Why does being pro-life tend to be associated with being religious?

[Heyo]

I am not an atheist. I think different. Is that a problem for you?

Was that directed at me?

Everybody has a right to their own opinion - but not to their own facts.

 

[Eli G]

I am sorry. I don't have time for chitchat.

Have a good one.

 

[ppp]

I am realistic and I speak from what I see.

The participation of atheists in forums like this has helped me a lot to know what they have inside and how they think.

I didn't claim that you were not expressing your actual opinion. I said that your opinion is self serving. :⁠-⁠)

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Well, I have read many atheists saying that human beings are animals. That's not very flattering. What humanism can be expected from people who think that?

What humanism can be expected from people who deny a pregnant person the rights we even grant to corpses?

 

[Subduction Zone]

You called?
I am pro life, probably more so than many of the religious people who call themselves pro-life. I'm against capital punishment, and I'm against starting wars with other nations. I'm against "shoot first, ask questions later" policing.
All that comes from secular and rational values of the Enlightenment, most basically the Golden Rule (as formulated by Kant).
No need for a god, who values life, just my personal preference to be alive and stay alive (at least for now).
And that value, to do what I like as long as it doesn't interfere with other people's will, is also why I think that abortions after ~24 weeks of pregnancy should be only performed in cases of danger to the life of the pregnant person or deformations of the fetus that are incompatible with a worthwhile life. At that stage of pregnancy, the fetus has the ability to suffer (as far as we know) and the woman had time enough to make up her mind.

No, I was thinking of an atheist that is totally against abortion with no sympathy at all for women. You have always been reasonable when we have had discussions. I cannot make that claim for who I was thinking of.

 

[Tamino]

Well, I don't have the motivation to do something like this, nor do I see the need. Perhaps if I perceived it to be a social anomaly or something to that effect, I'd be curious, but I don't see it as a social anomaly at all.

But I thought you were interested to know how that debate got so intimately connected with religion? I really think looking at historical developments is the best way to understand such associations.

Interesting that you bring this up, because one of the things I'm curious about is what do people who think is going on between conception and birth; do they think that a fetus is a growing dead thing?

It's a growing living thing, of course. There's plenty of living things that are not human beings.

It's right there in the segment you're responding to - I stated that the line is at conception. It makes no sense at all to me to draw the line anywhere else in the generational cycle of life. Prior to conception, there's only genetic material from the mother and father in separate packages (egg & sperm). After conception has been achieved, there's a new generation with its own genetic identity distinct from mother and father. This is a threshold and contrast that's as easy to distinguish as one stairwell step from the next step.

It's a threshold, a step... But the stairwell is much longer. Egg and sperm are living cells packed with genetic potential. A fertilized egg is combining that genetic potential into a possible genetic makeup for one new human being. It's a living cell with a potential to become a human...but it's not a human yet, there are still lots of steps missing.
Sometimes the genetic combination goes wrong and you get something that's not viable. Is that equivalent to a dead child?
Or sometimes the fertilized egg fails to embed in the womb. Is that equivalent to putting a baby out into the woods and letting it die from exposure?

Not sure if you meant to make a point, but thank you for the biology lesson.

My point was above... Gonads carry lots of genetic potential to build a lot of different, individual human beings, if they get the chance to be fertilized. A fertilized egg is quite similar: there now is one of the many genetic variations or possibilities realized into an full set of genes... A potential human. But to make an actual human, you need a lot more steps still.

A fetus - by definition - is not & never independent of the mother, since it's a human or other mammal in the prenatal development stage. What's the point or relevance? It's a semantic label like magma and lava; one's underground and the other's above the surface of the ground, but they're both the same molten rock matter.

The difference is this: a womb is not a place. It's a person
It's part of a (hopefully) adult person with their own set of human rights. And this adult human has the most rights to decide on their own body and whether they want to use it for growing a fetus.

Does whatever argument or point you wish to make or pursue here extend to a child - after it's born - continuing to not be independent from its mother as an infant (such as needing to be breastfed), along with needing to be cared for in other ways & the longer term dependency by a child on its parents until adulthood?

