The 2019 Seventh-day Adventist Statement on Abortion does not provide all the Scriptural evidence it promises. Even if this is not a shortcoming, it is a shortfall.
I don’t understand what practical use the 1992 statement had or was intended to have. I also don’t understand the intended use of the new statement. Will it be part of the curriculum for gynecologists, obstetricians, and other physicians trained at Adventist medical schools or for use in hospital chaplaincy programs? Is it primarily a position statement to be accessed when someone wishes to know the official Adventist position on the subject?
Many thanks David Larson for weighting in on this important subject that women must ultimately deal with. The only point that you seem to be making that I question is the statement: “…the Executive committee approved the Statement…and we should accept it…It is better to accept …than keep debating this issue.” I would strongly disagree as a father of three daughters and two step-daughters. Women should be allowed to decide for themselves about abortion without the male dominated SDA church structure deciding for them. Especially victims of rape and incest. To do otherwise is to ignore Christ’s command “Judge not lest ye be judged” in matters so personal to women victims of rape and incest, including by men in the church. If not addressed now, when?
do 2 sins make a right ?
who invented abortion within the history of medicine ?
philosophy we know Peter Singer the philosophical advocate for suicide and euthanasia
will SDA churches do suicide next ?
abortion is related to the OMEGA
“Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin.” –Deuteronomy 24:[16]
Do not “do evil that good may come.” –Romans 3:[8]
“The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son… the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” –God, Ezekiel 18:[20]
When I say that we ought to “accept” this Statement I do not mean that SDA individuals and institutions are necessarily obliged to abide by it but that we should recognize that it is the best that global Adventism can do at this time and that we should not try to change it. Also, we should be respectful of and grateful to those who worked so hard on it.
The General Conference cannot enforce this Statement or much else on any individual or institution beyond itself. Although this has always been the case, it has become more evident over the last several years.
The wording of the 2019 Statement is more concise than precise. This leaves much room for a wide range of interpretations and applications.
The General Conference can have much power for good throughout the whole of global Adventism and beyond. This can be the power of persuading by precept and example. All other forms of power are weak by comparison.
Although I appreciate you standing for the right (as you see it) though the heavens fall, there are conscientious people who are not so sure.
Some of us, for on reason or another, have had to face the issue of rape or incest head on. Such cases can shake one’s timbers. Fortunately, I have not had to make the final decision and my sympathy goes out to those who do.
There tragic situations
Tho without getting into your case
It takes a village to raise a child . So family and church support and may be hospital and ADRA
And for litigation to apprehend the suspect and DNA would help conviction .
There a many things church can do
My point with referring to PETER SINGER
Is that these professions medicine and law have all been influenced by philosophy.
Students don’t just study 1+1=2
There are modules and practices influenced by men
And was thinking regards PETER SINGERS debates
Did JESUS accept pain killers on the cross .
I appreciate David Larson’s effort to find positives in the statement, but I share Phil’s concerns. I especially appreciate the contrast Phil has drawn between the UN Human Rights Committee statement and our trifling GC statement. I fail to understand why our church leaders do not grasp the moral and political consequences of religion backing anti-abortion laws. Phil’s examples from central America highlight those disturbing consequences (though Evelyn Hernandez endured prison in El Salvador rather than Honduras). We have the same thing with religion backing anti-homosexual laws, which has spurred governments to imposie harsh penalties–even death–for those who are guilty of being born with a “different” brain and mindset.
Grant, it would be nice if the “official position” on this issue could be spelled out better. However, I remind the readers that, “whatever happens at the GC stays at the GC.” What I mean is that whatever is voted by those black suited MEN upstairs" has actually no relevance unless we, the members, validate their their decisions by following them.
They “voted” about abortion. So what? If one’s daughter is raped and becomes pregnant, and they decide in family (+doctors) that there should be an abortion, how can the Church interfere in it? It can’t, because the Church is an entity that has no business dictating into our personal lives. Those people feel as having “great power” over the members. Only if the members allow them to, though.
Do you have daughters, Simon?
We, the members, are ultimately the ones that will filter whatever comes from the GC. For me, the GC decisions should be called “opinions” or just “input.” Thus, every person will need to make their own decision about every issue. Positive inputs from the GC will be welcome. But any attempt of meddling with our personal lives is a “no/no,” and can be just discarded as needed. They are nothing but mere “PRN” recommendations.
I think it’s important to consider that this issue can’t be oversimplified to mere consideration of consequences on select individuals living in a social construct. Abortion is a moral paradox, and it must be considered as one, since there are a number of conflicting moral considerations that are very difficult to resolve without determine which one must take primacy.
Likewise, this debate is rather limited in its scope, since it doesn’t take the broader consideration of who we are, why we are driven to have sex, and why we developed (or given, from some perspective) the layered strategy of sublimating sex by means of societal frameworks.
For example, I really don’t want to go to the bathroom right now, because “I” want to finish this post. But “I” can’t ignore that “I” isn’t really singular in that respect…
Ok, I’m back 
but it serves as a good example of “social brain” interacting with our “operational brain”. And operational brain doesn’t really care, or even aware of our social needs. It’s there to ensure our survival in the worst cases of human context, hence sexual reproduction is the only way we get to progress in history.
For me, and most of the people in the past, this realization takes a considerable chunk out of any social considerations, since these are merely layered on top of what we are as humans. We can’t ignore it. Whatever we do as a society is merely a sublimated aspect of that biological function, with sex being only secondary to the desire to survive, which I’m not sure can be separated.
Hence, I’m not really sure that we can adequately discuss this issue from mere positioning of the existing “high-level” societal abstractions that we have today, which structure and link to different fears that have very little to do with our biology. Let’s face it… FOR MOST cases of abortions in the US today, it’s generally the case of how it impacts a mother in a social context as it relates to potential for pain and survival. I don’t want to discard the difficulty of overcoming one’s biological imperative that one has to live with and be reminded of as something that’s always there, but that’s the complex reality of abortion.
And it actually exposes a much deeper issue that relates to certain incompatibility of modern culture as it relates to our biological reality. And that’s really where we , as religious people, fit as a layer that exists between biology and certain “runaway” social norms that can ignore it to the point of our collective breakdown. And we have to assume that responsibility with a much broader perspective than the one we looking at now.
I think we have to mature and see the religion as a function of both understanding who we are as it relates to our “bio-teleology”. And we have to contextualize and ground religious morality in those specific terms, because it’s a rather simple bridge to moral consequentialism that the world adopted as operational standard.
george
why don’t we have articles where a victim and the baby survived and there was a positive outcome ?
I expect because no one has found such people to interview and then had the motivation to write an article. Maybe you do?
I fail to see how that question is at all relevant. In each of these terrible scenarios there will be occasions where there is a positive outcome. But to suggest that this should in any way dictate a course of action for all women who have been victim of such violence is a non argument.
That’s way too logical. Unfortunately you’ll likely get nowhere trying to discuss this with finesse, facts, or logic.
tim your being critical with me for voicing a alternative viewpoint to yours
tho did article by DAVID interview anyone
or just upload a image from GETTYIMAGES.COM
Simon, this was a very strange answer to my question. I asked if you have daughters. How is your question related to my question?
So, again, do you have daughters?>
Regarding rticles on Spectrum, you have to ask Spectrum’s @webEd since I do not work at Spectrum - thus I am unable to answer your question.