Let me begin by saying that I while I honor annegb’s experience as something real and sacred and personal, there are some wider implications underlying the ideas she presents.

What her story and thought/inspiration surrounding it implies is that all Mormons or people who would be good parents, or even people who would be better parents than most ought to have as many children as they possibly can, because then those spirits will come into bodies where they won’t be in the middle of a war or famine or in a home where they are abused, etc. And that if these people don’t have as many children as they can (as fast as they can to get the most in before their childbearing years are over), then they are consigning a spirit to a horrible fate somewhere.

There are other implications as well (for instance, a single person who would make a good parent–head over to the sperm donors?, etc.), but I’ll leave it at that.

One night I was driving home and the news came on the radio. There were several disasters, world problems, etc., reported, and then a report about someone horrifically abusing a child. I began to cry and I prayed, “I cannot bring another child into a world like this. I’ve screwed up so badly already in raising my kids. I can’t do it.”

And as clear as a bell, these words came to me, “Your worst is better than other peoples’ best. This spirit is going to come into the world, where you give birth to it or not..”

Then I thought about my baby going into a home where she might be abused, or in Africa, where war was raging, or India. And I resolved to give her a home and a body.

My point in sharing this is that those geniuses God wants to be born, will be born. Those spirits are all promised bodies and they will receive them. Perhaps circumstances will be such that their genius will never be recognized, but an abortion does not in any way prevent a spirit from coming to earth.

I think we often want to say he should decide life or death, but then don’t think what we find wrong may his answer.

In some sense every decision could be reduced to obedience, but if that is really all that remains “at the end of the day,” what does that say about God? While I admit that there are probably instances of “obedience for obedience’s sake,” if all commandments end there then God is nothing more than a lion tamer: “Jump through this hoop, now sit up, etc.” To put it another way, would you obey God’s celestial laws if there was no promise of a celestial reward?

So, I disagree that at the end of the day the WoW is about obedience. The particulars of what is and is not allowed might just as well be arbitrary, but at the end of the day I believe the WoW is about the promise God makes at the end of section 89.

Now, to tie this in so it’s not such a tangent (not blaming you!!): one could say “don’t abort because it’s disobedient,” but in the end I hope that the mother who decides to deliver her baby finds something more…lasting? (not the right word). Hence, I end my story “…and the mother loved her baby.”

#21 – It seems to me that, more than the eternal fate of the child, the central issue in abortion is who has the right to decide when we enter and leave this our Second Estate. While we have certain roles to play in that as parents, relatives, etc., ideally it’s the Father of us all who should decide in “life-or-death issues.” Since we’re far from ideal in most of life’s circumstances, however, I think it’s all the more important to always strive to render to God His prerogative in these (very touchy) areas.

I think it’s an excellent point you made that if we were to improve the circumstances surrounding childbirth (such as supporting families better), we could prevent a great many of the abortions that do take place, which would be laudable for a great many reasons – including that of God’s command, as revealed through His chosen servants, “that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.”

One line of thought that I have yet to see discussed is this:

What if the child’s parent/s are abusive? What if we knew that he would be born into other terrible circumstances, suffering throughout his life? What if we (hypothetically) knew he would die of some disease when only 10 months or 10 years old? Wouldn’t it be better to spare the child that harm, and just them him straight to the Celestial Kingdom?

I hope it’s obvious that I find such logic abhorrent – it leads to another slippery slope of “justified” taking of life when, again, it’s most often not our prerogative. The point has been made very well in these comments, I think, about how the limitless inherent value of any given life should be honored, whatever the child’s mortal capacity or destiny.

Thanks for your posts, everyone – very thought-provoking.

Although, I agree it wasn’t a perfect analogy, but at the end of the day, we obey the WoW(b) because it’s a commandment, nothing more. Drinking a glass of wine/grape juice may or may not be a good thing, or it may be harmful, or whatever. At the end of the day, the “commandment” to obey the Wow is so that we can have a temple recommend…

(It’s not that I think outcomes are wholly irrelevant in all cases; if the child is endangering the mother’s life, or will be unable to survive after birth, then outcomes are clearly central to the decision to abort or not abort. But those are life-and-death scenarios, not genius-non-genius scenarios. I think there’s a huge difference.)