The first question my wife asked when I read the above to her was, "What happens if they get pregnant? Obviously they are breaking the law, is the mother then going to be forced to have an abortion, or is she going to be forced to have the child and give it up for adoption?" She also asked, "Is the father going to be held responsible as well?" All good questions.
Clearly you have not read the text of the law. Please do so and then I'll be happy to respond.
While going through the adoption process we often stated that if non-infertile couples had to go through this process, there would be a lot fewer births. I know several couples (both married and not) that could not get through all the hoops that they make an adoptive parent go through. In principle I really think that would be a good thing, in practice I can't see how this would work without taking away ones agency. What about the agency of the children being born? Do they not have a right to be born into good homes? If parenting is such a sacred responsibility, should we not
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There's a big difference between the church's official stand on an issue (or official doctrine or policy) and what someone heard said in a meeting. Even the prophet may express his views to leaders and give counsel, but it does not become the official policy of the church until it's officially presented as such and accepted by the church.
To the best of my knowledge it is not at all the official policy of the church that we not use birth control. If you can document that with something official from the church, I'll stand corrected, but... I think you're assuming too much in that statement.
Also remember that even the official policies of the church change over time, and may not be the same now as they were even in President Kimball's time.
As to the legislation, as much as I hate using the words "slippery slope", this looks particularly slippery. The government has no business telling people when they're approved to have children. And when you get something like this passed, you've placed a basic, intensely personal human
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Dangit, now you made me have to go and look up references and everything about this.. :) :)
I posted my response over in moculturehere, if you want to read it, but I'll just link to it here instead of cross-posting because it's a bit of a tangent on this posting.
I think the government does have the right to intervene when people demonstrate an completely unacceptable job of parenting, putting their children at risk, removing the children from that situation temporarily or permanently. Perhaps in extreme cases, they can rule that the parents not be allowed to raise children in the future.
But I'm not willing to solve that problem by putting the government in charge of approving when everyone is allowed to reproduce at all. As tempting as it may be to assert absolute control over other people's lives to force them into doing the right thing all the time... um... that was someone else's plan for us, eh?
Actually fyi, the church handbook of instructions says that number of children and spacing of children are to be left up to the couple. Also, while I can't put my finger on my quote sheets right now that have President Faust and Hinckley weighing in on it and saying the same thing (I really need to do some cleaning), I do have a copy of "Strengthening our Families" which is the textbook for the BYU Proclamation on the Family class and specifically under birth control it says, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not taken an official position prohibiting or endorsing any particular *reversible* (my emphasis added) method of birth regulation". It also goes on to state, "A variety of circumstances including the physical *and* emotional health of the mother and father, as well as the capacity to provide for children, indicates the need for wisdom and inspiration in determining whether to have a child and the time interval between the birth of children. These are personal choices that should be left to the couple, who
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Clearly you have not read the text of the law. Please do so and then I'll be happy to respond.
While going through the adoption process we often stated that if non-infertile couples had to go through this process, there would be a lot fewer births. I know several couples (both married and not) that could not get through all the hoops that they make an adoptive parent go through. In principle I really think that would be a good thing, in practice I can't see how this would work without taking away ones agency. What about the agency of the children being born? Do they not have a right to be born into good homes? If parenting is such a sacred responsibility, should we not ( ... )
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To the best of my knowledge it is not at all the official policy of the church that we not use birth control. If you can document that with something official from the church, I'll stand corrected, but... I think you're assuming too much in that statement.
Also remember that even the official policies of the church change over time, and may not be the same now as they were even in President Kimball's time.
As to the legislation, as much as I hate using the words "slippery slope", this looks particularly slippery. The government has no business telling people when they're approved to have children. And when you get something like this passed, you've placed a basic, intensely personal human ( ... )
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I posted my response over in moculture here, if you want to read it, but I'll just link to it here instead of cross-posting because it's a bit of a tangent on this posting.
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But I'm not willing to solve that problem by putting the government in charge of approving when everyone is allowed to reproduce at all.
As tempting as it may be to assert absolute control over other people's lives to force them into doing the right thing all the time... um... that was someone else's plan for us, eh?
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http://www.livejournal.com/community/moculture/3341.html
It would seem that you're missinformed about the Church's stance on birth control.
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