When does the spirit enter the womb?

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

You need to come hang out with me. We'll go adventuring.

Thanks. I am just tired of waiting for things to get better so tend to push hopes to next life.

[Bane]

I had always wanted a big family.  My first wife, before she passed, was only able to bear two children before she became too ill to bear more.  She had about 4 or 5 miscarriages after the two lives births.  Each miscarriage was devastating for her.  I struggled, as a man, to relate to her feelings.

I wish that I could have those miscarried children be a part of my eternal family in the hereafter.  Perhaps my hope is vain.

[CV75]

On 9/3/2018 at 2:36 PM, Rivers said:

Unfortunately my wife had a miscarriage recently ☹️.  Another family member who had miscarried said that the two babies are  now “angel babies” playing in heaven together.

 This is a comforting notion but it also implies that the spirit enters the body at conception.  If that’s the case, there are millions of spirits whose entire mortal probation is spent inside the womb.

If there is no spirit at conception and we view the embryo as a spiritless clump of cells, this could be a pro-abortion argument.  

Have any past church leaders had anything to say on the subject?

I truly empathize with your sadness; our fist pregnancy ended with miscarriage.

It is natural to channel our handling of grief into political terms, such as that over a miscarriage into terms of abortion arguments (or the woman who confronted Senator Flake the other day, channeling her trauma to assert a pro-choice stance).

I think as long as we were spirits at any time along the way, our spirits at least virtually entered our bodies from the first moment of Creation, or at the latest with the creation of Adam and Eve. Their cells became our cells. Also, to a spirit, potentiality is just as precious as actuality (this is the same kind of faith God used in the Creation -- all things created spiritually before naturally), and so an anticipated or  "preparatory" union of spirit and element is just as precious as an actual one, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ assures each spirit obtains that.

[CV75]

3 hours ago, Bane said:

I had always wanted a big family.  My first wife, before she passed, was only able to bear two children before she became too ill to bear more.  She had about 4 or 5 miscarriages after the two lives births.  Each miscarriage was devastating for her.  I struggled, as a man, to relate to her feelings.

I wish that I could have those miscarried children be a part of my eternal family in the hereafter.  Perhaps my hope is vain.

I think not, in that all God's spirit children will obtain bodies to be sealed into God's eternal family, "and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces." (Isaiah 25:8).

[BlueDreams]

I worked with a number of mothers who had miscarriages, I knew a few who had late still births, and a few families who lost children in the first year. These are all forms of valid grief. But they’re not exactly the same from my outside perspective. Many of the early micarriages were grieving possibilities. The hope for a boy or girl to raise, a sibling to their children, the completion of the family, etc. They’re also grieving or experiencing the fears that it’ll happen again (especially if they’ve had this happen more than once). The grief is also based on the context….how much did they believe the embryo was a baby, how many people had they told, how unexpected or what milestones had been marked off, etc….as in how invested and how much they viewed it as already their child/interacted with the pregnancy as such. Still births are different. It’s more a lost child in the home that they never got to know and hold. It often entails small funeral services, anniversaries ceremonies of said stillbirth, and a complicated mourning process. Their babies have names, it’s incorporated into their family stories, siblings may often grow up knowing about this sibling they had but never got to know. With children, the only difference between that and a still birth is that they had time to get to know and love the child outside the womb. Grief, no matter what, is still important and a right no matter how far along a woman’s pregnant.

This topic interests me as a newly prospective parent. I was wondering if my views being pregnant would change what I thought about when the spirit enters the body. It hasn’t so far, though I’m very early in it (5-6 weeks). I’m still in the window for highest miscarriage rates (around 13% right now for me), so I’m still not telling most people till I’m in a safer window and this pregnancy seems more certain.

