The Seventh-Day Adventist Tradition: Religious Beliefs and Healthcare Decisions
The Seventh-Day Adventist Tradition: Religious Beliefs and Healthcare Decisions
The Seventh-Day Adventist Tradition: Religious Beliefs and Healthcare Decisions
ecause the church believes that individuals Adventists believe that trust must be main-
B are created in God’s image as free beings, in
most matters relating to health care the individ-
tained in human relationships. Since the protec-
tion of confidentiality is essential to such trust,
ual church member makes his or her own choic- Adventists believe that information about a per-
es. No hierarchy stands over the individual to son’s medical condition or other personal infor-
dictate to him or her in such decisions. mation should be kept confidential unless the
person elects to share the knowledge. In cases
where others may suffer serious and avoidable
CLINICAL ISSUES harm without information about another person,
there is a moral obligation to share the needed
Self-determination and informed consent information.12
For Adventists, God has given humans freedom
of choice with the proviso that they use their Proxy decision making and advance directives
freedom responsibly. This freedom extends to Adventists believe that decisions about human
decisions about medical care. As a requirement life are best made within the context of healthy
for responsible decision making, persons should family relationships after considering medical
be adequately informed about their condition, advice. When someone is unable to give consent
the treatment choices, and the possible out- or express preferences regarding medical inter-
comes.9 With consideration for the interests of vention, an individual chosen by the person
others and with the help of divine guidance, a should make such decisions. If no one has been
person should be given the respect deserved by chosen, someone close to the person should
self-determining individuals. make the determination. Except in extraordinary
circumstances, medical or legal professionals
Truth-telling and confidentiality should refer decisions about medical interven-
Patients, families, and caregivers should be truth- tions for a person to those closest to that indi-
ful in their relations with each other; “the truth vidual. Wishes or decisions of the incapacitated
should not be withheld but shared with Christian individual are best made known in writing and
love and with sensitivity to the patient’s personal should be in accord with existing legal require-
and cultural circumstances.”10 In medical matters ments.13
such as assisted reproduction, “health care profes- In general, Adventists agree with current
sionals should disclose fully the nature of the pro- practices in health care concerning informed
cedure, emotional and physical risks, costs, and consent, self-determination, truth-telling, confi-
documented successes and limited probabilities.”11 dentiality, and advance directives.
ased on what Adventists see as God’s origi- a physical union possible for them. It represents
B nal plan for the lives of Adam and Eve,
Seventh-day Adventists advocate sexual union
the closeness the couple can know emotionally
and spiritually as well.14
only through lifelong, monogamous, heterosexu- For most Adventists, the hope of having chil-
al marriage. In their drive to be joined, in other dren is powerful. Because of their conviction
words, each couple reenacts the first love story. that God is concerned with all dimensions of
The act of sexual intimacy is the nearest thing to human life, they are committed to the principle
GENETICS
elping those in need is at the center of medical institutions are free to apply Christian
H Jewish and Christian morality. Based on the
belief that one should help and serve others,
principles to issues such as use of human fetal
tissue, procurement from anencephalic new-
Seventh-day Adventists who can give another borns, and the preferability of obtaining organs
person life or improved health through organ from cadaveric donors as opposed to living
and/or tissue donation are strongly encouraged donors.
to do so.38 Adventist-owned and -operated Loma Linda
University in California has pioneered infant
heart transplant surgery. In the late 1980s the
CLINICAL ISSUES institution had an experimental protocol for
transplanting hearts from anencephalic new-
The church has no official position on many borns, and it also transplanted a baboon heart in
issues, including specific questions related to the publicized case of Baby Fae.
organ and tissue procurement and transplanta-
tion. Thus individual Adventist physicians and
t is not life itself but a certain quality of life The Adventist tradition is balanced in its view
I that is of primary importance for Adventists—
namely the personal. When a person possesses
of persons. The Bible says nothing explicit on
the status of the permanently comatose or the
the capacity for responsible behavior, his or terminally ill. But biblical principles, with few
her life makes the highest order of claim upon exceptions, do express opposition to the taking
others. When, however, this capacity will never of human life. Because God has promised eter-
return or has no potential for ever existing, a nal life, however, Christians need not cling anx-
human may be biologically alive but his or her iously to the last vestiges of life on this earth; it
personhood is dead. At this point, the well is not necessary to accept or offer all possible
being of the people who make up the social medical treatments when they can only prolong
environment of such an individual begins to the process of dying.43
take priority.42 Adventists recognize that physical, mental,
Some of the material in this handbook is excerpted from the sources cited.
Bull, Malcolm, and Keith Lockhart. Seeking a Sanctuary: Pearson, Michael. Millennial Dreams and Moral Dilemmas:
Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream. New Seventh-day Adventism and Contemporary Ethics.
York: Harper and Row, 1986. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
The Christian View of Human Life Committee. The Phillips, R. L. “Cancer among Seventh-day Adventists.”
Seventh-day Adventist Church Focuses on Ethical Journal of Environmental Pathology and Toxicology 3
Issues. Silver Spring, Md.: General Conference of (1980): 157–69.
Seventh-day Adventists, 1995.
Sanchez, Albert, and Richard Hubbard. “The Superiority of
Fraser, Gary E. “Associations Between Diet and Cancer, Vegetable Protein.” Adventist Review 166 (December
Ischemic Heart Disease, and All-Cause Mortality in 28, 1989): 16–17.
Non-Hispanic White California Seventh-day
Adventists.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 70 Sterndale, Elizabeth. “Alcohol and the Pregnant Woman.”
(1999): 532s–538s. Ministry (March 1987): 25–26.
Fraser, Gary E., and David J. Shavlik. “Ten Years of Life: Is Walters, James W. What Is A Person? An Ethical
It a Matter of Choice?” Archives of Internal Medicine Exploration. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
161 (2001): 1645–1652.
White, Ellen G. Education. Mountain View, California:
General Conference Commission on Chemical Dependency Pacific Press Publishing Association, [1903] 1952.
and the Church. Report. Part 1, 1987.
White, Ellen G. Ministry of Healing. Mountain View,
General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Seventh- California: Pacific Press Publishing Association,
day Adventists Believe . . . Washington, D.C.: [1905] 1942.
Ministerial Association, 1988.
Whiting, Albert. Personal communication, January 29,
Neuffer, Don. “Health Principles.” Seventh-day Adventist 1992.
Encyclopedia. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald
Publishing Association, 1976. ______. Personal communication, September 26, 1995.
Numbers, Ronald L., and David R. Larson. “The Adventist www.Atoday.com (independent)
Tradition.” In Caring and Curing: Health and
Medicine in the Western Religious Traditions, ed. www.Spectrummagazine.org (independent)
Ronald L. Numbers and Darrel W. Amundsen, 447–67.
New York: Macmillan, 1986.