Yes, kind of. Once a baby is born, it's independent from its mother's body. It can actually survive quite easily without her, if other people step in to feed and care for it. That's the point where a society or a community can claim the baby as one of them without infringing on the mother's bodily autonomy. Of course, the question would remain as to which rights a mother has to decide her child's fate after birth...

One of the things I've pondered about is whether it ought to be considered permissible (legal) for an abortionist to remove a fetus from a womb - without harming it or causing injury by cutting it up or dismembering it, and then just plopping it into some specimen collection tray or pan to perhaps be left there to die. This isn't the sort of thing I enjoy envisioning, but it's something we can't just ignore either; one way or another a legal or policy decision has to be made about this issue.

True. So, would there be any chance of survival for that fetus outside of the womb? If yes, we can talk about some kind of adoption scheme. If no, the person with the womb still gets the last say and the doctor's job is to help that person, first and foremost.

Some of what you bring up may be a trivial matter of coming up with a not-so-controversial agreement in society on what the policy ought to be and sticking to it, such as where we already do with more conventional parental rights.

Absolutely. There are just lots of situations in life that are not black and white, and there's no perfect solution that's fair and good for everyone. So we, as a society, need to discuss our priorities and try to find the best compromise.

Well then let me ask you this, so I can understand your perspective: do you see an ethical difference between someone who dies from - say - an accidental drowning, poisoning, or falling incident, and someone who gets killed by a drunk driver or someone breaking into their home and stabbing them to death?

Obviously, there's a difference between a self-caused accident, an accidental killing, and an intentional killing. But that's not the relevant question in the case of abortion.
Here, the relevant question is: is that a baby, or is that a bunch of cells that might have the potential to become a baby.
(And no, there's no easy answer. Because the process is gradual)

What is the underlying criteria for determining which circumstances are acceptable? What is the non-religious reasoning?

No idea. My reasoning is religious. I go by Khnum fashioning the Ka -soul along with the body, and the first breath being the decisive starting point of a human life.

At what stage of the generational cycle are human organisms not human, and who decides? A human fetus is still human; fetus is not a reference to species, it's a reference to stage of development.

Yes and no. I would ask: when is it a potential future human, and when is it an actual member of our community?
My personal answer is the breath of life, but that's based on my religion.
Of course, a growing fetus deserves its own kind of respect on account of it having sensation and thought already, and for its potential of being a human. Just, it doesn't have the same rights yet as a fully formed human.

I too am pro-choice; I'm for people having the right to choose whether or not to procreate or have sex, and I'm opposed to the state imposing any ban or mandates pertaining to that, one-child policies, forced abortions, etc. That doesn't mean I'm for slaughtering children.

We are in agreement on most of this. However, to put it bluntly: I'd rather slaughter a fetus than forcing a human to carry it against their will.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

And that value, to do what I like as long as it doesn't interfere with other people's will, is also why I think that abortions after ~24 weeks of pregnancy should be only performed in cases of danger to the life of the pregnant person or deformations of the fetus that are incompatible with a worthwhile life. At that stage of pregnancy, the fetus has the ability to suffer (as far as we know) and the woman had time enough to make up her mind.

Hopefully you're talking about limiting the number of late-term abortions by providing lots of attractive alternatives that pregnant people freely choose instead and not by making late-term abortions illegal.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It's right there in the segment you're responding to - I stated that the line is at conception. It makes no sense at all to me to draw the line anywhere else in the generational cycle of life.

Really?

Do some soul-searching and think about what it is about human life that causes you to value it. What of this is present in a blastocyst?

Prior to conception, there's only genetic material from the mother and father in separate packages (egg & sperm). After conception has been achieved, there's a new generation with its own genetic identity distinct from mother and father. This is a threshold and contrast that's as easy to distinguish as one stairwell step from the next step.

Do you really base the value of a human life on genetic uniqueness?

If you had lived in an era before the discovery of DNA, what would your basis to value a human life be?

Using DNA as the metric has some weird implications. A cancer tumor also has unique human DNA; OTOH, identical twins don't have unique DNA. I doubt that you'd agree that a tumor should be considered a person or that killing one twin is okay as long as the other one survives (right?), so it stands to reason that your position is based on something else. (Edit: or that you haven't fully thought it through)

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Here, the relevant question is: is that a baby, or is that a bunch of cells that might have the potential to become a baby.
(And no, there's no easy answer. Because the process is gradual)

I would say that an even more relevant question is whether the pregnant person has all the normal rights that go along with personhood.

