The current Mormon candidate for the U.S. Presidency
says that our lives as distinct persons begin "at conception."

Doesn't this social stance echo the theological dogma I have
heard the LDS express --- that "the spirit enters the woman's
egg, along with the man's sperm, creating the living soul"???

If so, then why does Heavenly Father (and Heavenly Mother[s])
allow so many fertilized eggs to pass out of female bodies,
having never attached properly, in order to grow full term?

If these Celestial Parents go to all the trouble of infusing
a soul, of one of their Spirit Children, into an egg at
fertilization -- then why so many miscarriages and so many
natural problem pregnancies, resulting in the demise so many
unborn "persons," even when no abortion is attempted?

I have the feeling that our Mormon friends (?) will reply,
that even a few hours of unborn life carries out the purpose
for which such spirit children are brought to earth.

Where, of course (perishing in the womb or in rejection from
the womb), such embryos will never read the Book of Mormon,
never hear Moroni's promise; never pray for a testimony;
never be converted to the One True and Everlasting Church;
never be baptized; never be married in the temple; never
receive endowments; never get patriarchal blessings; & never
have a place in a 3-generation book of remebrance family chart.

Why not at least change Mormon doctrine (and Romneyism) to
preach that the soul enters the fertilized egg, after it has
successefully attached to the uterine wall?

Mormons are weird.

UD

Not only that, they'll never be given a name to proxy baptize with. Plumb out of luck!

don't they get the easy way and make it automatically to the celestial kingdom without being baptized?

>don't they get the easy way and make it automatically
>to the celestial kingdom without being baptized?

If so, then why should Utahans (or Mormons in general) care
if a young LDS lady takes a "morning after pill" and thus
"murders" her new, soul-infused fetus, according to some new
state "personhood law"?

If this new "person" can join up with the rest of that lady's
eternal family, in the Celestial Kingdom -- what harm was done?

I would, however, like to see a copy of the most recent
pronouncement by an LDS General Authority, stating that the
soul enters the egg, along with the sperm. Better yet, I'd
like to speak personally with that GA, and ask for proof.

UD

The general TBM mythology is that the parents will get to raise the children in the millennium and that the children will automatically make the Celestial Kingdom since their is not sin in the Millennium. The children will then get baptized for themselves.

That's the general theory for misscarriage, etc. I'm not sure it applies to fertilized eggs that do not implant.

True.

Nope. I see this as a perfect opportunity for the church to continue proxy baptisms without pissing off groups of real people.

The current Mormon candidate for the U.S. Presidency
says that our lives as distinct persons begin "at conception."

Can you cite a reference where he has said that?

As far as I know there is no "official" position regarding when life begins, although most mormons probably do believe it begins at conception.

anonow Wrote:
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>> The current Mormon candidate for the U.S.
>> Presidency
>> says that our lives as distinct persons begin "at
>> conception."
>>
>> Can you cite a reference where he has said that?

He so indicated in one of the Republican Candidate debates,
but if you want an actual video of him saying the words,
then pull up his "Meet the Press" interview with Tom Russert,
where he says "I believe that life begins at conception,
from a political perspective." I'm sure a websearch at
the You-Tube site will bring up that clip, along with
several other confirming reports.

Somewhere he might have conceded that he is not an M.D.
and therefore cannot give a professional medical opinion --
but he seems to be in accord with a social, political and
legal consensus, among certain segments of the population.


>
> As far as I know there is no "official" position
> regarding when life begins, although most mormons
> probably do believe it begins at conception.

If the President of the High Priesthood believes that
to be a fact, and Heavenly Father has not bothered to
provide him with any additional light and truth, then
I'll presume it is believed as Mormon "truth," even if
not as D&C or 1st Pres, Message "doctrine."

But a better check on the current LDS position would
be for us to track down any instance where a GA stated
his own belief on the controversy, and was not stopped
(or at least not counseled to stop speaking thusly) by
his superiors in the Church.

example --->

If I formulate a plan to destroy a certain hospital
incubator which is designed to hold a new-born baby,
and which very likely is holding such an infant at the
time I carry out that attack -- would not the LDS
Church officials condemn such a heartless and dangerous
action -- and particularly so, if it was done in a
hospital ward populated mostly by new Mormon mothers?

Assuming my theoretical attack is illegal, or sinful,
or both -- how would it differ from an impregnated
young LDS woman who took a "morning after pill?" -- Or,
such a young woman who was at high risk of such an
unwanted pregnancy, who swallowed the same medicine?

Like I said -- it would be useful for us to review
what the contemporary LDS GAs have to say about this.

UD

"I believe that life begins at conception, from a political perspective."

