Reaction to David Larson's
Spectrum Abortion Article
by Nic Samojluk
I am tempted to share with you my comments in response to the article written by David Larson about abortion and the readers' comments that followed. Make sure to read the comments by James Standish on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision to legalize abortion in the U.S. as well. Adventist publications used to include numerous articles and comments from readers on a regular basis about this controversial issue, but a dead silence followed shortly after the official adoption of a pro-choice position through the publication of the "Guidelines on Abortion" document by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Church over a decade ago.
I need to remind you that the "pro-choice" term is merely a sanitized version of the "pro-abortion" stand. Notice also that the common element of both the pro-choice and the pro-abortion position is a dead baby. Adventists like to talk about the so called "therapeutic abortion," but do not forget that the abortion procedure is no therapy for the baby. Would those Adventists who justify these therapeutic abortions accept said therapy for themselves or their loved ones?
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"After reading David's article and the comments that followed, the temptation to respond with a few comments of my own was too great to ignore, especially because my name is included among the comments. I am glad for the opportunity of speaking on behalf of those who cannot speak and plead for their own life. Can I remain silent when the life of millions of innocent unborn babies is sacrificed on the altar of convenience for the crime of not having taken the first breath?
Can I remain silent when my own church, who has from its inception labeled itself to be the God's "Remnant" church on earth with the "last message to a perishing world" and "keeping God's Commandments," has made an 180 degree turn from the example set by its early pioneers, and decided to bless what they, including James and Ellen White, did curse? Can I remain silent when, according to a survey, five Seventh-day hospitals were offering elective abortions to their clientele? Can I remain silent when, according to SDA historians, the first SDA hospital to offer elective abortions did so for financial reasons? Can I remain silent when non-Adventists protest in front of a SDA institution carrying placards reading: "Remember the Sixth Commandment!"?
Can I remain silent when a former SDA president of the North American Division, and later president of the General Conference publicly declared in the richest country of the world, that the SDA church was leaning towards abortion because "there was too much hunger and overpopulation in the world"? Can I remain silent when a former SDA religious liberty argued that the unborn do not acquire their right to life until they take their first breath? Can I remain silent when the only SDA official document dealing with the abortion issue ["Guidelines on Abortion"] states in fine print that Jesus died to restore our "freedom of choice"? If this is so, then perhaps Jesus also died to restore the criminal's right to rape, steal, and abuse little children!
To Bob I say: Take heart. There is a new Pharaoh in town, and the trend on this issue, with God�s grace, does have a chance to force the SDA church to consider the wisdom of returning to the example set by our SDA pioneers who condemned the practice of abortion in the strongest imaginable terms, and labeled it as "murder" instead of "pregnancy interruption," and "therapeutic abortion." There is nothing therapeutic about abortion for the baby, but rather pure poison and a violent execution. Would those defending the practice of therapeutic abortion accept such treatment for themselves?
Pay attention to what James Standish, a new Daniel in the GC king's court, had to say about abortion on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the legalization of abortion: "But on this 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, it is hard to ignore the reality around us. This year more than 1.2 million American babies will be aborted. Of these, approximately 92% will be healthy babies conceived consensually to healthy moms. Over 500,000 of these babies will be at or past the point of development where they have little faces, arms, legs, fingers and toes. ..." [To read his entire article and the comments that followed, click on the following link: http://www.religiousliberty.info/blog/?p=58#comments. Curiously, the chance of posting additional comments on Standish article was closed! Can you guess why?]
To the others I say: Why is it wrong for men to straighten what nine unelected justices of the court twisted over three decades ago? Should not men undo the harm done by other men? Should pro-lifers carry a watermelon for nine months before acquiring the right to come to the rescue of those destined for the execution chamber? Yes, nature does do strange things. It destroys innocent human lives through tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Does this mean that we should imitate nature? Does the fact that science cannot see the faces of the unborn in the first five weeks of pregnancy with the present technological instruments mean that we should be free to destroy human life in its early stages of developments? Should we not rather err on the side of caution?
Is it wise to discard the Hippocratic Oath which served the Christian church for two millennia quite well? Is it fair to sacrifice one of the victims of rape while letting the guilty live? If our thirst for human blood is so strong, why not shedding the blood of the guilty instead? The "mother should decide"? Since when a life and death decision should be left to the whims of depressed and mentally unbalanced individuals? Is it safe to play God by arguing that some of the unwanted children will later be neglected, unloved, abused, and perhaps killed by their parents? Don't we realize that by so doing we are also killing those who will be loved and live a life which will bless humanity? Yes, some clever politicians argue that abortion should be "legal, safe, and rare." [Hillary Clinton's twisted philosophy] Does this make sense? Could we also argue that "rape, burglary, and child abuse should be available, legal, safe, and rare"? What happened to our human common sense?
