Is opposition to abortion inseparable from religion?

Discussion in 'Abortion' started by ARDY, May 18, 2018.

  1. ARDY

    ARDY Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It seems to me that opposition to abortion is fundamentally tied to our view about the importance of human life; that human life is somehow sacred in a way that other life is not.

    This hyper valuation of human life exceeds any practical social interest. For example, our society can agree that we do not want to arrange our society in a way what people freely go around killing eachorher. We agree on this point because we practically value our own lives and wish to protect our life beyond the protection for other life forms like cats, or cows, or mosquitoes. But we offer various life forms different levels of protection based on our interest. We offer children a high level of protection, full term fetuses less protection than children, embryos have protection, zygotes even less, ...we offer cats more protection, cows some protection against “inhumanity”, and we offer a mosquito zero protection....

    these various value judgements can all be explained by our practical social value judgements
    But when we start arguing that a fertilized human egg is as sacred as an 11 year girl.... I just do not see any way to reach this conclusion absent some sort of religious belief.

    Practically speaking, we have had abortion for several decades without any practical social ill effects that I am aware of.... other than some violation of religious values concerning all (human) life being sacred.

    The reason I am raising this discussion is just to try to get clear that at a fundamental level it seems to me that extreme opposition to abortion is a religious discussion
     
  2. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    I think most Anti-Choicers are religious because they seem to think their religion rules over what others do and want to cram it down other's throats...

    I have seen one or two Anti-Choice posters claim they aren't religious.
     
  3. ARDY

    ARDY Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I would be interested to hear from them
     
  4. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    Sorry, I can't remember who they were...
     

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