Articles/Essays – Volume 10, No. 2

Birth Control Among the Mormons: Introduction to an Insistent Question

1977: Lester Bush, “Birth Control Among the Mormons: Introduction to an Insistent Question” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol 10 No. 2 (1977): 12–46.

The extensive national attention had a demonstrable impact in Utah. In 1876 the territory’s first anti-abortion law was enacted, carrying a penalty of two to ten years for performing an abortion; a woman convicted of having an abortion received one to five years “unless the same is necessary to preserve her life.” It was also during this period that one finds the first real discussion of fertility control by leading Mormons.