May I encourage my SDA fellow believers to look at the life of Mother Theresa, who set a brave example for all to follow in this respect, and the example of the one who said: "Since you have done this to the least, you have done it unto me." Mother Theresa could see the face of Jesus in each neglected human being. Can Adventism produce a saint like this? Shame on us. We allow our SDA institutions to practice the killing of human life, while the Catholic institutions refuse to do so! The Pope may be wrong on the state of the dead, but he is right on the state of the living!
[If anyone is interested in reading my doctoral dissertation on this issue, please click on the following Internet link: http://www.sdaforum.com/page13.html You can also read the pro-life material I have on my web site by clicking on http://www.sdaforum.com/page2.html, and http://www.sdaforum.com/page11.html ] May the good Lord bless his church!"
Posted by: Nic Samojluk (not verified) | 10 February 2008 at 3:16
http://www.spectrummagazine.org/articles/column/2008/02/07/give_me_five_weeks_pregnancy#comment-2336
Hi:
Again, I cannot resist the temptation of sharing with you the comments I just posted on the Spectrum Blog dealing with the issue of abortion. In the event you are a pro-lifer, this is your unique chance of saying a word on behalf of those who cannot speak, since they have not been born yet. If you do, the Lord will reward you, since Jesus said: "If you have done this unto the least of these, you have done it unto me." May the Lord bless you in your service to him!
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Tom: The comments I am about to post are probably of no consequence, since you have already awarded the Oscar prize to Elaine. I hoped you would be a fair judge and at least wait for my response before issuing your final verdict!
Elaine: For me to accept your arguments in defense of the practice of abortion would require that I ignore the following: God's injunction against murder, the Old Testament prophets' prohibition against the shedding of innocent blood, Jesus' declaration stating that he came that we might have life [instead of death], his warning that our eternal destiny will be based on how we treat the "least of these," James White's outright condemnation of abortion as "murder," Ellen White's declaration that when a man ignored his pregnant wife's health he is almost guilty of "murder" of her unborn child, Mother Theresa's statement that those nations who favor abortion are the poorest [morally speaking], and General Conference James Standish' lament of the tragic death of 50 million of unborn children since abortion was legalized [Did you read his article referred to in my previous posting?] This is a high price for me to pay for agreeing with your position. I will rather stick to the old Hippocratic Oath which served Christianity for two millennia instead of falling prostrate in front of this modern abortion Moloch idol.
You claim that the unborn is the pregnant woman's possession. I will rather believe Saint Paul who tells me that said woman does not even own her own body, which belongs to God. You state that pro-lifers should put their money where their mouth is. I have done that! And if you think I have not done enough, let me know. For the last twelve years, I have devoted half of my time to the pro-life cause without any hope or expectation of being compensated for my sacrifice of time and money. Had I invested said time into my real estate business, I would be rich today, which I am not. I have neglected my business for the sake of the unborn, and you are asking me to put my money where my mouth is? You are talking to the wrong guy!
You ask me what I would have done if my 15-year-old daughter had informed me that she was pregnant. I would have prayed for wisdom to convince her to carry the baby to term, and we would have helped her raise the child! I grew in a country where even today abortion is illegal, and women have only one alternative if they are unable to raise their child: adoption.
You argue that the financial cost of raising a child should include a college degree. I got my college degree by hard work and sweat instead of parent�s largesse. At the age of ten I was already working to pay for my school's tuition.Are you saying that without a college degree life is not worth living and that all those without one should have been aborted? Had this been done, most of the world's population would have never made through the loop! What kind of morality are you preaching?
Evidently, you believe that anencephalic babies should be deprived of the little life God has granted them. I disagree. I had a niece born with spina bifida. She was loved and cared for until her death a few weeks after birth, and she was given a decent burial. There was no regret for having allowed her to be born, and no guilt associated with killing your own child. You suggest that pro-lifers should mind their own business. I believe that you are wrong! Life is Jesus' business, and we are merely caretakers. We have no right to destroy what belongs to him.
Posted by: Nic Samojluk (not verified) | 11 February 2008 at 2:37
http://www.spectrummagazine.org/articles/column/2008/02/07/give_me_five_weeks_pregnancy#comment-2356
Tom: Evidently you missed one extremely important detail. God did destroy the pre-flood generation and he will destroy the wicked at the end. Does this mean that I can do the same? We belong to God, and he can do what he feels appropriate, but I can't. He knows the future, but I don't. Do you see the difference?
Regarding men's responsibility connected with the abortion business, I entirely agree with you. In fact, I would venture to say that a great deal of abortions are done at men's instigation, and it were nine men who got us into this mess which has claimed the lives of 50 million babies already. Had they been allowed to live, they would have been leading productive lives today, and our retirement fund would not be on the verge of bankruptcy.
