Is the Adventist Church Really Pro-life?

[Guest]

Originally Posted By: Doug Y

God reveals which choice is right and which choice is wrong so that we can choose the right choice. He then alerts us to the inevitable consequence of making the wrong choice while at the same time guaranteeing us the power to carry thru on the right choice.

I still agree with your statement here.

Amen

[doug yowell]

The Church, in fact, does have a position on abortions that I think is very balanced. The Church's position is not fairly represented by the OP of this topic. The OP very obviously has other axes to grind with the Church; and the abortion question is a very convenient platform for him. More than once he mentions where he sends his tithes and why, he brings in other subjects all sensationalized with anti-church rhetoric like "Adventist leaders cooperate with Nazi Regime," and many other similar sensationalism, none of which is fairly or accurately represented by him.

The OP of this thread echoes perfectly the Catholic position on abortion; and indeed, they do use it for a platform by which to paint the denomination a certain way that will suit their purposes well. There are definitely some flaws in the Catholic position. I have been studying with Catholics for several years now, and the OP does represent their position very well. That is not necessarily wrong in and of itself; except that in both cases the parties do have an "axe" or two to grind against the Adventist Church.

Even in the cases where the Adventist Church guidelines would permit an abortion; it is not a blanket rule of consent for the majority of those who would want one. If you read their guidelines carefully, you would see that the actions of a minority in certain of our hospitals, or in individual situations, do not in fact correctly represent the officially approved guidelines. This is one of several reasns that the OP cannot be seen as fairly representing the Church's position on the matter.

Let us not forget, the church's position on abortion is in the form of guidelines. The "redemptive approach" of the Church is one where it is sometimes very difficult to draw the lines; but some, such as the OP don't seem to have any trouble drawing one where it doesn't belong. The other items he brings into the equation show an obvious agenda, which is unrelated to abortion.

[Overaged]

I liked the way Nan put it in the beginning of this thread. I believe she is a doctor, and she seems to understand the Church's position on this very well.

[Overaged]

Overaged,You seem quick to make judgments on the hidden motives of the OP yet you agree with his conclusions (that the guidelines are pro-choice).Why is your support of the church's abortion guidelines not a convenient platform for your attempts to discredit the OP? I have no "ax to grind" and have done much of the same research,and have arrived at the exact same conclusions.

[karl]

3) In practical, tangible ways the Church as a supportive community should express its commitment to the value of human life. These ways should include:

a. strengthening family relationships

b. educating both genders concerning Christian principles of human sexuality

c. emphasizing responsibility of both male and female for family planning

d. calling both to be responsible for the consequences of behaviors that are inconsistent with Christian principles

e. creating a safe climate for ongoing discussion of the moral questions associated with abortion

f. offering support and assistance to women who choose to complete crisis pregnancies

g. encouraging and assisting fathers to participate responsibly in the parenting of their children.

The Church also should commit itself to assist in alleviating the unfortunate social, economic, and psychological factors that add to abortion and to care redemptively for those suffering the consequences of individual decisions on this issue.

Let me know when you find some "apostasy" in the above. I will be waiting...and waiting...and waiting...

[karl]

Medical decisions are made all the time which result in death. Some, choose to have various elective plastic surgeries done; and it kills them. Are they guilty of suicide?

I'm sure you can see the difference between making poor health decisions which result in early demise and deliberately killing yourself or someone else..

Can you see the difference?

Please say "yes" and restore my faith in humanity.

Incidentally, our church used to have a much more focused approach to personal health decisions than it does today. Now it is mostly independent ministries promoting healthful lifestyles.

Nathan Pritikin once addressed the illustrious ones at LLU. He told them (paraphrase) "I'm making my living with a modified version of your health message. What are YOU doing with it?"

Answer - almost nothing.

We can take our politically correct non-involvement to the place where we are no longer an influence. If we are not an influence for better, what does that make us? There is no neutral ground. Since the prevailing influence is downward in its spiral, we must be actively upward or we are assisting the downward flow with our mass.

