Any Good Atheistic Pro-Life Arguments?

[Hokulele]

Suppose, in the future, someone will come up with an incontrovertable proof that abortion, at any stage in the life of the fetus, is murder (excepting when the life of the mother is at stake).

My bolding.

How on earth would endangering the mother's life change the definition of murder? How would you define "endangering the mother's life"? If she threatens suicide rather than carry the result of incest to term, would an abortion still be considered murder?

This assumption pretty much makes the rest of your argument moot.

 

[scratchy]

As Joes said, atheism doesnt give any arguments for or against abortion, just takes away the religious arguments.

Personally, i wouldnt want an abortion. Im quite uncomfortable with it because i know that had abortions been legal at the time, i would probably have been aborted.

Still, im pro choice. Pregnancy is a part of the womans body, and the right to decide over ones own body trumps all other factors, in my view.

 

[kittynh]

Oddly I do know one woman that had an abortion that is a Mormon. the Elders of her church approved this abortion before it was done (at Yale University hospital). she was a fellow officer wife when my husband was in the Navy. Her husband was at sea, and unable to get home (one wife I know died and her husband wasn't told until it was considered "safe" for him to come home, the mission was like that in those days).

She had previously had a child die 3 days after birth, a girl. She then had a healthy boy. This pregnancy just didn't "feel right" to her, and in her 6th month she had an ultrasound. The child had the same horrible genetic disorder that her daughter that died shortly after birth had. Doctors at Yale determined that this would occur whenever she conceived a female child.

To be totally honest, she lost it. She became very depressed and even suicidal at the thought of carrying this child to term and then it dying. A pro-lifer/anti abortion person would be "carry it to term and then pray for God to save your baby".

Thankfully, while I know little about the Mormon religion, they agreed she needed an abortion PRONTO to save her life. Because the doctors agreed she was in severe mental distress.

I still cry when I think about it, because she was really showing and we'd had a baby shower all planned for her. It was really tragic and sad. But it could have been much more tragic if she had killed herself, or simply be forced to somehow carry that baby for another 3 months.

She had the abortion, was able to start on some good anti depressants and go home to her parents to recover.

She then adopted a little girl, and is still a terrific mother.

So, I do have to say in this case, abortion was a GOOD decision. Everyone felt ok with this. She is a deeply religious person, so without the ok of her church, she would have felt horrible about the abortion. I think it's silly, it was SO obviously what needed to be done. But even churches can be understanding in such a situation.

 

[Dunstan]

Having said all that - ideally if pharma co's would spend a quarter of the money they spent on Viagra on better birth control for woman and developing one that worked half as good as the current one for women that was for men. Made it accessible along with proper sex ed, then all the "pro-lifers" could go home because all the abortion clinics would go out of business. But of course that's really against their agenda.

What?

First of all, how much money did pharmaceutical companies spend on "Viagra"? My understanding is that Pfizer was developing Viagra to treat high blood pressure and angina, and the sexual effects were discovered during clinical trials. It wasn't the result of billions of dollars and years of dedicated research directed at curing erectile dysfunction.

Second, nobody would be happier than me to see an effective male birth control pill, but it's a pretty large challenge to suppress a system that produces millions of sperm continuously as compared to a system that releases one egg a month, and already has a built-in "off switch" that can be exploited.

Third, what exactly are you saying? That pharmaceutical companies are all declining to patent and make profits off a male birth control pill because they have an agenda to suppress birth control because ... why, exactly?

As to the original topic: I think the only thing you need to be an anti-abortion atheist is to reject the notion that birth is a significant dividing line. (I happen to think it is, but I can see how people can disagree on that.) I recall that Christopher Hitchens is anti-abortion (though I don't think he's anti-choice, in the sense of wanting to outlaw it). Also, there was a blogger called The Raving Atheist who used to maintain a somewhat popular blog, and was vehemently anti-abortion, which probably led to him discontinuing the blog.

 

[X]

I am an atheist who is pro-life. I am also pro-choice.
I wish to clarify that the only way I was able to resolve my view on the matter was to take a highly macroscopic view of the whole affair. Any less generalized, and the argument becomes bogged down in "what-if"s and technical minutae.


