There was a time when I was pretty firmly pro-life. To be honest, it was more out of highly irrational selfish motivations than religious motivations (the SDA church is officially pro-choice). I should have been aborted. Pure and simple. To be a “miracle” baby means that based on the information available at the time, I should not have been born and for my mom to carry me to term was suspected to be an unwarranted risk. I was born and I am grateful. My mom should have had an abortion, but made the choice not to, so I illogically projected that onto the whole issue. This left me anti-choice and I hid behind religion.
Once I figured out that I wasn’t a miracle, that there isn’t a god, and that I should base my life on evidence and reason, my views began to change. My current pro-choice position is based on two simple facts:
- Abortions will happen whether they’re legal or not. Roe vs. Wade didn’t increase the abortion rate as much as people expected. The difference is that now they can be performed using medications of known purity and potency under the supervision of competent medical practitioners in clean medical facilities. This is a lot better than draino and a coat hanger in some back ally shop. Since we can’t stop it, we might as well make it safe.
- The determination of when the life of a separate sentient being begins is currently very arbitrary and murky. The line has to be drawn somewhere and either birth or viability outside of the womb seem to be the best options for that. Hopefully some day science will be able to help narrow this down, but considering that it’s a very gradual process that isn’t even complete at birth, that’s doubtful. As such, we have no reason to restrict a woman’s self-determination of what’s going on in her body. It is best to error on the side of liberty.
Abortion should obviously be avoided. The best way to do this would be to reduce the demand through compulsory comprehensive sexual education and easy access to low cost (or free) contraceptives. Federal funding of Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion services does a lot to reduce the demand for their abortion services, yet congress is trying to take that away.
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Good post, Is it wrong that I felt a moment of pride at my former church as I read their stance? Ignoring the god stuff, I think they actually have a fairly well reasoned position.
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I don't think it's wrong at all. Adventists are a weird bunch. Loma Linda is a world leader in medical research, yet they deny evolution. The religious liberties department does a lot of great work and ADRA provides some direct aid, but their main focus is on educating the local population, all without proselytizing.
The fact that they could come up with such a balanced position on abortion just shows the degree of cognitive dissonance that is required to be an Adventist. As a whole they are the most rational logical people who deny sound science like evolution.