[Overaged]

Originally Posted By: Overaged

Medical decisions are made all the time which result in death. Some, choose to have various elective plastic surgeries done; and it kills them. Are they guilty of suicide?

I'm sure you can see the difference between making poor health decisions which result in early demise and deliberately killing yourself or someone else..

Can you see the difference?

Please say "yes" and restore my faith in humanity.

Incidentally, our church used to have a much more focused approach to personal health decisions than it does today. Now it is mostly independent ministries promoting healthful lifestyles.

Nathan Pritikin once addressed the illustrious ones at LLU. He told them (paraphrase) "I'm making my living with a modified version of your health message. What are YOU doing with it?"

Answer - almost nothing.

We can take our politically correct non-involvement to the place where we are no longer an influence. If we are not an influence for better, what does that make us? There is no neutral ground. Since the prevailing influence is downward in its spiral, we must be actively upward or we are assisting the downward flow with our mass.

Well; I would suggest that IF we would all take the current Conference guidelines seriously; your concerns would not exist. You are correct, some do not live up to what we are being taught, or supposed to teach others.

I do not see the exact difference you are trying to point out. I was trying to illustrate that there is no difference between slow suicide, or fast suicide. There is no difference between abortions and many other medical practices, IF they result in premeditated terminating of a life; be it born or unborn. I think it's quite obvious I am not just referring to "poor health practice which prematurely ends a life." I am talking about medical decisions made where it is known that the result will be death.

If you have ever worked in palliative care or on a maternity ward; you would soon see that what you say is innaccurate.

The point being is that the medical profession with all of it's technical wizardry is fraught with risks to life and limb; it isn't just abortion. You can't just stop it all and call it all murder or genocide. It's not that simple.

[karl]

I was trying to illustrate that there is no difference between slow suicide, or fast suicide. There is no difference between abortions and many other medical practices, IF they result in premeditated terminating of a life; be it born or unborn.

If you have ever worked in palliative care or on a maternity ward; you would soon see that what you say is innaccurate.

The point being is that the medical profession with all of it's technical wizardry is fraught with risks to life and limb; it isn't just abortion. You can't just stop it all and call it all murder or genocide. It's not that simple.

While I appreciate your sensitivity to the difficulty we face making decisions in end-of-life and palliative care, I must submit to you that you are lumping apples and oranges above. It's true they are both fruits, but they are not even remotely the same as a simple bite of each will demonstrate.

There is a huge difference between deliberately killing that person who, if left alone, would gradually become more independent and self-sustaining (a baby,) and the pulling of the plug on that person who, if left alone, will die on his/her own (I had to do this with my father a year ago.)

Huge difference. Not even in the same category.

Now, if you are referring to assisted, deliberate suicide of those who are functional, but suffer from chronic pain, there is an inkling more similarity, but just barely. The baby has no pain and no desire to die. The killing of the baby is exclusively for the benefit of those other than the one being killed.

[Nic Samojluk]

Originally Posted By: Nic Samojluk

God will not take away my right to lie, steal, rape, or murder. He will simply let me reap the consequences of my rebellion against his will. Likewise, God will not take away my right and duty to warn sinners about the impending Day of Jedgment.

This is the duty of the church. If the church fails to perform said duty, she will have to answer to the Creator for refusing to perform her sacred task. Otherwise, what is the church for? Why should I pay my tithe to the church if it is paving my way to hell with gold?

How can you, as one who claims the "right" to lie, steal, rape, kill, or whatever, have the nerve to tell anyone what the duty of the Church is? As one who claims such falsehood, and the "rights" to such wickedness, you think to appoint yourself as appointed by God to "warn sinners of impending judgment?" That is just plain whacky. No one has a "right" to do such wicked things! How can you pervert truth so thoroughly, just to justify your cause? How can you promote such evil; and even half believe you are right? Your "message" is evil. And the Scripture also says "woe to them who call evil good." Abortion might be wrong; but so are you.

