Mormon Apostle deplores abortion - almost...

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Prince_Hal

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As most of you know I am a Mormon who has found the truth of God in the Catholic Church and am in the process of leaving the Mormon church. I am also a Mormon Bishop by ordination.

My wife received her copy of the LDS church magazine ‘The Ensign’. She read to me an article by “Elder Nelson” who is a Mormon apostle, equivalent as they would say to the 12 Apostles ordained by Christ. He is also a physician.

I have attached and copied the link to his talk on abortion. There is much good about the talk as it deplores abortion. But it also shows the the falseness of mormonism as it goes on to conclude that whilst abortion is a sin, and the legalization of abortion is a sin, abortion is also acceptable (though agreed in very rare circumstances) in 4 scenarios. How can you bend your mind and belief to hold onto these two contrasting positions, except to say that Elder Nelson’s mind is perhaps in this belief not being influenced by the Holy Spirit at all, but by another spirit.

Read it for yourself and see how a very learned man, one who dedicated his life in his profession to easing pain, can be so tragically misguided. I wonder if Elder Nelson would under the 4 scenarios he points out perform the abortion himself ? And then stand up at General Conference and claim to be a representative of Christ ?

lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=b4b8db98e2b9c110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1

He talks of a mother and her baby being separate and the mother not having the right to destroy her child. Is the child conceived through the sin of rape or incest any less of a separate being.

If there is anything that confirms to me the falseness of mormonism (and there is much), then this must take the prize.

So, I am in the process of writing to the Ensign to express my thoughts, to Elder Nelson, and the local Stake President.

God bless you,

Hal.
 
Associated news article today:

sltrib.com/ci_10601846

The Utah state legislature follows the lead of the LDS church in matters of faith and morals. And this particular story, has Catholics supporting the very view you are deploring. (And the Church has spoken out against.)

Granted, this politco may have just found an opportune moment. It isn’t often that there are that many people picketing anything in Utah.
 
RebeccaJ,

Of course there is a significant difference between a state legislature and a church (the LDS church) that claims to be the one and only true church on the face of the earth guided by Christ himself. The LDS church is setting the policy for abortions by church members. The Catholic supporters in the picture you posted I am sure are supporting the legislature as it will greatly reduce the number of abortions - and every life saved should be rejoiced - not because they favour anti-abortion a la LDS prophets and apostles. It is a first step. I see no first step with the LDS leadership here. As you will know, the First Presidency and Quorum are virtually infallible when they speak as a group on behalf of God. I am sure they do in this instance speak for a supernatural force, but not the God who died at Calvary.

God bless,

Hal.
 
Prince_Hal said:
RebeccaJ,

Of course there is a significant difference between a state legislature and a church (the LDS church) that claims to be the one and only true church on the face of the earth guided by Christ himself. The LDS church is setting the policy for abortions by church members. The Catholic supporters in the picture you posted I am sure are supporting the legislature as it will greatly reduce the number of abortions - and every life saved should be rejoiced - not because they favour anti-abortion a la LDS prophets and apostles. It is a first step. I see no first step with the LDS leadership here. As you will know, the First Presidency and Quorum are virtually infallible when they speak as a group on behalf of God. I am sure they do in this instance speak for a supernatural force, but not the God who died at Calvary.

God bless,

Hal.
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I agree. There was a thread a few months ago about the LDS view of abortion. It comes down to what they believe about the pre-existence, and if you kill an unborn child, the spirit of that child will show up in another person somewhere. So, not trying to save an unborn child as fervently as you do the mother is seen as acceptable. The mother takes precedence over the unborn child in select circumstances, and the LDS church teaches that God is all okee dokee with this. God’s Will even in some cases.

They employ this same sort of thought in regards to adoption. They encourage single LDS girls to give up their children for adoption, even in cases where the girl would make a decision to not abort, siting that God intended those “spirits” to go to a two-parent family.

While I am all for adoption over abortion, this takes it to another level which defies all Christian belief.
 
Tell me, Prince Hal and Rebecca–do you believe that genocide is acceptable if God commands you to wipe out a bunch of wicked people?
 
BDawg said:
Tell me, Prince Hal and Rebecca–do you believe that genocide is acceptable if God commands you to wipe out a bunch of wicked people?
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Are you saying God commands abortion?
 
