Should married
couples in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints be tested for STIs? Is that really necessary?
While we are raised to be chaste before marriage, the
reality is that many youth in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
have sex before marriage. There are also those who were not raised as members
of the church but join later in life, and yes, some were sexually active before
becoming the stalwart shining members they are now.
While they may sincerely make restitution and repent before serving
missions or receiving their endowments in the temple, unfortunately confession
and the repentance process don’t eliminate physical consequences.
Most people, when they think of “fornication” and abusing
their “powers of procreation”, they think that the most important reason for avoiding
this, and the worst thing that could happen to them, is pregnancy.
While out-of-wedlock pregnancy can be devastating to a
family and a child’s life economically, psychologically and and even spiritually, physically it is far from the worst thing that can
happen to you.
Statistically[i],
one in 124 of all people age 10 and older in the United States carry an STI (sexually
transmitted infection) of some kind today. In 1994, one in four adolescents had
an STI before graduation from high school, and the CDC reports that number
higher today. Some of the many diseases
we can contract are chlamydia, several varieties of HPV (also called genital
warts), gonorrhea, syphilis, hepatitis B & C, herpes, HIV, AIDS, pubic
lice, trichomoniasis, bacterial vaginosis, water warts, chancroid, scabies, molluscum
contagiosum, and lymphogranuloma venereum, to name a few.
Many of these we can get stuck with for life. Chlamydia is
one of the most common and most dangerous because it’s silent, but most easily
cured if caught early. Men can be a silent carrier, and if a woman is unaware,
it can leave her sterile as the bacteria can severely scar her Fallopian tubes.
None of these are a nice wedding present to surprise your new husband or wife with.
Several of these STIs can even be passed on to an infant. Because
of this, even if you were abstinent before marriage (ie. no intercourse of any kind or any other contact with the genitals of anyone else), you could still be
carrying an STI if you contracted one at birth.
If we have sexual contact with another person before marriage, repentance is possible, and we
can be clean and worthy again, but please get tested and let your fiancé/fiancee
know. Ask them to also get tested and (because some STIs – like HIV- can stay
hidden for months and even years), get tested regularly to make sure you are
clean or at least able to manage the infection.
We can repent, but we can’t escape the physical consequences
for transgression and sin. It’s best not to pass those consequences on to an
unsuspecting spouse. Another great reason
for abstinence before marriage and full fidelity after marriage.
Some may say “but I always wore a condom”. Condoms prevent pregnancy, not disease. Condoms
such as lambskin are porous and may allow STIs to pass through. Condoms can’t
protect you from all STIs – such as HPV. Even the CDC says that the safest sex
is monogamy, but even that isn’t 100% safe. Thus the importance of considering
testing, even after marriage. Ignorance
is expensive, which is why I’m sharing this information with my readers.
Please be sure to share this with your children, spouse and
anyone else you love. If you are unsure, get tested. Ask your spouse to get
tested. And don’t keep secrets. Secrets can hurt everyone, physically and
spiritually.
For additional information on what the General Authorities
have said regarding this topic, I’ve put some links below for further reading.[ii],[iii],[iv],[v]
[i] CDC 2017
statistics on STIs https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/docs/factsheets/std-trends-508.pdf
[ii]
Hinckley, Gordon B. Reverence and Morality, April 1987 General Conference : https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1987/04/reverence-and-morality?lang=eng
[iii] Maxwell,
Neal A., Take Especial Care of Your Family, Apr. 1994, Gen. Conf: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1994/04/take-especial-care-of-your-family?lang=eng
[iv] “Obedience
to the law of chastity would diminish cries for abortion and would go a long
way toward controlling sexually transmitted disease.” Wirthlin, Joseph B.,
[v] “Your
foes in a sordid society demean the sacredness of women and the sanctity of
motherhood. Your world, sickened by unchastity and plagued with sexually
transmitted disease, needs your righteous example.” Nelson, Russell M.,