Posted by: Nic Samojluk (not verified) | 11 February 2008 at 3:52 "
Johnny: Thanks for your comments and for your email communication. You asked me for the source of my statistics. You can verify this by typing "American birth rate" on your computer browser. Let me quote one source:
"That statement comes from an article in the February 13, 2002, issue of the newspaper USA Today, citing numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics, an agency of the US government. According to the article, the NCHS had just completed tabulating statistics for 2000. And if we take the numbers for that year and assumed they remained constant for all women for the rest of their lives, we find that the average American woman would have 2.1 children in her lifetime. This is just barely enough to replace herself and one man when they die. The last time that American women were having enough children to keep pace with deaths was in 1971. For the past 30 years, the United States has been a course that would lead to the dwindling and eventual extinction of its population."
[http://www.pregnantpause.org/overpop/usbirth.htm]
I agree with you that "immigrants are driving growth in America." Immigrants have always been the backbone of the strength of our country. I am not opposed to immigration. What I am opposed is to illegal immigration and I am opposed to our dependency on said source for filling the shortage exacerbated by the legalization of abortion. You state that controlling reproduction is repugnant to your religion. I respond that giving a carte blanche to individuals to murder their own innocent children goes against God's religion.
I also agree that making abortion illegal will increase illegal abortions; nevertheless, this will pale when compared with the destruction of a million and a half innocent human lives per year. The statistics of illegal abortions before Roe v Wade were the result of fabrication, and I can document this if you so desire. Finally, I want to clarify that the fact that I am fluent in Spanish does not make me a Hispanic. I was born in Ukraine and I entered the U.S. legally.
Tom: Ending our discussion is at your personal discretion. As long as you raise new issues, I am duty bound to respond. You are opposed to declaring abortion illegal. Do not forget that abortion was illegal for two thousand years, and that it is still illegal in many countries, countries where SDA evangelism is healthy and growing, which is not true about the U.S. The duty of our government is to protect all human beings within our territory. Right now if someone kills an unborn baby, he goes to jail, but if an abortionist does it he is protected. If a pregnant woman is murdered, society often counts this as a double murder, but if the abortionist murders the unborn child, no crime has been committed. This is sheer madness to me.
Regarding Blue Laws, we are in agreement, I believe. There is ethically a whale of a difference, though, between breaking the Sabbath and braking the bones of an innocent unborn baby. Worshipping the Lord on the wrong day of the week does not deprive anybody of life. Abortion has deprived 50 million innocent babies of life. These unborn children belong to God. Paul says that we do not own even our own bodies. Jesus stated that anyone who offends "these little ones" he better hang a stone on his neck and throw himself into the ocean. I don't want to be one of them. Jesus also stated that our final destiny will be determined by the way we treat "these little ones," and no human being is more entitled to be counted among the little ones than the unborn.
May the good Lord bless our decision on this issue in spite of our shortcomings!
Posted by: Nic Samojluk (not verified) | 12 February 2008 at 3:27"
http://www.spectrummagazine.org/articles/column/2008/02/07/give_me_five_weeks_pregnancy#comment-2392
This is to let you know that you still have a chance of participating in the Spectrum Blog discussion dealing with the abortion issue. To do this, click on the Internet link listed at the bottom of this email and post your pro-life or pro-abortion comments. I am including in this email my latest comment in response to those of some of the other participants:
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Tom: I still believe that there is an undeniable connection between the abortion issue and the solvency of the social security fund. This will be more patent as the number of retirees increases with time. The contribution to the work force of the 50 million babies that were aborted will be missed and there will be a financial price to pay for our lack of vision. Does this bother me? Not as much as the mass genocide of the most innocent members of humanity, and especially the fact that our church made the big mistake of allowing our medical institutions to be involved in this shameful extermination of the unborn.
I believe that the Lord will not take this moral lapse lightly. There will be a terrible price to pay, unless we repent. Recently, the Austrian and German SDA leadership publicly apologized for the church collaboration with the Nazi regime. Our church is repeating history in America. Not so, in many other countries of the world. I can give you details, if you are interested. The lack of proper civil restraint is tragic, and the main culprit is Congress, which has allowed unelected justices of the court to rule from the bench and carve laws out of thin air without proper Constitutional support.
Johnny: I need to clarify that I did not suggest that illegal immigrants are responsible for the problems connected with abortion. Actually, they are filling the void created by the mass extermination of the unborn. Were it not for the illegal immigrants, the U.S. population would be at dangerous levels by now. Nevertheless, I think that it is rather foolish and irresponsible to allow a porous border to continue to exist. We need to know who is here and we need to be fair to those who are patiently waiting for their chance to enter the U.S. legally.
