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Dear Gramps,
My daughter has a friend who has asked some very pointed questions about abortion that we have tried to help her with. She feels that abortion is justified because she wishes that her mother had aborted her instead of raising her in a dysfunctional and abusive home. We have tried to explain the church’s position and about our Heavenly Father’s plan and the sanctity of life. The only argument that she has is that she claims that once a fetus is aborted the spirit of that fetus then has another opportunity to get yet another body and come to earth again in other circumstances. What can we tell her about this falsehood. Where in scripture does it explain that this notion is in opposition with Heavenly Father’s Plan. How can we help this dear girl understand that she is a precious daughter of God and that she has a wonderful gift of her own life? Do Babies that are lost in utero either to miscarriage or abortion return to the spirit world and wait there for their families.
Rosanne, from Goshen, Kentucky

Dear Rosanne,
How interesting it is that we so often take into our own hands and attempt to rule on sacred subjects that are exclusively in the realm of decision of God the Father and his Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Together, as one, they rule the universe. They have created and control worlds without number. Enoch gave expression to that thought on one occasion in these words—

And were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, yea, millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations; and thy curtains are stretched out still; and yet thou art there, and thy bosom is there; and also thou art just; thou art merciful and kind forever (Moses 7:30).

Many of these earths are peopled with our Father’s children, and He knows them all, without exception, to include the very thoughts of our minds and feelings of our hearts. It is He who calls his spirit children into mortality, designating the time and place of their birth and the families to whom they are to belong. If any person were to take it upon himself to prevent a spirit child of God from entering into mortality, or to terminate one’s mortal experience–abortion and murder–he would be guilty of the grossest crimes that could be committed against our Father’s children, and would be liable to the greatest punishment that God has reserved for those who so blatantly violate his sacred commandments.
The fact that your daughter’s friend was born into a dysfunctional family does not mean that God made a mistake. It means that your daughter’s friend was sent to that particular home by God for a specific reason known only to Him. Each person has a sacred obligation to improve his or her own circumstances where possible and to provide a kind, loving, non-judgmental and forgiving interface with others with whom she or he is called to associate. How much good in changing the lives of others that this person could do by reflecting to her close associates love and kindness instead of accusatory bitterness will never be known, but to slink away from the field of battle, and to blame God and others that one did not have a mortal life free from all such trials and tribulations is an inexcusable cop-out from mortality. Henry Drummond said on one occasion,

“How many prodigals are kept out of the kingdom of God by the unlovely characters of those who profess to be inside!”

Let us learn to be God’s ally, not his enemy.
Gramps

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