The Unborn

In 1982 Mother Theresa apparently gave an address at the Harvard commencement.  Elder Robert Gay referred to it in his own commencement speech at BYU-Idaho that I referenced a few days ago.  I can’t find a transcript of what she said, but it was Elder Gay’s own commencement at Harvard and he mentioned a few things that she said.  One of them was about abortion, and she apparently pleaded with the people there not to have an abortion and that she would be a mother to any unwanted child.  She mentioned that the first declaration about Jesus by a mortal when He came to earth by was given by an unborn child.  I had never really thought much about that, but I think it is indeed a very significant fact in the scriptures that John the Baptist “leaped in [Elisabeth’s] womb” when “Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary.”  Elisabeth described it this way, “And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy” (Luke 1:41-44).  The Savior even referred to this fact in modern revelation: “John, whom God raised up, being filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb” (D&C 84:27).  The story stands as a testimony to the world not only of the Savior but the reality that life in the womb is real and of immeasurable worth.

               Other scriptures also affirm that in the womb life exists and is as real as outside of the womb.  When Rebekah was pregnant with Jacob and Esau, we read, “The children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to inquire of the Lord” (Genesis 25:22).  And she learned that their struggle in the womb was a start of the struggle that would take place outside the womb.  They were real beings already beginning their mortal experience even before birth.  In another Old Testament story the Lord told Jeremiah, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5).  Not only did the Lord know Jeremiah before he even came to earth, but while in the womb the Lord “sanctified” him and set him apart to be a prophet in his day.  If these scripture stories aren’t enough to convince us that life in the womb is precious, the Lord’s command is very clear in our day: “Thou shalt not steal; neither commit adultery, nor kill, nor do anything like unto it” (D&C 59:6).  Intentionally ending the life of the unborn child is a grievous sin in the eyes of God, and these scriptures, including the story of John who even as an unborn child could feel the Holy Ghost, should help us understand God’s love for the unborn.