Adventist Today on Abortion as a religious freedom

 Now that Adventist Today has blocked me from seeing their comments section on Facebook, I have decided to start writing more articles on the garbage that this organization posts on their website. It is now almost totally political progressivism and precious little Christianity let alone Adventism.

 The recent article Should Women Have Religious Freedom? By John B. Hoehn, MD is a prime example.

It begins with a seriously unintelligent premise that cells live and die. It has nothing to do with anything other than pretending the guy is talking science. That plant and animal cells grow and divide and die throughout the life of the organism is general knowledge and has nothing to do with his subject.

So beginning  where he gets to the meat of his argument Hoehn writes:

Religious Freedom?

If a woman does not agree with the religious doctrine forbidding “any abortion for any reason at any time,” where is her religious freedom? Why should a woman who lives in Washington State have the right to decide which religious teachings on abortion she will accept, but not if she lives in a state such as Alabama, Arkansas, or Oklahoma, where this dogma is enforced by state laws making her and her doctors criminals?

First of all Religious Freedom has a definition.  Religious Freedom is a synonym for Freedom of Religion:

Legal Definition of freedom of religion

: the right especially as guaranteed under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to practice one's religion or exercise one's beliefs without intervention by the government and to be free of the exercise of authority by a church through the government

— see also FREE EXERCISE CLAUSE

NOTE: The freedom of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment can be overcome by a showing by the government of a compelling state interest. On this basis, practices used in some religions, such as bigamy, are prohibited despite the First Amendment guarantee.

To be a free exercise of religion tenant it must be a core belief in your religion. I am pretty sure there is no religion that has a core belief in Abortion as a part of their religion. Even the church of Satan does not list Abortion as a part of their religion though they do say this:

Our position is to be self-centered, with ourselves being the most important person (the “God”) of our subjective universe, so we are sometimes said to worship ourselves. Our current High Priest Gilmore calls this the step moving from being an atheist to being an “I-Theist.” https://www.churchofsatan.com/faq-fundamental-beliefs/

 

It is also noteworthy that there are in fact no laws in any states that put forth the law as “any abortion for any reason at any time,” So if someone disagrees with something that no one is saying is that really in any way restricting their religious freedom?

The American people are not where the left is. Americans do not support any abortion for any reason at any time during any pregnancy.

A January 2015 poll found that only 9% of Americans want abortion available to a woman at any time during a pregnancy, and only another 8% want it any time during the first six months. Over 80% of Americans support some kind of restrictions on abortion (25). https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-stake-abortion-debate-connie-marshner

The idea that abortion laws are simply religious doctrines is not at all true and as you can see from Hoehn’s article he does not even try to support his gratuitous assertion.

He writes:

The evangelical churches, then, have formed “an image-to-the-beast” when they use state governments to make laws enforcing their religious teaching that all abortion at any time (one day, one gram, three months) is not merely a sorrow or tragedy, but a murder.

As we see it is far from just evangelical churches that believe in restrictions on abortions. That is again simply an assertion from Hoehn without any backing.

He continues:

But why must dissenters be punished by civil penalties by the state? Why are Seventh-day Adventists not all voting to demand freedom from religious persecution in any state by any civil government? Can we be so fixated on some future “Sunday-law” that we are ignoring the ramification of allowing any state government to punish women and their doctors for a religious opinion?

This is where a little knowledge would help Hoehn. States get their power to make laws through the electoral process where they elect representatives to organize the state with laws and regulations.  It is not necessary for you to agree with all laws and regulations. For example, one may feel that they should not pay taxes for whatever reason. You can claim that you are not paying taxes because you disagree with how the money is spent but by our laws and constitutions (Federal and State) you still have to observe those laws. Just saying you have religious freedom does not change the situation. Nor does it mean that there is an unholy alliance. Very clearly those state laws are not religious persecution because there is no religion that says we must practice abortions, no women saying I must have an abortion as part of my religion, and no doctors saying I must perform abortions to fulfill my religious beliefs

There were a few good comments on the Facebook thread aside from the lick spittle’s with their “this is such a great article”. In his reply to one comment Hoehn writes:

Robert Broyles A moral issue proper for the state would be, thou shalt not murder. But is birth control by any method, or stopping gestation from proceeding at early non-viable stages "murder" is not a moral issue, it is a religious question.

Of course, it is a moral question and it certainly has enough science to support that it is human life; That Hoehn even asserts abortion as “birth control” is a horrible statement. To make it seem like the state has no say in birth control by any method is absurd. Should the state allow gut punch clinics for birth control, should a man be able to take a drugged pregnant woman to the birth control center of any method. “Get ‘em in the door and we will stop that gestation pronto” clinics! It is rather humorous that Hoehn quotes the Bible as the proper moral issue being thou shalt not murder but the question of murder of a fetus is a religious question.

His comment continues with:

Moral people who agree the state should stop murder are disagreeing that abortion at any stage before viability is murder. If I were to come to your home, attack you with a knife cutting off your arm, I would be guilty of assault and the state must deal with me. But if you come to my hospital and to improve or prolong your life, I remove your arm with a cancer, that is not assault, that is a medically necessary destruction, not a crime. The question of is preventing a life (abortion) murder is a religious opinion, not a loss of morality.

Really a rather silly statement as coming to a hospital means that the hospital and the doctors and nurses and lab techs are all operating on hundreds if not thousands of laws and state regulations both State and Federal. Again look at the previously mentioned polls the disagreement about it being murder is very small when the actual viability of the baby is considered. One also has to wonder why he continues to make statements like: “that abortion at any stage before viability” when he seems to be very accepting of even partial birth third-trimester abortions.

All in all, this is a completely fallacious article that makes assertions that are pretty ridiculous, you can tell easily how absurd the arguments are by the fact that the assertions are simply made and not supported with anything. Then the final nail in this coffin is that Hoehn wants in his concluding paragraph:

...I hope that pastor will now, before November 6 elections, remind his congregation of their duty before God to vote against any forms of enforcement of a religious opinion by civil governments in any state.

This is all about getting the political progressive agenda to take over the United States, all this is because everything the leftist wants is good and everything else is bad. Abortion is good and moral, pro-life is bad (not murdering babies) and religious bigotry. The only real religion is political progressive leftism, conservatism and traditional religious ideas are bad because they force; they have moral insights that can impact the decisions of a representative government's legislation.  I have not even gone into the hypocrisy of quoting Ellen White when he most certainly does not believe in her prophecies anyway and certainly not the way they are laid out in the Great Controversy book. You don’t need to believe in Ellen White's prophecies I sure don’t but to use her to make a case even though you don’t believe in her is just pure hypocrisy. But remember hypocrisy is fine, telling untruth is fine as long as it works toward the goals of leftism which is the new religion of Adventist Today.