rights Amendment should not be applied to abortion laws since pregnancy and the corollary ability to have an abortion obviously flow from physical characteristics unique to the female sex. Such a clear statement of intent would be difficult for the Supreme Court or any court to overcome.[9]

Furthermore, Congress provided the judicial branch with a sound legal basis for excluding abortion from the broad equality mandate of the ERA, by providing an exclusion for unique physical characteristics. 

Abortion is a situation that arises from the unique physical characteristics of pregnancy. In this situation, there is no characteristic that can be shared with the other sex because, of course, men are incapable of becoming pregnant and of having abortions. Where the characteristic is not shared with the other sex, there can be no issue of discrimination based on sex. Since it is impossible to treat men and women equally in this area, there can be no showing of a purpose or intent to discriminate.[10]

The Alexander-Fiedler conclusion has just one flaw: many of the country's leading ERA experts say it is wrong. This conflict is immensely educational, for it shows how "wrong" one can be even though one has "the legislative history" on one's side. 

A brief amid curiae was filed in G. E. v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 125 (1976), signed by Thomas I. Emerson of Yale Law School, Barbara A. Brown and Ann E. Freedman of the Women's Law Project and Gail Falk. Brown, Emerson, Falk and Freedman wrote what is probably the most important work on the proposed 27th amendment, "The Equal Rights Amendment: A Constitutional Basis for Equal Rights for Women," 80 Yale L. J. 871 (1971). Joining the authors of the Yale article were Ruth Bader Ginsburg of Columbia Law School, probably the leading legal writer and scholar on "women's issues," and Melvin L. Wulf and Kathleen Willert Peratis of the American Civil Liberties Union. Mr. Wulf is a prominent Supreme Court practitioner; Professor Ginsburg now sits with Abner Mikva on the D.C. Court of Appeals. 

In the judgment of these experts, the General Electric Company, in trying to defend its disability insurance program which did not cover pregnancy, was misusing the legislative history of the Equal Rights Amendment. And what was G. E. saying? It was advancing the Alexander-Fiedler argument: Pregnancy is a "unique physical characteristic" that cannot "be shared with the other sex," so "there can be no issue of discrimination based on sex." In explicitly and comprehensively rejecting the G. E. argument, these leading authorities also destroyed the Alexander-Fiedler view that there can be no ERA-abortion connection: 

The legislative history of the ERA includes several examples of pregnancy classifications permissible under the amendment. Among these are "a law providing for payment of the medical costs of childbearing," and "laws establishing medical leave for child-bearing." These pregnancy classifications are valid not because (as suggested by G. E.) pregnancy classification is outside the scope of the ERA, but because the test applicable under the ERA is satisfied. . . .[11]

If G. E. were a state employer subject to the ERA, its treatment of disabilities related to pregnancy and childbirth would not survive the scrutiny appropriate under the amendment. . . .[12]

A contextual approach to the legislative history of the ERA reveals the superficiality of the quotation search made by G. E [Our analysis] discloses that pregnancy classifications of the kind here at issue would not survive the ERA. . . .[13]

Some of the principals of Catholics Act for ERA may continue to believe that ERA and abortion have no connection, but when the cases reach the courts advocates like Emerson, Brown, Falk, Freedman and Wulf will be arguing before judges like Ginsburg and Mikva. Paraphrasing Congressman Henry Hyde, I don't think this is a combination the unborn can live with. 

The importance of the foregoing is all the more relevant because many "pro-choice" people believe that abortion and childbirth are simply two alternative and equally dignified ways of dealing with pregnancy. Therefore, unless "pro-choice" advocates lose their present advantage in the courts, as the drive for equal rights comes to include protections for women having babies it must also come to include protections for women having abortions. This trend has been seen again and again, and will continue. The proscription of sex discrimination in the 1964 Civil Rights Act came to mean abortion rights. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions receiving federal funds, came to mean abortion rights. The "Alternatives to Abortion Act" (Title VI of the Health Services and Centers Amendments of 1978) was meant to be an anti abortion bill but turned out to provide funds only to centers which are willing to counsel on "all options" available to pregnant teenagers. Pro-life counseling centers have refused to counsel abortions and so are excluded. Until pro-life forces can break the weld holding abortion and birth together, each advance for "equal rights" will be an advance for abortion rights. 

The classical statement of the abortion-equals-birth mentality was made by federal district judge Jon O. Newman, who said, 

The view that abortion and childbirth, when stripped of the sensitive moral arguments surrounding the abortion controversy, are sim- ply two alternative medical methods of dealing with pregnancy may be gleaned from the various opinions [in the Abortion Cases].[14]

Newman's formulation has been held up to parody by Professor John T. Noonan, Jr., of the University of California (Berkeley) Law School who noted that embezzlement and cashing a check, when stripped of their sensitive moral arguments, are simply two alternative ways of withdrawing money from a bank, and prostitution and marital intercourse, when stripped of the sensitive moral arguments surrounding them, are simply two alternative ways of satisfying the sexual instinct. 

Judge Newman, we should remember, says that he "gleaned" his stark, amoral formulation from the Abortion Cases. It is not surprising, therefore, that several members of the Supreme Court think Newman was right. In dissent in one of the 1977 abortion funding cases, Justice Brennan, joined by Justices Marshall and Blackmun, said: 

Pregnancy is unquestionably a condition requiring medical services. [Citation omitted.] Treatment for the condition may involve medical procedures for its termination, or medical procedures to bring the pregnancy to term, resulting in a live birth. "Abortion and childbirth, when stripped of the sensitive moral arguments surrounding the abortion controversy, are simply two alternative medical methods of dealing with pregnancy." [citing Newman][15]

Note that the Justices have omitted Newman's reference to what may be gleaned from the earlier cases. They can say with authority (at least the authority of a dissenting opinion) that "abortion and childbirth . . . are simply two alternative medical methods of dealing with pregnancy." 

In the 1980 Hyde Amendment case, Harris v. McRae, Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun again used this argument. After quoting themselves, they add the following, 

In every pregnancy, one of these two courses of treatment is medically necessary. . . . But under the Hyde Amendment, the Government will fund only those procedures incidental to childbirth. By thus injecting coercive financial incentives favoring childbirth into a decision that is constitutionally guaranteed to be free from governmental intrusion, the Hyde Amendment deprives the indigent woman of her freedom to choose abortion over maternity, thereby impinging on the due process liberty right recognized in Roe v. Wade.[16]

It is easy to see how these Justices would think that the Hyde Amendment is unconstitutional: If abortion and childbirth are simply two interchangeable medical procedures, how can Congress rationally fund one procedure and not the other? And if the distinction is irrational, it is not constitutional. In charging Congress with using coercive incentives, these three judges— seemingly unable to distinguish abortion from childbirth—also are unable to distinguish coercion from inducement. 