PS God will not take away this so called "right" from anyone, because it is not given to anyone. It is only claimed by some.

[Nic Samojluk]

No you won't. You have shown that to others already here. Summarily dismissing what I have said as "adhominem" is a convenient lie, and a cheap apologetics ruse for you to believe in and infect others with. My challenge to you is to prove that what I said is wrong. You have already failed to follow through with your own "rule" to ignore my alledgedly "adhominem" statements by not ignoring it. or do you also have the "right" to different rules for yourself than the rest of the Church whom you are "warning about impendinding judgment?" You need fewer excuses and less embellishments of the facts at hand.

Overaged,

What I am interested is in a constructive exchange of views. I did ask you for specifics, and you are giving me ad hominem generalities which failed to point where I have erred in my dissertation. Please give me factual errors which I can verify and correct. This was done by others, and I did respond by making the proper corrections.

I started my research with the hunch, suspicion, premise, hypothesis, or bias if you prefer; that the Adventist church had deviated from the clear and unambiguous pro-life attitude of the early Adventist pioneers. After ten years of investigation, I concluded that my premise seemed to be supported by the evidence which I documented in my dissertation.

If you think that my premise and conclusion are in error, please provide the readers of this forum the evidence supporting you contention. If you choose to continue attacking my character, it will be evidence for all to see that your criticism is not based on evidence but rather on your bias against my conclusion.

Give me factual errors taken from my dissertation and tell me why you think I was mistaken in my hypothesis and my conclusion. Be specific and to the point. Unjustified attacks against my character will not work.

[Nic Samojluk]

I think he meant something more like "freedom" to sin.

Sivart,

Yes! I was referring to God’s granted freedom to sin and rebel against his will. Now, let us not forget what happened when Adam sinned. There are serious consequences for deviating from God’s will for us. His will is enshrined in the Ten Words he wrote on two tables of stone. We are certainly free to violate all Ten, but if we do, we will reap the results of our free choice to sin.

[karl]

Yet it is ONLY the pro-life community that actually ministers to those who are caught up in this moral morass.

Profound observation.

Ought to give us more perspective on just where our sympathies should lie.

[Nic Samojluk]

This fellow claims quite a bit of "scholarly research" in his "documentation," so I was thinking that he would just say what he means. He meant exactly what he said. Those crimes he said we have a "right" to do, are not rights at all.

Overaged,

Please read my previous response to you. What you actually did was to take my response out of context. My comments were in response to you argument that God does not take our freedom of choice to abort, and I responded that neither does God take our freedom of choice in the matter of lying, stealing, and murdering. We are certainly free to sin and rebel against God’s will, but if we exercise said freedom to sin, we will have to face God’s righteous judgment, unless we repent, of course. God is ready to forgive if we repent, but how can a woman seek forgiveness if the church claims she had done no wrong by killing her own innocent child under such a variety of circumstances like rape, incest, when the female is a minor, and even when she claims that?

[Nic Samojluk]

Wouldn't it be better to just ask him what he meant instead of assuming the worst and getting upset about it?

I already explained what I meant more than once. I hope you realize that you either inadvertently or on purpose misread and misinterpreted what I said. Read what I said within the context of your previous statement to me, to which I responded.

[karl]

The Church, in fact, does have a position on abortions that I think is very balanced. The Church's position is not fairly represented by the OP of this topic.

Is there a place online where the church's position on abortion is written down? I think it is important that we have that as a basis for this discussion.

[Nic Samojluk]

Originally Posted By: Nic Samojluk

The same is true about abortion. The knowledge that abortion is legal and morally accepted by society encourages young and old to engage in promiscuos sexual activity which is the main root cause of unwanted babies.

First' date=' abortion is not morally accepted in the US. Polls show that over 70% of Americans believe abortion is morally wrong.

Second, banning abortion does not serve as a deterrent to sexual promiscuity as seen in various nations where abortion is banned. [/quote']

Shane,

Would you make the same argument in favor of legalizing rape incest, stealing, and murder? If society criminalizes those types of crime, which do not result in the death of innocent human beings, why do we legalize the killing of a large group of human beings? Can’t you see a dire contradiction here?

