Answer

What Does the Church Actually Teach About Abortion?

You may have heard two versions of this, one that says the Church forbids abortion outright and one that says it allows exceptions, and concluded that nobody really knows. Both halves are in the actual teaching, and leaving either out misrepresents it.

Elective abortion for personal or social convenience is contrary to God’s plan and His commandments. There are three possible exceptions, they are narrow, and even then abortion is never automatic. The Church opposes abortion as a means of family planning and has never told a woman in an extreme situation that she has no options.

Eternal Truths

The teaching is stated plainly and the exceptions are listed. The General Handbook says elective abortion for personal or social convenience is contrary to God’s plan, and names the only possible exceptions: pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, a competent physician determining that the mother’s life or health is in serious jeopardy, and a competent physician determining that the baby has severe defects that will not allow survival beyond birth. Even in those circumstances members are told to approach the decision with prayerful deliberation and counsel with their bishops (Abortion).

Life before birth is treated as life. The Family: A Proclamation to the World affirms the sanctity of life and its central place in God’s plan, and says children are entitled to be born within the bonds of matrimony. The exceptions exist because two lives are in view, not because one of them stopped counting.

What Can Make This Confusing?

“My body, my choice” is the frame most of the public argument runs on, and agency really is one of the central doctrines of the Restoration. The sentence goes wrong by quietly assuming there is one body involved. The whole disagreement sits inside that assumption, and it is almost never argued for.

Questions to Think About

• Do I know what the Church actually says, or what someone told me it says?
• Where has a phrase done my thinking for me on this?
• If someone I love were in one of the hard cases, what would I want them to hear first?

What You Can Do

Read the handbook section for yourself this week rather than relying on summaries, including the paragraph about how members who have been involved in an abortion are to be treated. If you are pregnant, frightened and alone, tell one person who will not panic; the help available is almost always greater than the isolation suggests. If it is already in your past, the Atonement covers it fully, and a bishop can help you begin. The essay behind this answer works through the difficult cases.

Jesus Christ tells the truth about life and offers mercy without conditions attached, and it is because of the second that the first can be said plainly.