 

[Revoltingest]

It seems like there's this perception or stereotype that being pro-life is a religious thing & I'm interested in trying to find out why this is.

I don't have specific examples, but it seems to be like a popular & standard media narrative.

There are plenty of religious folks who are for abortion rights, but I'm not sure if the notion is that those who are pro-life are just a subset of those who are religious.

I'm not religious, and lean towards being pro-life - or used to be, anyways & the reason I say this is because as a libertarian, I believe that people have the right to consume whatever they want. If a woman decides that she want to take a so-called "abortion pill", or drink some sort of herbal concoction that induces miscarriages, that shouldn't be a crime.

I used to take a radical pro-life position of being opposed to any intentional harm to an unborn child, whether it's through an abortion procedure at a facility involving an abortionist, or the so-called "abortion pill." I have to admit this is a stance I took from when I used to be religious, so perhaps there is some sort of association in a practical sense.

However, I don't think my change in position has anything to do with my move away from being religious; I changed my position because of a self-evaluation as a libertarian regarding my adherence to libertarian principles.

I don't take the position that life begins at conception; life began millions of years ago and has been an ongoing, continuous process. What does happen at conception is simply a new generation of life.

An abortion involves 2 things, not just one - termination of a pregnancy and termination of the life of the unborn child. If the goal of an abortion were to terminate a pregnancy, for whatever reason, and not to slaughter the unborn child (by removing it without harming it and placing it in an incubator, or perhaps transplanting it in a surrogate mother in a late part of fetal stage (not that the technology exists, yet - I'm just being hypothetical, here), then I wouldn't have a problem with it. It would a win-win situation, except for those who have some sort of bloodlust obsession with slaughtering unborn children & I don't care if they don't get their way.

When a pregnant woman takes the so-called "abortion pill," I don't see the difference between ending a pregnancy this way, and any other miscarriage. To me that's just another miscarriage. One might want to argue that the difference is that they know what the effect will be, so it's intentional. So what if it's intentional? How can it be determined when any miscarriage is the result of an intentional act or not? Who decides that?

To me, the libertarian principle that a person has the right to consume whatever they want makes it irrelevant whether or not there's any intent involved.

Another difference between consuming something that can or does induce a miscarriage and going to a facility to get an abortion is that there's a separate actor involved in an abortion procedure. In the case of a miscarriage, that's actually the mother's body that jettisons the fetus, regardless of whether or not the mother wishes to have a miscarriage. On the other hand, the abortionist is using tools and equipment to actively destroy and remove the fetus.

Anyhow, the reason I went through this is because if being pro-life only has to do with being religious, then it begs the question regarding why we have laws against murder and manslaughter (of adults, or anyone after they're born); do these laws exist only because religious folks are opposed to murder & manslaughter, and they created them?

If someone were to say "yes, and that's also a reason for repealing such laws along with laws banning abortion," then at least they'd be consistent; I think people would quickly realize, though, that there's a big problem with doing that.

Bottom line: is being against killing innocent human beings only a religious stance? To me, the answer is no.

Possible reasons....
- Many of the faithful believe that the fetus has a soul,
& is therefore a person. Atheists see the human mind
(soul, as it were) as only coming into existence after birth.
- Believers tend to live in a more emotional rather than
rational world. And perhaps unreasonable empathy
for a fetus because it will become a person.
- Some infer "pro-life" from their scripture.

Just speculating.

 

[Revoltingest]

I see it as that a sex act is signing a contract.

Contracts require a meeting of the minds.
Sex & mental competence tend to be
mutually exclusive.

 

[Heyo]

Hopefully you're talking about limiting the number of late-term abortions by providing lots of attractive alternatives that pregnant people freely choose instead and not by making late-term abortions illegal.