In McRae, Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun were joined by Justice Stevens who wrote his own dissenting opinion. We have thus come within a single vote of being told that the Constitution of the United States requires the Congress to pay for abortions if it pays for childbirth, and this because "Abortion and childbirth, when stripped of the sensitive moral arguments surrounding the abortion controversy, are simply two alternative methods of dealing with pregnancy."[17]

We are not too far, in the courtrooms of this country, from a final decree that abortion and childbirth are in all essential aspects equal. A shift of one vote in McRae would have done it insofar as funding is concerned. And a much more sweeping argument already has been presented to the Supreme Court by the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood Federation: 

Since pregnancy is a condition requiring medical attention, [we must] determine whether abortion is a safe response to it at certain medically recognized stages. Neither the choice of live birth nor that of abortion can be considered "unnecessary" under this analysis, despite the fact that those treatments present different outcomes as a result of treatment. 

An analogous situation is presented by a diagnosis of kidney disease, where the choice of treatment is transplant or dialysis. Each choice produces significantly different outcomes with different effects on the patient's mental and physical health, but this by no means indicates that one choice is less "necessary" than the other. . . . While the choice of treatment would be predicted upon consideration of a number of individual factors known only to physician and patient, they would at least not be forced to give overriding consideration to an arbitrary State determination that one form of treatment was more moral (i.e., more "necessary" under a State definition of that term) than the alternative choice.[18]

The ACLU and Planned Parenthood thus argue that deciding whether to give birth or to abort is like deciding whether to have your failing kidney replaced by transplant or renewed by dialysis. It is hard to imagine a less analogous situation, but these influential pro-abortion groups can no longer comprehend distinctions between rejected, surgically dismembered babies and failing, surgically replaced kidneys. And when the state tries to say, "Damn it, this is wrong, there is a difference between kidneys and babies and we will pay only for kidneys," this is termed an "arbitrary determination"! If ERA is ratified, I believe that such habits of thought will be transformed into Constitutional law. 

I have come, ineluctably and possibly irreversibly, to the conclusion that there is an ERA-abortion connection. As more and more people reach the same conclusion, the Amendment's prospects will diminish. This is as it should be, for if ERA means abortion, it does not mean progress, it does not mean liberty, it does not mean "rights." Abortion means death: it remains only for us to know what the Equal Rights Amendment means. In one very important regard, I believe I know. 

---

[1] Susan Taylor Hansen, "Women Under the Law," Dialogue XII:2 (1979): 88. Since committee reports are the best source of legislative history, and since the Senate and House Judiciary Committees supported different versions of an amendment (notably, the House Committee supported the Wiggins Amendment) and wrote their reports about different language, it is very difficult to see how the legislative history of ERA can be described in terms of praise. 

[2] Ibid., 86-7.

[3] Ibid., 87. 

[4] Ibid, 88. 

[5] Michael Oakeshott, "On Being Conservative," quoted in William F. Buckley, Jr., ed., American Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century 94 (1970). 

[6] H. Rpt. No. 92-359, 92nd Cong., 1st Sess. 8 (Separate Views) (1971). (Emphasis added.)

[7] Lord MacMillan, "Law and Language," in Law and Other Things (1931), p. 164. 

[8] Elizabeth Alexander and Maureen Fiedler, "The Equal Rights Amendment and Abortion: Separate and Distinct," America (April 12, 1980), 314, 315-16. 

[9] People who are as concerned about abortion as I presume Catholics Act for ERA claims to be, ought, after the Abortion Cases, to be utterly incapable of uttering such a sentence as this last one. The Court had no problem at all in overcoming an entirely adequate history of the Fourteenth Amendment and abortion. John Hart Ely, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, wrote the following about the Court's allegiance to legislative history: 

What is frightening about Roe is that this super-protected right [of abortion] is not inferable from the language of the Constitution, the framers' thinking respecting the specific problem in issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation's governmental structure. . . . And that, I believe .. . is a charge that can responsibly be leveled at no other decision of the past 20 years. At times the inferences the Court has drawn from the values the Constitution marks for special protection have been controversial, even shaky, but never before has its sense of an obligation to draw one been so obviously lacking. (John Hart Ely, "The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade," 82 Yale L.J. (1973): 920, 935-937.)

[10] Alexander and Fiedler, 316. (Emphasis added.) 

[11] Brief for Women's Law Project and American Civil Liberties Union as amid curiae, 13-14, General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 125 (1976). (Emphasis added.) 

[12] Ibid., 19. (Emphasis added.)

[13] Ibid., 21. 

[14] Roe v. Norton, 408 F. Supp. 660, 663, n. 3 (D.C. Conn. 1975). 

[15] Beal v. Doe, 423 U.S. 438, 449 (1977) (Brennan, J., dissenting). 

[16] Harris v. McRae,—U.S. —, slip opinion p. 5 (1980) (Brennan, J., dissenting). 

[17] Dr. Andre E. Hellegers, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Director of the Joseph and Rose Kennedy Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction and Bioethics, Georgetown University, has responded to this whole notion about as well as anyone. Said Dr. Hellegers in an appearance before the Senate Committee on Human Resources, 

The logic of the Supreme Court escapes me as a physician. This is the Court which holds [in the Abortion Cases] that it does not know when human life begins in the womb. For the purposes of allowing abortion the Court, therefore, treats the fetus as if it were just a tumor. But for the purposes of disability benefits [in General Electric Co. v. Gilbert] the fetus may not be treated as a tumor, for, if it were a tumor, the woman would qualify for disability benefits. (Hearings on S. 995 Before the Subcomm. on Labor of the Sen. Comm. on Human Resources, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. [1977] p. 77.)

[18] Brief for American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., as amid curiae, 11-12, Beal v. Doe, 423 U.S. 438 (1977).

[post_title] => Is There An ERA-Abortion Connection? [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 14.1 (Spring 1981): 65–73
I believe there is a connection between theway influential supporters of the amendment think about equality and abor-tion, and I believe that the drive for a particular definition of equality (which includes the right to an unfettered abortion freedom) will continue regardless of the success of the pending amendment. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => is-there-an-era-abortion-connection [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-28 15:50:04 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-28 15:50:04 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=16498 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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Several years ago, James O. Mason, then Church Commissioner of Health, prepared a paper entitled "Attitudes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Toward Certain Medical Problems." This document, dated 3 June 1974, consists of nineteen short statements which were all submitted to the First Presidency for approval. These statements were later included in the Solemn Assemblies held in 1976. 

The full text of the commissioner's paper is given below, followed by supplemental notes prepared by the editor. 

