The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has modified some of its policies regarding what it deems moral issues like fertility treatments, birth control, sterilization, surrogacy, sex education, medical marijuana and unwed parenting — mostly making them more flexible, compassionate and dependent on individual member judgments.

There were additional adaptations in March, and now the church has revised 15 more chapters, including “significant changes to five chapters,” according to a news release. “To date, 16 of the book’s 38 chapters have been completely reworked, and minor changes have been made to several other chapters as part of an ongoing revision under the direction of the [governing] First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.”

Insiders may be especially interested in new chapters on “Elders Quorum” and “Relief Society,” which are now “organized around the work of salvation and exaltation,” the release said. “The word count in each has been reduced by nearly half. The word count has also been significantly reduced in the new ‘Sunday School’ and ‘Teaching the Gospel’ chapters.”

In general, though, it is Chapter 38, “Church Policies and Guidelines,” which details the Utah-based faith’s approach to various social issues, that has seen some of the most notable revisions.

Some parts of it were tweaked earlier, but the current version includes eight policies that are either updated or new.

A statement has been added to the start of the portion on “moral issues,” which reads: “A few policies in this section are about matters that the church ‘discourages.’ Church members usually do not experience membership restrictions because of their decisions about these matters. However, all people are ultimately accountable to God for their decisions.”

Jonathan Stapley, a scientist and historian who has studied extensively the church’s handbook changes through the years, believes that opening is important.

“It indicates that while many decisions are up to individuals,” Stapley writes in an email, “this reflects perhaps early leaders’ impulse to teach correct principles while letting individuals ‘govern themselves.’ It is also just wildly more practical from a logistical perspective.”

Here are a few changes and additions in that section:

• The new version combines previous statements about in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination into a single subsection, labeled, “Fertility Treatments,” and notes that “when needed, reproductive technology can assist a married woman and man in their righteous desire to have children.” It also drops mentions of single sisters using these techniques.

• While sperm and egg donations…