I'm OK with late-term abortions being illegal, provided there are the noted exceptions. Attractive alternatives to abortion have no special effect on late-term abortions. As I said, there was plenty of time to have come to a decision before that date. Having an elect late-term abortion is reckless neglect in my opinion. (And that's why it almost never happens. Women who are unwillingly pregnant, don't wait with an abortion until it's too late.) In countries where late-term abortions are illegal, that is not controversial. Radical pro-choicers are a minority within the pro-choicers.

 

[ChristineM]

An atheist does not act out of fear of God or obedience to altruistic divine principles, and although he may be interested in some aspects of the common well-being, his main focus is his own and that of his family when he has one.

An atheist, especially in modern times when many altruistic principles have disappeared, is not inclined to respect any principle when his own personal interests are at stake.

Atheists believe that humans are animals and that they are governed by the same jungle principle that the strongest are those who survive, so an atheist wouldn't mind being empathetic when it comes to his personal benefit.

However, there are some exceptions

I think it amazing that you think you know how the majority of the group of people you hate act it's almost like bias built on ignorance.

 

[GardenLady]

I'm OK with late-term abortions being illegal, provided there are the noted exceptions.

Arriving at exceptions acceptable to most people is likely to be very difficult or impossible.

There are those who would say that a fatal fetal abnormality is not an acceptable reason because the pregnant parents should “pray for a miracle” and let God decide; some may point to a “miracle” they read about where the baby turned out to be fine (probably a misdiagnosis to begin with).

There are those who would require the mother to be in imminent danger of death before being allowed to have an abortion after viability. What if the woman I know who was diagnosed with cancer while pregnant had been diagnosed late-term? Waiting could lead to metastasis that could take her life, not during the pregnancy, but down the road. Many would say she should complete the pregnancy and take her chances (and her child/children’s chances of being left motherless).

So what are “reasonable” exceptions and how could we expect agreement?

I grew up Catholic, where the bias is strongly in favor of the fetus. My friend who is Jewish says they are strongly in favor of the mother, especially if she already has children.

 

[exchemist]

It seems like there's this perception or stereotype that being pro-life is a religious thing & I'm interested in trying to find out why this is.

I don't have specific examples, but it seems to be like a popular & standard media narrative.

There are plenty of religious folks who are for abortion rights, but I'm not sure if the notion is that those who are pro-life are just a subset of those who are religious.

I'm not religious, and lean towards being pro-life - or used to be, anyways & the reason I say this is because as a libertarian, I believe that people have the right to consume whatever they want. If a woman decides that she want to take a so-called "abortion pill", or drink some sort of herbal concoction that induces miscarriages, that shouldn't be a crime.

I used to take a radical pro-life position of being opposed to any intentional harm to an unborn child, whether it's through an abortion procedure at a facility involving an abortionist, or the so-called "abortion pill." I have to admit this is a stance I took from when I used to be religious, so perhaps there is some sort of association in a practical sense.

However, I don't think my change in position has anything to do with my move away from being religious; I changed my position because of a self-evaluation as a libertarian regarding my adherence to libertarian principles.

I don't take the position that life begins at conception; life began millions of years ago and has been an ongoing, continuous process. What does happen at conception is simply a new generation of life.

An abortion involves 2 things, not just one - termination of a pregnancy and termination of the life of the unborn child. If the goal of an abortion were to terminate a pregnancy, for whatever reason, and not to slaughter the unborn child (by removing it without harming it and placing it in an incubator, or perhaps transplanting it in a surrogate mother in a late part of fetal stage (not that the technology exists, yet - I'm just being hypothetical, here), then I wouldn't have a problem with it. It would a win-win situation, except for those who have some sort of bloodlust obsession with slaughtering unborn children & I don't care if they don't get their way.

When a pregnant woman takes the so-called "abortion pill," I don't see the difference between ending a pregnancy this way, and any other miscarriage. To me that's just another miscarriage. One might want to argue that the difference is that they know what the effect will be, so it's intentional. So what if it's intentional? How can it be determined when any miscarriage is the result of an intentional act or not? Who decides that?

To me, the libertarian principle that a person has the right to consume whatever they want makes it irrelevant whether or not there's any intent involved.

Another difference between consuming something that can or does induce a miscarriage and going to a facility to get an abortion is that there's a separate actor involved in an abortion procedure. In the case of a miscarriage, that's actually the mother's body that jettisons the fetus, regardless of whether or not the mother wishes to have a miscarriage. On the other hand, the abortionist is using tools and equipment to actively destroy and remove the fetus.

