Abortion

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here with the Wayfaring Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I am doing great, Jim. How are you?

I'm doing all right. You're still in your travels on the other side of the world. I am.

I'm having a fantastic time here in England, catching up with old friends, college friends, high school friends, um, old church friends. And I've even been to church last Sunday. That was interesting. Oh, so I'm having a great time. And tomorrow I go to Scotland. I go to Edinburgh.

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

We were hoping you would go track down the mission president and take a look at the mission home before it's gone.

I would like to do that. Uh, so yeah, I'll be at the mission home in the next couple days, so I'll take some photographs.

Very, very nice. Well, um, I, I've asked to talk about a topic that I think is, is a little heavier than a lot of the topics we talk about, but it's very timely given what's happening here both in the presidential election, but also here in the state of Utah. And the topic is the subject of abortion, which is an explosive topic no matter where you discuss it. But in the church particularly, there are so many misunderstandings about abortion within the church and what the church's position is on abortion. That I wanted to dive into it. And the catalyst for this discussion was a decision by the Utah Supreme Court to continue to put on hold one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. So when Roe v. Wade was overturned, Utah had what they called a trigger law. There was a law on the books that was triggered to go into effect the moment Roe was overturned, and it's a law that bans abortion in pretty much all cases. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. The only exceptions are for the life of the mother or if there is a fatal fetal abnormality, that is, if the fetus has some kind of something that is fatal, that it's not going to be able to survive past birth. Those are the only two exceptions to allow any abortions after 6 weeks. And 6 weeks is such a narrow window. Most women don't even know they're pregnant at 6 weeks. By the time you get past 6 weeks, they're still— by the time they would want to have an abortion, even earliest, they wouldn't necessarily know that they're pregnant in time. To meet with the trigger band. So the Utah Supreme Court, which is kind of feeling its oats at the moment, they also overturned the state legislature's rewriting of congressional boundaries because Utah had an initiative that wanted to create an independent redistricting commission. And the legislature took all these citizens' initiatives and just gutted them and says, well, thank you for the suggestion, but we're just going to do it our way. And the Utah Supreme Court said, no, you can't do that. So the conservatives in Utah are up in arms for a number of reasons. And the governor of Utah issued this very solemn statement that this was terrible, that the Utah Supreme Court had done this. Uh, but really the decision by the Utah Supreme Court was fairly narrow. It just said that the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah had legal standing. To bring a challenge to the trigger law. And the law has been on hold while the legal challenge is pending. And Utah said, no, no, let the law go into effect. And Planned Parenthood doesn't have any standing to attack this law. And the Utah Supreme Court said, no, they don't. And no, we won't put it into effect. And so off we go. And so the law, at least for now, is that abortion remains legal up to 18 weeks, uh, after pregnancy, which is a, a broad enough window that this isn't nearly as restrictive as some of the other laws that you find in the United States. But the reason why I think this is so, uh, important a subject to discuss, particularly in light of the church, is that This is the issue that drives most American members of the church into the arms of the Republican Party, that when you start talking to them about, okay, the Republicans are lost, the Republicans have become this cult of personality following after Donald Trump, the Republicans have abandoned almost all of the principles of Reagan, that were important to me and that were important to my father when he was serving as a Republican senator. The Republicans no longer believe in free markets and free trade. The Republicans are now pretty much on Russia's side when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. You know, just over and over again, you can walk through all of the things that the Republicans have changed their minds on and that they are no longer conservative on. And you can say all this to members of the church who will finally come back and say, well, but Republicans are the pro-life party. Republicans are against abortion. So I have to be a Republican in order to be consistent with the teachings of the church. Now, what's interesting about that, however, are several things. One, the church's position on abortion is far more liberal than most Republican Mormons realize. Far more liberal. The church, yes, absolutely rhetorically is very conservative on abortion. And when you hear abortion talked about in general conference, as we did last year from Elder Neil L. Anderson, it just, it sounds very, very conservative and very, very Republican because they just rail on the evils of abortion. And they don't talk about what the actual church policy is, which is that abortion may be justified in instances of rape or incest. The church does not require a woman to carry her rapist's baby to term. And, uh, that also severe fetal defects. So not just that, that, uh, the fetus won't survive birth, but the fetus may be severely deformed. They'll say that it's appropriate or it's allowable within church doctrine or church policy to have an abortion in those circumstances. And then most important, uh, to protect either the life or the health of the mother. And that last loophole, health of the mother, is exceptionally broad. So they're not just talking about an abortion that will just save the mother's life. It's an abortion that will preserve the mother's health. And that includes mental health. A woman doesn't feel like she can handle having another baby. She can say, well, I did this for my mental health. And the church, according to current policy, we'll make allowances for that. So, you know, I don't know. I have never been in a— and maybe you have, but I've never been in a disciplinary council where abortion has come up. And so I've never firsthand been involved in that. But the reality is the rhetoric of the church does not match the leniency of the actual policy. And this law in Utah goes beyond the church's policy. It goes— it does not have a rape or incest exception. And the kinds of trigger laws that have gone off throughout the United States are creating all kinds of problems for women's health. And the most visible one was in Texas just a few months ago. Where a woman was told that if she didn't have an abortion, that the baby wasn't likely to live and that she would likely be sterile. A abortion. And she ended up having to leave the state of Texas because the Texas Supreme Court wouldn't allow her as an exception to Texas's very restrictive abortion law. So you're seeing all of these kinds of things playing out on a national scale. And, and Utah is trying to participate in that in a way that goes afoul of the church's policy. One of the things people don't realize is that when you go to General Conference, you go to it live at the Conference Center and you're walking around outside the Conference Center, you see all of these street protesters and everybody has an opinion about it and everybody thinks, oh, they're really so annoying. And they think, okay, these are just really hardcore