What I Learned About Abortion & the Adventist Church

[Nic Samojluk]

I'm a protestant who believes in the rule of law. That is not a Catholic belief. It is a Christian one.

Romans 13 tells us how we are to relate to our civil government and lawmakers. We are to obey them because they are really God's servants doing His work.

The last six commandments are the perview of civil governments to use to make laws and do not force anyone's consciences.

Our Adventist forefathers agreed with their government when it outlawed abortion in their day.

Many Evangelical Christians also believe in ending abortion in our day.

No doubt! Everything you have stated is true!

[Dr. Shane]

Your faith in the accuracy of abortion statistics exceeds that of those who are providing those statistics.

Not so. The statistics are approximate numbers. Your attitude is that they are completely useless and irrelevant. That is not the position of those measuring the data or publishing the statistics. I use them as they were intended to be used. You discard them altogether.

[Dr. Shane]

Originally Posted By: Shane

Laws against drug use are set up to prevent NON-ADDICTS from using drugs. And those laws work. If drugs were made legal, many more people would use them.

What works for drugs should work for abortion. This is common sense!

OK, so laws against abortion work to discourage those that are not pregnant from getting an abortion. Sub laws are not effect for those that are pregnant.

[Dr. Shane]

Originally Posted By: Shane

A scared, pregnant girl is in the same class as a drug addict. No law is going to stop her from getting an abortion.

Our U.S. statistics has proved this to be wrong. The number of abortion in the U.S. doubled in five years following its legalizations.

Abortion-on-demand is not the answer. That is true. The US is not the example to be followed. However, in looking at those statistics we also need to take into consideration the sexual revolution taking place at the time. The 1970s was the height of the hippy era in the US.

[Dr. Shane]

Originally Posted By: Shane

We certainly do not need to embrace the Catholic extremes of banning abortion completely.

True. I have stated more than once that saving the life of the pregnant woman is still pro-life if the only alternative is loosing two lives.

The Catholic extreme I am referring to is using the civil government to enforce religious doctrine.

[Dr. Shane]

I know several Adventists who have converted to the Catholic faith precisely because of our new stand on abortion; this is something I had never heard before.

That is probably where they belong. The spirit that urges one man to control the conscience of another is not from God. The Catholic church tries to control others by the use of force. The Adventist church relies on the Word of God to win hearts and convince minds. Those wanting to use the civil government to control their fellow man probably belong more in the Catholic church than the Adventist movement.

[Nic Samojluk]

Many Evangelical Christian follow Rome quite closely. They are indeed daughters of their harlot mother.

[Nic Samojluk]

Our own Adventist pioneers wer not following Rome. They spoke out against abortion and had nothing negative to say about our government's ban of abortion.

Excellent point!When Saint Paul was invited by the Athenians to the Areopagus, he introduced his speech by emphasazing something good he had noticed in their town: a monument to the "unknown god." Recognizing and imitating the good actions of even pagans is not prohibited in the Bible, but rather encouraged.

[Nic Samojluk]

Originally Posted By: Shane

Many Evangelical Christian follow Rome quite closely. They are indeed daughters of their harlot mother. The Adventist church follows the Bible and the Bible only.

Yeah, well they say that they follow the Bible and the Bible only too. Since we follow Rome closely in some areas (clergy vs. laity, for example), I wouldn't get too confident in our religious purity.

Me neither! How can we be pure if we have compromised on a moral issue dealing with the true meaning of one of God's Commandments?

[Nic Samojluk]

Originally Posted By: Shane

What happens when a nation places a ban on abortion is that scared women with an unplanned pregnancy will not go to a Crisis Pregnancy Center because they must keep their pregnancy a secret.

Why must they keep their pregnancy a secret? It is not illegal to get pregnant.

However, if abortion were banned, it would be illegal to kill babies. Are you suggesting pregnant mothers would not go to a crisis pregnancy center because they plan to kill their babies? I would agree with that conclusion, but do not see any support for legalized abortion in it.

Legalized abortion and crisis pregnancy centers seem like mutually exclusive pursuits. Either go get help keeping the baby or find someone who will help you kill the baby. I don't see any fence-riding potential here. It's one or the other.

Good thinking!

[Nic Samojluk]

Originally Posted By: Nic Samojluk

We need to weigh the evidence for and against the legalization of all criminal activity. What works for abortion should work for the use of drugs, for rape, and for the sexual abuse of children.

The evidence has been examined. The only thing that makes something criminal is civil law. Not all behavior is the same. Banning some behavior works. Banning other behavior does not work. The evidence from all across the globe shows us that banning abortion doesn't work. Restricting abortion does.

Banning abortion does work better than the alternative. Our U.S. statistics are clear evidence of this. When we legalized abortion, the number of abortions mushroomed to twice what it was before in only five years.

[Nic Samojluk]

Nic, you keep criticizing Shane for using biased statistics. You do the same thing to bolster your own case.

[Dr. Shane]

Banning abortion does work better than the alternative. Our U.S. statistics are clear evidence of this.

The US statistics from 35 years ago are irrelevant. Those are a generation old already for goodness sake. Moreover, those resulted from changing abortion laws to abortion-on-demand. There was no Crisis Pregnancy Centers in place. Sexual attitudes were different. Society had a different attitude toward teenage pregnancy. Schools dealt with teenage pregnancy much different. It was a different world. It was also the height of the hippy-free-love era.

Relevant statistics come from today - comparing nations with restrictive abortion laws to those with abortion bans. Compare Germany, The Netherlands with Mexico and Argentina. We see very quickly what works and what does not.

