Should Adventist Christians Have More to Say About Abortion?

[Nic Samojluk]

Yes our SDA hospitals do perform abortions, and on a very large scale. Some years ago a friend of mine was attending a question and answer session where Neal Wilson (the General Conference President) was answering some questions. He was asked: Why do our hospitals perform abortions? My friend heard him say that all our hospitals did abortions....and if we didn't perform them for the women, we would lose their business....so we may as well make the money off them...

Back in the days of our pioneers we were definitely pro-life, but about 10 years before Roe v Wade it started to change. And this is where we are now.

Richard,

The incident you ascribe to Neal Wilson reminds me of how Dr. Edward C. Allred,  a successful abortionist, rationalized his involvement in the abortion industry a few years ago before selling his Family Planning Associates highly lucrative business to Bud" Feldkamp, a SDA dentist,  four years ago. Allred originally was planning to become a SDA minister, but later switched to medicine.

He graduated from LLU back in 1964 and decided to start an abortion business eventually owning 21 abortion clinics in California. He became a millionaire and left the church. On one occasion he was publicly asked whether he felt any guilt for being in the business of killing innocent unborn children. His answer was: “If I do not do this, women will go elsewhere for an abortion, so I might as well do it.”

Before Roe v Wade, we Adventists used to describe the killing of the unborn as “therapeutic abortions.” My question is: If abortion is a desirable form of therapy, why don’t the defenders of abortion fail to apply such therapy to themselves?

[Nic Samojluk]

Welcome Nic to the forum and thanks for your comments. I look forward to reading your doctoral dissertation on this topic which was posted above.

What does this say about the church claiming to keep the commandments of God? Is not the 6th commandment at least as important as the 4th? Doing abortions for profit? God will judge these sins, and it is difficult to see how He can bless a church who compromises itself so seriously on an issue as important as this.

Stan

Stan,

I am glad you have decided to read my doctoral dissertation. Give me some feedback as you go along. In the event you decide to skip any of the material, I suggest that you do not skip the Appendices, which is where I summarize my findings. It is highly rewarding for me to learn that someone is interested in reading what I discovered at great cost in time, effort, and loss of personal business. I invested into this project thousands of hours without any hope of ever recouping my investment, and my hope is that the effort might yield some beneficial results for the sake of those who cannot speak for themselves.

Could it be that one of the reasons the Adventist Church did stop growing in the U.S. is because we decided to compromise on this moral issue? Besides, how can an organization grow when it is killing their own children, those who eventually would replace the ones who are dying? Notice how the SDA membership is growing by leaps and bounds in many Catholic countries where Adventists are condemning the practice of abortion! You said it right: worshipping God on the correct day of the week is important, but refraining from engaging in the mass genocide of the innocents is the essence of the Gospel. Look at what the Jewish leaders did two millennia ago: They killed the Author of life and rushed to keep the Sabbath.

[Nic Samojluk]

A good friend of mine, Nic Samojluk wrote his Doctoral Dissertation on this very subject.

   "From Pro-life to Pro-choice:
      The Dramatic Shift in Seventh-day
 Adventists' Attitudes
 Towards Abortion"
        A Doctoral Dissertation

        by Nic Samojluk, Ph.D. 

http://sdaforum.ipower.com/page13.html

Not only is it good reading, it's very enlightening. .......In answer to the original question, I would say yes.

Richard,

I did notice your posting advertising my doctoral dissertation. I did not react immediately to this simply because I am not used to such kind reaction to the work I have been doing on behalf of the unborn. The contrast between your warm reception to my self appointed mission and the apathy and criticism I have been receiving so far from the majority of Adventists who are aware of my work is so great that you left me speechless. In order to understand what I mean, you need to read the following report I filed on my web site following the Feldkamps’ tragic loss a few months ago which generated the strongest rebuke I have ever received in my life from an Adventist leader and from those who see nothing wrong with the killing of the unborn. Here is the link to it:

Is Sharing a News Item a Cardinal Sin?

http://sdaforum.com/page245.html

[Deborah Risinger]

There is an other diminsion to this issue...what happens later in life to these women, young girls when a reckoning comes..and it does come one way or the other.  Anger, depression confusion, guilt and the like.   They might have been saved from a residual physical, mental or/and spiritual problem later in life.