evangelical Christians that hate Mormon doctrine. But what they are are hardcore evangelical Christians who hate the church's position on abortion. The vast majority of them are abortion— anti-abortion activist protesters who insist that the church's position is far too lenient in allowing too much abortion. And I mean, we never talk about that. We never discuss that. But that's the reality. I've gotten— I've taken it upon myself to sort of personally talk to as many of these protesters as I can. I think it's kind of fun to talk to them. And I get there earlier than everybody else and I get there when they're setting up. And I've had some conversations with them while they're setting up. Well, I've been going into get ready for the choir, and they're much nicer when there isn't a crowd that they have to play to. But that's their big issue. Their big issue is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is just too liberal on the subject of abortion. And politically, you know, having been a Republican for most of my life and having been a pro-life Republican for most of my life, I can sort of understand the appeal of conservatives who say, okay, this is an issue where we can't compromise. This is an issue where this is a deal breaker. I have to vote for a candidate that's going to be pro-life. But one of the things that I've discovered, having stepped away from the Republican Party and just sort of looking at this issue with fresh eyes, because when you're in the trenches of partisan politics, it's very, very hard to even consider the possibility that your party could be wrong on anything. And so you don't really look at any of these issues with any kind of degree of critical thought. You just accept lock, stock and barrel, my party, right or wrong, and the devil take the hindmost. Anyway, stepping away from party and looking at abortion, what I've discovered is that— and what I ask people now when they tell me that they're against abortion, I say, okay, you're against abortion. So do you want to prevent abortion or do you want to make abortion illegal? Because they are two very different things. And in fact, in many cases, making abortion illegal does not prevent abortion and can have the unintended consequence of increasing abortion. And the data on that is very convincing. I, I, I, I'm referring essentially to what's come to be known as the Mexico City Policy or the Global Gag Rule. It, it's a policy that is instituted by every Republican president since Reagan and is reversed by every Democratic president since Clinton. When Republicans get in office, they put this policy into place. The Democrats get in office, they reverse it. What is it? Well, it's a policy that blocked United States federal funding for non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling or referrals or do anything, even mention that abortion is an option. So these are, these are groups that receive federal funding and they deal with people in developing nations. And the gag rule is that they're not even allowed to mention abortion as an option. So if somebody goes to one of these organizations and they're in need and they want to— they need help, these organizations can't provide them abortions and these organizations can't even mention abortion as a possibility. Well, what happens then is that these groups don't get federal funding and they don't have resources, not just for abortion, but also they don't have resources for contraception. They don't have resources for education. And when people get unwanted pregnancies, they end up getting more unwanted pregnancies when they don't have easy access to education and contraception. And essentially The— what happens whenever this policy has been in place, there has been a long-running study to determine what the effect is, and the effect is that abortion rates rise by a staggering 40% every time this rule is in place in every area where it is in place. So all of these pro-life Republicans who are patting themselves on the back because they made abortion illegal and they put this gag rule on international organizations that provide help, they're increasing abortion. There is more abortion as a result of what they have done. Now, in the United States, abortion rates have fallen precipitously since Roe v. Wade, to the point where the abortion rate is lower now than it was in 1972 when Roe v. Wade was enacted. Abortion has plummeted through the decades. It's even reached a point where there are fewer abortions in the United States numerically, not just relative to the population, but there are fewer abortions numerically now than there were in 1972, despite the fact that there are so many more people in the United States. And what this has taught me is that The way to prevent abortion is not to make abortion illegal. It's to make abortion unnecessary. Nobody is championing abortion if abortion isn't necessary. If I can't imagine anybody being sad to see abortion go away, if nobody needs one, you know, if there is no rape, if there is no incest, if there is no threat to the health or the life of the mother, and nobody gets an abortion, I don't think anybody is going to be upset. So, so it's education and contraception that make abortion unnecessary. And it's Republicans and conservatives and Latter-day Saints who get involved in the political, in the political process, who decide that the most important thing is making abortion illegal. And they don't pay any attention to the unintended consequences. And they're out of step with the policy of the church because the church is saying, okay, well, I mean, the church takes a very strong rhetorical stance against abortion but allows for these possible— these exceptions. If abortion is not safe and legal, then the people who need to exercise these exceptions in church policy won't be able to do it. In the state of Utah, if this trigger law goes into effect, somebody who wants to follow the church's policy in a terrible circumstance of rape won't be able to. The, the law of the land is far more restrictive than the law of God. The law of the church. So this is, I think, something that we, we just— I, I think part of this is what's driving the Brethren's comments about politics of late. The Brethren have made two very, uh, significant statements in recent months about American politics, one being you shouldn't just vote for a straight party ticket. It used to be that you could go into a ballot booth in Utah and press a button and you didn't even have to look at the candidates. You could just vote straight party. I'm going to vote for Republicans. So I press this one button and all the Republicans are selected. And thankfully, the legislature has done away with that option. But the church has said voting just straight party and not looking at the candidates as individuals They even said that's Satan's plan, which I thought was interesting. And President Oaks has said explicitly in another statement that parties do not fully reflect gospel values on either side, and it is never appropriate to say that one person can't vote for somebody just because of their party. And That, that, uh, I took that as to heart to say, okay, he's telling, he's giving you license not to vote for Donald Trump, guys. You don't have to vote for Trump just because he's a Republican. But, but, uh, you know, people in the Republican parties don't necessarily see it that way. And if you go online, you still see just this huge bias towards the Conservative Party. And it's, it's just very frustrating. So anyway, that's the opening rant on this. I don't know how much of that you were aware of or what this does to you, but we've talked a little bit offline about abortion and your position on abortion. Has it changed or evolved since you've left the church, or was that happening while you were in the church? Or what is your position?

Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, when you and I are planning these podcasts, it— the, the topics are easy. We have an endless list of topics, um, doctrine, policy, history. People come on, share their stories and their experiences, etc.

It—

I, I find it very easy to come up with many, many topics generating the ideas and easy to talk about them. We not, we don't know everything about the topic. Some topics we know more than others, but the one that I've not been so forthcoming to talk about because of not fully understanding it completely and thinking I understand it and then I don't, you know, partly lack of education on my part. And it's the topic that we're discussing now, which is your idea to talk about, which I think is incredibly, uh, brave, uh, on your part, Jim Bennett. And, and that's the subject of abortion. I mean, you know, here we are, two guys talking about abortion. Uh, there are people out there that, uh, I'm sure think that men shouldn't have an opinion on abortion. Others will disagree. Um, You know, who's supposed to have an opinion? Who can or can't have an opinion on this? Does society have an opinion or should have an opinion or a position on this? And who's got the right to speak up or not? And this is— it's a very emotive topic, and the debate continues, and laws have been changed and have changed across the US. And, um, and, and the world looks to the US. Other countries are more established in terms of the abortion rights. There's so many layers to this, and it's such a very, I say, emotive topic. You know, we have the Roe v. Wade case, of course, I think it was 1973, and that was overturned. There's other factors that come into this, different layers, like historical attitudes to abortion. They've changed, you know, reasons for having an abortion. That is another important part of the conversation. A father's rights. Does the father have a right to have an opinion or a position or an influence on abortion? What about privacy? What about the constitutional arguments? There's other very strong views on methods of abortion, selective abortion. If you look at the Church's written position, which is on— in the newsroom there, it's seemingly has a fairly clear position. I'll read it here. He said, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes in the sanctity of human life. And I do. That's been my position on abortion. And I, I believe in the sanctity of human life. And when I'm, when I read that, I'm thinking of the mother's life as well as the child's life, and not just the child's. I, I, I, when I read that, I wonder if the church is just referring to the child., but I don't see it just as the child, it's the mother's life as well. Therefore, the Church continues, therefore the Church opposes elective abortion for personal or social convenience and counsels its members not to submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange such abortions. You asked me earlier if I'd been aware of any incidents where I've been involved in, maybe church cases or rulings or judgments, situations with people who have aborted a fetus or a child. And I have indirectly and directly— I would say that the church at the First Presidency level, or on its global position, a US position, is much more, uh, in the middle, trying to walk a fine line between the, the debate, you know, about the women's, mother's rights and the child's rights, and trying to walk a political fine line. It's in a very interesting, um, area for sure. But when you get involved in this, uh, these issues at the stake and ward level, I don't know if you're aware of this, the the church position becomes much harder, and that is actually against abortion. Not, not in extreme situations, but I'll give you an example where, uh, mothers have been encouraged to have the child and give the child up for adoption. And there are many, or at least some individuals over here, across the world, including the US, who the mother perhaps didn't want to have the child for different reasons, could have been health, emotional health. You mentioned emotional health, like, that's a major factor. But was, um, encouraged, perhaps even pressured, from what I've heard and seen, uh, the mother to have the child and then put the child up for adoption. And so I think the position of the church, it becomes much firmer and stronger and harder, I think, at the stake and the ward level compared to the You know, the, the, uh, the official church position globally. Uh, the church continues in its statement here. It said the church allows for possible exceptions for its members when pregnancy results from rape or incest, or a competent physician determines that the life or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy. Well, that makes sense to me. That seems, uh, logical. Uh, a competent physician determines that the fetus has severe defects. Interestingly, they don't use the word child there. I'm aware that in the past, I remember Neale Maxwell came to UK many years ago when he was alive, and he, I think, gave a talk on this. I think it was Neale Maxwell, it could have been Paul Litchfield. Going back into the early '80s here, and there was a conversation that I heard about that the child at the point of conception, at the point of conception, Um, that's when the fetus becomes a child, and there's a whole discussion on, you know, at what point does the fetus become a child. Here it says that the fetus has, you know, this fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth. So they're referring to the, the, the child as a fetus. I don't know if the church, Jim, has a position on when the fetus becomes a child. I don't know if you want to jump in on that.