Our church has invested tons of ink in defense of the Sabbath—and we should--in spite of the fact that no human being is loosing his life when someone worships God on the wrong day of the week. Yet 50 million innocent beings have been exterminated inside our abortion clinics, many of them owned by Adventists, and we won’t move a finger to stop this madness! Doesn’t this bother you?

We have championed the fight against the harmful habit of smoking—and we should—on the premise that the habit shortens the life of smokers by four or five years of their life; yet when every week about thre thousand innocent human beings are deprived of their right to live 80 or 90 years, we say: It is their right to choose. Right to choose to do what? Kill innocent human beings?

Your second argument is based on statistics usually provided by either Planned Parenthood-an entity which profits from the lucrative abortion business—I know Adventists who have become millionaires from this—or else from the Guttmacher Institute, which is an agency created by PP. Doesn’t this bother you? Can we trust the tobacco company for providing us information of the effects of smoking?

[Overaged]

Originally Posted By: Overaged

This fellow claims quite a bit of "scholarly research" in his "documentation," so I was thinking that he would just say what he means. He meant exactly what he said. Those crimes he said we have a "right" to do, are not rights at all.

Overaged,

Please read my previous response to you. What you actually did was to take my response out of context. My comments were in response to you argument that God does not take our freedom of choice to abort, and I responded that neither does God take our freedom of choice in the matter of lying, stealing, and murdering.

You can say what you want about me; but you did use the word "rights," and we do not really have "freedom" to do these things as you suggest. You create many such false premises, under the guise of "scholarly research," and "documentation."

I am sorry that you are taking my responses here personally; that is another good way to avoid what I am saying.

Can you give me a link to your thesis/research please? I will then try to make my responses more in line with your request. But you create certain questions that should not have to be asked. I thought you were going to "ignore me?" This is the second time you have gone back on that. If all I am doing is so "adhominem," why are you so worried? Could it be that all of those "redherrings" in your "documentation" are clouding the issue?

BTW Where did I specifically say that "God does not take away our freedom of choice to abort?"

[Nic Samojluk]

I don't believe it would be right. However I don't believe we need the church membership calling church meetings to discuss whether or not a girl's abortion was justifiable and debating what type of church discipline needs to be administered. The decision in such cases needs to be left between the church member, her doctor and any spiritual adviser she may consult.

Shane,

Did I say anything about church discipline? My argument is that the church should be officially opposed to all kinds of sin and should be preaching against the violation of God commandment and against sinning. We have been very active and quite vociferous about the evils of smoking and about the sin of breaking the Sabbath; at the same time we side with the enemy—the one who has been a “murderer from the beginning”--when it come to the killing of innocent unborn children. Does this make sense to you?

Do we as a church have the right to consider ourselves to be “God’s Remnant” on earth, those who “keep God’s Commandments” and at the same time defend women’s right to butcher their own children? Yes, God will judge every one, but as a church we need to stand for what God stands for. Jesus stated that he came that we might have life and have it more abundantly; yet we condone the killing of innocent babies in some of our own hospitals. Will not the Lord hear the claim of those victims? Read the story of Cain. The Lord did tell him that the blood of his brother was claiming for justice.

[Overaged]

Originally Posted By: doug yowell

The Church, in fact, does have a position on abortions that I think is very balanced. The Church's position is not fairly represented by the OP of this topic.

Is there a place online where the church's position on abortion is written down? I think it is important that we have that as a basis for this discussion.

I posted the link a few posts ago. Here it is for those who missed that post:

Abortion Guidelines

[Overaged]

Originally Posted By: SivartM

I think he meant something more like "freedom" to sin.

Sivart,

Yes! I was referring to God’s granted freedom to sin and rebel against his will. Now, let us not forget what happened when Adam sinned. There are serious consequences for deviating from God’s will for us. His will is enshrined in the Ten Words he wrote on two tables of stone. We are certainly free to violate all Ten, but if we do, we will reap the results of our free choice to sin.