I do think and believe LIFE starts at conception. That’s apparent. Technically life was around pre-conception. Both the egg and sp*rm were alive in their own way. But I see the early stages of pregnancy as soul-prep in essence. It’s still beautiful and sacred and should be respected as such.  I’m the sort of person who was pretty sure she knew the moment she conceived. I had spiritual experiences in the temple about it and I felt the moment my body started to change. I find myself picturing weaving and Heavenly Mother. Like I’ve promised to weave this life into existence and I have the first strands of a soul in my womb. It’s not really a tapestry, but it’s the first precious threads of one. Knowing how difficult it can be for families to get pregnant I find it a privilege to be in this space and hope to honor it. But I don’t interact with the growing embryo as my baby, but as the beginning of her or him. I call it my seed or seedling and sometimes more jokingly my worm or parasite (inappropriate humor runs strong in both me and my husband). But I do picture it as a gardener does a seedling: potential for a full-blown plant but one that isn’t guaranteed. Seedlings are precarious. I try to give it the best environment and listen to my body, but each day I look forward to the statistical increase that this pregnancy is viable, just as I do the seeds I plant each spring…knowing that each step makes them more capable to thrive.  

I don’t know when or if there's an exact time that a spirit enters a body. I like the BY quote that JAHS had in there…..that when the mother feels “life come to her infant” that’s when it is. I haven’t felt that yet.

 

As for a pro-abortion argument, I think that the current stance of the church that allows for some limited moments where abortion may be allowable indicates to me that the either-or positions have some serious faults to them. I’m personally ambivalent to abortion. I think life and carrying life should be done with sacred care and responsibility. But having an outright ban on abortion can place both mothers and subsequently fetuses at greater risk for serious injury. I don’t think seeing a sacred role of making a soul, while noting that a soul isn’t fully formed right at conception means an inherently pro-abortion argument….more of a stance close to the church’s or one slightly more lax that places women in control of deciding that they’re ready to enter such a role/responsibility. I would think it’s a better job to teach women and men to respect the body and the powers tied to it for creation and sacred nature of life in general…and then to allow them the space to decide what is needed or what they believe.

 

With luv,

BD

Edited October 1, 2018 by BlueDreams

[CV75]

41 minutes ago, BlueDreams said:

I worked with a number of mothers who had miscarriages, I knew a few who had late still births, and a few families who lost children in the first year. These are all forms of valid grief. But they’re not exactly the same from my outside perspective. Many of the early micarriages were grieving possibilities. The hope for a boy or girl to raise, a sibling to their children, the completion of the family, etc. They’re also grieving or experiencing the fears that it’ll happen again (especially if they’ve had this happen more than once). The grief is also based on the context….how much did they believe the embryo was a baby, how many people had they told, how unexpected or what milestones had been marked off, etc….as in how invested and how much they viewed it as already their child/interacted with the pregnancy as such. Still births are different. It’s more a lost child in the home that they never got to know and hold. It often entails small funeral services, anniversaries ceremonies of said stillbirth, and a complicated mourning process. Their babies have names, it’s incorporated into their family stories, siblings may often grow up knowing about this sibling they had but never got to know. With children, the only difference between that and a still birth is that they had time to get to know and love the child outside the womb. Grief, no matter what, is still important and a right no matter how far along a woman’s pregnant.

This topic interests me as a newly prospective parent. I was wondering if my views being pregnant would change what I thought about when the spirit enters the body. It hasn’t so far, though I’m very early in it (5-6 weeks). I’m still in the window for highest miscarriage rates (around 13% right now for me), so I’m still not telling most people till I’m in a safer window and this pregnancy seems more certain.

I do think and believe LIFE starts at conception. That’s apparent. Technically life was around pre-conception. Both the egg and sp*rm were alive in their own way. But I see the early stages of pregnancy as soul-prep in essence. It’s still beautiful and sacred and should be respected as such.  I’m the sort of person who was pretty sure she knew the moment she conceived. I had spiritual experiences in the temple about it and I felt the moment my body started to change. I find myself picturing weaving and Heavenly Mother. Like I’ve promised to weave this life into existence and I have the first strands of a soul in my womb. It’s not really a tapestry, but it’s the first precious threads of one. Knowing how difficult it can be for families to get pregnant I find it a privilege to be in this space and hope to honor it. But I don’t interact with the growing embryo as my baby, but as the beginning of her or him. I call it my seed or seedling and sometimes more jokingly my worm or parasite (inappropriate humor runs strong in both me and my husband). But I do picture it as a gardener does a seedling: potential for a full-blown plant but one that isn’t guaranteed. Seedlings are precarious. I try to give it the best environment and listen to my body, but each day I look forward to the statistical increase that this pregnancy is viable, just as I do the seeds I plant each spring…knowing that each step makes them more capable to thrive.  