Attitudes of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Toward Certain Medical Problems

Abortion 

The Church opposes abortion and counsels its members not to submit to, perform, nor abet an abortion except in the rare cases where, in the opinion of competent medical counsel, the life or good health of the mother is seriously in danger or where the pregnancy was caused by rape and produces serious emotional trauma in the mother. Even then it should be done only after consulting with the local presiding priesthood authority and after receiving divine confirmation through prayer.[1]

Artificial Insemination 

The Church does not approve of artificial insemination with other than the semen of the husband. Artificial insemination with semen other than from the husband may produce problems related to family harmony. The Church recognizes that this is a personal matter which must ultimately be left to the determination of the husband and wife with the responsibility for their decision resting solely upon them.[2]

Birth Control 

The Lord's command imposed upon all Latter-day Saints is to "multiply and replenish the earth." Where husband and wife enjoy health and vigor and are free from inheritable defects that would be entailed upon their posterity, it is contrary to the teachings of the Church artificially to curtail or prevent the birth of children. We believe that those who practice birth control will reap disappointment by and by. The Church feels that husbands must be considerate of their wives who bear the greater responsibility not only of bearing children, but of caring for them throughout childhood. To this end the mother's health and strength should be conserved and the hus band's consideration for his wife is his first duty, and self-control should be a dominant factor in all of their relationships.[3]

Dissection and Autopsies 

The Church does not object to the performance of autopsies upon deceased persons, providing that the applicable laws governing autopsies are complied with and that the loved ones of the deceased give their consent. 

Prolongation of Life and Right to Die 

The Church does not look with favor upon any form of mercy killing. It believes in the dignity of life and that faith in the Lord and medical science should be appropriately called upon and applied to reverse conditions that are a threat to life. There comes a time when dying becomes inevitable; when it should be looked upon as a blessing, and a purposeful part of mortality. 

Organ Transplants 

The question of whether one should will his bodily organs to be used as transplants or for research after death must be answered from deep within the conscience of the individual involved. Those who seek counsel from the Church on this subject are encouraged to review the advantages and disadvantages of doing so, to implore the Lord for inspiration and guidance, and then to take the course of action which would give them a feeling of peace and comfort.[4]

Religion and Healing Process ("Faith Healing") 

The Church believes in the same manifestations of the Spirit, including healing, that existed in the Church organized by the Savior during His earthly ministry. Through Latter-day revelation the Lord has directed: 

". . . And the elders of the Church, two or more, shall be called, and shall pray for and lay their hands upon them (the sick) in my name; and if they die they shall die unto me, and if they live they shall live unto me." 

Sunday (Sabbath) Observance 

The Church accepts the commandment given by the Lord that men are to rest from all temporal work and to worship the Lord one day each week. Sunday is the day set aside by the Church to observe the Sabbath. Rest on this day, though important, is incidental to the true purpose of the Sabbath which is to worship, to learn more about the Lord, to renew covenants with Him and to feed our souls upon the things of the Spirit. 

Dietary Laws 

The Church's law pertaining to proper diet and care of the body is contained in a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith under date of February 27, 1833. That revelation admonishes Church members to use judgment and temperance in the use of all food and drink. It prohibits the use of alcoholic beverages, hot drinks (interpreted to mean tea and coffee) and tobacco. It also prohibits the use of all other substances which may be injurious to the body or which might be said to be in violation of the spirit of the revelation. It also encourages the sparing use of meats but prohibits none outright. On the affirmative side, this health code encourages the eating of all fruits and vegetables and encourages the use of whole grain.[5]

Sterility Tests 

The Church believes that having children is a blessing and privilege and, that with any abnormal condition, it is appropriate to use medical science to diagnose and restore normal function. 

Religious Sacrament 

Within the beliefs of the Church, the term "sacrament" refers only to the celebration of the Lord's Supper wherein bread and water are blessed and partaken of in symbolic remembrance of the flesh and blood of the Savior and by the way of recovenant by the partaker to adhere to the Savior's teachings. The Church ordinance specifically related to the sick or dying is the laying on of hands by the elders for the healing of the sick (see Religion and Healing process). 

Burial of Fetus 

The Church has no official service for the burial of the fetus. What is done would depend upon the age and size of the fetus and the attitude of the parents, after discussion with their bishop. 

Cremation 

The Church has never encouraged cremation as a method of disposing of the remains of the dead. It believes it is proper to consign them to mother earth which has always been the custom. Although cremation is discouraged, the local laws must be observed and the final decision left with the family and the loved ones. 

Attitudes Toward Narcotics, Vaccines, Blood, etc. 

The Church regards the use of these substances, as prescribed under medical supervision for the treatment or prevention of disease, as wholly a medical question.[6]

Homosexuality 

The Church looks upon the homosexual act as a physical perversion, and Church leaders are advised to approach those who engage in this practice in the true spirit of the gospel of love and understanding in an effort to assist them and persuade them that repentance can bring them forgiveness from such transgressions.[7]

Experimentation 

The Church recognizes the need for carefully conducted and controlled experimentation to substantiate the efficacy of medicines and procedures. We believe, however, that the free agency of the individual must be protected by informed consent and that a qualified group of peers should review all research to ascertain that it is needed, is appropriately designed and not harmful to the person involved. 

Sterilization 

The Lord's commandment imposed upon all Latter-day Saints is to "multiply and replenish the earth." Nevertheless there may be medical conditions related to the health of the mother where sterilization could be justified. But such conditions, rare as they may be, must be determined by competent medical judgment and in accordance with laws pertaining thereto.[8]

Blood and Blood Products 

See Attitude Toward Narcotics, Vaccines, Blood, etc. 

Hypnosis 

The Church regards the use of hypnosis under competent, professional supervision for the treatment of disease as wholly a medical question. The Church advises members against participation in hypnosis demonstrations. 

---

[1] Of all medical ethical guidelines published by the Church, those relating to abortion are the most emphatically stated. Offenders, be they doctor, patient, or abettor, are subject to excommunication. Mission presidents are advised to ask prospective converts, during pre-baptismal interviews, if they have previously submitted to an abortion, and to provide special counseling to those who have. Male members who have "advised, encouraged, consented to, or arranged for the performance of an abortion growing out of their immoral conduct" are not called on full-time missions, nor are women who have submitted to abortions under similar circumstances. Ironically, while abortions are not condoned even where the fetus is known to be malformed, the Church has taken no stand on the subject of performing or undergoing amniocentesis as an antenatal check on the status of the fetus—a procedure for which there is virtually no justification if abortion is not considered an acceptable alternative. 

The full text of the most recent First Presidency statement on the subject of abortion states: 

The Church opposes abortion and counsels its members not to submit to, be a party to, or perform an abortion except in the rare cases where, in the opinion of competent medical counsel, the life or health of the woman is seriously endangered or where the pregnancy was caused by forcible rape and produces serious emotional trauma in the victim. Even then it should be done only after counseling with the local bishop or branch president and after receiving divine confirmation through prayer. 

