How Mormon Doctrine Allows Abortion

The LDS church just become the #1 reason abortion will not be totally abolished in Utah. Even if everyone in favor of permitting abortion moved away, the Mormon Church would still be the largest protector of the practice.

Why? Because when the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, this was the church’s official response:

“the Church opposes elective abortion for personal or social convenience….and allows for possible exceptions for its members when: Pregnancy results from rape or incest, or a competent physician determines that the life or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy, or a competent physician determines that the fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth.”

The LDS Church deems abortion acceptable in certain exeptional situations, and thus permits the continued limited practice of abortion. In this video, I want to explain where the LDS Church has diverged from the Bible’s teaching about the issue of abortion.

Mormonism doesn’t consider abortion murder

The LDS Church partially permits abortions because Mormonism doesn’t consider abortion murder.

ChurchofJesusChrist.org defines murder as “the deliberate and unjustified taking of human life.” Within Mormon theology, murderers have “lost their exaltation” (D&C 132:39) and “…shall not have forgiveness in this world, nor in the world to come” (D&C 42:18).

Thus, knowing if something is murder or not is a serious question! And yet consider LDS President David McKay’s statements made in 1973 –

“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.” (Lester E. Bush, “Ethical Issues in Reproductive Medicine: A Mormon Perspective” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18:2 (1985): 51.)

In fact, Handbook 2: Administering the Church 2010, states that “As far as has been revealed, a person may repent and be forgiven for the sin of abortion.”

Is it possible that Mormon theology may cause the church to view abortion with less seriousness than it deserves? I think so – and here’s why:

Joseph F. Smith taught

“Man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal [physical] body.”

It’s unclear exactly when—in LDS Theology—a baby is enshrined with their personal spirit… Some have suggested that such a joining of body and spirit doesn’t take place until the first breath.

The September 1987 edition of the Church magazine Ensign says

“…some Church leaders have suggested that a living soul does not exist until three essential elements—the body, the spirit, and the breath of life—are all present.”

Lester E. Bush notes “In practice, Mormon ritual has always distinguished between miscarriages or stillborn deliveries, and neonatal deaths. The former are not formally recorded 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.” (Lester E. Bush, “Ethical Issues in Reproductive Medicine: A Mormon Perspective” Dialogue 18:2 (1985): 51.)

So if a body receives its spirit at birth—at first breath—then perhaps abortion isn’t the “deliberate and unjustified taking of a human life” as much as it is the destruction of the still-forming physical shell that may later contain a preexistent spirit. 

In the case of abortion, such a spirit could, potentially, be born into a different physical body later on.

Thus, while abortion for convenience’s sake is inappropriate, the destroying of the physical shell under certain circumstances may be deemed permissible.                                                                                  

But this isn’t what the Bible teaches about abortion!

The Biblical View on Abortion

Scripture tells us that we were created as a work of God’s hands

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13)

After the flood, God tells Noah that murder is an abomination to him, and that

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” (Genesis 9:6)

Murder isn’t wrong because a human is self-sustainable, or because a human is fully developed and grown…but because man is made in the “image of God.” An unborn child is no less “in the image of God” than a born child…and thus God abhors the willful killing of both!

In Jeremiah 1:5, God says

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Though Mormons and Christians disagree about this verse in broader discussions about preexistence, it’s worth noting that God says “before I formed YOU in the womb…”

In other words – a child in the womb is not an empty vessel that any spirit child could be slotted into…but a specific body tied to a specific soul. Jeremiah was “in the womb” as God formed Him. Thus, if Jeremiah’s mother had aborted her pregnancy, Jeremiah would have died (Psalm 51:5)!

In Exodus 22, God commands Israel to obey this law:

“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life” (Exodus 21:22-23)

If a man causes harm to a woman and she births a healthy baby prematurely – the man is to pay a fine. But if the baby is stillborn, then the man is to be killed.

God saw the accidental killing of a preborn child as worth the death penalty – consistent with other laws about murder and manslaughter.

God’s law is clear: “Thou shalt not murder”. The consistent testimony of Scripture is that babies in the womb are fully human—body & soul, made in the image of God. The book of Luke tells us that the very first human to leap for joy at Jesus’ coming was John the Baptist….in the womb of his mother (Luke 1:41-44)!

The LDS Church permits abortion in exceptional cases – but such exceptional cases don’t change the nature of the baby. Even a baby conceived in rape is a baby made in the image of God…and therefore anyone who sheds the blood of the baby will be held to account by God as one guilty of shedding innocent blood.

And yet – the Gospel teaches that even murders can be forgiven.  Consider Paul’s teaching in Romans 4 about the murderous King David,

“to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.