I don’t know when or if there's an exact time that a spirit enters a body. I like the BY quote that JAHS had in there…..that when the mother feels “life come to her infant” that’s when it is. I haven’t felt that yet.

 

As for a pro-abortion argument, I think that the current stance of the church that allows for some limited moments where abortion may be allowable indicates to me that the either-or positions have some serious faults to them. I’m personally ambivalent to abortion. I think life and carrying life should be done with sacred care and responsibility. But having an outright ban on abortion can place both mothers and subsequently fetuses at greater risk for serious injury. I don’t think seeing a sacred role of making a soul, while noting that a soul isn’t fully formed right at conception means an inherently pro-abortion argument….more of a stance close to the church’s or one slightly more lax that places women in control of deciding that they’re ready to enter such a role/responsibility. I would think it’s a better job to teach women and men to respect the body and the powers tied to it for creation and sacred nature of life in general…and then to allow them the space to decide what is needed or what they believe.

 

With luv,

BD

Congratulations on motherhood! I hope all goes well for everyone!  I agree the Church policy is based on the sanctity of life (and not about when the spirit enters the body), which encourages we make room for wisdom and the Spirit in what can be agonizing decisions.

[mnn727]

On 9/3/2018 at 3:13 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Don't know what the GAs have said, but Genesis 2:7 makes it clear that one does not become a living soul until the breath of life is breathed.  That is at birth, when the baby breaths and cries for the first time.

Genesis 2:7 refers to Adam, who was a fully formed man at the time who had no mother. Not sure you can equate that to a baby born normally.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, mnn727 said:

Genesis 2:7 refers to Adam, who was a fully formed man at the time who had no mother. Not sure you can equate that to a baby born normally.

Well, yes and no.  The Hebrew simply says that the man did not become a "living soul" until the breath of life was breathed into him.  We have precious little else to base our notions on.  As to science, an ovum or spermatazoan are living things with DNA.  There is no beginning to life anywhere in science.  Rather there is continuous life in various forms, and there is spontaneous abortion by the body of malformed zygotes and fetuses.  Conception is a rather arbitrary point at which to claim that life begins simply because it doesn't begin there.

As to the beginning of human life on Earth, Brother Brigham said that Adam and Eve were formed the same way all humans are formed, by sexual reproduction.  All the other stuff in Genesis about Adam's rib, and Adam being formed from the dust of the Earth is merely figurative language.  Adam & Eve had a mother and father the same way we all have mothers and fathers.

[RevTestament]

37 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

As to the beginning of human life on Earth, Brother Brigham said that Adam and Eve were formed the same way all humans are formed, by sexual reproduction.  All the other stuff in Genesis about Adam's rib, and Adam being formed from the dust of the Earth is merely figurative language.  Adam & Eve had a mother and father the same way we all have mothers and fathers.

In some ways Brother Brigham was a man ahead of his time. One thing is for sure - he was a thinker who was not scared to say what he thought. In this case I am happy to say I mostly agree with him, although in a fairly literal sense man does come from the dust of the earth, which gets converted by plants into life, which makes all animal life on this planet possible. It is matter reformed into life, much as God reformed matter into this earth in the beginning. And I agree that Adam and Eve did have parents - I believe earthly ones at that. I also agree that Eve is representative of the Church in the Biblical account. The story is a teaching parable, essentially. There was no literal tree of life that they could have eaten from, just like there is not one for us. But there is a spiritual one.