The evils of abortion are something Mormons seem to side with Catholics on. However, their official stance allows exceptions that obliterate any pro-life claims. Their faulty stance on abortion shows us the importance of natural law, and of a Magisterium bound by Sacred Tradition.
Abortion
Catholicism’s stance on abortion is clear: it is never morally permissible, as affirmed in Pope St. Paul VI’s Declaration on Procured Abortion (1974).
The tradition of the Church has always held that human life must be protected and favored from the beginning, just as at the various stages of its development (6).
The Church rules easily on this because of natural law. Natural law, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, is how the rational creature participates in the eternal law (ST I-II, q. 93, a. 2 co.). It is an objective and universal law that God gives us that we can know by reflecting on our nature. The first principle of natural law is that “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided” (ST I-II, q. 94, a. 2 co.).
Abortion, for example, is clearly evil because it destroys a human life. Killing an innocent baby, regardless of the depravity of his conception, violates natural law’s requirement to preserve innocent human life. A baby has done no wrong. One cannot be justified in killing him because of another person’s sins.
Despite immense social pressure to allow abortion, the Church has held strong. Its belief that God inscribes morality into nature allows the Magisterium to judge abortion according to objective moral principles, rather than changing with social attitudes.
Mormonism’s Stance on Abortion
Mormonism also claims to condemn abortion, yet its condemnation is not as firm as Catholicism’s, as evidenced in its official stance:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes in the sanctity of human life. Therefore, the Church opposes elective abortion for personal or social convenience, and counsels its members not to submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for such abortions.
The Church allows for possible exceptions for its members when:
- Pregnancy results from rape or incest, or
- A competent physician determines that the life or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy, or
- A competent physician determines that the fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth.
Even these exceptions do not automatically justify abortion. Abortion is a most serious matter. It should be considered only after the persons responsible have received confirmation through prayer. Members may counsel with their bishops as part of this process.
Although they do condemn abortion as evil, Mormons allow certain exceptions. These exceptions, though consistent with a less rigorous conservative crowd, put Mormonism in a difficult moral position: Mormons must accept that the circumstances of a child’s conception can justify the direct killing of an innocent human life. They appeal to the emotional difficulties that carrying and birthing such a child would bring to the victim. Providing emotional and financial support to victims of such evils—including counseling and adoption options if desired—is important, but killing a child must never be a solution.
Mormonism’s exceptions to its stance on abortion speak to larger institutional and theological problems in Mormonism—namely, the lack of natural law and leadership that does not rule according to it.
Contraception
This “abortion problem” is best explained through a related stance: contraception.
Today, Catholicism rejects all forms of artificial contraception as evil because the Church understands, through natural law, that the marital act is ordered toward procreation. Therefore, contraception itself is intrinsically disordered. No cultural shift can change that end. The Church’s stance cannot change. Mormonism, however, allows it so that parents may better plan their families for economic and personal reasons.
This happens because Mormonism lacks a developed understanding of natural law and lacks a magisterial tradition like Catholicism’s Sacred Tradition. Thus, moral questions are resolved through the teachings of current leadership, like the Mormon prophet, rather than through the lens of a fixed natural law and the tradition surrounding it. Although Mormons do claim to hold to some form of divine law, this law has not been officially codified, so it is subject to change, as shown by their stance on contraception.
In the early twentieth century, Mormon leaders repeatedly condemned contraception. One prophet, Joseph Fielding Smith, went so far as to say that “those who willfully and maliciously design to break this important commandment shall be damned. They cannot have the Spirit of the Lord.” They taught that procreation is sacred, and preventing it through artificial means goes against God’s divine law.
However, as the twentieth century’s zeitgeist flowed more and more in favor of contraception, so did Mormonism. Although there were no official pronouncements of acceptance, their stance became weaker over time. Their current statement does not explicitly condemn any form of birth control, save for elective abortion:
Decisions about birth control and the consequences of those decisions rest solely with each married couple. Elective abortion as a method of birth control, however, is contrary to the commandments of God.
The Catholic Church, because of its understanding of natural law, has never allowed contraception and never will. This stance brings abundant social condemnation and political pressure.
In 1965, the contraception question was at the top of Pope Paul VI’s papal agenda. He established a papal council to study contraception to help him give an official ruling for or against the use of contraception. When the council met, the majority was in favor of using contraceptives in many cases, citing a reinterpretation of the Church’s tradition in the light of modern scientific advancements. Pope Paul VI rejected the majority. Instead, he sided with natural law, Sacred Tradition, and—most importantly—God. He condemned contraception in all cases in his legendary encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968).
Unlike Mormonism, the Church does not sway with the world; it upholds objective moral laws given to us by God. Through natural law and a well-documented, rigorously established Sacred Tradition, the Magisterium has the principles it needs to rule correctly on debated topics like abortion and contraception. The marital act and the sanctity of life are protected by God’s objective law as upheld by his Church.