My argument - boldly posted for others to tear to shreds, eat, spit out, and eat again - is thus:

Once the fertilized egg (or whatever it is at the stage in question) implants itself to the uterean wall, it has a chance - barring unforseen accidents and acts of nature - to lead a normal life.
I view the removal of this opportunity to be immoral.​

The way I see it: If you don't want to have kids, don't have sex. Otherwise, be aware of the potential consequensces of the sin. Simplistic, I know. Almost absurdely so. And it ignores rape and other things. But it's my justification.


That said, the far greater evil is removing the option of having an abortion altogether.


I may stress the pro-life choice, but I'm realistic enough to realize that
a) it's not always a viable option
b) not everyone agrees with me

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Personally, i wouldnt want an abortion. Im quite uncomfortable with it because i know that had abortions been legal at the time, i would probably have been aborted.

Personally I'm quite uncomfortable with sexual reproduction as it stands, because I know that if a different sperm had won the race for my mother's egg, I wouldn't exist.

Hmm, maybe there's a problem with that argument.

 

[Miss_Kitt]

Somebody gets it!

I commend the OP in recognizing that most arguments against abortion -- and, I submit, all arguments against first-term abortion -- are religious in nature, even if an explicit appeal to a god is not made.

The argument for declaring a grape-sized bundle of developing and differentiating cells a "person" is to say that it possesses a soul. That ensoulment is assumed to happen at the moment of conception, and implicitly holds that someone/something puts that soul into the zygote. The existance of this Soul is then the basis for declaring personhood, and killing a person is murder.

On a scientific /rational basis, you would have to look at the path of development and draw a line where the bundle of cells ceases to be a "potential that could develop into a human" and becomes "human". I think the reasonable place to draw this line is viability, that is, the time where the fetus could survive and develop (with high odds) normally outside the mother's body.

It seems clear that the first trimester is dealing with pre-viability, and the last two months are viable. In between is a gray zone of inadequate knowledge and complex value judgments: What percent of likelihood of survival, with what likelihood of how severe disability, constitutes "viable"?

Placing the legal restraints on terminating a pregnancy on the cautious side, where there clearly is not a viable entity, but only a potential separate entity from the mother, is the most moral way to deal with that gray area, IMHO.

There is a conflict of values in the circumstance where a viable "baby" nearing birth cannot be born, or perhaps even carried to term, without endangering the mother's life. In that case, I think it reasonable to value the existant, developed, thinking, breathing, living mother's life over that of the unborn, unless she chooses of her free will to risk herself for that growing life within her. But that kind of situation very rarely occurs.


Another complication of this argument is that the existance of a Soul, as a separate and independent thing from the brain of the person, has not been demonstrated--but is passionately believed by many. (I myself think that there is what a poet would call a 'soul', but that that is based on the content of the mind which is itself dependent on the brain of the thinker/feeler/actor.)

Kudos to folks for taking this excursion into muddy moral waters seriously. It is an important issue, and one that is not amenable to quick decisions.

 

[X]

Personally I'm quite uncomfortable with sexual reproduction as it stands, because I know that if a different sperm had won the race for my mother's egg, I wouldn't exist.

Hmm, maybe there's a problem with that argument.

Oh, it's even better than that:

At a different time, the sperm and eggs would have been different. You wouldn't exist.
But the thought also applies to your parents, as well. And their parents. And theirs. And so-on and so-forth all the way back down the evolutionary tree.

For you to be here at all, required those reproductions to take place at the right time and in the right way.
No, scratch that. It sounds like a pubble marvelling at how well its depression fits.
You are the culmination of an immense chain of reproductions stretching all the wa back through the history of life on Earth. Had even one of the reproductions been different (different sperm, different egg, laying in a different position, whatever), you would no be here.

I think it makes individual lives that much more precious.

Although, inevitably, there would be life, just not yours.


I love that thought. It's comforting, somehow, to know we're all just insanely lucky coincidences in a vast panalopy of inevitable life.