Um, Well, I know that the church has sort of refused to answer that question officially. I think there have been people who have tried to answer that question for them sort of unofficially. So, I mean, it sounds like that's what Elder Maxwell and/or Elder Dunn was doing. But the church has very— the church does not treat treat abortion the same way it treats murder. So they've been very careful to insist that— I mean, if you go into the handbook, it talks about how murder is essentially an unforgivable sin, but abortion is not. And so the church has come under fire both from conservatives and from liberals by their unwillingness to sort of say, okay, this is the moment where life begins, but that allows them to have the kind of policy that allows for exceptions. Because, you know, if we believe that life begins at conception and that a zygote is essentially the same as a fully grown human being, then our exceptions for rape and incest particularly are untenable. That's saying, oh, well, you can commit murder if you've been raped. And so obviously we don't believe that that's committing murder because we think that it's more important that a woman's mental health is preserved by not being forced to carry the child of her rapist to term than we are about the fully human identity of the fetus or that's being aborted.

And that's interesting. And another aspect of that, and this is, um, part of the portion that I struggle to understand and certainly generates strong feeling in me, um, in looking at from a father's perspective at least, you know, what is the church's position on late-stage abortions where the child is developed, it is a baby and feels pain and has emotions and it's late stage. Let's define that. I don't know, it's maybe 7, 8 months. You know, children are born into this world, as we know, 6, 7, 8 months, you know, premature births, and they, many survive. And so what does the church, what's the church's view and position on late stage abortions. One is, do the Church still consider that the child's a fetus? Does it still maintain its position, you know, for late-stage abortions? I don't know if it does. I don't know if it has the position on that.

Well, I don't know that the Church gets into that only because even under Roe v. Wade, abortion was legal, or I'm sorry, banning abortion was legal after the second trimester. So Roe v. Wade was really kind of a convoluted, messy framework. I mean, I was in the weird position of thinking, okay, I think abortion should be safe and legal. Throughout the United States. And I also think Roe v. Wade is bad law because I don't think Roe v. Wade— the Supreme Court essentially took it upon themselves to define, uh, every aspect of pregnancy. They created the idea of trimesters, that a pregnancy is divided into 3 different trimesters, 3 different parts, and did all of this. And I thought, this is not the Supreme Court's purview to do this. I think this should be the legislature's purview to do this. The Congress should be doing this, and they should pass laws to make it legal in all 50 states. And that's— that makes more sense. So to me, that's now sort of an academic argument now that Roe v. Wade is overturned and we're seeing the result of it. But even under Roe v. Wade, uh, late-term abortions were banned in a number of different states. And what I found in— as I've looked at this issue again with fresh eyes, is that late-term abortion is exceptionally rare and it's seldom, if ever, done electively. That is, it's never done for, you know what, I've carried this baby for 7 months and now I've decided I don't want a baby and I want to look good in my dress again. And so I'm going to abort my 7, 8-month-old fetus. That, that just isn't something that happens. What happens is something tragic where the baby all of a sudden is shown to be— have developed some kind of life-threatening condition, or the mother's health is now threatened to the point where you have to make a decision between the baby and the mother. I mean, these are heart-wrenching, just terrible, terrible circumstances in which nobody wants to find themselves. And so going to outlaw late-term abortion because you're afraid that people are going to be aborting viable babies, It's to some degree, it's a solution looking for a problem and it's exacerbating a very real problem, which is that those who are seeking those kinds of late-term abortions desperately, desperately need them. And the legal landscape now is such that it's really some kind of a gray area and it's kind of difficult and it's made worse by the kind of Republican demagoguery we see on abortion. 'cause Donald Trump goes around and says, not only do Democrats want to allow you to abort an 8th or 9th, 8th or 9th month, they carry out abortions after the baby is born. They kill the baby after they're born if they don't want it. And that's absolute nonsense. That's called murder. Once a baby is born, they are fully protected by the laws of the land. You do not have authority to kill them, and doctors are not killing them. And so the demagoguery that you're hearing from the Republicans in the United States is just shameless and shameful. It's just awful that they think that, that anybody believes this or anybody can buy this. So the late-term abortion argument, there's a procedure that people refer to as partial birth abortion where, you know, the, the labor is induced. And then as the baby is coming down through the birth canal, they are, they are killed so that the baby is born dead. And that's a procedure that has been outlawed in a number of different states and that was allowed to be outlawed in even when Roe v. Wade was in effect. Roe v. Wade just said there can be no restrictions on abortion in the first trimester. There can be some restrictions in the second trimester, and after the second trimester, there can be as many restrictions as you want. So, so late-term abortion really isn't— the debate over it really isn't affected by, by this because it was already okay to make it illegal. Prior to the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Does that make any sense?

