Doctrinal Library

Strengthening the Family—the Basic Unit of the Church

Here in Salt Lake City, the world headquarters of the Church, we are also concerned. Certainly a powerful force in helping this city and state achieve its high standards has been the Deseret News. This newspaper has been a defender of our convictions relative to such moral issues as liquor, pornography, and abortion. It is vital to a safe, clean city and state, which are the heart of our growing, worldwide Church.

The True Way of Life and Salvation

During 1974 over one million unborn children are said to have lost their lives through induced abortions in the United States. This is an explosive increase in the last few years. We reaffirm our announced opposition to abortion in all but the most extreme needs.

The Lord Expects His Saints to Follow the Commandments

Would this be a good time to deeply concern ourselves with these matters? Is this a time when we should return to our homes, our families, our children? Is this the time we should remember our tithes and our offerings, a time when we should desist from our abortions, our divorces, our Sabbath breaking, our eagerness to make the holy day a holiday?

Why Call Me Lord, Lord, and Do Not the Things Which I Say?

When men come home to their families and women devote themselves to their children, the concept will return, that to be a mother is her greatest vocation in life. She is a partner with God. No being has a position of such power and influence. She holds in her hands the destiny of nations, for to her comes the responsibility and opportunity of molding the nation’s citizens.
Much is being said in the press and in the pulpit concerning abortion. This Church of Jesus Christ opposes abortion and counsels all members not to submit to nor participate in any abortion, in any way, for convenience or to hide sins. Abortion must be considered one of the most revolting and sinful practices in this day, when we are witnessing a frightening evidence of permissiveness leading to sexual immorality. We take the solemn view that any tampering with the fountains of life is serious, morally, mentally, psychologically, physically. To interfere with any of the processes in the procreation of offspring is to violate one of the most sacred of God’s commandments—to “multiply, and replenish the earth.” (Gen. 1:28.)

Guidelines to Carry Forth the Work of God in Cleanliness

Again, abortion is a growing evil that we speak against. Certainly the terrible sin of premeditated abortion would be hard to justify. It is almost inconceivable that an abortion would ever be committed to save face or embarrassment, to save trouble or inconvenience, or to escape responsibility. How could one submit to such an operation or be party in any way by financing or encouraging? If special rare cases could be justified, certainly they would be rare indeed. We place it high on the list of sins against which we strongly warn the people.
Abortion must be considered one of the most revolting and sinful practices in this day, when we are witnessing the frightful evidence of permissiveness leading to sexual immorality.

Our Responsibilities as Priesthood Holders

I call upon the Church and all its members to forsake the evils of the world. We must shun unchastity and every form of immorality as we would a plague. We must not dam up the wellsprings of life by preventing childbirth. We must not be guilty of unrighteous and evil acts of abortion.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World

With so much of sophistry that is passed off as truth, with so much of deception concerning standards and values, with so much of allurement and enticement to take on the slow stain of the world, we have felt to warn and forewarn. In furtherance of this we of the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles now issue a proclamation to the Church and to the world as a declaration and reaffirmation of standards, doctrines, and practices relative to the family which the prophets, seers, and revelators of this church have repeatedly stated throughout its history.

Chapter 23: Developing a Christlike Character

Our life, our being, physically, is made up of little heart beats. Let that little heart stop beating, and life in this world ceases.

Expectations at BYU

Our teachers need not whittle away at contested theories, pretending they do not know what God has revealed, such as, for example, that abortion is sinful, that sexual relations outside the bonds of marriage are destructive to the human soul, that repentance is available and can lift us out of our suffering and degradation, and that men and women are the children of God on an eternal journey whose designed purpose is to attain, as the Bible says, “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). These principles affect our attitudes and studies in many disciplines in this University. Our concern with revealed truth also prompts our teachers and students to approach their responsibilities prayerfully. With teachers who are praying to teach the truth and students who are praying to learn it, we have the most favorable possible conditions for knowing the truth.

That Our Children May Know

Well, I don’t know whether that helps us understand why this Church talks so much about family, but it might. Why do we talk so much about Family Home Evening and Home Teaching? Family Home Evening, Home Teaching, even Four-generation Group Sheets, certainly family and personal histories. Why does this Church take the stand it takes on things that relate to family—things like abortion and premarital chastity? Why does President Kimball want a picture of a temple on the wall of the bedroom of each of the children in our homes? Is it just a response to 1960s’ pressure or 1970s’ trouble? Is it really a twentieth-century phenomenon to offset movies and magazines and trouble in the schools, difficulty in the streets, problems in the community? I don’t think so. At least not anything that I read suggests that it’s so recent. It is, in fact, as old as the family of man. As I understand it, Adam and Eve could have avoided all of that if they stayed in the garden, but in pursuit of eternal progress they chose to leave for two reasons: family and knowledge. They would not have had children and they could not have become like the gods, knowing good from evil. And against all of those other very attractive and very accommodating and very pleasant reasons to stay in the garden, they left to have a family and gain knowledge and pass that knowledge on to their family.