BDawg said:
Tell me, Prince Hal and Rebecca–do you believe that genocide is acceptable if God commands you to wipe out a bunch of wicked people?
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BDawg, Are you saying that the 50 million children destroyed through abortions in the US since 1973, were ‘wicked’ and God destroyed them to protect the rest of us ?
 
Prince_Hal said:
RebeccaJ,

I am sure they do in this instance speak for a supernatural force, but not the God who died at Calvary.

God bless,

Hal.
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And the implication is? You see Hal, the mormom leadership does consider the will of the mother in rape ,death of the woman and incest, as it should. It is not easy to carry a child in the womb conceived in rape or incest or if the woman knew that the birth would cause the her death. But yes, it could be done.

The mormon understanding of creation is just a tad different from the catholic as you know. For mormons, we all existed in a preexistence with heavenly father and heavenly mother. As spirit children, we waited for the opportunity to receive a body.

In this case, an abortion would not prevent a spirit child from receiving a body. He or she would not just receive that body aborted.

Now the lds church is against abortion but does allow for it in exceptional circumstances.
 
Prince_Hal said:
BDawg, Are you saying that the 50 million children destroyed through abortions in the US since 1973, were ‘wicked’ and God destroyed them to protect the rest of us ?
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I see you didn’t answer the question–perhaps because you know that the Bible says that God commanded the Israelites to wipe out whole populations that were “wicked”. This included men, women, children, pregnant women, and even animals. So if you believe in the Bible, my question represents a very serious, difficult issue. Personally, I don’t know quite what to do with those passages, except to throw up my hands and say that maybe things aren’t as “black-and-white” as I’m used to thinking.

And yet, you and Rebecca can get all worked up because Mormons believe there may be EXTREMELY RARE circumstances in which an abortion may be appropriate. Heck, even Catholicism says that abortion is ok in the case of an ectopic pregnancy. Of course, the Catholic “moral theologians” won’t call this “abortion”–it’s the “removal of a diseased fallopian tube” that just happens to cause a embryo to die as a secondary effect.

This seems to me to be a total cop-out. If you kill an embryo, it’s an abortion. The fact is that in this world some very difficult moral questions face us from time to time, and the solutions aren’t always black and white. On this issue, the Mormons are just facing the ambiguity head on, while the Catholics are squirming around, trying anything to keep their black-and-white perspective intact. I believe that this is one of the reasons why Mormons have a MUCH lower abortion rate than Catholics in the USA. People (at least most adults) can clearly see that there are some grey areas here, while it is difficult to swallow a completely black-and-white perspective imposed by a bunch of celibate men who have never personally faced any reproductive issues.

And by the way, Mormons have no doctrine about when “ensoulment” occurs, so the idea that there may be EXTREMELY RARE circumstances where abortion is appropriate is consistent with this.
 
why_me said:
And the implication is? You see Hal, the mormom leadership does consider the will of the mother in rape ,death of the woman and incest, as it should. It is not easy to carry a child in the womb conceived in rape or incest or if the woman knew that the birth would cause the her death. But yes, it could be done.

The mormon understanding of creation is just a tad different from the catholic as you know. For mormons, we all existed in a preexistence with heavenly father and heavenly mother. As spirit children, we waited for the opportunity to receive a body.

In this case, an abortion would not prevent a spirit child from receiving a body. He or she would not just receive that body aborted.

Now the lds church is against abortion but does allow for it in exceptional circumstances.
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Doesn’t that start with an assumption that we don’t have bodies prior to birth? Otherwise, wouldn’t this just be straight-up reincarnation?
 
Belloc_Fan said:
Doesn’t that start with an assumption that we don’t have bodies prior to birth? Otherwise, wouldn’t this just be straight-up reincarnation?
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Mormons don’t claim to know when “ensoulment” occurs. My personal belief is that it is quite late in the pregnancy. So if an embryo is destroyed, that would not mean that a soul needs to be “reincarnated.”
 
BDawg said:
Mormons don’t claim to know when “ensoulment” occurs. My personal belief is that it is quite late in the pregnancy. So if an embryo is destroyed, that would not mean that a soul needs to be “reincarnated.”
Click to expand...
Mormon doctrine is quite clear that to progress along your eternal line to godhood, you must first receive a body, and live on the planet earth.

Regardless of when you believe ensoulment occurs, you don’t consider a life as valid until a breath is taken. Thus, it is easy for you destroy an unborn life.
 
