Abortion
by Borson M. Hugilhoff
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The Lord tells Nephi, "blessed are they who shall seek to bring forth my Zion at that day" (1 Nephi 13:37). That "day" is this dispensation in which we live. We are under covenant with God to bring forth the kingdom of God upon the earth, for the establishment of Zion. As Hugh Nibley points out, "Zion is perfect, flawless, and complete - not a structure in the process of building" (CWHN vol. 9 pg. 25). It is the kingdom of God, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that is to be built up. The Lord tells us that, "Zion" is the "pure in heart" (D&C 97:21). It is this condition of the saints, that brings about a Zion society. |
How do we build the kingdom of God within a culture that is opposed to God? The opposite of Zion is the impure in heart. Impurity and defiance of the living God is the spirit of Babylon. The same Babylon, in which Nimrod founded, wherein he took upon himself complete independence from God and his laws and taught the people of Shinar to do the same. Ancient Babylon serves as a biblical type of which our culture has become.
In bringing forth and building up the kingdom of God upon the earth. The laws and commands of God must be declared and taught. Then the people will be able to discern for themselves what is true and what is false. It is the false belief systems of the day that are used to hinder and weaken the plan of happiness of their Creator. They frustrate the building up of the kingdom of God upon the earth and hinder the establishment of Zion.
One way in which they frustrate the plan of happiness of God, is by introducing abortion as a viable alternative for contraception. Abortion not only frustrates the plan of God in peopling the earth that he has created for his offspring, but it kills a fellow being that has as much right to live as the abortionist does. The appalling matter is that abortion is wrapped within religious dogma as something that is sanctioned by God and that the mother has full religious sanction to kill their developing child without divine retribution or accountability.
The Lord has taught plainly within the revelations and translations of the Restoration the true nature of the spirit of man and his relation to the tabernacle or physical body in which he is clothed. The spirit gives the physical body animation. In fact without the spirit there is no life.
Elder Orson Pratt has taught, "The spirits of fish, birds, beasts, insects, and of man, are in the image and likeness of their natural bodies of flesh and bones, and of the same magnitude, filling every part of the same. It is this spiritual substance, and not the body, that sees, hears, tastes, smells, feels, thinks, enjoys, suffers, and manifests every other affection or passion characteristic of the animal creation" (Pratt, The Seer, pg. 33).
Without the spirit, the body has no reckoning or is incapable of experiencing hearing, tasting, smelling, seeing, etc. It takes the intelligence of the spirit of the man to process these sensations into any meaningful experience. Similarly the physical or material cellular structure that makes up the physical existence of man decays and withers as the spirit of that man withdraws from its physical creation and biological construct or organization. This is called physical death of the biological makeup of that organism.
Elder Orson Pratt states it this way, when the spirit "withdraws, the natural one decays and returns to its original elements; but its spirit, being a living substance, remains in its organized form, capable of happiness in its own sphere, and will again inhabit a celestial tabernacle when all things are made new" (Pratt, The Seer, pg. 33).
So it is with abortion. The spirit of that child of God gives life and animation to the cellular structures being formed in its mother. When that cellular structure and growth is maimed and ruined by an abortionist, the spirit of that child of God withdraws from that physical creation and the cells and physical form withers and dies.
Elder Russell M. Nelson has stated it this way, "Nearly all legislation pertaining to abortion considers the duration of gestation. The human mind has presumed to determine when 'meaningful life' begins. In the course of my studies as a medical doctor, I learned that a new life begins when two special cells unite to become one cell, bringing together 23 chromosomes from the father and 23 from the mother. These chromosomes contain thousand of genes. In a marvelous process involving a combination of genetic coding by which all the basic human characteristics of the unborn person are established, a new DNA complex is formed. A continuum of growth results in a new human being. Approximately 22 days after the two cells have united, a little heart begins to beat. At 26 days the circulation of blood begins" (Nelson, Russell M., Abortion: An Assault on the Defenseless, October 2008 Ensign).
The most prominent religious organization of today that has the most supporters of abortion rights is Judaism. In an article entitled, "Jewish Law Favors Stem Cell Research" printed in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, July 30, 2004, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, a professor of Jewish Law at Loyola Law School declared, "The idea that we have no right tinkering with God's work is fundamentally anti-Jewish." The rabbi's of the Talmud teach that a woman is not pregnant until the baby in her womb is more than forty days old (Shabbat 135b). In the same article of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, "Rabbi Elliot Dorff, rector and professor of philosophy at the University of Judaism, says that in Jewish tradition, embryos less than 40 days old are considered as 'mere water.'
