This “talk” is a fantasy. I wrote it as a response (albeit imperfect) to Elder Anderson’s “Cherishing Life,” as delivered during his April 2025 General Conference address. I publish it as a means to opening conversation and do not claim all women will see things as I do, nor that I have written all that must be written. With that said, please imagine Elder Andersen standing at the podium and saying:

TO THE SISTERS OF THE CHURCH of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the one thing that the Brethren most want you (and your husbands) to understand today is how much we value you, the daughters of God, and how much we value your life. Each of us sitting in these plush chairs is thinking of you, whether you be in this great hall or in distant places. We appreciate all you have done, are doing, and may still do to bear the children of each new generation and to raise children to love the Lord. We acknowledge that many of you have suffered because those of us who stand here, pronouncing church doctrine from this historic pulpit, have repeatedly emphasized the idea that a woman’s value and her worth comes through child bearing and child rearing. We’ve done this even though we understand that many of our faithful sisters are unable to conceive and do not have the opportunity, including through adoption, to raise children during mortality. Our hearts are with you. We never should have equated a woman’s worth with her ability to conceive, bear children, and/or raise children.

We now dedicate ourselves to better seeing and understanding our sisters in the gospel as independent daughters of God who can and do contribute to the Church and the greater society through motherhood, yes, but also in myriad other ways within our communities. We counsel you to prayerfully consider the will of the Lord as you choose your life’s path and life’s work. This is the council we have always given men, and it is the council we should have always given to women. 

Of course, we believe in a pre-mortal existence and in the necessity of bringing children from that realm into this mortal world so that they might enjoy both the blessings and the trials life will bring them as they move forward on their personal path of spiritual development. For this reason, we will continue to teach that a husband and wife should recognize that bringing children into this world is a divine privilege, one we hope many of you will enjoy.  

Privilege, however, is not always granted to us as one of God’s gifts. And while we often speak of the proper order of things pertaining to marriage–meaning abstinence from sexual relations before marriage and fidelity within marriage–this ideal order won’t be an experience we all have. Circumstances vary, but what never varies is the love your Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother, and the Savior Jesus Christ have for us all, regardless of our behavior or choices.

Unplanned pregnancies do happen and can shake a woman’s world to the core. Perhaps she already has many children and feels exhausted and overwhelmed. Perhaps she is single and unsure of her relationship with the father. Perhaps she has little emotional and familial support and even less money. Perhaps she is underage. Perhaps she is seriously ill. Perhaps the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest, two crimes that plague our society and traumatize our women, our children, our people. There is no end to the possible “perhapses.” This is why we counsel women (with their men beside them if possible) to take their pregnancy worries to the Lord in prayer. And it is why we counsel men, married or unmarried, who’ve impregnated a woman to pay strict attention to the inspiration the Lord gives to her. No person other than she is better positioned to receive guidance from the Holy Ghost regarding the potential human life she carries or her own life. 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintains a stance against what is often called “elective abortion,” or the intentional termination of a pregnancy solely for convenience. But I want to make it perfectly clear that the Church’s pro-life stance includes sustaining those who are already breathing, who are already living. Our pro-life stance requires us to advocate for the lives of women.

From this General Conference pulpit, many talks have been given by men who were celebrating the selfless dedication of women who’ve followed the Church’s counsel and carried a pregnancy to term, determined to give birth even though their physicians warned them of the risks to their own health, their own lives, and to the child they carried. The stories you’ve heard in past General Conferences had happy endings. But not all the stories end that way. I share with you a letter we received from a heartbroken father.*

“My wife was as faithful to the Lord and His Church as any woman who ever lived. She bore our three children without complications and she and I looked forward to having our fourth in a few months. Then the floor fell out from beneath us. Her obstetrician told us that the baby was unlikely to survive birth and that her own medical condition was tenuous at best. He advised us to terminate the pregnancy to ensure she would live.

“We sought second and third medical opinions and each physician came back quickly with their like-minded prognosis. We were devastated. Oh, how we prayed! In the back of our minds were the stories we heard during General Conference about brave women of faith who believed, come what may, that Heavenly Father would bless them. Although frightened over the future, we decided to continue with the pregnancy, letting the Lord’s will be what it may.

“On November 27th of last year, my children and I buried their mother and their brother, who never took a breath. I’m trying to find God’s hand in this, but I can’t. Not yet. But I want you to know that I trust the Lord’s prophets and will try to raise them to know the Lord even if I have to do it without her. I will try.”

Sisters, we do not want you to die! We do not want the children you already have to grow up without you!

I wish this was the only story of this kind we’ve heard. It’s not. It’s not. 

So I say it louder to the sisters (and to their men), we do not want you to die! And we do not want you to live a life in which you are traumatized by carrying the child of a rapist or familial abuser. If you find yourself pregnant by rape or incest, we counsel you to report the crime to the police, seek a place of safety, and beg you to receive guidance from a mental health professional for as long as you need. We want you to be healthy and happy, to be able to safely fulfill the mission you were put on this earth to perform. Not only are we done with telling you what divine guidance should look like for you, we want to be perfectly clear that you will be supported by this church and its people when you choose your own well-being! Bishops are being alerted that they are to help those in these difficult situations with financial needs so that they may receive the highest professional standard of mental health care.

Sisters and brothers, when you face an unplanned pregnancy, we have faith that your Heavenly Parents will guide you in the direction They want you to go. That’s an expression of faith in Them, but it is also an expression of faith in YOU. Perhaps the direction They want you to take will be toward keeping and raising the child, perhaps toward adoption and blessing the life of another couple, or perhaps toward the painful, difficult decision to terminate out of necessity. Each of these options is a holy choice when guided by the Holy Spirit. No matter your prayerful decision, we–this church, this people of Zion–will stand ready to support and sustain you, without judgement or condemnation. You are and will be loved. Your worth is without price. This Church will prioritize your well-being.

You may ask how can I say these things when we know the Plan of Salvation requires that spirits venture from the premortal world to this world. I can say it because we who lead this Church trust in the goodness of our Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. We trust that every spirit awaiting birth will receive a body as a gift from Them. They will work it out. Sisters, your body is not the solution for the Plan of Salvation. That Plan is the Lord’s work. Your work, sisters and brothers, is to follow where the Lord would have you go.

*The letter is also a creation of this author’s imagination.

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For behold, again I say unto you that if ye … receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do (2 Nephi 32:5) .

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