BDawg said:
I see you didn’t answer the question–perhaps because you know that the Bible says that God commanded the Israelites to wipe out whole populations that were “wicked”. This included men, women, children, pregnant women, and even animals. So if you believe in the Bible, my question represents a very serious, difficult issue. Personally, I don’t know quite what to do with those passages, except to throw up my hands and say that maybe things aren’t as “black-and-white” as I’m used to thinking.

And yet, you and Rebecca can get all worked up because Mormons believe there may be EXTREMELY RARE circumstances in which an abortion may be appropriate. Heck, even Catholicism says that abortion is ok in the case of an ectopic pregnancy. Of course, the Catholic “moral theologians” won’t call this “abortion”–it’s the “removal of a diseased fallopian tube” that just happens to cause a embryo to die as a secondary effect.

This seems to me to be a total cop-out. If you kill an embryo, it’s an abortion. The fact is that in this world some very difficult moral questions face us from time to time, and the solutions aren’t always black and white. On this issue, the Mormons are just facing the ambiguity head on, while the Catholics are squirming around, trying anything to keep their black-and-white perspective intact. I believe that this is one of the reasons why Mormons have a MUCH lower abortion rate than Catholics in the USA. People (at least most adults) can clearly see that there are some grey areas here, while it is difficult to swallow a completely black-and-white perspective imposed by a bunch of celibate men who have never personally faced any reproductive issues.

And by the way, Mormons have no doctrine about when “ensoulment” occurs, so the idea that there may be EXTREMELY RARE circumstances where abortion is appropriate is consistent with this.
Click to expand...
I didn’t answer your question because it was a red herring. The usual Mormon dodge, answer the question that should have been asked.

The Catholic Church has clear doctrine regarding morals. Including that of a just war. Which, has nothing to do with the topic of the thread.

If a Catholic has an abortion, for any reason, then they are committing an immoral act. If a Catholic chooses to have an abortion, then they are choosing to sin.

So, your statistics, if they are even accurate, reflect what people are doing, not what the Catholic Church teaches.

If a Mormon has an abortion for the “exception” reasons, you do not believe it to be an immoral act. You are CREATING the moral ambiguity, not solving it.
 
RebeccaJ said:
Mormon doctrine is quite clear that to progress along your eternal line to godhood, you must first received a body, and live on the planet earth.

Regardless of when you believe ensoulment occurs, you don’t consider a life as valid until a breath is taken. Thus, it is easy for destroy an unborn life.
Click to expand...
Apparently it is much less easy for us to destroy an unborn life, since Mormons have about 1/3 the abortion rate of Catholics in the U.S.
 
BDawg said:
Apparently it is much less easy for us to destroy an unborn life, since Mormons have about 1/3 the abortion rate of Catholics in the U.S.
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Which has all to do with what? Individuals are free to make choices. How many Mormons do not divulge to a polster they had an abortion?
 
RebeccaJ said:
Which has all to do with what? Individuals are free to make choices. How many Mormons do not divulge to a polster they had an abortion?
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The data I was referring to was not based on polls. It was based on actual people who got abortions.

And in any case, my point was that the official Catholic positions on reproductive issues are so “black-and-white,” and come down from leaders who are so far removed from “reproductive issues,” that the laity generally doesn’t take them seriously. (Obviously, many do take it seriously, but Catholics in the USA tend to get abortions at the same rate as the general population.)

On the other hand, the official Mormon position allows for some grey areas, but this ambiguity does not, apparently, cause Mormons to go procure abortions in droves. We apparently take our restrictions about abortion much more seriously, even with the wiggle room.

And yet, I have noticed that many Catholics on this board get worked up into a frenzy about the Mormon position on abortion, because the “moral theology” is not correct (in their opinion). Even if this is true, I would personally rather associate with a group that is more worried about actually not getting abortions than getting their moral theology all tied up in a bow.
 
BDawg said:
Apparently it is much less easy for us to destroy an unborn life, since Mormons have about 1/3 the abortion rate of Catholics in the U.S.
Click to expand...
Um… verification please? Source of this “fact”?

in Christ
Steph
 
BDawg said:
I’m not sure why this is significant. Please explain.
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Hormone-based “contraceptives” are not contraceptives at all - they are abortifacients. They work by creating an impoverished environment in the womb so that the embryo cannot attach to the uterine wall and begin formation of the placenta. The baby starves to death, dies and is spontaneously aborted.

Women who use today’s contraceptive pills have multiple abortions, and most of them don’t even know it.

That’s why it is significant.
 
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