I'm a little surprised that the world's most prominent homo-sapien invertebrate would articulate the thought (rather baldly at that) - but we don't need the man himself to tell us, because it is perfectly obvious that Romney is pandering to the religious right.

Hard Physical Biological Science says that you began, and got all the DNA that makes you unique, when one of your father's living sperms fertilized one of you mother's living eggs.

quoththeraven Wrote:
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> Hard Physical Biological Science says that you
> began, and got all the DNA that makes you unique,
> when one of your father's living sperms fertilized
> one of you mother's living eggs.

So it seems -- but the days of human cloning are
not far off. The process has been carried out with
mammals lower on the evolutionary chart, and within
a decade or so, we will see a child who has only
the DNA of its immediate progenitor -- probably a
female -- with the "XX" genetic status.

When that day arrives, a new definition may be in order.

My neighbor had a rather large abdominal tumor cut out
recently -- it was a "living" thing -- though not a
living "person." I suppose that tumor's life as a
distinct entity began with the first cell division in
its subsequent growth and development.

How would a clone differ from a tumor, in the judgment
of current law?

UD

...said that life starts when the spirit enters the body, and that the brethren wouldn't pretend to know when that is. But, that could be old policy that has since been replaced.

Stray Mutt Wrote:
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> ...said that life starts when the spirit enters
> the body, and that the brethren wouldn't pretend
> to know when that is. But, that could be old
> policy that has since been replaced.

Considering "spirit" means "breath," wouldn't the interpretation of "life begins at birth" be plausible?

BY taught that quickening - when the mother feels the baby move - was when the spirit entered:
http://www.lightplanet.com/family/children/spirit_womb.html

There is reasonable discussion in an Ensign here:
http://www.lds.org/ensign/1987/09/i-have-a-question?lang=eng

Which is about as close to doctrine as you can get on the subject. Romney is not in line with his prophets if he thinks the spirit enters at conception. "Quickening" - when the mother feels movement- occurs on average at around 5 months.

I think the recently Mormons have picked up the "Life begins at conception" idea from conservative lobby groups.

For whatever reason, TSCC finds it convenient to not highlight the LDS point of difference on this issue, and is letting its members go with the mainstream. The Ensign article dates to 1987.

spanner Wrote:
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> "Quickening" - when the mother feels
> movement- occurs on average at around 5 months.

If I recall correctly, that is what Thomas Aquinas taught,
back in the earlier days of Catholicism. Today the Pope
seems to think that even decreasing the liklihood of
conception can be a great sin, let alone disposing of
a fetus before any such "quickening."

The "quickening" milepost would be a bit harder for
The Brethren to pin down, I suppose. Some mothers-to-be
might be better able to discern the proper moment --
and some unborn infants might demonstrate less noticeable
movements in the womb. Why Heavenly Father would be prone
to chose that moment for soul infusion is a mystery.

If Romney is professing something contrary to what an
ordained Prophet, Seer, Revelator & Translator taught,
then that fact, all by itself, may be important.

Is it the only instance of such problematic disagreement?

UD

"If Romney is professing something contrary to what an
ordained Prophet, Seer, Revelator & Translator taught,
then that fact, all by itself, may be important."

But, as you well know, LDS doctrine is elastic, at least where the power elite are concerned. And for the benefit of the Faithful, doctrinal differences can be smoothed over later with a dollop of LDS double-talk.

The goal is to get the mormon Golden Boy into the Oval Office: issues of doctrine can not/will not be allowed to interfere.

didnt Brigham Young say that the spirit did not enter the unborn child. The spirit came when the umbilical cord was cut. That only 1 spirit may reside in a person.

MrZ Wrote:
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> only 1 spirit may reside in a person.

If so, the perhaps Newell Knight did not really have a
devil within him at Colesville, after all.

I was taught that when the spirit enters the unborn
infant, that the "soul" is then created. That we are
God's "spirit children" prior to that -- and not His
"soul children."

The again, the doctrine I was taught professed to be
from the Nauvoo era, and not from the Utah years.

UD

I thought our lives began in the spirit world, where we made decisions and did actions which determined where and when we'd be born on this planet. So my life began several million years ago. Or maybe 6,000 years ago. I'm suddenly looking pretty good. . .

As far as I know, there is no hard-and-fast LDS belief about when life "begins." Physiologically, both egg and sperm are "alive" even before they meet.

LDS practice, however, argues for life not "beginning" until the baby takes its first breath. Miscarried fetuses are not sealed to parents, and neither are stillborn full-term babies, even if they are named by their parents. There is a disclaimer on that rule stating something about that it is not intended to indicate the status of the baby/child in the next life, but the clear practice of the LDS church is to not consider a child part of the eternal family unless it is born alive.