Would there be some ugliness? Sure. Don’t count on Mississippi to reach a reasonable balancing point. But it would be better than the ugliness that infects so much of our law and politics today.

In one case in the ‘nacle, maybe 7 years or so ago, that turned out to be true, the guy who went off the rails in his fanaticism eventually stopped believing. I assume it was because the church eventually didn’t live up to his extreme positions.

It’s one thing to be stubborn and strict in applying the commandments. But I agree with you about JB going off the rails.

But, I don’t think its right for me (or anyone)to impose my beliefs on others when it comes to these very personal matters. And there are so many very specific circumstances that cannot be left up to the government to decide.

Please do me the favor of reading my last comment. I think you will find I have already answered your question.

http://news.yahoo.com/study-free-birth-control-leads-fewer-abortions-210623724.html

Pretty basic study with obvious results. If you want to drastically reduce abortions, here’s how you do it. Or you can just sit on your bum and hope the Supreme Court eventually overturns Roe v. Wade. But how many years–and innocent unborn children–are going to pass away before that happens?

I wouldn’t be surprised if “Obamacare,” which provides for free birth control in many cases, does more to reduce abortions than decades of fighting against Roe v. Wade has ever done.

There are two qualifiers there: “Without full understanding” and “So far as is known”. My position that some abortions, i.e., with full understanding, are murder is not in the least inconsistent with Church teachings.

Sorry, I meant to address this earlier. It is not misleading to clip the quote in the way that I did because the part I left out is not relevant to the discussion. Jettboy said abortion was murder. An apostle said otherwise. That is the relevant portion of the quote. The part I left out does not change that meaning.

You are now trying to say that the words “without full understanding” completely undercut the later statement that the Lord does not regard this sin as murder. That would be a tortured reading of the statement. It’s more reasonable to believe that Elder Nelson was just making an observation, that those who commit sin, especially this one, do so “without full understanding.” After all, who has full understanding? Can you judge anyone as having full understanding? If so, who do you think fits that category?

You didn’t make any argument that “So far as is known” changes the meaning of the statement. That’s good because if an apostle says “so far as is known” he’s giving the best knowlege we have about the mind and will of the Lord.

“please tell me if there are any cases where abortion is morally right – in your view. If there are any, please explain why.”

I don’t know if I’m in a position to say that abortion is ever “morally right” in the sense that it would be “morally wrong” not to have one. To me, the two relevant standards are whether I would be morally OK with doing it myself, and whether I would be morally OK with permitting others to do it. I would be OK with terminating a pregnancy within the first few weeks if it posed a serious risk to my wife’s life. Of course every pregnancy does pose some risk, and I’m not talking about that. I mean a substantial risk that my wife could die or put in a permanently disabled state by the birth. For the same risks, late in pregnancy I would leave the decision entirely in my wife’s (or any other woman’s) hands. I would only note that all of us (I hope) would jump in front of a bus to save our own newborn baby, and I would be surprised if my wife felt much different about saving a nearly-born baby. Of course these are on a sliding scale with regard to the level of risk and the baby’s own likelihood of survival, but absent risk to the mother’s life or catastrophic physical disability, I cannot see the justification.

As for rape and incest, I believe that the insult to human nature brought about by such pregnancies warrants allowing women to abort in the early weeks of pregnancy. I am not sure how I would myself act in that situation.

By the time the baby is in the last half of the gestation period, I am certain that I would not favor abortion in our family’s case. I am less certain that it should be illegal. But we don’t allow people to kill newborn babies because they are the product of rape or incest, and a baby after 25 weeks or so has a lot more in common with a newborn baby than it does with a week-old fetus. So I would probably prohibit late-term abortions for rape or incest, possibly with the exception that the mother only found out about the baby’s origin at that stage.

“Also, please make an argument for contraception being morally right in any particular case.”

Why? I have no problem with contraception. Contraception is not infanticide. I disagree with those who decline the commandment to go forth and multiply, but that has nothing to do with killing babies.