We declare the Means by which Mortal Life is Created to be Divinely Appointed. We Affirm the Sanctity of Life and of its Importance in God’s Eternal Plan.

"We live in a time when transportation, communication, and access to information all tower in comparison to the past. But moral issues such as honesty, chastity, Sabbath observance, family responsibility, and even the sanctity of life—issues long held in unison by the world and by Latter-day Saints—now find themselves interpreted in every way and open to debate." -Neil L. Anderson, Apostle of Jesus Christ, A Gift Worthy of Added Care, Ensign December 2010

“If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.” -John Calvin, 16th Century Reformer, Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony, 24 vols., trans. Charles William Bingham (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1950), 3:42

"Consider another individual weighing the consequences of her pregnancy. She was beyond the normal age for bearing children. She announced to her doctor that her husband was an alcoholic with a syphilitic infection. One of her children had been born dead. Another child was blind. Another had tuberculosis. Her family had a history of deafness. Finally she confessed that she was living in abject poverty. If this true historical situation were posed today, many would recommend abortion. The child born from that pregnancy became the renowned composer Ludwig van Beethoven." -Russel M. Nelson, Apostle of Jesus Christ, Reverence for Life, April 1985 General Conference

 

"A child could see that Heavenly Father would not command men and women to marry and to multiply and replenish the earth if the children they invited into mortality would deplete the earth. Since there is enough and to spare, the enemy of human happiness as well as the cause of poverty and starvation is not the birth of children. It is the failure of people to do with the earth what God could teach them to do if only they would ask and then obey, for they are agents unto themselves." -Henry B. Eyring, Apostle of Jesus Christ, The Family, Ensign February 1998

Definitions

Divinely - of or pertaining to a god, especially the Supreme Being; proceeding from God; heavenly; celestial.
Appointed - choose, select, prescribe, establish.
Sanctity - holiness, saintliness, or godliness; a sacred thing.