It does. It does make sense. I would add that notwithstanding that, from your sources, that there are very few late-term abortions. The fact was, has been historically, that an individual could, under the law at that time, perform a late-term abortion. If they wanted to. So the law, I understand, allowed that. And, you know, going back to your question about, you know, how do I feel, or what do I think of my position, and people have opinions and position on, on these, uh, on these things. The, the idea of a, uh, a baby being killed is abhorrent to me, uh, notwithstanding the other considerations of, of the mother. It, it's a very difficult, um, thing for me to get my head round. And, you know, this is a— this is, I think, first and foremost, and again, I don't claim to fully understand this, um, but I think first and foremost, this is a, uh, personal, private matter for the mother first. Um, I think the mother's opinion and position is absolutely paramount for these reasons and other reasons that we haven't— we haven't probably discussed. You've talked about health, mental health and physical health, and all these other factors. And I think if there was a, um, percentage of, of, uh, influence on whether the fetus or child should be aborted, I think it's the mother that makes the decision, the individual that makes the final decision at the end. That decision should reside with the mother, notwithstanding the strong feelings I have on late-term abortions, which again, we said earlier that individuals could do that when the law allowed that. If you go back to the quote here, or the position, the statement on the church, on the church, on its newsroom here, he says, he talked about a competent physician determines that the fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth. He goes on to say that even these exceptions do not automatically justify abortion. So it's pulling itself back and it's taking a firmer position. He goes on to say that abortion is a most serious matter. And I agree with that. But then he says something very interesting, quite strange. He said it should be considered only after the persons responsible have received confirmation through prayer. I find that extraordinary. We've talked about, um, we're aware, uh, of many people in our lives who prayed endlessly with faith and fasting and for weeks, months, years, and never received an answer. So is the church saying here that, um, you should only make a decision to have an abortion if you receive confirmation through prayer? And so what's the Lord's position on this? What does he think? Does the church reflect the Lord's position on this? Are they, is the prophet and Jesus Christ in sync or something like this? What I get from that is that you can't make a decision on having an abortion if you haven't received confirmation through prayer. And then it goes on to say something else, which I think is a big burden on bishops and stake presidents. Members may counsel with their bishops as a part of this process, but they don't give any training to the bishops. You know, when I've been involved in directly on things like this, there's no training given to me as a bishop. I wasn't involved in anything direct. It was through personal conversations with friends. It wasn't official, but bishops don't have any retraining on this. I mean, what a big responsibility to place on a bishop who perhaps, like me, didn't fully understand all the different factors, all the different considerations. And, you know, what advice are the bishop can give if they're not really trained on something like this? It says here, to finish off the position of the statement of the church on the newsroom there, it says the church's position on this matter remains unchanged. As states work to enact laws related to abortion, church members may appropriately choose to participate in efforts to protect life and preserve religious liberty. So he's taking a, you know, he's trying to take a line, a broad line in the center there. Um, and you know, there's so many factors, so many layers on this. You know, we've talked about, um, you know, the moral personhood, you know, consistency, responsibility of the mother, you know, the moral certainty. These are the factors. Your right to life, you know, the rights of the mother, rights of the unborn child, the rights of the father, the religious views on abortion. You know, when you're looking at the views of Christian faiths and including the Mormon Church as well and how that influences mothers. And of course, you've got philosophical and ethical issues and concerns as well from society. It's, it's— but I, you know, trying to make sense of it and trying to understand it. I think in my mind, it comes down to the mother should make the final choice. And taking all these things into account, and should receive or get access to— you made the really important point, really, but where the mother should have access to professional advice and counsel. You know, it's so important. This is such a, such an important, uh, uh, topic, um, where we're dealing with, you know, the life of the mother and the fetus or the child. And so the best thing I think that the different jurisdictions can do and the church can do, and I think they they do or try to do, many of them, is to what you said earlier, Jim, is help the mother get the best advice. You know, mental health, physical health, what's her condition, what does she think, how does she feel about this? I think you have to— the default is the mother, I think. And so what is her position, her feelings on this, and the mother receiving the very best counsel and advice. Because I met Jim Bennett, individuals who have come to me as a bishop. And this is where I was going with part of my experience area that I was referring to, at least part of where I've— sisters have come to me as a leader in the church. And they've shared their extraordinary guilt and sadness that years ago they had an abortion, and the guilt and the sadness and the heartbreak that they carry. And as they opened up their stories, shared their experiences, they shared that as the church teaches about the sanctity of life and abortion is only a last resort under certain circumstances, yet they went ahead and went through with the abortion. They carry this intense, extraordinary amount of guilt and pain, and they suffer emotionally, mentally, and it's traumatic. It traumatizes them. And I've even had individuals say, well, they see their to meet the child that they aborted in the next life so they can seek forgiveness, that they can say sorry and seek forgiveness and be reunited with the spirit of the aborted child. These are some of the conversations that I've actually been part of. And of course, I don't know the answer to that. I think that's where the Neal A. Maxwell thing came in because the information I got, um, back then, um, as a, a leader or part of the conversation at least, came from Maxwell that children who had been aborted, that their spirits would receive a physical body at some point in the future and that they would be resurrected. That's, uh, an abortion would not prevent the child from experiencing a physical body. And I'm pretty sure that came from Neal A. Maxwell going back many, many years. It's so layered, it's so— the emotions run so high, there's so many positions, so many views on this. And then to what you were saying earlier, you've got this landscape of changes across the United States where In some states, I understand, Jim Bennett, that you women can't have an abortion under any circumstances. I don't know if that's correct or if that's the media spinning it, but I understand there's some states out there that even if there's an— if the, if the woman has been raped or this is a case of incest, that they still have to go through with the pregnancy. Is that, is that correct, or is that That's, that, that's absolutely correct. That's extraordinary.