Abortion is one of the most revolting and sinful practices in this day, when we are witnessing the frightening evidence of permissiveness leading to sexual immorality. 

Members of the Church guilty of being parties to the sin of abortion are subject to the disciplinary action of the councils of the Church as circumstances warrant. In dealing with this serious matter, it would be well to keep in mind the word of the Lord stated in the 59th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants, verse 6, "Thou shalt not steal; neither commit adultery, nor kill, nor do anything like unto it." 

As far as has been revealed, the sin of abortion is one for which a person may repent and gain forgiveness. (July 1976) 

[2] More recent guidance on this subject has been somewhat more lenient. The latest First Presidency statement, given 19 April 1977, advises: 

The Church discourages artificial insemination with other than the semen of the husband. Artificial insemination with semen other than the husband may produce problems related to family harmony. The Church recognizes that this is a personal matter which must ultimately be left to the determination of the husband and wife with the responsibility for their decision resting solely upon them. 

A child born by means of artificial insemination after parents are sealed in the temple is born in the covenant. A child born by artificial insemination before parents are sealed may be sealed subsequent to the sealing of parents. 

[3] The only officially released statement of the First Presidency in recent years on the subject of birth control remains that of 14 April 1969: 

The First Presidency is being asked from time to time as to what the attitude of the Church is regarding birth control. In order that you may be informed on this subject and that you may be prepared to convey the proper information to the members of the Church under your jurisdiction, we have decided to give you the following statement: 

We seriously regret that there should exist a sentiment or feeling among any members of the Church to curtail the birth of their children. We have been commanded to multiply and replenish the earth that we may have joy and rejoicing in our posterity. 

Where husband and wife enjoy health and vigor and are free from impurities that would be entailed upon their posterity, it is contrary to the teachings of the Church artificially to curtail or prevent the birth of children. We believe that those who practice birth control will reap disappointment by and by. 

However, we feel that men must be considerate of their wives who bear the greater responsibility not only of bearing children, but of caring for them through childhood. To this end the mother's health and strength should be conserved and the husband's consideration for his wife is his first duty, and self-control a dominant factor in all their relationships. 

It is our further feeling that married couples should seek inspiration and wisdom from the Lord that they may exercise discretion in solving their marital problems, and that they may be permitted to rear their children in accordance with the teachings of the gospel. 

Additional background on Church teachings on birth control and abortion is provided in Lester E. Bush, Jr., "Birth Control Among the Mormons: Introduction to an Insistent Question," Dialogue 10(2): 12-44 (Autumn 1976). 

In response to an inquiry to the Church's Public Communications Department, the following statement by the First Presidency on the related subject of sex education was provided, without date: 

We believe that serious hazards are involved in entrusting to the schools the teaching of this vital and important subject to our children. This responsibility cannot wisely be left to society, nor the schools; nor can the responsibility be shifted to the Church. It is the responsibility of parents to see that they fully perform their duty in this respect. 

[4] The text is identical to a private response by the Secretary to the First Presidency, as authorized by them, in October 1970. 

[5] There is only one official, general statement of Mormon dietary laws: Section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants, alluded to in the Commissioner's statement. Key passages, known verbatim by many Mormons, include: 

That inasmuch as any man drinketh wine or strong drink among you, behold it is not good. . . And, again, strong drinks are not for the belly, but for the washing of your bodies. 

And again, tobacco is not for the body, neither for the belly, and is not good for man. . . 

And again, hot drinks are not for the body or belly. . . 

. . . all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man—Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof. . . Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly; And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine. 

All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts, to be the staff of life . . . All grain is good for the food of man; as also the fruit of the vine; that which yieldeth fruit, whether in the ground or above the ground. . . 

While there has been considerable discussion over the years as to the specific application of some of the guidelines in this Word of Wisdom, no official First Presidency statements have been issued publicly on the subject. From the first decades of the twentieth century, however, the First Presidency has instructed local leaders that members who do not abstain from coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol should not be given the priesthood, sent on missions, admitted to the temple, or given leadership positions in local congregations. 

The rare instances in which official statements have been released publicly have generally been directed at legislation relating to the availability of alcohol or tobacco. Perhaps the most recent example was a statement of 21 October 1973, in opposition to a referendum which would have permitted 19-year-olds to purchase and consume alcohol in the state of Washington. 

Somewhat less certain, and certainly less vigorous, has been the counsel on the subject of "hot drinks." Although early interpreted to refer to coffee and tea, some nineteenth century observers felt that it was the "heat" of the drinks as much as their contents which was the cause for alarm. Thus, one occasionally finds individuals counseling against hot cocoa or hot soup in early sermons or letters. In the twentieth century those who have generalized from the most narrow interpretation have asserted that it is the caffeine and related chemicals in coffee and tea that are the basis for the early advice. The most conspicuous advocate of this notion was Apostle John A. Widtsoe, and largely as a result of his influence there has for several decades been a belief, widely held among Mormons, that caffeine-containing drinks such as colas were implicitly proscribed by the Word of Wisdom. Widtsoe felt that such caffeine-containing items as cocoa and chocolate should be condemned as well, but this further extension has not achieved the same popularity as the movement against colas. None of these generalizations were ever accorded the status of an official endorsement by the First Presidency. The Presidency has, however, advised private inquirers at least since the 1930s that partaking of "decaffeinated" drinks was not to be considered in violation of the Word of Wisdom. Such guidance has specifically singled out such "97% caffeine free" products as Sanka coffee as examples of acceptable items. Regarding colas, the Presidency advised Church leaders through the Priesthood Bulletin in February 1972: 

The Word of Wisdom, section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants, remains as to terms and specifications as found in that section. There has been no official interpretation of that Word of Wisdom except that which was given by the Brethren in the very early days of the Church when it was declared that "hot drinks" meant tea and coffee. 

With reference to cola drinks, the Church has never officially taken a position on this matter, but the leaders of the Church have advised, and we do now specifically advise, against the use of any drink containing harmful habit-forming drugs under circumstances that would result in acquiring the habit. Any beverage that contains ingredients harmful to the body should be avoided. 

Little to no official public attention has been given to other elements of the Word of Wisdom, and the sanctions currently applied to those violating the proscriptions against coffee, tea, tobacco, and alcohol are not applied to heavy meat eaters or those otherwise in violation of the "spirit" of the Word of Wisdom. Nor are there sanctions for drinking cola drinks. Regarding the latter point, it is of interest to note that "science" is considerably less sure about the deleterious effects of small amounts of caffeine than they appear to have been in Widtsoe's day. Taken in moderation by people in generally good health, caffeine-containing drinks have yet to be convincingly implicated as a cause of disease. (A better case may yet be made against consuming drinks of high temperature!) 

