Doctrinal Library

Our Responsibility: To Save the World

Chastity and holy observance of the marriage covenant. It was very heartening to read about the new Miss America, Laura Lea Shaefer, who courageously responded to questions in her first formal press conference by saying that she didn’t believe in and is against premarital sex. She feels that using marijuana leads to hard drugs and that abortions should be illegal. She added: “I am not a typical coed, but I feel my peers and the majority of young people feel the way I do.” What a choice example to the youth of America are her personal standards of conduct!

Make Up Your Minds

Pornography, sex permissiveness and perversion, fornication, adultery, and abortion will lead every person and community that surrenders to them to perdition. Make up your minds to avoid them at the price of your lives if need be.

Trying to Serve the Lord Without Offending the Devil

Abortion is one evil practice that has become socially accepted in our country and, indeed, in the world. Many of today’s politicians claim not to favor abortion, but oppose government intervention in a woman’s right to choose an abortion. Cal Thomas, commenting on this powerful message, said: Why should people or nations regard human life as noble or dignified if abortion flourishes? Why agonize about indiscriminate death in Bosnia when babies are being killed far more efficiently and out of the sight of television cameras? How the devil must have been offended! Her remarkable declaration, however, was not generally picked up by the press or the editorial writers. Perhaps they felt more comfortable being politically or socially correct. After all, they can justify their stance by asserting that everyone does it, or it is legal. Fortunately the scriptures and the message of the prophets cannot be so revised.

The Creation, Male and Female...

In some instances this apparent sterility may have resulted from various abuses, but in most causes the result of devices of wicked men and women to counteract and prevent the fulfilling of the great commandment of God to multiply and replenish the earth, and in many instances, feticide, infanticide and child murder are the result of this very general desire to avoid the responsibility of families. It has become a crying evil in the land.

When Evil Appears Good and Good Appears Evil

Abortion needs to be approached carefully. This is a problem that will probably not be solved by personal condemnation or judgmental accusations. Some have cautioned not to judge a ship—or men or women—without understanding the length of the voyage and the storms encountered. I might add, many who engage in this deplorable conduct do not have a testimony of the Savior or knowledge of the Father’s plan.

Choose to Serve

The challenges to live in the world are great. In many ways these challenges are more difficult for you young people today than they were when I was your age. In a recent issue of a national magazine the whole issue of morality was examined. Let me quote from that article: … A major legal and ethical dilemma for Americans is abortion. Before 1973, it was illegal in most states and practiced sub rosa. Today, it is legal in most cases, widely practiced and under furious attack.

A Banquet of Consequences: The Cumulative Result of All Choices

Nevertheless, Lucifer has supported abortion and convinced many people in a horrific paradigm shift that children represent lost opportunity and misery instead of joy and happiness. As Latter-day Saints, we must be at the forefront of changing hearts and minds on the importance of children. The attacks on the family that I just described ultimately result in grief and misery.

The Instrument of Your Mind and the Foundation of Your Character

People write asking what is the position of the Church on the Word of Wisdom, for instance, on soft drinks or something. And we think, “Why do they have to ask?” It is a principle, and you have the freedom to do as you will. You do not have to be commanded in all things. Without having to have the Church deliver a statement on it, you should know what the Lord’s position is on abortion or cloning or same-gender marriage or birth control. All of those things are built in as a part of what we know and what we are. There are many things that cannot be understood or taught or explained unless it is in terms of the plan of redemption. Unless you understand the basic plan—the premortal existence, the purpose of life, the Fall, the Atonement, the Resurrection—unless you understand that, the unmarried, the abused, the handicapped, the abandoned, the addicted, the disappointed, those with gender disorientation, or the intellectuals will find no enduring comfort. You will not think life is fair unless you know the plan of redemption.

The Family

We can understand why our Heavenly Father commands us to reverence life and to cherish the powers that produce it as sacred.

A Light on a Hill

Breakdown of the Family. Author Charles Murray said that “illegitimacy is the single most important social problem of our time—more important than crime, drugs, poverty, illiteracy, welfare or homelessness because it drives everything else” (p. 48; emphasis added). “Since 1972, there have been more than 28 million abortions in the United States. . . . Eighty-three percent of abortions are performed on white females, and 17 percent on minority women” (pp. 68–69). “Approximately 40 percent of teenage pregnancies, about 400,000 a year, end in abortion. Teens account for more than one-quarter of the total number of abortions in the U.S. annually” (p. 75). Even so, “the rate of births to unmarried teenagers has increased almost 200 percent since 1960” (p. 72).