President of the Seventh-day Adventist World Church Ted Wilson stoutly defended the sanctity of human life. “Seventh-day Adventists believe in the sanctity of life. We believe that God created human beings on the sixth day of a literal seven-day week and rested on the seventh day. When God created man, and then woman, he created the opportunity of procreation.
“The Bible says that He indicated that they are to be fruitful and multiply, so we believe that life itself is a beautiful, sanctified gift from God,” Wilson stated during a press conference shortly after his arrival in Jamaica for an official visit in Montego Bay, St James. Noting that it is a personal issue, he argued that in cases where mothers’ lives are at risk some may go the abortion route, “but the SDA are strong supporters of the sanctity of life.”
“Most Seventh-day Adventists would be very supportive of the sanctity of life and not in favor of abortion unless the mother’s life was in danger or perhaps there was incest or rape involved, and that is left to the individual to decide, at least in some countries,” Pastor Wilson said. The clergyman, at the same time, charged Jamaican legislators to pay attention to the will of God in the preservation of life. “We do urge that lawmakers give strong adherence and cognizance to the sanctity of life,” said the world Adventist Church leader. But, he was quick to point out that while the Seventh-day Adventist Church conveys the teachings of the Bible, it is not its custom to interfere in a country’s politics. From Jamaica Observer, “World Adventist leader says no to abortion.”
Adventist and Catholic Health Systems Compared on Abortion and Gender Issues.
News has reported extensively on the spread of Catholic hospitals which restrict access to abortion, sterilization, and most contraception, and account for one in six acute-care beds in the United States. But Seventh-day Adventist facilities, which have their own rules on reproductive health care, control a growing swath of the health-care landscape and their policy arm just opened an office in Washington, D.C. There are about 90 Adventist hospitals and 350 affiliated provider organizations in the United States.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church opposes abortion, assisted suicide, and the “homosexual lifestyle” but approves of contraception, sterilization, and in vitro fertilization. “We believe in a creator who has given us choice, and that’s what overarches the approach that we take,” Carlyle Walton, president of the Adventist Health Policy Association, told Rewire.News in an interview.
“We think that infringing, for want of a better term, on people’s choices is not something that God has called us to do.” But that position does not extend to abortion care. Loma Linda University Health, a California-based Adventist system with six hospitals, said in a statement that it offers abortions “only in situations in which the fetus has a condition that is incompatible with life, or in a situation when the pregnancy is life-threatening to the mother.”
Loma Linda University Health said in a statement that it “does not have an organized program offering gender-affirming surgeries and hormone prescription services,” but “offer[s] treatment to transgender patients for their healthcare needs across our system.” A spokesperson did not say if such treatment includes hormone therapy or surgeries. (Catholic systems often refuse to perform gender-affirming surgeries.)
Adventist systems that merge with their Catholic counterparts have made efforts to preserve access to reproductive health care. When Adventist Health and the Catholic St. Joseph Health System announced plans to form a joint operation in California last year, the deal specified that Adventist facilities would not follow the Catholic directives. That would allow both companies “to operate in a manner consistent with their own ecclesiastical standards,” the proposal to state regulators said.
Centura, a Colorado-based provider that is the largest in the region, is sponsored by Adventist Health and Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI). Community hospitals absorbed by Centura can reportedly pursue sponsorship by Adventist Health instead of CHI to avoid the Catholic rules. CHI is now merging with Dignity to create the nation’s largest nonprofit health system, raising a broader set of concerns around reproductive health access.
Walton acknowledged these workarounds could confuse patients, many of whom are unaware of religious affiliations that can affect their care. But as he prepares to lobby members of Congress, Walton said he is focused not on reproductive health care, but on advancing the Adventist value of “human wholeness.” He cited Adventist health systems’ efforts to address homelessness, food insecurity, and lack of potable water as examples. “We have committed to a presence in D.C., and to becoming more engaged in debate on a national level relative to the transformation of health care,” Walton said. From Rewire.News
References:
https://spectrummagazine.org/news/2019/ted-wilson-addresses-abortion-issues-during-jamaica-visit-and-more-news-shorts
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