No comprehensive study of Mormon teachings on the Word of Wisdom has been published. Much useful information is contained in Paul H. Peter son, "An Historical Analysis of the Word of Wisdom," unpublished MA Thesis (Brigham Young University, 1972); Leonard J. Arrington, "An Economic Interpretation of the 'Word of Wisdom'," BYU Studies 1:37-49 (Winter 1959); and Thomas G. Alexander's forthcoming study of The Early Twentieth Century, 1900-1930, a volume in the projected sesquicentennial Church history. 

[6] The Presidency nonetheless has, in recent years, issued endorsements of several vaccination programs. In September 1976 a statement was released on the massive federal program to vaccinate against A-New Jersey (Swine) Influenza. In part, the statement read, 

Church members are encouraged to carefully consider the potential benefits and risks of this vaccination to the health of themselves and their families. Special considerations should be given to the protection of those who are ill or convalescent. We encourage Church members to seek competent medical advice with questions they may have. . . 

Members of the Church who are technically qualified and who feel so inclined are encouraged to provide what community service they can to assist with this influenza immunization campaign. 

Even stronger was a subsequent statement on childhood immunizations: 

Reports that increasing numbers of children are not being immunized against preventable childhood diseases deeply concern us. In the United States alone approximately 20 million children, 40 percent of those 14 years old or younger, have not been adequately immunized against polio, measles, German measles (rubella), diphtheria, pertussis (whopping cough), mumps and tetanus. 

Every parent who has agonized when these diseases have maimed or brought premature death to their children would join us, we are certain, in a plea to mobilize against these deadly enemies. 

Immunication is such a simple, yet vital, matter and such a small price to pay for protection against these destroying diseases. 

We urge members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to protect their own children through immunization. Then they may wish to join other public-spirited citizens in efforts to eradicate ignorance and apathy that have caused the disturbingly low levels of childhood immunization.

Failure to act could subject untold thousands to preventable lifelong physical or mental impairment, including paralysis, blindness, deaf- ness, heart damage, and mental retardation.

Immunization campaigns in the United States and other nations, if successful, will end much needless suffering and erase the potential threat of epidemics. Such efforts are deserving of our full support. (5 May 1978) 

A second public health campaign is apparently seen in a somewhat more guarded light. On the question of fluoridating the public water supply by the Utah State Board of Health (a proposition thus far rejected by Utah voters on thirteen occasions), the Presidency advised on 13 May 1972: 

Questions are being asked regarding the Church's position on fluoridation of public water supplies to prevent tooth decay. As with other non-moral issues which may be under consideration or be brought before the voter by referendum, we reiterate the advice given by leaders of the church from time to time that it is the duty of every citizen to act in accordance with his or her convictions. 

We have not in the past, nor do we now, seek to bring coercion or compulsion upon the church as to their actions. On the contrary, we have urged and do now urge that all citizens study the issue carefully and then act according to their honest convictions. 

Those interested in the Utah response to public health problems should consult Joseph R. Morrell, Utah's Health and You: A History of Utah's Public Health (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1956); an interesting recent study is Richard B. Dwore, "A Case Study of the 1976 Referendum in Utah on Fluoridation," Public Health Reports 93:73-78 (January-February 1978). 

[7] The previous year the First Presidency had advised, through the Priesthood Bulletin, February 1973: 

A homosexual relationship is viewed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a sin in the same degree as adultery and fornication.

In summarizing the intended destiny of man, the Lord has declared: "For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." (Moses 1:39.) Eternal life means returning to the Lord's exalted presence and enjoying the privilege of eternal increase. According to his revealed word, the only acceptable sexual relationship occurs within the family between a husband and a wife. 

Homosexuality in men and women runs counter to these divine objectives and, therefore, is to be avoided and forsaken. Church members involved to any degree must repent. "By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins—behold, he will confess them and forsake them." (D&C 59:43.) Failure to work closely with one's bishop or stake president in cases involving homosexual behavior will require prompt Church court action.

[8] A supplemental comment on vasectomy was delivered in the 1976 Solemn Assemblies, after a verbatim recitation of the Commissioner's statement. "Vasectomy" was defined at the time as "a surgical excision of the spermatic duct to induce permanent sterility:" 

We deplore the fact that members of the Church should take such measures to render themselves incapable of further procreation. It is a terrible thing, to say the least, and the more serious the offense the more severe the penalty should be. The question of whether or not a temple recommend should be issued to someone who has had a vasectomy should be determined by the local leaders based upon their consideration of the underlying circumstances and appraisal of whether or not there has been true repentance.

[post_title] => Mormon Medical Ethical Guidelines [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 12.3 (Fall 1979): 97–107
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During a recent taxi ride, my driver turned up his radio to hear the report that the Virginia State Legislature had just defeated the Equal Rights Amendment. Shaking his head he remarked, "Something's wrong when we need an amendment like that—no human should have to ask for equal rights in this country. We shoulda learned that for good in the Civil War." 

The Civil War did indeed spawn considerable legislative, judicial and popular rethinking on the American notion of "equality." The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, provides for "due process of law" and "equal protection of the laws." It has since become the major constitutional vehicle for changing perceptions of what equality should encompass. In the previous language of the second section of the Amendment, which first guaranteed the right to vote, the word "male" was placed in the Constitution for the first time. The use of the word "male" three times, and always in conjunction with the term "citizens" must have caused some to fear that the protections of the 14th Amendment might not apply fully to women. As everyone knows, a new amendment has been proposed which many feel to be a necessary adjunct to the protections long since afforded by the 14th Amendment. First introduced in Congress in 1923, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), stated that "Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." 

Heated discussions on the necessity, intent and implications of the ERA are now commonplace within the LDS community. One of the most surprising developments was the emergence of an almost unprecedented, highly visible Mormon lobby, credited by the national press as a key factor in blocking ERA passage in Nevada, Washington, Idaho and Utah. If the credit is deserved, this has been no mean feat—only three state votes were needed before March 22, 1979, and the deadline for ratification has been extended until June 30, 1982. Less conspicuous but possibly as important, has been the closely related mobilization of well-organized groups of LDS women (and some men) to counteract the perceived intent of the leaders of a number of IWY (International Women's year) conventions. 

Such demonstrations of political power understandably have not been enthusiastically received by proponents of the ERA. Yet political opposition by religious organizations to legislation perceived as a moral issue has ample precedent and is surely legitimate. On the other hand, "Mormon" opposition to ERA to date, as commonly articulated on the local level of the Church—be it in Florida, Maryland, California or elsewhere—too often reflects astonishing ignorance of the basic legal questions involved. Too often one hears objections voiced by church members that are manifestly silly, obviously uninformed or even calculatedly misdirected. The uniformity and fervor with which this ignorance is displayed can, in the long run, only hurt the image of the Church. 

