| Author | Message | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 2193 Registered: 7-2007 |
I wonder what Adventists who know that Adventist hospitals perform abortions, would say if they were asked these questions. (This is a video called "180" by Ray Comfort. Warning: there are graphic pictures of the holocaust in this video.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y2KsU_dhwI | ||
| Pnoga Registered user Username: Pnoga Post Number: 490 Registered: 1-2007  |
I would think it's not important to them. As long as one keeps the sabbath, doesn't eat pork, shrimp, etc and even better no meat at all, and doesn't wear jewelry. Abortion seems to be a minor issue, I don't ever recall it being a topic in the church. | ||
| Free2dance Registered user Username: Free2dance Post Number: 484 Registered: 2-2010 |
I have always been pro-life, but when I talked about it openly among professors, pastors and elders as an SDA I got the sense that it was an off-limits topic, like politics. Many of my mentors at the time voted quite differently from me. We learned through tough conversations that we were better off leaving politics alone. Abortion was as off-limits as discussing welfare and tax-cuts. It was a political issue, it was not an issue of life. I never understood that. I would often hear, "I am pro-life for me, but who am I to tell people how to live. Even God gives us free will. I will not vote to give the government the right to tell us what is morally right and wrong. Let us determine that for ourselves." I would often ask them why then they are ok with laws against murder and child molestation. Too often I would then be "put in my place" with a sarcastic degrading comment about my ignorant understanding of life and politics. I had no idea that there were Adventist institutions lining their pockets with blood money. As a student of Social Work we were always told that our job as advocates for our clients was to help them get the resources they needed and were requesting. Because I attended an SDA University, I felt it was safe to ask what I was supposed to do if a client came to me asking for information about an abortion clinic. The room often became tense and people would get upset with me telling me that I cannot push my religious views on them and I must give them what they needed. My professor understood my heart and told me that I should refer them to another Social Worker who would be able to help them with a clear conscience. This was so hard for me. I was told that it would be unethical for me to give them resources for adoption clinics or counseling for pregnant teens. They said I would be abusing my “attributed power” by directing them toward my personal morals. One evening at the close of our internships our senior year we had a dinner where all the students and their intern supervisors came together to discuss the year and celebrate. All of the students interned in different places, some for the county and others at private clinics (I wasn’t so lucky). The intern supervisors were asked to say something to the group to give advice. One of the supervisors from a Christian private clinic decided to address us about the topic of abortion. I couldn’t wait to hear what she would say! She talked about the pressure to provide information to these frightened mothers without educating them on all their options. She encouraged us to consider working for a private clinic if this was a difficult situation for us. She then shared some of her personal struggle and I will never forget what she said. She said that one of our jobs as Social Workers was to advocate. To give a voice to the voiceless and defend those who cannot or do not know how to defend themselves. Then she said to the room of professors who had many times argued for us to keep quiet on the issue, “Who is more vulnerable and with out a voice than the unborn precious baby waiting a death sentence?” | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 13046 Registered: 12-2003  |
Free, for some reason your story makes me want to cry. I am so irritated that they tell you it would unethical to give those vulnerable women resources for adoption clinics or counseling for pregnant teens, but they were perfectly OK with your offering information on abortions. How is it more ethical to provide abortion info than adoption info? Whose personal morals are being pushed in that scenario? And how is it "abusing power" to direct women to options besides abortion? Whose morals is it OK to push? And how dare they announce to you that stating your convictions is "abusing" your "attributed power"? By whose standards? Bravo for that woman who spoke clearly at your dinner! Colleen | ||
| Free2dance Registered user Username: Free2dance Post Number: 486 Registered: 2-2010 |
Colleen, this actually really helped me sense that there were *real* problems with La Sierra University and by extension with Adventism for allowing La Sierra to teach as they were. I think I told you this weekend that I used to say that there were "shadows lurking in the halls of La Sierra." It was just wrong and I knew it. At that time in my life I would listen to Henry Cloud, John Townsend and the other guys from Meir New Life on KSGN in the afternoons. They were psychologists who helped people *using* scripture. I used to get emotional about that fact that here I was at a "Christian" university and we never once cracked the Bible as we studied to learn how to help broken people. I often wondered where people like those men went to school. I just learned recently that at least one of them is a graduate from BIOLA. Our professors said that our job is to provide the client with what they say they need, not tell them what they need based on our own bias and world view. To tell them what they need is both arrogant and an abuse of your education. They pretty much train you to be a social servant and promote it as some type of self sacrificing humility. The minute you disagree you are the self serving arrogant one. Another issue I really had with them was that the school only promoted the NASW (National Association of Social Workers) which worked **heavily** in Washington and all over the country for abortion rights (even late term abortion!). The LSU program never offered or carried information on the NACSW (North American Association