The church has tied itself into a bit of a knot on abortion.
One the one hand, they allow it in the case of rape or incest. On the other hand, the recent press release explaining why gay marriage is wrong called aborted fetuses "lives".
What? "Life" is present in a fetus? Isn't that murder to take an innocent life? Obviously not, because tacit permission is given for rape and incest, should "murder" be desired.
What are we to make of this? For one, the writer(s) of the press release has one opinion, the church another. But beyond that, I think the church is very uncomfortable with theologically labeling women who choose abortion (either as member or non-members) murderers. So, instead, it is basically a "bad thing", with very rough edges when it comes to the church's moral understanding--meaning that there really is no guiding ethical/moral principal in regard to an understanding of the fetus in the church's position.
That is slightly unsatisfying. Again, who comes in with an ethically reasoned position--the Catholic Church. It seems that every area of hot moral dispute, the Catholic Church has a policy and argument. The LDS church does not. According to one writer, as I linked to before, the LDS press release against gay marriage was basically cribbed from Catholic Scholars (and therefore makes a lot more sense to Catholics than Mormons, e.g. marriage/sex is basically solely for reproduction).
Another part of me tells myself that it is ok the church doesn't have an ethical position on the most important moral question of our time--abortion. After all, look at all the crazy, and since rejected, positions taken by apostles and prophets of yester-yore. If not sure, keep your mouth shut. If sure, still keep your mouth shut. If sure and everyone else is sure, keep your mouth shut. These are good policies for religious leaders. Let the people sort it out in their own lives, and look to God instead of Man for answers to these questions.
It is basically worthless to look to the Church Handbook of Instructions (that only a fraction of a percent of male LDS are allowed to read) for deciding an ethical position on abortion. There is none there. So far, it has been about equivalently useful to look to LDS official press releases to come up with a reasoned, ethical position on gay marriage.
We are a good church. We are good at organization, missionary work, and accomplishing tasks. But we are not a particularly thoughtful, philosophical church. We as a people don't produce art, and don't particularly appreciate art. We are a simple people, descended from uneducated pioneers. Ethics/Morality/Philosophy is the luxury of the gilded, not the task of the hand that plants the seeds and thrusts the sickle.
|