How many children and young people are saved from bigger problems in life down the road because a parent or concerned person had the courage and eithic to say "no" ...I will not help you in this.

God Help Us, God Help Us,
Deborah 

[Deborah Risinger]

Hello Nic...welcome..and to the others I have not welcomed yet....

God's Blessings'
Deborah   

[Agatha]

Good morning, Brother Samojluk! Last evening I began reading your dissertation not knowing you have become a member here. (I am on chapter 8 - whew! What a revelation!) And what joy it is to know we can discuss with you personally the findings contained in that document. I told some friends, it is one thing for us to expose to each other the horrendous downfall of leadership on this issue or any issue for that matter, I can only imagine the reaction of your professors at a non-SDA university to come to a knowledge of how we have horribly mishandled this all the while claiming remnant status among men. They see our hypocrisy. It is a sour dose of medicine, but it is obviously necessary given the magnitude of the sin in the camp.

Oh how I wondered how we came to have guidelines for this damnable practice. Guidelines are a far cry from moral statements given by the RCC and the Baptists. God used the Philistines and heathens to punish His people from time to time - it seems we are withering under the embarrassment of our failings compared to those we condemn in other areas. God is using them in a very public way to shame His people to repent and reform our practice.

There is so much more I wish to say, but will hold off until I get further along in your dissertation. I am sorry this document has been around for three years and I am just now discovering it. God bless you, dear man. All of heaven rejoices when there is a lone voice here and there that actually calls sin by its right name. For what it's worth, you have my complete support. I look forward to our discussion.   

[Agatha]

I would have a lot of backtracking to do if I were to begin at page one with comments and exhortations   ; however, in Chapter 9 you are discussing the SDA Guidelines and I must respond at this juncture. Within that discussion you say this, Brother Samojluk:

... these pro-life declarations are again tempered and modified by a suggestion that
“decisions about life must be made in the context of a fallen world,” that “abortion should be
performed only for the most serious reasons,” and that “attitudes of condemnation are
inappropriate in those who have accepted the gospel.” In light of the strong and unambiguous
condemnation of the practice of abortion by the early pioneers of the Seventh-day Adventists
Church, with no exceptions, can the current SDA official position on abortion be equated with
that of the early SDA Church? [8] The answer is “No.” of course!

Amen, first of all. Secondly, "decisions about life must be made in the context of a fallen world.” This attitude is one which keeps us in a cesspool of sin regardless of the issue. It is as if we are confronted with a multitude of moral dilemmas, of which we know there are actually none. Our moral dilemma is conjured up with our desire to compromise a "Thus saith the Lord" with our desire for comfortable outcomes. We have never been promised comfortable outcomes, quite the opposite. Suffering for His sake is our lot until the great controversy has been completed and I praise the Lord in knowing it will be completed.

Last year I got into this debate with a tremendously godly man. We were several days into our talks when he divulged his family had to make a decision between an unborn baby and the life of the mother. They have two small children and the mother is obviously needed, loved and cherished. So they opted to terminate the pregnancy based upon that factor. I asked him some hard questions, much like those I previously posted in this topic: where is your trust in God? We trust God in everything else, why would we stop trusting Him when placed in this situation? What if the mother dies, would God not see them through it? Would He leave them hopelessly adrift in their ensuing years? And something else to consider, we know God laid people in their graves just to save them. Has He stopped doing that? Is this ever an act that comes to mind when making these all important fallible human decisions? I know we don't - not in an overall sense. God knows the beginning and the end of everything. What kind of faulty decision could I make that would preempt the Divine Creator's choice for me - His plan for me, whether He lays me in the grave or not? That is a decision He must make for me - I can't make it. He is my Savior - I am not my own.  