Certainly there are many worthy arguments against the ERA. But only after addressing the facts, can we move on to a meaningful discussion of any underlying moral issues. To date the few articles or guidelines appearing in official church publications have been conclusory and much too brief to allow a reasonable "free agent" to come to an informed personal decision. With this goal in mind, the following comments are offered as a belated, but still very limited first step toward fuller understanding of this complex subject. 

The arguments most often advanced in Mormon circles against the ERA are that it is 1) unnecessary, and 2) potentially dangerous to many revered, traditional values. 

To consider first the question of the necessity of the amendment— It is generally admitted in discussion among church members that many inequalities faced by women are deplorable but that the solution lies in a case-by-case judicial or legislative remedy, not in a constitutional amendment. Such an assertion (really involving the proper role of government in social change) usually derives from the speaker's general political philosophy rather than from the specifics of the women's rights debate, perhaps explaining why supporting evidence is rarely offered or felt necessary. There are nevertheless a number of important practical considerations in assessing the appropriate avenue of redress. 

The federal government has responded directly to acknowledged sexual discrimination in employment, principally through the passage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII, interpreted and enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), gives those employees recourse against discrimination "because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."[1] This act and related federal laws and executive orders have had a profound effect on existing state and federal labor laws, many of which were passed decades ago to correct the shocking abuses of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Such "protective" laws were generally aimed at women and/or children, and designed 1) to confer benefits, such as a minimum wage or a mandatory rest period or lounging facilities, or 2) to exclude women from certain jobs for which they were felt to be unsuited, or 3) to impose other protective restrictions on women's employment, e.g., limiting the number of hours women can work, restricting women's work to certain hours of the day, or prohibiting employment of women in jobs requiring lifting above a set weight limit.

Praiseworthy as were the original intents of such laws, changing social attitudes and marked improvement of working conditions in general have made most of them irrelevant. Now such laws often operate solely to prevent women from getting higher paying jobs which might, for example, involve some manual labor. In short, many would say that these laws are now more repressive than protective. 

Title VII has done much, on a case-by-case basis, to "neuterize" or eliminate these dated laws, forcing a reconsideration of the legitimacy of their current purpose. It has also led to an extension of their benefits and "protection" to men as well. For example, a "weight-lifting restriction" law in Oregon, applicable only to women has now been replaced by a new Consolidated Work Order which prohibits requiring any employee to lift "excessive weights."[2] A similar Washing ton statute, has been changed to state that "lifting requirements must be made known to prospective employees and proper instructions on lifting techniques must be provided."[3] Seating, rest and mealtime requirements have been extended to workers of both sexes in eleven states. 

Despite the influence of Title VII and pressure from other sources, many "straggler," sex-based state labor laws and industrial practices remain. Of recent note has been the practice of many companies to exclude pregnancy from disability insurance coverage, while including elective surgery. There is no assurance that state legislatures will address these remaining discriminatory laws and practices. Even though heightened awareness generated by the ERA debate greatly increases the chances that more state action will be taken, many laws and practices, theoretically illegal or invalid under Title VII will remain in force as long as they are not challenged or systematically examined. 

Unfortunately, there are few mandates in federal law as clear as Title VII is in the area of employment discrimination. To some extent, Social Security laws are still based on dated stereotypes which offer inadequate protection to a person who spends substantial time as a homemaker supported by a spouse. Our legal structure regards the homemaker as a dependant rather than as a mature adult who also provides for the family. Social Security laws can tragically victimize divorced persons, often disfavoring men as well. They discourage remarriage by older divorced or widowed persons who may stand to lose or to reduce their benefits. Military recruitment and career opportunities are still handled in ways which unnecessarily—and some would say unfairly—restrict women. While a 1974 Supreme Court decision requires that military benefits be distributed regardless of sex,[4] a quota system restricts the number of women accepted into the military and a 1948 law prohibiting women from involvement in combat[5] is still used to bar women from service in the thousands of assignments in "combat type" positions during peacetime. The result is that women cannot serve on virtually any seagoing vessel, any aircraft or in a large number of other responsible and rewarding positions. True, combat positions constitute only a small portion of the armed forces, but job opportunities in combat zones or units constitute a large number of the most appealing and important assignments. 

Lacking a mandate of the kind expressed in Title VII, states have made spotty progress in reforming their analogous nonlabor laws. A few states have added equal rights amendments to their own constitutions. A half-dozen states have undertaken, through special public or state commissions, a comprehensive review of state law, with the goal of bringing laws into conformance with the ERA. Ten or so other states have conducted similar reviews, using legislative bodies for preliminary review of sex-based laws. Usually though, the task of gearing up such a review is so political that it is assigned a low priority. 

Perhaps the most serious remaining legalized sex discrimination is in the broad area of state domestic relations law, encompassing the management and ownership of real and personal property; the determination of domicile; divorce, including grounds for divorce, custody of children, alimony and support; inheritance laws and many other critical aspects of family life. Michigan, Massachusetts and North Carolina, for example, have retained an old rule of law which gives the husband the exclusive right to manage and control the marital property—thus giving him, as well, the right to squander and dissipate it. In Louisiana, a "community property state", the husband still has the right (as he once had in eight states) to the sole management of the marital property, resulting, in one recent case, in the award of an injured wife's lost wages to her husband, as "head and master of the community," over her protest.[6] Forty-two states have a common law property system, which means that the nonbreadwinner has no right to own or manage any of the property of the other spouse, other than the right to support (usually unenforceable as long as the spouses are living together). The person who has title to the property has all rights to it and can sell or give it away at any time. In ten states, courts do not have the power to transmit property (such as the family home) from one spouse to another upon divorce. While laws of this type are not explicitly sex-based, a strong argument can be made that they violate the equal rights principal because of their disparate impact on married women, who predominate among the nonwage-earning spouses or who earn, on the average, far less than their husbands. (A number of states still retain a double standard in other aspects of divorce law. Most child custody suits are won by mothers even in cases where fathers are manifestly better qualified to rear the children). 

Inheritance tax laws in many states require a surviving wife who has spent all or most of her working life in the home or family business to prove direct financial contribution to the estate—often a difficult or impossible task—in order to reduce taxation. State inheritance tax laws which benefit widows but not widowers discourage property ownership by married women. Some state laws give a man a life interest in all his wife's lands but give the wife a life interest in only one third (or other fraction) of the lands of her husband. In Illinois, which has passed a state ERA, a statutory scheme has been upheld by the State Supreme Court allowing illegitimate children to inherit from their mother's but not their father's intestate (without a will) estate.[7]

The criminal justice system of many states is, in both the letter and application of the law, sexually discriminatory. Many state laws against rape and similar offenses still stress the sexual, rather than the violent nature of the crime, and women are sometimes required to reveal details of past sexual activity in legal proceedings. 