The fact is, that you are the one who uses the two different words "freedom" or "rights" here, it is not something I made up or took out of context.

[Nic Samojluk]

Originally Posted By: teresaq(sda)

karl, have you studied the counsel the Lord gives us through ellen white on the criminality of bringing children into this world unless under certain circumstances?

we either regard all the counsel given us or we do not.

EGW did not counsel us not to bring children into the world. She was opposed to gospel workers having one child after another that they couldn't support and the care of whom would distract them from their work.

It would be idiotic for her to counsel us not to procreate at all. It would be against God's counsel in His Word. It would be against her own example.

She certainly never endorsed abortion.

Excellent response!

[Nic Samojluk]

Originally Posted By: rudywoofs

irrelevant.

Why do you want to set yourself up as God?

I don't, but I am certainly as willing to try and talk someone out of committing suicide as I am to try and talk them out of committing abortion.

By what reasoning do you pronounce suicide to be irrelevant to infanticide? Help me out here. Seems related. Premeditated death involved in both.

Great reasoning! Unassailable! It is so refreshing to see someone else fighting for what is right and in agreement to what Scripture teaches from Genesis through Revelation.

[Overaged]

Originally Posted By: karl

I don't' date=' but I am certainly as willing to try and talk someone out of committing suicide as I am to try and talk them out of committing abortion.

By what reasoning do you pronounce suicide to be irrelevant to infanticide? Help me out here. Seems related. Premeditated death involved in both. [/quote']

Great reasoning! Unassailable! It is so refreshing to see someone else fighting for what is right and in agreement to what Scripture teaches from Genesis through Revelation.

It would be nice if your "reasoning" were "unassailable" too. You present many redherring arguments abut the Church to bolster your abortion theory claims.

Your reference to Vance Ferrel materials, your reference to "Adventist leaders cooperated with Nazi regime, your accusation of the Adventist Church promoting genocide, your calloused assertions of where you send your tithes and why, your cries of victim complex by accusing people of saying you are not a "legitimate Adventist;" why you have provided a long litany of complaints about the Church in your "documentation;" which in fact do not reflect just how the current Conference Guidelines On Abortion are indeed a blanket approval by same for abortion, or, Pro Choice. What your many bitter laments tell me and others is that you have a major problem with the Church in general. That being said; it doesn't follow that I see you as any less than me or anyone else in the Church. I think you can do with less of your false dichotomies, and more of correct context for what I am saying here about the official Conference Guidelines. I am saying that these guidelines do not mean what you say they do; and I am saying that you, either intentionally or unintentionally, are misrepresenting the Church's true position on it all by drawing in your many other problems and complaints with the Church.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

Here is the link to Nic's *cough, cough* dissertation. http://sdaforum.ipower.com/page13.html

I found it to be biased, poorly written, and unprofessional. I've already given my reasons elsewhere in this topic for my opinion. NOTE: I am not attacking Nic; I am attacking his credibility as an author in his uncredentialed PhD dissertation.

[teresaq]

While I appreciate your sensitivity to the difficulty we face making decisions in end-of-life and palliative care, I must submit to you that you are lumping apples and oranges above. It's true they are both fruits, but they are not even remotely the same as a simple bite of each will demonstrate.

There is a huge difference between deliberately killing that person who, if left alone, would gradually become more independent and self-sustaining (a baby,) and the pulling of the plug on that person who, if left alone, will die on his/her own (I had to do this with my father a year ago.)

Huge difference. Not even in the same category.

Now, if you are referring to assisted, deliberate suicide of those who are functional, but suffer from chronic pain, there is an inkling more similarity, but just barely. The baby has no pain and no desire to die. The killing of the baby is exclusively for the benefit of those other than the one being killed.

karl, would you say your posts are illustrative of dichotomous thinking? all black or all white?

Eze 13:19 And will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your lies?