Copyright © 1999
Dear Annette,
A friend on mine was forced to have an abortion. She and her husband are very distraught over this decision, even though both the Bishop and the Stake President were involved with the decision. Her baby was not whole and the chances of a full term pregnancy put her life in danger. Had the baby died in the womb she could have died from toxic poisoning. She and her husband are heart broken. I need some kind words to help this couple work through this decision.
Dear Sister,
The death of a child whether it came to full term or not pains the soul. The couple is dealing with death. Death of their hopes and dreams and the death of their baby.
Some couples feel that they are less than they should be physically, because they produced a baby with defects. Others feel that they must have done something wrong physically or that God is punishing them for some misdeed. None of these ideas are true.
When one stops to think of the things that can go wrong with the forming of a child, it is truly a miracle that any of us come out right. Things can get messed up. Deformities often happen. This does not that the father is less than a man or that the mother is not a true women. Deformities do not signal the lack of one's worthiness to belong to one's sex or that the one or both of the parents are on God's Hit List. They are just nature's mistakes. No one is to blame.
Even if deformity is prevalent in a family genes, a person cannot change the type of genes that were arbitrarily given them. To except guilt for something that one has no ability to change, is irrational and wrongful thinking.
Many people who have lost a child before it was born find that they cannot share their grief with others, because to many people the fetus was not a real person, but instead a collection of cells. So the couple suffer in silence. This causes the grief to intensify instead of dissipating as it should when the couple are allowed to get their feeling out.
Even the church will not acknowledge the child on the church records unless the child took a breath in this world on his/her own. This does not mean that the child was not alive. Nor does it mean that the child is not part of the eternal family of worthy parents who have been sealed in the temple.
Let's examine what that means medically. A person is considered dead when their brain is not able to produce active brain waves. If this is the definition of dead, then the opposite of this must be the definition of alive. We know that the brain is operating and has a brain wave when the developing child/fetus is able to manipulate his/her body. We are not sure when the brain is functioning in a fetus, but we do know that at fourteen weeks there is spontaneous movement. By eighteen weeks the fetus is able to blink grasp and move its mouth. At twenty-six weeks the child inhales, exhales, and cries.
We know that the spirit gives the body movement. We also know that when the spirit leaves the body the body is dead. Therefore, active movements by the child signals that the spirit is already present and the child is alive.
Some people believe, due to personal revelation, that the spirit actually enters the child's forming body at the moment of conception. This information is available to anyone who has a need to know. Families that have experienced abortion, stillborn births, or miscarriages need to know whether these children are part of their eternal families. The Lord will provide that information when the right steps are complied with.
Meanwhile, life goes on for the family who has suffered loss. What quality that life will take on is dependent on how well death and the steps of grief is understood and dealt with.
I have personally suffered the miscarriage of a daughter. I know that my daughter's forming body housed her spirit even at the tender age of twelve and a half weeks gestation. She came to earth and gained a body. It did not matter how incomplete it was. I know she was alive and that she returned home to God and the Celestial Kingdom. I know that if I live worthy, she will be part of my eternal family. I look forward to the day that I can be with my child throughout the eternity's to come.
I am so glad that we have the right to personal revelation for our families. Not only for our family we are parenting, but with our family of origin, to help get them back to the Celestial Kingdom, and with our ancestors in doing their genealogy and temple work.
Perhaps, the Lord in his wisdom, has not cleared up this the disparity in church's stand and what we know to be true because He is challenging us to come to Him and learn the truth for ourselves instead of spoon feeding us all the answers. In this way we gain a testimony that God exists and answers our prayers.
I leave you my personal testimony that the Lord does answer prayers through personal revelation. That He can remove the pain of the death and help us to become the people we need to be to have our families with us forever.