A number of jurisdictions require judges to impose minimum and maximum sentences for men, but allow indeterminate sentences for women, even for the same offense. The result is that women may be incarcerated for a longer period of time than a man convicted of the same offense, while the man may have a longer wait for parole consideration. Because comparatively few women go to jail, facilities are often inadequate and female inmates generally have fewer opportunities to learn marketable job skills. One recent study showed that 30 percent of eligible men received work releases but only 9 percent of eligible women did.[8]

Many state laws dealing with unemployment compensation deny benefits to women forced to leave their jobs because their husband's employment required a move. A number of states terminate unemployment benefits to women in certain stages of pregnancy and for specified periods following delivery, regardless of their ability or willingness to work. Few states treat pregnancy as they would other similarly limiting medical conditions, with the result that those pregnant women or new mothers who need to work are penalized thereby discouraging child-bearing. 

While one may not agree that every one of these areas of discrimination is or even should be major causes for concern, viewed collectively they go a long way toward explaining the concern of many people that something more is needed to secure for American women the same legal rights enjoyed by American men. 

What, then, is the appropriate avenue? Several are available. An appeal to state and federal courts has produced varied results. In general, the courts respond to existing law, upholding discriminatory statutes if a clear "legislative purpose" can be found. Notably, the United States Supreme Court, in the century following the passage of the 14th Amendment, demonstrated almost complete deference to sex-lines drawn by the legislature. Until 1971, not one sex-based distinction had been overturned by the Supreme Court. 

In the past few years, however, the highest court has been moving to deny enforcement of or otherwise limit sexually discriminatory laws. One of two major approaches used in Supreme Court sex-discrimination cases is an appeal to the Court to declare that differential classification on the basis of sex is impermissible because some other "fundamental right" is involved (i.e., one of a well-defined, narrow category of legal rights which includes, among others, the right to work and the right to travel). Because very few rights are viewed, in the constitutional sense, as fundamental, this argument is successful in very few cases. 

A second, and more common approach has been to ask the Court to declare sex, like race or religion, to be a "suspect classification" and thus subject to the court's "strict scrutiny" in assuring equal protection of the law. This standard of review based on the 14th Amendment, has been available to disadvantaged minorities for many years. The argument advanced here is that sex per se is an undependable indicator of a person's attributes for the purpose of determining legal rights. The fact that a person is female is not an accurate indicator of her ability to perform certain kinds of work; similarly, the fact that a person is a male might not necessarily mean that he is the less-qualified parent for purposes of determining child custody. The Supreme Court, however, has thus far failed to rule that sex is a "suspect classification." To do so would be tantamount to declaring that the denial of legal rights on the basis of sex was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It would be the judicial equivalent to ratifying the ERA, providing unmistakable anti-discriminatory precedent for lower courts and legislative bodies in determining the constitutionality of existing and future law. The fact that the Court has had ample opportunity to make such a ruling without doing so suggests that it is unlikely to do so in the forseeable future. (On the other hand, the same could have been said of discrimination based on race not many years ago.) As Representative Martha Griffiths noted, when the Equal Rights Amendment first passed the House of Representatives in 1970 (after a 47-year effort)[9]

There never was a time when decisions of the Supreme Court could not have done everything we ask today . . . The Court has held for 98 years that women, as a class, are not entitled to equal protection of the laws. They are not "persons" within the meaning of the constitution. 

There are other limitations on the effectiveness of the judiciary as an avenue of redress in cases of apparent sexual discrimination. The Court has the right to sanction discrimination, even under a "strict scrutiny" review, if the government can show "compelling reason" to maintain the discriminatory law or practice. For example, the government has argued that sexual stereotypes should be retained in the social security system because of the "convenience" to the government in using actuarial or other standards and because of the "economic necessity" of using such distinctions. 

In addition to recognizing both the Court's propensity to take an inconclusive, piecemeal approach to sex-discrimination cases, as well as the inherent limitations of existing legislation and the judicial system, it is important also to note that redress in court is often a very expensive and time-consuming undertaking—a luxury rarely available to those already deprived. Should a petitioner, through heroic individual effort, finally succeed in getting a case before the Supreme Court, there is still no guarantee that the case will be heard. In sum, many would argue that a judicial solution to the problem of sex discrimination has not proven effective, and offers no immediate hope of providing an adequate tool for fashioning genuinely equal rights for men and women. 

What about a legislative solution? Legislatures could, by analysis and revision, eliminate discrimination in existing state and federal laws—and indeed they will be required to do so if ERA is passed. But will they all do so without this "coercion"? While a number of states have, as noted, begun to systematically review state laws, the majority are far from a serious full scale reevaluation. Both state and federal legislative bodies continue to operate piecemeal, responding to political and economic pressures and the press of time. The publicity surrounding ERA has unquestionably moved equal rights for women up the agenda for many legislatures, but without a broad national mandate on sex discrimination, they have approached discriminatory laws on a hit-and-miss basis. In other states, the issue of equal rights still receives a very low priority (because—some would argue—legislative bodies are largely male!). States without an ERA must debate the need for equality when considering each new piece of legislation on the subject. Many sex discrimination measures have passed in legislatures by very narrow margins—if three senators had changed their votes, women would not have recourse to employment discrimination. In light of the lethargy and unpredictability of legislatures, few legal scholars seriously believe there is any hope that a comprehensive legislative remedy will be accomplished, as one author put it, "in the lifetime of any woman now alive."[10] Thus, the argument that solutions should be sought through a legislative approach, really reflects the belief that there is no pressing need for change. 

Given the judicial and legislative record to date, one can more readily understand why those opposed to the perceived injustices see the ERA as a necessary step in the right direction. Even after its ratification, many judicial and legislative hurdles would remain. But there would also be an expression of national policy to cut through the often unenthusiastic treatment rendered by the courts and legislatures. It would, in their minds, "hasten the day," giving our lawmakers the "bigger picture" and bringing some economy to both courts and legislatures in their treatment of sex discrimination. 

The argument for an Equal Rights Amendment does not therefore stem from any inherent lack of power in the existing judicial and legislative systems to accomplish these objectives; it is rather, from the slow and spotty record of these branches of government in correcting existing abuses. 

The second argument of the case against the ERA is a belief that it carries a grave risk to traditional Mormon values and a disagreement on the nature and extent of the physiological and psychological differences between the sexes. At the base of this is a fear that the ERA will threaten the traditional family, focusing perhaps on the gradual shift away from traditional male/female roles over the last several decades. Many Mormons regard the traditional marital roles (husband as breadwinner and wife as homemaker) as innate, believing that God-given characteristics unique to each sex equip a person for his or her traditional role. Others feel that the roles are more flexible, that some of the traditional differences between men and women actually grow from the predominance of these roles in society. 