of Christians in Social Work). They hardly recognized it as a valid association when I asked about it. The program required us to go to a NASW conference in San Francisco our senior year (in order to graduate) and lobby the republican offices to change their votes on different bills (bills that I personally supported and didn't want them to change their votes on!). This requirement was newly added my senior year and we had no option to opt out or do a different project. If I didn't participate I would fail the class and not be allowed to graduate. They told me that I didn't have to agree with the goal but that it was required of me in order to "learn the process". If I could go back in time...! Oh the stories I could tell you. I was OFTEN pretty unsettled in my program. When that Christian social worker stood up and spoke up for Pro-Life options and told us about the NACSW it gave me a tiny piece of relief to know that there might be a place for me in that field. I constantly felt like I was treated differently for not sharing the same convictions as some of my professors and fellow Social Workers. I was one of "them". You know who "they" are right? The horrible evangelical Christians. It's funny, when they compared me to the EV Christians I would get irritated because I was *not* an EV Christian! Boy, if I'd only known then...I ACTUALLY AM! This topic is one more reason I have said that fellowshipping at Trinity was like "coming home." (Message edited by free2dance on October 18, 2011) | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 13050 Registered: 12-2003 |
Wow. Yes, you really didn't fit in at the La Sierra program. They have a liberal as opposed to an evangelical Christian view of abortion. I can understand how confused and out-of-place you must have often felt. Colleen | ||
| Psalm107v2 Registered user Username: Psalm107v2 Post Number: 841 Registered: 10-2008  |
In the vein of this topic does anybody know which SDA hospitals perform abortions? There is an SDA that I am in contact with who doesn't believe SDA hospitals perform abortions (they say they want to call the hospitals themselves)-I believe the one in Washington DC does and I belive there is one in Florida but don't have the names. Thanks | ||
| Free2dance Registered user Username: Free2dance Post Number: 493 Registered: 2-2010 |
I think Loma Linda at least used to. I think I have a relative that had an abortion there many years ago (just before I was born in '79). I might be wrong, it may have been that she was working there when she had it done, but I thought it was done there. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 13060 Registered: 12-2003 |
I don't know for sure, but I think they all will perform them. They don't always call them "abortions" on the surgery schedule, but I believe they will perform them if the staff docs wish to do so. Colleen | ||
| Freeatlast Registered user Username: Freeatlast Post Number: 817 Registered: 5-2002  |
The next time an Adventist says "well if the Sabbath is done away with then is it OK to murder?", simply answer, "yes, if you are an SDA abortionist and it is not the Sabbath". | ||
| Free2dance Registered user Username: Free2dance Post Number: 502 Registered: 2-2010 |
Wow, freeatlast...well said. | ||
| Helovesme2 Registered user Username: Helovesme2 Post Number: 2928 Registered: 8-2004  |
They won't all perform them. The Manchester (KY) SDA Hospital changed its bylaws to specifically preclude abortion when my dad asked them to back in the 1980s (though I suppose it's possible they've changed them back in the years since). | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 13066 Registered: 12-2003 |
Oh, thank you, Mary. There may be others in that camp... Colleen | ||
| Jim02 Registered user Username: Jim02 Post Number: 1383 Registered: 5-2007 |
Below is a link and excerpts to just one of many many reports of abortions at Adventists hospitals. http://clubadventist.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/457180/Have_Adventist_Hospitals_Stopp.html In my letter to Ted Wilson, the president of the General Conference of Adventists, I made reference to the statistics I secured from the Health Services Cost Review Commission (HSCRC), an independent Maryland State agency, which resulted in the following number of inpatient abortions performed at two Adventist hospitals in Maryland, Washington Adventist Hospital [WAH] and Shady Grove Hospital [SGH]: 73 for the 2008 year, 65 for 2009, and 58 for 2010, or an average of 37 abortions per Adventist hospital per year. http://www.topix.com/forum/religion/seventh-day-adventist/T3USOUDDTT5FGDEVO In 2005, George Reid, of the SDA Biblical Research Institute, reported to Teresa Beem that the SDA Church was "pro-choice" and Washington Adventist Hospital was becoming an "Abortion Mill".14 The Washington Times reported the SDA hospital performed 1,494 abortions between 1975 and 1982. | ||
| Jim02 Registered user Username: Jim02 Post Number: 1395 Registered: 5-2007 |
Whenever I ask the SDA or even other churches about their liberal positions on abortion, the usual answer is , we personally do not accept it, or I read an article by that church that sames the same, the members as a whole do not agree with the official policy of the church, they tend to be far more conservative and prolife. Yet, they , the members, tolerate or set aside the conflicting policy on a personal and local church level. Kind of like presidential candidates syaing, they are personally against it but do not believe government should make that decision for the mother. Cop out. So, in trying to NOT cop out, I have struggled with this mathmatical contradiction. Y/N, 1 or 0, that binary simplicity, where do you satnd as a church? Is that fair? Can each member remain in a church body even when there are leadership policy's taht are on the churhes official documents that conflict with their beliefs and conscience? If we were to address this as the sole factor, most churches would be empty. But where is the line? What is too much to swallow? When is it time to leave? Some churches split over homosexual issues, some over women as pastors and so on. But what about murdering babies? We strain at a gnat and gulp down camels. I have a high regard and respect for the Lutherans and Catholics on this point. They get it. |