I mean, I think there are very narrow exceptions to save the life of the mother for almost all of these, these restrictive laws that have gone into effect. But I don't know any of them that allow for an exception in rape or incest. And, you know, I mean, the presidential campaign is really heating up on this issue. JD Vance, Trump's vice presidential nominee, has said that the rape and incest exceptions are ridiculous because you shouldn't be able to have an abortion to deal with that kind of an inconvenience, is the word that he used, which is, you know, an inconvenience. Give me a break, buddy. Show some humanity. And Kamala Harris is making abortion, I think, or the right, the right to choose, her preeminent issue. She's talking about that everywhere she goes and she's getting a really positive reaction. And the Republicans are sort of back on their heels on this because they don't know how to respond to it. Donald Trump lies and says, well, everybody wanted abortion to go back to the states. And so Roe v. Wade being overturned made everybody happy because everybody wanted it in the States. It's like, no, it didn't make everybody happy, Don. It's, it's so, so yeah, it's, it's, it's a very fraught issue. And but I think it is the issue that makes it impossible for members of the church to feel comfortable tearing themselves away from the Republican Party, no matter how abusive that relationship is, no matter how many things the Republican Party does that go contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ, that I think there are many. I think front and center is that the church's position on immigration is diametrically opposed to the position of the Republican Party. I think I've talked about this on this podcast, but I interviewed for a job with the church as the church's director of governmental relations. With a guy who said, look, we issued a statement as a church that was a very, you know, sort of liberal statement on immigration. And all these Republicans that same week went to their state convention and condemned the church's statement on immigration. And they all insisted, well, this didn't come from the Brethren. This didn't come from the prophet. I mean, this is what they always do when the church does something and it's not Russell Nelson standing there and saying it himself. They're always able to sort of scoot it under the rug and say the church doesn't really mean it. Or— and the director of government relations, Bill Evans, who's since passed away, so I don't feel bad about using his name, but he said it's amazing to me that they think that we could ever go rogue. You know, the church could ever issue a statement from its government relations department and just go rogue and go against anything that the apostles or prophets would want. He said everything we say goes up the ladder and is approved at the highest levels of church government. So, so, but the abortion issue is the one where people say you can't be a good member of the church and not be a Republican because all these other, uh, the Democrats, they, they just support abortion and they support abortion after birth. They support the killing of babies, which is absolute nonsense. But the reality is that you don't prevent abortion By making it illegal, you get people to cross state lines. It's interesting because I think the numbers, the rate of abortion has gone down since all of these, all of these laws have gone into effect. But I think it's temporary because I think what's happening is that you're starting to see people trying to figure out how to navigate this landscape. And if I wanted abortion and I live in the state of Utah, How do I get to the state of Nevada? And what do I have to do in order to be able to get an appointment? I mean, a lot of these sort of these abortion-friendly states that are bordering abortion-restrictive states talk about being overwhelmed by out-of-state visitors coming to try to get abortions. And J.D. Vance has said that we need to criminalize crossing state lines. For people who are trying to get abortions, which is absolutely 100% unconstitutional. You cannot prevent anybody from crossing state lines for any reason. And it's just— it is such a fraught issue and it's an issue that everybody now approaches tribally rather than rationally. It's what does my tribe say? What does the guy in charge say? What does my party say? What does the prophet say? But not what does the data say? What, what does the information say? And the information is you keep abortion safe and legal and fewer and fewer people need them. They're there if you need them, but fewer and fewer. And so, yes, if you keep abortion safe and legal, there will be people who use it sort of as contraception electively. And that's what the church decries and says is immoral.

It—

but in my way of thinking, that's the price you pay. And in order to be able to allow for abortion in the cases where it is genuinely medically necessary,. And you don't prevent that. And when I say that's the price you pay, people will say, oh, see, you're okay with abortion happening. Well, you're okay with abortion happening because your restrictive policies increase abortion. They've done— we, we have the data that shows it happens overseas, and I'm pretty sure that data is gonna sort of shake out here. And when we discover that you haven't prevented abortion, You've just made it far more inconvenient, made it far more difficult for people who need an abortion to get one. And those who still want an abortion are still going to be able to cross state lines and get one. And so it's, it's a— I actually, to some degree, I'm actually quite proud of the church for not for not changing their stance on this. I'm kind of embarrassed by how we approach it rhetorically, because the way the church speaks about abortion, the way Elder Andersen spoke about abortion in this last talk, he sounded like he could be talking at the Republican National Convention. I mean, the exceptions were noted. Yes, there are some, but they're very rare and they're very small. Let's talk about all the terrible people who get abortions. I don't think that's particularly helpful. And I don't think that Latter-day Saints, um, gen— believing Latter-day Saints, I don't think generally they're looking to have those kind of abortions. I think when a thoughtful, believing Latter-day Saint finds themself in a position where they need an abortion, they're in dire straits. I mean, they're, they're in a place where they never ever thought they'd be. They're in a place where they never wanted to be. And for the church to sort of rail on abortion generically when the specific cases of abortion within the church come up are really outside the boundaries of that general moral condemnation. I really wish the church's rhetoric more accurately reflected the substance of the policy. Does that make sense?