I agree with you that our abortion policy should not be determined by population trends and the solvency or insolvency of our social security fund. Abortion is a moral issue that needs to be treated from a strictly ethical position. If abortion is wrong, then we should set aside any financial consideration in the process of setting our policies.
Thanks for clarifying your identity. I wasn't sure, and I did assume that I was dealing with your father. You do have a great dad, and you probably did inherit his exceptional talents. In Spanish we say, "De cual palo tal astilla." Like father, like son, is the closest English saying I can think of.
Elaine: I am not suggesting that the police should get into our bedrooms. Most abortions are performed inside the abortion clinics, and not inside our bedrooms. Crime should be punished regardless of where it is done. I would penalize the perpetrator. Most women are victims of their either husbands, their boyfriends, the society, and the abortionists. I would jail all abortionists for profiting from the deaths of innocent unborn babies. If I had the power, I would also cut the SDA connection between the church organization and any SDA medical institution unwilling to stop the practice of abortion, especially the elective abortions.
David: Thanks for the information!
Posted by: Nic Samojluk (not verified) | 14 February 2008 at 6:55
http://www.spectrummagazine.org/articles/column/2008/02/07/give_me_five_weeks_pregnancy#comment-2462
This is to let you know that the discussion of abortion generated by David Larson's article is still going strong. Here is a copy of my response to the comments by several of the participants. I would like to encourage you to read David's article and post your opinion online. The link to this appears at the bottom. May the good Lord continue to bless you in your service to him!
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Dick: Yes, many of those 50 million of aborted babies would be helping by now to keep the retirement fund solvent. Without them, very soon the retiring baby boom generation will threaten the solvency of said fund. Many countries of the world are facing a population implosion, and in some of them the situation is alarming since the low birth rate, exacerbated by the practice of abortion, is placing a strain on their economies. The countries most affected include Italy, Germany, Japan, and Russia. In the U.S. we don�t seem to notice this because the illegal immigration makes up for the shortage.
Tom: The number of deaths connected with the back-alley abortions before the abortion was legalized pale in comparison with the 50 million babies that followed this shameful event. In a short time following the legalization of abortion, according to Planned Parenthood reports, the number of dead babies resulting from it mushroomed to a million and a half,
Wayne: Yes, human life started with Adam and Eve, but the life of every individual did not start there. The life of every human being has a well marked starting point: fertilization. Only at that point there is a new DNA which characterizes said individual. Prior to this momentous event, neither the egg nor the sperm can claim to possess a unique identity separate from the individual they came from.
You argue that when there is no brain activity, there is no personhood. You are correct from a legal point of view, but not from the ethical one. You assert that when science cannot detect brain activity, the patient is dead, and you conclude that likewise, prior to the development of the brain, the embryo is simply a bunch of cells. I have a question for you: Would you issue a death certificate for a patient whose brain activity seems to have ceased, if you were sure that said brain activity would be activated within a reasonable time, and especially if blood flow could be verified? Well, embryonic blood circulation is present before a woman realizes that she is pregnant. This means that by the time an abortion is performed, there is blood circulation, and there is almost absolute certainty that brain activity will be present in the near future.
Tell me, please: What does this do to your apparently unassailable argument regarding the absence of brain activity? How can you argue that the unborn baby is dead at that stage of development when we know quite well that it is alive and well way before we can detect brain activity? If that baby were dead, there would be no need to kill it! Can you issue a death certificate for a developing unborn baby unless you kill it first? If those babies were really dead before abortion, the nurse would have no need to reassemble the baby parts, head, torso, two legs, and two arms to make sure no residue remains inside the uterus. As you can see, Tom, your argument defies human logic!
Daneen: Terrorism has nothing to do with the absence of legalized abortion. If your argument were true, then I would also conclude that it is the lack of legalized raping, theft, and child abuse, which causes terrorism to flourish!
David: I believe that in the case of embryonic malformations survival of the fetus is severely impacted. The job of physicians is healing instead of killing. Why can�t we let nature take its course? There have been many cases of miss diagnosis, and the lives of healthy babies have been sacrificed due to errors in the detection of malformations. The same can be said about the millions of babies killed for fear that they might be victims of neglect and abuse if allowed to live. Shall we start the genocide of all the human beings who might become victims of neglect and abuse?
Regarding your question about the morality connected with pre-implanted embryos, my guess is that it is always wise to err on the side of caution. Nevertheless, my mission is centered on the practice of abortion instead of artificial insemination and fertility treatments.
Posted by: Nic Samojluk (not verified) | 12 February 2008 at 6:57"
To read more and to post your comments online, click on the following Internet link:
http://www.spectrummagazine.org/articles/column/2008/02/07/give_me_five_weeks_pregnancy#comment-2384
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