Mormon Doctrine

Birth control in Mormon Doctrine

The author deleted his own condemnation from the second edition — and replaced it with two prophets putting it more strongly.

The Birth Control entry is the clearest case in the book of a revision that reads like a softening and is not one. A sentence of McConkie's own was cut between the editions. What went in its place was longer, and harder.

What the first edition said

After the opening paragraph on the commandment to multiply, the 1958 entry draws the conclusion in the author's own voice.

It follows that those who practice birth control — the regulation of the number of births in a family by the employment of artificial means or contraceptives to prevent conception — are running counter to the foreordained plan of the Almighty. They are in rebellion against God and are guilty of gross wickedness.

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, “Birth Control”, 1958 first edition

That sentence is not in the second edition. Neither the definition, nor the rebellion, nor the gross wickedness: the phrases appear nowhere in it. In its place the entry goes straight from the scripture to Brigham Young on preparing bodies for waiting spirits.

What the second edition added

Two long quotations from President Joseph F. Smith were added in 1966 which are not in the first edition at all. The second of them is the sentence the entry is now remembered for.

I regret, I think it is a crying evil, that there should exist a sentiment or a feeling among any members of the Church to curtail the birth of their children. I think that is a crime wherever it occurs... I have no hesitancy in saying that I believe this is one of the greatest crimes of the world today, this evil practice.

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, “Birth Control”, 1966 second edition, p. 61

The entry then closes with a passage on the population debate of the 1960s, also new in the second edition, which sets the counsel of the prophets against the demographers directly: “Massive birth control programs are being sponsored on a national and international scale... But God's decree and the counsel of the prophets remain unchanged.” Its last words are “the earth is far from full.”

So the revision removed the author's own condemnation and imported a stronger one over a prophet's name. Whether that counts as a correction is a question the 1958 review does not answer for us.

Where it stands

The church's current Gospel Topics entry on birth control is three sentences of principle and one of policy, and the policy sentence goes the other way.

Decisions about birth control and the consequences of those decisions rest solely with each married couple.

“Birth Control”, Gospel Topics

The same entry calls the number and timing of children “a private matter for a husband and wife”, and the General Handbook instructs members not to judge one another over it. The encouragement to have children is still there and still emphatic — what has gone is the charge of wickedness, and with it the idea that anyone else gets a say.