BYU pauper babies

[wired]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/06/22/raleig ... ?hpt=hp_t2

Timely.

[Marduk]

Wired, I heard that same story on NPR and was going to mention it, but didn't want this thread to get too far off topic. But now that you pointed it out, I can too!

[Dragon Lady]

That is… so sad.

[Whistler]

Oh my gosh. That's terrible. Like, what the heck?

[Digit]

That's very bad. Everyone starts out naked and penniless if you don't count caul and inheritances.

[wired]

Sorry Marduk. I have done a pretty fair job of derailing this thread.

You might understand my suspicion of how this affected the Church's stance on birth control. General Utah fear of federal involvement in the early 1900s mixed with talk of eugenics and I think that had to at least influenced church leaders opinion on the matter.

[mic0]

Oh yeah, I heard that yesterday on the radio, too, and then proceeded to read a ton about eugenics in the U.S. It's sad stuff.

[Digit]

I think there is broad consensus that it's wrong of the government to make a wholesale decision that one person should not pass down their genes. I wonder (and maybe this is too much of a tangent off of the original thread) what currently happens and what some of you think ought to happen if a blood test preceding the issuance of a marriage license indicated that both people had something like Tay-Sachs disease. Unless I'm wrong, that would be pretty much a guarantee that any children produced by them would experience "a relentless deterioration of mental and physical abilities that commences around six months of age and usually results in death by the age of four." Would knowingly doing that to a human be criminal?

[mic0]

Digit, that kinds of situation makes me glad I'm not the one calling the shots! If it was me, I'd probably just choose to adopt instead, but then I'm not a parent. Anyway, I think in that sort of situation it is still up to the parents, but they should definitely get as much information as they can. It's a tough one.

[Cindy]

Well, not quite. To quote from the linked Wikipedia article:

TSD is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder, meaning that when both parents are carriers, there is a 25% risk of giving birth to an affected child.

So, it's not a guarantee that the child of two carriers will have the disorder -- rather, there's a 25% chance that a child won't carry the recessive allele, a 50% chance that the child will be a carrier, and a 25% chance that the child will have the disorder.

It's my understanding that they'll sometimes do in vitro fertilization, where they first test the zygote and only implant zygotes that won't have the disorder. Alternatively, I think sometimes people do testing by amniocentesis and then abort the fetus if it will express the disorder. That, of course, carries its own ethical dilemmas.

[Defy V]

Back to the Church and birth control, I think the Church may have opposed birth control in the 60s-80s not so much because of eugenics anymore but because of how overpopulation was becoming a scare in a lot of people's minds. (You remember that wonderful song "Zero Population" on Saturday's Warrior, right?) It was not culturally acceptable to have a lot of children, and Church leaders wanted to make sure that members were still paying heed to the commandment to "multiply and replenish." At least, that's my guess.

Another reason the church may have opposed birth control (or at least the pill) was that the pill was in its early stages and wasn't as safe as it was now. Like, they were putting way more hormones into it than actually was necessary (I heard the numbers once but can't remember them here). I remember flipping through a book by Mark E. Petersen at my husband's parents' house where it said that birth control was. My first reaction was, "No it's not!" but then I realized the book was 40-50 years old so it may well have been back then.

But nowadays . . . well, there are a whole lot of people in my student ward (like 80%, myself included) who could have had babies by now but haven't, and I don't think any of us feel pressure from our bishopric or stake presidency or even the prophet to have babies before we're ready.

[Dragon Lady]

Ok, I finally got around to finding my quotes. I'll try to limit my list to those that specifically talk about not curtailing the birth of children instead of the general, "Multiply and replenish" quotes. And I'll put a star next to the ones that say, "The mother's health and strength should be conserved…" or something like unto it.

*First Presidency—David O. McKay, Hugh B. Brown, N. Eldon Tanner; 1969
*David O. McKay in Gospel Ideals, 469. Not sure of year.
Joseph Fielding Smith in Doctrines of Salvation, 2:86-87. Not sure of year.
Spencer W. Kimball; June 1975 x2 and also in Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, 328-29
Ezra Taft Benson, 1969


And for good measure, those that say that the Church does not determine the number, etc.
Gordon B. Hinckley, 1983

The book I'm pulling these out of was published in 2001, so anything after that I don't have. But it does appear that the number of, "birth control is evil" quotes definitely have diminished with time. (Yes, one of those quotes actually says, in italics, "Birth Control is Wickedness")

[wired]

I'd like to see the Gordon B. Hinckley quote. And I'd love to know what number he throws out.

EDIT: And I should, as I usualy do, denote the difference between an individual speaking in context, and the Church institutionally speaking. President Hinckley, even as a member of the First Presidency, doesn't rally set Church policy.

[wired]

By the way, here's an academic piece on the focus against birth control through the 20th century. (http://dialoguejournal.metapress.com/ap ... 1:113395,1). I'd contend that since the 1970s pronouncement, the Church has really backed away form birth control and has instead focused on "having children." It's incredibly clear most Church leaders and the Church institutionally have a different policy view of the role of sex in marriage. Accompanying that, I think that very few look at birth control as a negative any more. Simply the wrong implementation of birth control.

It's also interesting to note that the author quotes early church materials that implicitly recommend between 8 and 10 children. That's why I'm so interested to know what President Hinckley's view was. Either way, I think personal opinions on it really don't hold a great amount of weight. I always try to do the consensus test from any group of the Quourm of the Twelve at any instance - I can think of a few apostles who don't have any more than 3 children. Now, I don't mean that to say that they're wrong or if they do it everyone else should do it. I just use it as a, "If there's enough deviations, I'm relatively sure it's policy or opinion, not doctrine."

[Dragon Lady]

"I am offended by the sophistry that the only lot of the Latter-day Saint woman is to be barefoot and pregnant. It's a clever phrase, but it's false. Of course we believe in children. The Lord has told us to multiply and replenish the earth that we might have joy in our posterity, and there is no greater joy than the joy that comes of happy children in good families. But he did not designate the number, nor has the Church. That is a sacred matter left to the couple and the Lord. The official statement of the Church includes this language: 'Husbands must be considerate of their wives, who have the greater responsibility not only of bearing children but of caring for them through childhood, and should help them conserve their health and strength. married couples should exercise self-control in all of their relationships. They should seek inspiration from the Lord in meeting their marital challenges and rearing their children according to the teachings of the gospel') General Handbook of Instructions [1983], p. 77)" (Cornerstones of a Happy Home, 6).

Ok, so his quote wasn't from 1983. The official church statement was. My bad.

[wired]

Oh I see. I misunderstood your comments in your previous post.

Thanks! That puts us closer to the 1968 Church handbook which was silent on the matter. It may be that no CHI has ever actually directly condemned birth control.