Any constitutional amendment unavoidably casts a shadow of uncertainty over its future interpretation and implementation. The Fourteenth Amendment, for example, has far exceeded the originally perceived purpose—elevating the status of blacks—and has come to serve as a tool of justice for many oppressed persons and groups. Few amendments, however, have had the same wealth of pre-passage legislative discussion of intent as has the ERA in the House of Representatives and the Senate. And, contrary to opinion popular in some circles, the numerical majority of legal scholars are comfortable in believing that the potential changes under the ERA are largely predictable. 

What then could be expected from ERA? How substantive or potentially dangerous are the "unknown" elements of this or any constitutional amendment when measured against the desired benefit? Will it threaten the traditional values of home, faith, family and femininity? 

Addressing these questions, Paul Freund, a leading constitutional scholar, has made an important point: "unless equality is denied by a public agency or because of a law, the Equal Rights Amendment, by its terms, has no application. "[11] [emphasis added] Thus, while significant social trends may spring indirectly from this amendment, its direct implications are very narrowly delineated. Further, laws which do discriminate between the sexes would not necessarily be eliminated, but rather, the benefits of the law would be extended to both sexes. 

Thus, the maintenance of the traditional family structure,—a matter of choice, not law—would still remain the option of each family. Married couples could still continue to distribute responsibilities in the home as they wished, and the level of support obligation within marriage would still depend on love, not law. On the other hand, if a family had broken up, the issue of custody of children would have to be given greater consideration by the courts. Simple, sex-based presumptions would be eliminated. Child support and/or alimony would be decided more equitably, if with greater difficulty, and they would reflect the responsibilities of the parties in marriage, the earning ability of the parties, the projected child care arrangements and other factors relevant to the child's welfare. 

The Equal Rights Amendment would not require women to take a job outside the home. This would, as now, be an individual decision. For those women who do work (recalling that millions of women support their families and that over 70% of the women who work do so out of economic necessity), the ERA would reinforce existing laws which require equal pay for equal work. As previously noted, the repeal or revision of a number of "protective" labor laws, technically invalid under Title VII and similar laws, would be hastened after ERA passage. These illusory protections were addressed in the Senate Majority report on the Amendment which stated, in part,[12]

restrictive discriminatory labor laws such as those which bar women entirely from certain occupations will be invalid. But those laws which confer a real benefit, which offer real protection will, it is expected, be extended to protect both men and women, [emphasis added] 

Many are fearful that women will become subject to the draft, and the ERA is likely to affect the military. At present there is no military draft; but the Pentagon has recently requested Congress to make women subject to a draft, if reinstituted (as was previously done before the end of World War II), and to be trained for combat purposes. ERA would require that the draft system deferments and exemptions now available be adapted to a sex-neutral system. For example, women ministers, conscientious objectors, doctors, dentists and state legislators would be treated as are men in these categories. Dependency deferments in past wars provided that "persons in a status with respect to persons (other than wives alone, except in rare hardship) dependent upon them for support which renders their deferment advisable"[13] may be deferred. Such a deferment could be applied by the President to persons with dependent children or wives and children, with whom they maintained a family relationship in their homes. Under the ERA this could be expanded to exempt both parents in a family with children, or could exempt only one (i.e., either the parent who was called or the parent most responsible for child care in the home). It is also possible to structure laws to allow a couple, in case of a draft, to decide which member would serve. Congress can opt for any alternative. Exemptions similar to the one which shields a "sole surviving son" of a family that has lost a member of the family in the service of country, must, of course, be available to both sexes equally under ERA. 

Contrary to popular belief, all legislative debate on the ERA so far indicates that the ERA would not bar all distinctions between the sexes. Physical characteristics which are found in all or some women but no men, or in all or some men, but no women would still be a permissible basis for certain laws, or the basis of allowable exemptions from the application of the ERA.

This principle, for example, doesn't admit the use of such things as life expectancy tables because death is not a physical characteristic unique to either sex. The idea is that tables and many other presumptions are based on averages and majorities, and judgment of individuals by averages or majorities would be prohibited by the ERA. Therefore, laws relating to female wet nurses, maternity leave or male sperm donors (all frequently misunderstood examples) will be permissible. However, only distinctions based on clear physical characteristics will be allowed, and not psychological, social or other characteristics predominantly identified with one sex or the other. 

A persistent ERA "bugaboo" is what Senator Cook termed the "potty excuse," the fear that no distinctions will be permissible between men and women with respect to restrooms, disrobing and sleeping facilities, or similar areas in which privacy is desired. It is clear from the legislative debate on ERA that existing precedents on the privacy concept will remain applicable in such situations. The passage of the ERA will not dismantle existing constitutional rights, including the imprecisely defined right of privacy. Despite the fact that some homosexuals are also active in the cause of equal rights of women, the legality and acceptability of homosexuality will not be affected by the ERA. (It will only mean that if men can't marry other men, women can't marry other women.) 

Any person's choice to support or not to support the ERA should develop not from a fear of the unknown, but from a rational study of the need for change and the available avenues for change. Realizing that we Mormons often take a view somewhat divergent from American society at large, we must be sure that our understanding of basic issues is as complete as possible. 

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[1] § 703(a)(l), 42 USC § 2000e-2(a)(l) 1964 

[2] United States Department of Labor, Employment Standards Administration, Women's Bureau, State Labor Laws in Transition: From Protection to Equal Status for Women p. 12 (Pamphlet No. 15, 1976) 

[3] Washington Rev. Code Ann. §§ 49.12.005, 49.12.016, 49.12.035, 49.12.041, 49.12170, As enacted by L. 1973 (wd Ex. Sess.), Ch. 16. 

[4] Frontiero vs. Richardson, U.S. Supreme Court, 1973, 411 U.S. 677, 93 S.Ct. 1794, 36. L.Ed 2d. 583. 

[5] 10 USC § 6015 

[6] Sevin vs. Diamond M Drilling Co., 261 S. 2d 375, 379 (La. App. 1972). See also L. Civil Code, Arts, 2402, 2404. 

[7] In re Estate of Karas, 61 111. 2d 40, 329 N.E. 2d 234 (111 Sup. Ct. 1975) 

[8] Crisman, "Position Paper on Women in Prisons," June 10, 1976, at p. 1 (unpublished paper of ACLU National Prison Project, 1345 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 1031, Washington, D.C.) 

[9] J.J. Res. 264, 91st Cong. 2d Sess. (1970), reported at 116 Cong. Rec. H7953 (daily ed. Aug. 10, 1970) 

[10] Brown, Falk and Freedman, "Equal Rights for Women," 80 Yale Law Journal 883 (1971) 11

[11] Freund, "The Equal Rights Amendment is Not the Way," 6 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 234 (1971) 

[12] Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Equal Rights for Men and Women, S. Rep. No. 92-689, 92d Cong. 2d Sess. 15 (1972) 

[13] 50 USC App § 456 (h)(2) (Supp. V, 1969)

[post_title] => Women Under the Law [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 12.2 (Summer 1979): 82–91
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