It does make sense. In many ways, I'm glad we're having this conversation. It's something that we've touched upon or referenced. It's something we've discussed whether we should discuss or not, you know, have a podcast about. And I've always, I've just been so uncertain, unsure, you know, and how do I approach this? And, but I, as I've researched this further in, you know, in preparation for the podcast, and I do have, I want to be clear, I do have very strong views and feelings on a child being killed. Of course, that just fills me with awfulness. You know, I don't want a child to be killed, you know, and I'm talking about a child. And, you know, the child could be hurt or experience pain or the life to be taken, you know, like my whole body, my mind just tells me that's just wrong. Um, and in, and of course on the other, um, uh, other aspects of, of this whole, um, topic, there's so many other factors, you know, is the child a fetus? Um, you know, we talked about incest and rape, and there's so many other factors. And I think, you know, when you talk about people have, you know, a lot of, a lot of people are in certain camps, they're either this or that, or it's either it was black and white, it's just wrong and shouldn't do it, and, or it's right and you should do it. It's not like that. I, you know, yeah, my position has changed as I, over the years, as I looked at it, you know, the topic of abortion, uh, when I was younger. And I just saw it as being, you know, murder, killing a child unnecessarily, um, and so it could be avoided. And then as I've learned a little bit more about it, there's so many other layers and different aspects that I just didn't understand. I wasn't privy to it. Even now, I, I can't say I fully understand the topic, uh, comprehensively compared to others. But there's so many different aspects to this. And again, I think it's very— hopefully in this conversation, by looking at the different aspects and looking at the different layers and the different angles, we are communicating in a thoughtful and a respectful way, notwithstanding strong feelings that we may have. But looking at it in a very balanced way. And of course, this, you know, to your point, this comes very strongly into US politics. You don't, you know, I'm here in the UK. They just had a massive landslide with Labour. You know, I think Tory's got 650 seats. That was the total number of seats in Parliament here. And Tories went from something like 375 right down to 104, 110. Labour's got, you know, over, I think over 400 seats. There's a complete destruction of the Tory or the Conservative Party across a number of different policies. I kind of followed it from Canada and abortion really wasn't the issue. That just doesn't, it's not discussed. You know, there are laws and regulations around, you know, abortions, et cetera. But the, the, the UK is more of a secular, more liberal society than it used to be back in the '40s and '50s. Just as a personal note, by the way, from my own family, you all know this, but my mother had an unexpected pregnancy at the age of 16. I didn't know this till many years ago. So, and they made her have the child. So this is going back to the, the forties, you know, late forties. She was only 16 years old. She was threatened physically by members of the family. I don't know if she wanted to have an abortion or not, but she was told she must have the child. She was told that the child would be put up for adoption. I don't know if she wanted to keep the child or not. I, I heard that she did, but I don't know how reliable that is. But when she was 16, she had this, um, this child, and I have a, a brother I've never met. I hear his name's called Robert. And, um, and you won't know that, it's the first time we've talked about this, but I do know, um, from speaking to, uh, people who knew my mum very well, who my mum opened up to— she never opened up to me about this— um, she felt enormous guilt and trauma and sadness and regret and pain, uh, over this whole thing. And I don't know all the details, but Robert was given up for, uh, for adoption. And so I think if there's one thing I do know, I can say for a level of certainty, is that there are so many Different factors, so many different considerations, and it's a very personal and private thing. Each situation is probably unique and distinct in that individual's life, right? Is it a health thing? Is it a— is it something that is— the child is, um, you know, conception come about through rape? Um, you know, the thought of a, of a, a woman giving birth to a, a child who, um, which comes from rape, I just can't imagine how she might feel. So there's so many different layers, and I think, and I hope, and, um, believe that we've tried to, uh, approach this in a very kind, in a very respectful way, and communicated that there are so many different angles, different layers. I think we have, at least we tried to, notwithstanding what you were saying earlier, that people are very, you know, there is a certain camp, and, and there's no circumstances in which a child should be aborted compared to, you know, the other end of the spectrum where, you know, they can abort under any circumstances. I don't think that's the case. But so anyway, that's, that's how I've tried to approach— I was cautious about this and a little bit nervous about this because I just didn't want to, you know, come across, uh, disrespectful even though I've, you know, got certain strong feelings, uh, about it. Um, so I, I did ask you to lead us on this because I think you're, you're more informed on this, and certainly on the political side, you've, you've got more of a, uh, a better take on this than I have.

Well, uh, I think your, your sense of caution is well placed. Uh, it's not lost shouldn't be lost on anybody, least of all us, that we are two privileged white guys talking about an issue that really should be the province of the women who, you know, who deal with this in a way that we are never going to be forced to do.

