Hopefully we all do these sorts of things, helping those in need, seeing the face of Christ in the rejected and the lost.

For me the absolute is just that, seeing Jesus in the most spurned and rejected person I can find. And for me (refusing to get into the whole “when life begins” argument; the church was absolutely fine with the notion that life begins sometime around fetal movement for most of its’ history and this notion is congruent with what every other major religion articulated)that person is the woman who finds herself pregnant, with no partner, shamed. So long as “good church people” look down their nose at her, or patronize her, or throw her some hand me downs as a way to help themselves feel better, abortion will indeed remain a blessing (although surely heartbreaking and tragic at the same time. In the same way divorce can be.)

Dr. Tiller knew his life was in danger every day. He could have retired comfortably but he chose to continue serving. Yes, I expect that he was paid for his services but it would be a lie to pretend that he was in it for the easy buck. Disagree with his cause if you will but surely this man was a martyr.

What we’re really seeing in this debate is what Lawrence Tribe referred to as the clash of absolutes, in his book of that name. To those in favor of legalized safe abortion, the absolute is a woman’s right to choose, based on her right to privacy. To those against it, the absolute is the right to life, which they claim to be absolute.

In fact, our society considers neither right absolute: The state can take your life for any number of reasons, perhaps the least coherent of which is that they need you to try to kill others in a war. Likewise, the right to freedom and choice is also not absolute; we are all prohibited from doing any number of things with our own bodies.

As Dr. Obama has said, what we need to stop doing is demonizing those whose views are different from our own.

What have you done, P., to better the lives of all those children brought into the world unwanted? A truly pro-life stance would mean you are doing something positive for them, not just belittling those who find themselves in the position of an unwanted pregnancy or calling those who provide abortion greedy.

Given the current climate of judgement and hate, the people who take this on deserve hazardous duty pay in my opinion. They are harassed at home, their patient’s license numbers are written down and they are harassed. They are, as we’ve seen all too recently, killed.

I hope I don’t come over as judgmental in any way. All of us make mistakes and unfortunately, a lot of them in our society are sexual in nature. I’m not perfect either and have tried to learn from my mistakes. That being said I believe a few things:

1)We should teach and expect the “best” to our children and society as a whole.
2)We should realize that a lot of us will fall short of that “best,” but that should not stop us from striving for that goal.
3)We should be forgiving and loving to those who make mistakes and do the best we can to serve them as the Savior would.

You aren’t arguing that abortion should be made illegal or should be considered sinful in all situations (although I do think that the “rape/incest” exception means that women suffer for “sin” more than men do). Your position is more nuanced than most who weigh in on this topic, frankly

Sure: you are a free moral agent who acts with integrity when it comes with sexuality. I’ve been very faithfully married for a long time so the same applies to me and perhaps most of us who comment here on this blog. The ability to act in such a conscious and disciplined way is not a skill many people have, either because they have not been taught/lacked role models or they do something stupid and then regret it. Even people who develop that ability don’t necessarily have it as adolescents, or learn its’ merits the hard way.

Your children are fortunate–most kids don’t get lesson one on the dignity of human sexuality at home. They get the opposite, or they get nothing at all. From pop culture girls learn that they are primarily sexual objects and boys learn that they aren’t accountable to anyone, which leads as we all well know to disaster.

I say all this to say that these issues are much more subtle that what Perplexed in particular suggest, and that binding people to burdens that we don’t help them bear is decidedly un-Christian. It is unjust that women bear the weight of sexual “sin” so much more heavily than men do, and that’s not news or at least it shouldn’t be. Jesus broke up the stoning of the woman caught in adultery and in that action condemmed that sort of self-righteous sexism.

Your statement is puzzling to say the least. Actually it is that simple, Madge. I choose with whom I have sexual relations, as does everyone unless the act has been forced upon them and I’ve already addressed that.

You know, disregarding my last line of my last post, this issue is not that difficult; except for those who choose to condemn all who might need an abortion for a legitimate reason, or those who choose to believe there should not be consequences for conscience decisions to copulate outside of the covenant of marriage.

I’m not some prude. I teach my children that sex is a beautiful and wonderful gift. It’s not dirty, it’s not filthy and it’s not something that we don’t talk about. But it is a gift from God and He expects us to use his gifts responsibly. When we don’t there are consequences and there is repentance. I realize that people have sex outside of marriage and that there are going to be issues there, including unwanted babies. I was one of them. That doesn’t mean for one second that the best solution is to lower the standards of what God expects from His children. And I’ll go out on a limb and say that our Father does not think that murdering unborn children is the answer to this most difficult question.

And, if you read my post more clearly you’d see that I said it is ultimately the woman’s choice. If she was to abort after rape, incest or the medical situation I described, then she would never face any kind of church discipline. If she chose to abort a child simply because she didn’t want the baby, then she could, as could any church member father if they were party to it. The severity of the discipline; informal or formal probation, being disfellowshipped, or excommunication, would depend on her gospel knowledge, attitude of repentance, etc. Her church leaders would treat her as an individual. There are guidelines, but no strict rules, regarding such a matter.

As for “financial support” for those various people you mention, the answer is yes, if they need it. The money isn’t just thrown around. However, we have one of the most admired welfare systems in the country and we do help your girls who are pregnant, single moms who need to find jobs, etc.

If that young girl, for example, has parents to look to for help, those parents are expected to help. If they can’t then, yes, the church can help.

Obviously, those who we help are our church members, but the help is not limited to just church members. In our area, when we have a “welfare activity” no one is excluded, LDS or not.

We do not throw funds at people who will continue to abuse the system, some personal responsibility is expected. I would imagine if that someone came to the church for help and then continued, after several chanced, to act in a self destructive manner, they would find the help coming less and less.

I can say this with no hesitation, because I spent several years working for a state health and welfare program, taking relative sizes of each program and dollars used, the LDS welfare system is much more efficient and helps more people get up on their feet than any government system that has ever been devised.

As for the legality of the procedure, I’ll just say this. Of course the procedure should continue to be legal. There is a difference between giving a choice to a woman who has been raped and one who simply chose to be irresponsible (according to God, sex outside of marriage is irresponsible, and I will not argue that point because it is irrefutable). Making the procedure completely illegal would take that choice away from a woman who has become pregnant through no choice of her own.

You can’t be naive enough to think it’s as simple as that for the vast majority of people. Were it so, we wouldn’t be having this dialogue. . . .again. It does sound like you buy into the notion that only women are responsible for their sexual activity. Your argument sounds sort of like nasty ole Dr. Laura