Anyhow, the reason I went through this is because if being pro-life only has to do with being religious, then it begs the question regarding why we have laws against murder and manslaughter (of adults, or anyone after they're born); do these laws exist only because religious folks are opposed to murder & manslaughter, and they created them?

If someone were to say "yes, and that's also a reason for repealing such laws along with laws banning abortion," then at least they'd be consistent; I think people would quickly realize, though, that there's a big problem with doing that.

Bottom line: is being against killing innocent human beings only a religious stance? To me, the answer is no.

I do think “pro life” is a tendentious term. Who is “anti-life”, after all. What people mean is anti-abortion.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

It seems like there's this perception or stereotype that being pro-life is a religious thing & I'm interested in trying to find out why this is.

This is nothing more than an attempt to bury actual intent with fine-sounding words. "Pro-life," in common parlance now, actually means "anti-abortion," while "pro-choice" actually means what it says -- within the context of abortion.

I am not religious, and I am very pro-life. I object strongly to capital punishment, for example, which, oddly, most "pro-life" folks do not. And I am NOT "pro-abortion." I don't like the idea of abortion, and I would much prefer the use of contraception as a means to avoid pregnancy, rather than abortion as a means to terminate it. But that is not my choice when it comes to other people -- it is theirs. I become increasingly less pro-choice, by the way, as the pregnancy advances and the fetus becomes more and more viable (able to live outside the womb). Not completely anti-choice, in such cases, but pretty strongly. I feel that by that time, a woman has had sufficient time to consider what bearing a child will mean to her life -- and if unable to cope with the outcome, will have made her choice earlier.

 

[GardenLady]

I do think “pro life” is a tendentious term. Who is “anti-life”, after all. What people mean is anti-abortion.

The problem here is that calling pro-life groups “anti-abortion” leads some to call pro-choice people “pro-abortion.” In fact, many who support legal choice (typically with restrictions) are in fact anti-abortion.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I'm OK with late-term abortions being illegal, provided there are the noted exceptions. Attractive alternatives to abortion have no special effect on late-term abortions.

Depends on the reason for seeking the abortion and the situation in that particular place.

One driver of demand for late-term abortions is a lack of availability of early-term abortion services. If someone lives in a country where abortion is illegal - or is being blocked from accessing abortion by a family member - this can take a while to sort out.

As I said, there was plenty of time to have come to a decision before that date. Having an elect late-term abortion is reckless neglect in my opinion.

One of my friends had her husband leave her out of the blue when she was 6 months pregnant. As it happens, she decided to continue the pregnancy, but if she had decided to get an abortion the instant she was facing the prospect of being a single mother, how would that be reckless?

(And that's why it almost never happens. Women who are unwillingly pregnant, don't wait with an abortion until it's too late.)

The vast majority of the time, this is true. It also means that late-term abortion bans don't prevent that many abortions. Their main effect is to just put extra burdens on pregnant people at one of the worst times in their lives: when they realize that a wanted pregnancy won't result in a child.

 

[exchemist]

The problem here is that calling pro-life groups “anti-abortion” leads some to call pro-choice people “pro-abortion.” In fact, many who support legal choice (typically with restrictions) are in fact anti-abortion.

But calling these groups pro-life suggest those who don't agree must be anti-life, which is equally absurd.

In fact, though, both sides of this issue resort to disingenuous oversimplication. The "woman's right to choose" glosses over the right to life of the foetus, just as the "pro-life" people gloss over the fact that it is a woman has to carry this parasitical being inside her and then sacrifice the next 20 years of her life to take care of it.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

The problem here is that calling pro-life groups “anti-abortion” leads some to call pro-choice people “pro-abortion.” In fact, many who support legal choice (typically with restrictions) are in fact anti-abortion.

And that's what I said in my post. I am not "pro-abortion," but I am pro-choice. But the so-called "pro-lifers" are generally not so "pro-life" when it comes to, say, capital punishment. What they are, then, as "anti-abortion." But who wants to describe oneself by what one is against? That's negative, and we don't like describing ourselves in the negative.