WOMEN FOR LIFE
The Secular Case Against Abortion (by a pro-life atheist)
ABORTION IS NOT JUST A RELIGIOUS ISSUE
How do pro-life non-believers view abortion?
Once you accept the biological fact that the foetus is a human being, the rest follows. No one is surprised at the number of atheists committed to pacifism. feminism, or the abolition of the death penalty. So why be surprised at our defence of the unborn? Abortion is too often seen by both sides of the controversy as an issue of personal! sexual morality, or as an extension of contraception. Abortion is different: It is a human rights issue, involving a baby before birth. It is a public issue, because in an abortion, someone is being killed. Thus it is absurd to claim that those who are pro-baby are all anti-woman, and it is a false argument to say we ‘impose our morality’ on other people - abortion is a lethal imposition of someone’s views on the baby. There are also the wider issues like the risks to women’s health from legal as well as illegal abortion, and political/economic manipulation of women and the working classes, carried out by pro-abortionists in high places.
On what do we rest our case for the right to life?
Over 400 years before Christ, true humanist principles were laid down in medical ethics, in the Hippocratic Oath. ‘The regimen I adopt shall be for the benefit of my patients... I will give no deadly drug to any... and especially I will not aid a woman to procure abortion... ‘This Oath is no longer compulsory, and it is a sad irony that the pro-death lobby which accuses us of ‘wishing to turn back the clock’ has succeeded in turning it back over 2,000 years, to when doctors had power of death as well as of life. The Hippocratic Oath embodied the altruism of true Humanism, which is an alternative code of ethics to Christianity. Why should those of us who cannot believe in supernatural doctrines and church rituals not care equally for and about our fellow human beings? The logical absurdity of the idea that only Christians can do good is that all atheists are homicidal maniacs!
Because we have no assurance of life after death, we find it imperative to fight for justice, for all, now!
Killing violates one of the fundamental principles of secular Humanism - the right of self-determination - the right to choose for ourselves. In abortion, the baby never gets a choice.
Practically speaking, killing ‘problem’ people is a disincentive to social reform. No improvement to the victim’s condition is possible when s/he is dead and if killing is normal, what will happen to medical research into possible cures? Do the pro-abortionists really think they will get better maternity benefits, housing, etc. while the cheaper expedient of the day-care (sic) abortion unit exists? Do they really think it helps women get a better deal from men when all responsibility for preventing pregnancy or paying maintenance is taken out of their hands and the entire onus put on the woman?
All the arguments above apply equally to born people. The newborn, the handicapped, the old, the chronic sick. Once abortion became acceptable, pro-death gradually and insidiously widened its criteria to include more and more candidates for death. Abortion is legal in the UK., infanticide and euthanasia are not, but they all go on, for the most part unprosecuted. (We are not suggesting tat useless treatment be continued, only that killing - by act or omission (eg. starvation) is always unethical). Ultimately no one is safe. So. even for the most selfish of reasons, IT MAKES SENSE TO BE PRO-LIFE.
Women for Life (1981)
18 Ash Grove,
LONDON SE2O 7RD.
Tel: 01 659 4340