We'll never understand it. We'll never know. How can you? Didn't Joseph Smith say there's no substitute for experience, right? How can we possibly know what the mother is going through?

Right.

Yeah, right. We've just— we just don't know.

Well, just in broad terms, in broad strokes, the things that I think make this important to talk about within the church are that— are the way abortion ties, particularly American Mormons directly to the Republican Party. That needs to stop. We need to recognize that people who vote for Democrats are not eager to see babies killed. They are not. I don't know anybody. I don't know anybody who loves abortion. Everybody that is faced with the challenge of should I or should I not get an abortion is always in a circumstance where it is a wrenching and terrible decision. I don't think there is any human being that approaches this lightly and takes it as if it's no big deal. And, and, and the way the church frames it rhetorically, it tries to sort of create this world where everybody's just out getting abortions as if they're brushing their teeth and they just don't care. And that's— they're these evil people. And I, I don't see that in the real world. I see abortion rates falling. As people become educated and people have access to contraception and people avoid unwanted pregnancy. And so that's, I think, the route we ought to take rather than sit here and condemn and sit here and point fingers and sit here and have the Supreme Court of Texas decide whether or not this woman's life is in sufficient danger that this medical procedure is necessary. We ought to be coming at it from the side of compassion. We ought to be coming at it from the side of understanding and say, okay, abortion is always a terrible thing. I mean, it's not terrible if it's saving a life, but it's, it's never something that anybody ever wants to be put in a situation where it becomes necessary. And so if we approach it that way and we approach it with compassion, I think we then all of a sudden go, okay, well, what can we do to make it less necessary, to make it unnecessary? What can we do to change the circumstances so that fewer and fewer babies are aborted? And that's a much better strategy, I think, much more consistent strategy with the teachings of the Church than let's just make it illegal and punish everybody.

Yeah, no, I agree. And I would add to that as well, we kind of covered this, but, you know, Every woman, mother, should have access to professional counseling, health, mental health, to, you know, a physician, right? Full support, family, friends, as much as you can. Professional help, goodness me, they need as much help as you can get, right? And thoughtfulness and kindness and compassion. Also, I, you know, let's not rely or wait on an answer to a prayer to get confirmation whether someone should have an abortion or not. I just seems odd, very strange to me. And I think the church should remove that from its statement there on the newsroom. It's kind of strange, isn't it, that one?

But it's also unenforceable, right? I mean, the church can't say, have you received— give me evidence that you received the answer to your prayer.

Yeah, I just— I mean, how do you interpret it? Did it happen? I mean, some people might get a clear answer, others might not. I mean, It just seems a very strange thing to say on something that's a very, you know, very clear statements and positions from the church there on that statement. And then it goes kind of all weird. And the other thing as well, if the church is listening to this, give your bishop some training. Give your stake president some training and the counselors and your Relief Society president, right? And especially a really sighted person, because in what I understand, often is the, the mother or the individual, um, it should have the opportunity if they feel so comfortable, uh, going to speak to a woman, not the guy, right? Is that the guy thing, right? You know, you talked, you and I just met, you mentioned earlier that you've got these two privileged white guys that have a limited understanding and perspective on this. But, you know, let's train our Relief Society presidents and give some professional training for if and when a young woman or a woman, uh, has a child and is confused or not sure what to do. They can go talk to a woman in the church who is kind and compassionate, who can retain a confidence, right, who doesn't have to sit in front of a man and go through all these emotions and feelings in front of a guy. I mean, that is just adding more trauma, I think. But let's train the bishops, let's train the stake presidents, and please let's put some resources into training the Relief Society presidents so they can be a full support, an additional resource in addition to, you know, physicians and other professional mental health counselors. Let's support the mother. The woman in every way that we can. And that is the right thing to do. I think that's what, uh, Christ would do. Christ would provide as much resources as he could, and he would hold them and hug these individuals and show love and compassion. Um, so yeah, that, that, those last two few thoughts I just had, you know, struggled, uh, to try to communicate my thoughts and feelings on such an emotive topic. But the last few comments I feel very clear about and certain about because I think they are sensible, I think logical, and I think that's what, you know, I think the woman, the mother, should get all the support that they need, including resources in the church as much as they can get.

I think that is a great summation of what we've talked about. I mean, I think anybody that is listening to this who is in a circumstance where abortion is now something that's being discussed, I think both of us can encourage them to seek out professional counsel, medical counsel. I don't want to discourage anybody from talking to their ecclesiastical leaders, I want to say, however, that medical advice and, you know, competent mental health professionals, I think everybody should be in as part of this discussion because I think just doing this is sort of a reflexive tribal reaction to an explosive issue is a great way to ruin lives. The more counsel you can get from the more competent people you can get, the better. So anyway, thank you very much for— I just think your point there at the end is probably the most important point in all of this. I think that it's advice that the church as an institution ought to follow, that we ought to be seeking counsel from medical professionals. We ought to be training bishops to be able to point people in the direction of medical professionals when this kind of thing comes up. So I really appreciate you raising that. I think this has been a very productive discussion. So, uh, with that, we thank you all for your time. Thank you for listening to us. See you next time on Inside Out. Thank you very much, Ian.

Thank you, Jim.