Sunday, September 07, 2008

Mormons and Roe v. Wade - Introduction

In my experience I have found that for a majority of Mormons one of the key issues that guides their voting habit (to vote Republican) is the issue of abortion. They firmly believe that the Republican Party represents their moral views concerning abortion and vote based on the promise that is recycled every election year by the Republican Party to overturn Roe v. Wade – despite the fact that no Republican President, Congress, or majority of conservative judges has even attempted to do so. (Such as 2000-2006 which had all three).

This election year is no different. Sarah Palin, the new Republican nominee for Vice-President has been touted by her party as the pro-life candidate that conservatives want – though less public is her desire to see that all abortions besides those to protect the life and health of the mother be made illegal (including pregnancies due to rape and incest). She is so pro-life that her campaign as a mayor for a town of only 9,000 people centered around her stance on this issue and made a big deal of her opponent pro-choice stance.

In light of all of this, I have decided to write a series of several posts (and yes, I will actually finish these) about why Mormons in general are misguided when they vote based on their desire to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Not only is this a useless basis for a vote (as not Republican actually will overturn RvW), but I believe if Mormons actually knew more about Roe v Wade and what it does and does not do, they would find themselves on the Democratic end of supporting it, rather than fighting against it.

These posts will be largely based on discussions I have had with students at UVSC where I was able to teach an introductory Ethics and Values course for the last couple years. For a week or so, we would discuss RvW and the moral and legal issues of abortion. With more than 80% of my students being LDS, I would always find that most of them had a very different view of things after actually really thinking about it for the first time in their lives.

Because I plan for this to be a series of blog posts, I ask that you keep all comments directed at the particular issues that I address in each post. If you have an argument that I have not yet addressed, be patient as I will most likely address it in a later post. All comments that derail from the original post will be deleted. If at the end of all my posts, I have not addressed your argument, then feel free to post it on my final post.

5 comments:

  1. Hey Loyd! Here I am actually commenting! I am VERY excited for this series of blog posts. I am an active LDS member and normally against abortion...however, after opening my mind and actually thinking about things...I realize that our own believe of FREE AGENCY makes me PRO CHOICE. Can't wait to see your next post!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm looking forward to these posts.

    ReplyDelete
  3. (in response to this comment)

    in my experience, a majority of mormons consider themselves pro-life and vote based on this with the belief that roe v. wade should be overturned. this does not just come from personal conversations, but is also taken from discussing roe v. wade while teaching at uvsc for two years, as well as the predominant rhetoric in lds blogs, papers, and discourses.

    of course there are mormons who are politically pro-choice and believe that rvw ought to be protected. if there wasn't than i wouldn't exist to write these posts. i believe they are in the minority though (even outside of utah).

    furthermore, even if i incorrectly categorized the majority i believe that there is still a significant amount of mormons who do vote based on this and feel that they are largely uniformed about the issue and am writing for that purpose.

    ReplyDelete
  4. (in response to this comment)

    becca,

    If you had read my other posts, I think you would see that it was clear that I was referring to members of the Church and not the Church itself. And yes, I believe my claims about most Mormons is accurate. In case you forgot, I assisted or taught a course at UVSC for three years where we would spend 2-3 days discussing abortion. As you well know, the school is up to 85% LDS. In those classes the vast majority of the students believed that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. This is the same view I have heard over and over and over again from my Mormon friends and family. And they want it overturned because they believe abortion is killing innocent human lives. I haven't heard any of them say that it should be overturned because was the federal government overreaching its bounds, but that states should still create similar laws themselves.

    Just a few weeks ago, my dad made this same claim about abortion as the primary reason why he does not like most democrats. And just yesterday my mother used it as the reason why she remains republican. I feel VERY confident that if a poll was done of Americans who consider themselves Mormon that a vast majority would feel this way. (Polling the 13 million members would be ridiculous because less than half even live inside the US and only 30-40% of those consider themselves Mormon)

    ReplyDelete
  5. in response to the narrators response to rebecca:

    oh you are so hot right now! i love when you slam dunk in a persons face who threw an airball then attempted to pass it off as a 3 pointer. (yeah a previous reference to basketball ispired me) WOW! i love you. (hope you don´t delete even though it was off topic)

    ReplyDelete

Please provide a name or consistent pseudonym with your comments and avoid insults or personal attacks against anyone or any group. All anonymous comments will be immediately deleted. Other comments are subject to deletion at my discretion.