In Judaism a nefesh is the fundamental vitality animating all sentient life. It is the lowest part of the triad structure of the human soul (The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism, pg. 184). The twelfth century Rabbi Rashi in speaking of the unborn child in the mother's womb declared, "lav nefesh hu - it is not a person." Rabbi Meir Abulafia taught concerning the nefesh, "So long as the fetus is inside the womb, it is not a nefesh, and the Torah has no pity on it." The Judaic Legal Scholar Rabbi Isaac Schorr taught, "The sense of the Talmud is that a fetus is not a person" (Responsa Koah Schorr, no. 20). The Chief Rabbi of the Israeli state in 1964 taught this concerning the unborn child in the mother's womb. "The fetus before birth need not be protected and his status renders abortion not murder" (Noam, v. 6, pgs. 6-7, Shevet Miy'hudah). The 1939 Chief Rabbi of the Israeli state, Rabbi Uziel taught, "It is clear that abortion is not permitted without reason. That would be destructive and frustrative of the possibility of life. But for a reason, even if it is a slim reason (ta'am kalush) then we have precedent and authority to permit it."
RaSHI is a bible and Talmud commentator. RaSHI is an acronym for Rabbi SHimon ben Yitzchak. His teaching is, that the unborn child is not a human person and does not have a soul (nefesh). Daniel Schiff using the authority of RaSHI taught, "According to Rashi, then, the mother's priority was not to be perceived as some arbitrary determination, but stemmed from a subservience of the fetus which could be understood logically: lacking nefesh status, it was subject to being killed in the name of the predominant need of a full nefesh" (Daniel Schiff, Abortion in Judaism, Cambridge, 2002, pg. 59).
With such a philosophy created by the rabbi's that is then wrapped in theological sanction, one can easily see the philosophy behind the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade decided in January 1973 that gives a mother legal sanction to kill her child developing in her womb before it is born.
God revealed to Moses that, "the life of the flesh is in the blood" (Lev. 17:11). The shedding of blood is the taking away of life. The taking away of life is killing. Also, in Jeremiah the Lord tells us that, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations" (Jer. 1:5). These statements agree with father Abraham, who taught that the Lord had shown unto him the intelligences that were before the world was (Abr. 3:22). These souls existed prior to their animating the cells in their mother's womb. The only way in which our spirits can enter into this world is through this process. Abortion is a direct attack against God and His system in peopling our world.
To sum up the teaching of Judaism here's a quote from Judy Rabinowitz published in the Jewish Voice, "In Jewish law, an unborn fetus is not considered a person, a nefesh or a soul until it has been born. Religious zealots who have coined the term pro-life are really pro-fetus. Their strategy is to band any type of late term abortion by claiming that it constitutes murder."
The leadership of the Church has printed this statement concerning abortion. "In today's society, abortion has become a common practice, defended by deceptive arguments. If you face questions about this matter, you can be secure in following the revealed will of the Lord. Latter-day prophets have denounced abortion, referring to the Lord's declaration, "Thou shalt not...kill, nor do anything like unto it" (D&C 59:6). Their counsel on the matter is clear: Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must not submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for an abortion. If you encourage an abortion in any way, you may be subject to Church discipline" (True to the Faith, pg. 4).
The rabbinic teaching on abortion as found within Judaism is false doctrine and does not come from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
In bringing forth and building up the kingdom of God upon the earth. The laws and commands of God must be declared and taught. Then the people will be able to discern for themselves what is true and what is false. It is the false belief systems of the day that are used to hinder and weaken the plan of happiness of their Creator. They frustrate the building up of the kingdom of God upon the earth and hinder the establishment of Zion.
One way in which they frustrate the plan of happiness of God, is by introducing abortion as a viable alternative for contraception. Abortion not only frustrates the plan of God in peopling the earth that he has created for his offspring, but it kills a fellow being that has as much right to live as the abortionist does. The appalling matter is that abortion is wrapped within religious dogma as something that is sanctioned by God and that the mother has full religious sanction to kill their developing child without divine retribution or accountability.
The Lord has taught plainly within the revelations and translations of the Restoration the true nature of the spirit of man and his relation to the tabernacle or physical body in which he is clothed. The spirit gives the physical body animation. In fact without the spirit there is no life.
Elder Orson Pratt has taught, "The spirits of fish, birds, beasts, insects, and of man, are in the image and likeness of their natural bodies of flesh and bones, and of the same magnitude, filling every part of the same. It is this spiritual substance, and not the body, that sees, hears, tastes, smells, feels, thinks, enjoys, suffers, and manifests every other affection or passion characteristic of the animal creation" (Pratt, The Seer, pg. 33).
Without the spirit, the body has no reckoning or is incapable of experiencing hearing, tasting, smelling, seeing, etc. It takes the intelligence of the spirit of the man to process these sensations into any meaningful experience. Similarly the physical or material cellular structure that makes up the physical existence of man decays and withers as the spirit of that man withdraws from its physical creation and biological construct or organization. This is called physical death of the biological makeup of that organism.
Elder Orson Pratt states it this way, when the spirit "withdraws, the natural one decays and returns to its original elements; but its spirit, being a living substance, remains in its organized form, capable of happiness in its own sphere, and will again inhabit a celestial tabernacle when all things are made new" (Pratt, The Seer, pg. 33).