[there buster]

Quote:

The US statistics from 35 years ago are irrelevant.

So what actually happened when the law was changed in this country is irrelevant, while all sorts of statistics from other countries are relevant. Apply this to legal matters, and Obama might nominate you for the Supreme Court, where our Constitution is less important than "prevailing international attitudes."

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Society had a different attitude toward teenage pregnancy. Schools dealt with teenage pregnancy much different.

A thoughtful person might consider that legalizing abortion played a part in changing those attitudes.

The trends you cite tell us nothing about why. Again, a thoughtful person might want to inquire into causes, not just list effects.

[bobbie]

Absolutely!

[Dr. Shane]

So what actually happened when the law was changed in this country is irrelevant...

[there buster]

Quote:

The abortion statistics from the 1970s really are so outdated they are irrelevant to the abortion debate today.

Repeating irrelevant facts and restating the conclusion you leaped to does not validate said conclusion.

We know what happened. Just because you don't like what it indicates doesn't invalidate it or strengthen your position. Quite the opposite.

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The trends you cite tell us nothing about why. Again, a thoughtful person might want to inquire into causes, not just list effects.

Why more girls choose an illegal abortion in Argentina than girls choose a legal abortion in Germany is a good question.

Yes, it is. Perhaps it would be more productive to pursue an answer, than to restate unrelated trivia.

[Dr. Shane]

I am not the one that keeps restating the irrelevant statistics that are a generation old. I have not leaped to any conclusions. I favored banning abortion for many, many years. I am still anti-abortion. I want to see the lowest abortion rate possible. I only stopped supporting an abortion ban when the weight of the evidence became so great I could not remain intellectually honest and still support such a ban.

[there buster]

Quote:

I am not the one that keeps restating the irrelevant statistics that are a generation old.

And now we discover that historical facts are irrelevant.

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I have not leaped to any conclusions.

Perhaps you merely fell into them laterally. Here's one entirely without supporting evidence, only naked assertion.

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Relevant statistics come from today - comparing nations with restrictive abortion laws to those with abortion bans. Compare Germany, The Netherlands with Mexico and Argentina. We see very quickly what works and what does not.

You jump to the conclusion that differing abortion laws caused the differing rates in abortions. It is equally plausible that you got it backward. It is also quite possible that the differing abortion rates are the result of unique cultural factors in each country.

You call it "intellectual honesty." I do not doubt your honesty, but your logic is -- essentially non-existent.

You make the classic "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" fallacy.

Milk may sour after a thunderstorm, but that doesn't mean that lightning sours milk.

[Dr. Shane]

We have seen the abortion rates drop in individual states as restrictions are placed on it, birth-control is made available, school options are made available for pregnant teens and sex education is given in public schools. The evidence is just overwhelming. Simply banning abortion doesn't work. The US has a long way to go but some individual states are definitely on the right path. We can get to the rates of Germany and The Netherlands. We certainly do not want to go in the direction of Mexico or Argentina.

[there buster]

Very stirring, but you've gotten into the habit of sloppy thinking. You keep jumping to the same conclusion, and asserting those conclusions as proof.

The population of the Netherlands and Germany combined is less than one-third that of the US. Their demographics are radically different. Yet, by your declaration, ignoring all these and other differences, we can magically become just like them.

You have finally become a captive of liberal wish-fulfillment thinking: declare it so and it becomes so.

That only works for God, and then only in certain circumstances.

[there buster]

Quote:

If you think his facts are not supportable than show why they are not with your own, not just questioning his logic or thinking......one could say the same about you!

Apparently you are not paying attention. I not only cited facts, I showed their relationships to one another, and how they invalidate his conclusion.

Beyond that, Shane is stating a conclusion. In any reasonable discussion, if a conclusion is not supported by the evidence cited, then it's reasonable to point that out.

Sometimes the answer to a question is "we don't know." In such a case it would be futile and foolish to demand an alternative answer.

So, while "one could say the same thing" it would be mistaken and inaccurate. Logic is logic 2+2=4. If someone claims 2+2=6, it is fair game to point out the mistake.

[there buster]

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Ah, in your mind, just as Shane believes in his logic, you believe in your own.

How very post modern of you. However, there are rules of logic, which are not dependent upon opinion. That is my point. Shane's conclusion does not follow from his evidence.

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His statement about stats from the 70's being not relevant today could in fact be true. You need to present #'S showing they are not.

The actual history contradicts his conclusion. So he declares that history irrelevant. The burden of proof is on him, since he stated a conclusion. That's simple logic. Not my logic, not yours, not his. It simply is.

On the other hand he declares statistics from other countries relevant, when their culture, demographics, history, and politics are different than ours. The only apparent reason is because they appear to support his conclusion. Yet he refuses to address why they should be relevant when our own history is not. He simply asserts the same evidence again and again.

It's only circular because Shane repeats the same logical errors and refuses to address them.

[Nic Samojluk]

The US statistics from 35 years ago are irrelevant.

[Nic Samojluk]

Quote:

The US statistics from 35 years ago are irrelevant.

So what actually happened when the law was changed in this country is irrelevant, while all sorts of statistics from other countries are relevant. Apply this to legal matters, and Obama might nominate you for the Supreme Court, where our Constitution is less important than "prevailing international attitudes."

Quote:

Society had a different attitude toward teenage pregnancy. Schools dealt with teenage pregnancy much different.

A thoughtful person might consider that legalizing abortion played a part in changing those attitudes.

The trends you cite tell us nothing about why. Again, a thoughtful person might want to inquire into causes, not just list effects.

Your arguments make a lot of sense to me! Thanks!