This reminds me of Dr. Pipim's series, "Faithful Unto Death" and his 20 situations. Either we make the faithful choice and leave the consequences in God's hands or we find ourselves compromising so our suffering will not be so acute. We are as prophecy predicted: utterly self absorbed to the point we will do anything, even commit murder, to avoid personal pain and suffering. Because our world is ladened with six thousand years of sin, compounded upon itself, does not change God's directives one iota. How we respond has changed - thus your dissertation. We have softened, given in, given up to the sinful pressures around us that we have completely forgotten what constitutes a moral decision. We are guilty as charged and repentance and reformation must be the #1 item on our new agenda.

Regarding “attitudes of condemnation are inappropriate in those who have accepted the gospel”, it is such a tiring charge against those who have the nerve to call sin a sin. Conversely, a loving Christian would be remiss if he/she left those who need the truth as it is in Jesus out of their evangelical loop. Harsh Pharisaical condemnation is not what I am addressing. Yet those whom the Holy Spirit has nerved up, as Ellen White puts it, are those who will, with all their hearts, approach this sin and those who practice it with tears in their eyes and a heart as heavy as One in Gethsemane. We still have a few of those around.    

Now, on to chapter 10.  

[Agatha]

Forgot something ... imagine that!

While reading through the first 9 chapters, I am saddened to know that some leading out to correct this damnation within our ranks actually left us. How can they affect change on the inside while they stand on the outside? The ship will go through. A mighty shaking is within sight when considering this issue along with the creation/evolution problems within our universities while leadership is all too quiet on the subject. We can see it will happen sooner rather than later. Where will those who left us be when it happens? Will they return? Will they join us as the Church Triumphant having fought the good fight of faith, standing firm though the heavens fall? I pray they will return. If they are the godly men they purport to be, they will return. Although the remnant church has experienced horrendous embarrassment because of its supposed stand on this issue, our good brethren who are on the right side should not be found languishing in Babylonian churches because they can no longer tolerate the remnant. God tolerates His church and will see her through until she is spotless, without wrinkle. They should come home.

[Agatha]

Brother Samojluk, I completed your dissertation. Well done and thank you!

Chapter 10 was very difficult, as a matter of fact, a huge aversion to its subject was overwhelming at times and I had to leave it for a while. We need intercessory prayer services for such men and their abominations, to say nothing of our medical institutions, universities and the personnel at the head of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

Tell us, dear brother. How are you using your doctorate? Teaching? Clinical? We believe God raises up voices for a certain time in earth's history. This is most certainly yours. May God continue to accompany you and those like you in righting a very ugly wrong.  

[Doug Yowell]

Hi, I know I'm late to the discussion but this moral failure if my church has been my greatest burden over the past 25 years. Other than perhaps brother Nic I probably have the largest private collection of SDA actions (and inactions) on abortion over that time period. I have been active as a letter writer,and have consistantly presented the sinfulness of this practice in my Sabbath School teaching responsabilities. I was an active member of the now defunct Adventists For Life often writing articles for the Pacific Union Recorder as representative of that organization. The first and only Crisis Pregnancy Center started and operated by Seventh-day Adventists was officially begun in the living room of my mother's condo in Grand Terrace,Ca. with George Lawson (now a Seventh Day Baptist pastor),Dr. Fred Bischoff, and Dr. Edgar Veymeister. I have an extensive collection of articles,position papers,letters to the editor,letters and reports, and other miscellaneous documentation of the struggle for the protection of the unborn within the SDA organization. And although the documented evidence overwhelming suggests that the greater portion of Adventists are pro-life it has been the pro-choice/pro-abortion (There is no pragmatic difference between the two,the defacto result is still the unrestrained killing of the unborn) position that the church has chosen to promote. It has effectively and actively repressed any public agitation of the subject and instead chosen to demonize (literally) those Christians who have been leading the fight to eliminate this "nafarious practice"(not my  original quote). I am a computer pre-schooler so when something hapens to this format I have no idea what to do about it! I can't see what I'm typing becauseit's below the bottom box line so I'll try to add morelater. I'm out for now