So it is with abortion. The spirit of that child of God gives life and animation to the cellular structures being formed in its mother. When that cellular structure and growth is maimed and ruined by an abortionist, the spirit of that child of God withdraws from that physical creation and the cells and physical form withers and dies.
Elder Russell M. Nelson has stated it this way, "Nearly all legislation pertaining to abortion considers the duration of gestation. The human mind has presumed to determine when 'meaningful life' begins. In the course of my studies as a medical doctor, I learned that a new life begins when two special cells unite to become one cell, bringing together 23 chromosomes from the father and 23 from the mother. These chromosomes contain thousand of genes. In a marvelous process involving a combination of genetic coding by which all the basic human characteristics of the unborn person are established, a new DNA complex is formed. A continuum of growth results in a new human being. Approximately 22 days after the two cells have united, a little heart begins to beat. At 26 days the circulation of blood begins" (Nelson, Russell M., Abortion: An Assault on the Defenseless, October 2008 Ensign).
The most prominent religious organization of today that has the most supporters of abortion rights is Judaism. In an article entitled, "Jewish Law Favors Stem Cell Research" printed in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, July 30, 2004, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, a professor of Jewish Law at Loyola Law School declared, "The idea that we have no right tinkering with God's work is fundamentally anti-Jewish." The rabbi's of the Talmud teach that a woman is not pregnant until the baby in her womb is more than forty days old (Shabbat 135b). In the same article of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, "Rabbi Elliot Dorff, rector and professor of philosophy at the University of Judaism, says that in Jewish tradition, embryos less than 40 days old are considered as 'mere water.'
In Judaism a nefesh is the fundamental vitality animating all sentient life. It is the lowest part of the triad structure of the human soul (The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism, pg. 184). The twelfth century Rabbi Rashi in speaking of the unborn child in the mother's womb declared, "lav nefesh hu - it is not a person." Rabbi Meir Abulafia taught concerning the nefesh, "So long as the fetus is inside the womb, it is not a nefesh, and the Torah has no pity on it." The Judaic Legal Scholar Rabbi Isaac Schorr taught, "The sense of the Talmud is that a fetus is not a person" (Responsa Koah Schorr, no. 20). The Chief Rabbi of the Israeli state in 1964 taught this concerning the unborn child in the mother's womb. "The fetus before birth need not be protected and his status renders abortion not murder" (Noam, v. 6, pgs. 6-7, Shevet Miy'hudah). The 1939 Chief Rabbi of the Israeli state, Rabbi Uziel taught, "It is clear that abortion is not permitted without reason. That would be destructive and frustrative of the possibility of life. But for a reason, even if it is a slim reason (ta'am kalush) then we have precedent and authority to permit it."
RaSHI is a bible and Talmud commentator. RaSHI is an acronym for Rabbi SHimon ben Yitzchak. His teaching is, that the unborn child is not a human person and does not have a soul (nefesh). Daniel Schiff using the authority of RaSHI taught, "According to Rashi, then, the mother's priority was not to be perceived as some arbitrary determination, but stemmed from a subservience of the fetus which could be understood logically: lacking nefesh status, it was subject to being killed in the name of the predominant need of a full nefesh" (Daniel Schiff, Abortion in Judaism, Cambridge, 2002, pg. 59).
With such a philosophy created by the rabbi's that is then wrapped in theological sanction, one can easily see the philosophy behind the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade decided in January 1973 that gives a mother legal sanction to kill her child developing in her womb before it is born.
God revealed to Moses that, "the life of the flesh is in the blood" (Lev. 17:11). The shedding of blood is the taking away of life. The taking away of life is killing. Also, in Jeremiah the Lord tells us that, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations" (Jer. 1:5). These statements agree with father Abraham, who taught that the Lord had shown unto him the intelligences that were before the world was (Abr. 3:22). These souls existed prior to their animating the cells in their mother's womb. The only way in which our spirits can enter into this world is through this process. Abortion is a direct attack against God and His system in peopling our world.
To sum up the teaching of Judaism here's a quote from Judy Rabinowitz published in the Jewish Voice, "In Jewish law, an unborn fetus is not considered a person, a nefesh or a soul until it has been born. Religious zealots who have coined the term pro-life are really pro-fetus. Their strategy is to band any type of late term abortion by claiming that it constitutes murder."
The leadership of the Church has printed this statement concerning abortion. "In today's society, abortion has become a common practice, defended by deceptive arguments. If you face questions about this matter, you can be secure in following the revealed will of the Lord. Latter-day prophets have denounced abortion, referring to the Lord's declaration, "Thou shalt not...kill, nor do anything like unto it" (D&C 59:6). Their counsel on the matter is clear: Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must not submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for an abortion. If you encourage an abortion in any way, you may be subject to Church discipline" (True to the Faith, pg. 4).
The rabbinic teaching on abortion as found within Judaism is false doctrine and does not come from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.