 

[qayak]

I love that thought. It's comforting, somehow, to know we're all just insanely lucky coincidences in a vast panalopy of inevitable life.

Our chances of being here are 100%, no luck involved.

 

[X]

Our chances of being here are 100%, no luck involved.

You know what I mean, you inartistic nit-picker!

 

[Cosmo]

The Raving Atheist was a (now defunct) blog written by a pro-life atheist. I never agreed with his stance on the issue, but I do recall him writing about it at length, if not too frequently.

Here's a listing of all of his posts tagged with 'abortion'. He can be thickheaded and occasionally abrasive, but not a bad read in the end.

Edit: Dunstan beat me to it

 

[Miss_Kitt]

You haven't been pregnant, I see...

Suppose, in the future, someone will come up with an incontrovertable proof that abortion, at any stage in the life of the fetus, is murder (excepting when the life of the mother is at stake)... .

Without knowing whether such a proof is possible or not, isn't the safest course of action to assume a pro-life position? If a proof that the pro-life position is wrong appears, the worst that happens is some deaths from illegal abortion, and emotional suffering of women being forced to carry nearly all pregancies to term. If a proof that the pro-life position is right appears, however, millions will have been murdered. In the absence of a clear position, shouldn't we strive to minimize the worst-case scenario?....

Wthether by proof or gradual evolution of values, might abortion be one of those things we look back at with horror, and if the possibility that we might look back at that way exists, should we assume a pro-life position, just to be on the safe side?

Bolding is mine, but I included most of the rest of the post to be clear on context of the statement.

With respect, Sir (or woman who hasn't been there), bearing a child for 40 weeks and then giving birth to it is not just "emotional suffering". It's a life-changing physiological event. Put simply, it is in very slow motion having a chemically active bowling ball put into your abdomen. Almost all of your internal organs are moved, squeezed, stretched, compressed, or develop new blood vessels. The muscles of the abdomen are moved, stretched, changed. The ligaments in the pelvis are stretched. The biochemistry of the nervous system is altered. the digestive system is altered. The size of the vascular system is radically altered, with the accompanying adjustments to blood pressure--a process that rarely goes entirely smoothly. Not uncommonly, varicose veins, including hemorrhoids, develop. The hormonal balance of the body is changed. The back is subjected to stresses without relief for months. The feet and legs have to carry more weight, distributed substantially differently (it is common for women to have to get larger-sized shoes while pregnant, and in some cases, ever after). Psychological changes due to chemical/hormonal changes, quite apart from emotions concerning the process, make the mother-to-be sometimes feel like she is possessed. (This view may be shared by her partner.) Towards the end of the pregnancy, the cartilage of the woman's body alters, allowing her pelvis to expand, and having odd effects on other joints and structures. (I could fold my nose over sideways.) Fluid balance in the tissues is different, frank edema is common.

Let's not forget that the breasts expand and change; that the areolae expand, and the nipples grow-- a permanent change, marking the body forever as having been pregnant, regardless of whether the process continues through birth of a child and nursing. The uterus expands and changes; the cervix changes; if the birth process occurs, the vagina and related structures must be stretched, often tearing (or being cut) to accomodate the skull of the baby. This has a permanent effect on sexual sensation, usually for both partners (loss of the 'firm handshake').

I won't even go through the physical pain involved in labor and delivery, sometimes in spite of medical attention. And, yes, some emotional suffering there too in that it is a level of helplessness usually not experienced without having a stroke. The body is no longer under the control of the mind for hours to (for the very unlucky) days. After the child is delivered, the placenta needs to be expelled as well.

Then there is a whole spate of changes post-partum, even in the tragic circumstances of a stillborn child. The breasts have to either start producing milk, or revert to non-productive status; either way, engorgement occurs, and that is often painful. Hormonal changes are huge. Excess water is excreted by every means, from paroxysmal sweats to frequent urination. The uterus gradually shrinks back; the other internal organs return to something approximating their pre-pregnancy locations. The back, which has been gradually adjusting to the big load up front, is now coping with an abrupt change in posture and weight-distribution. Ah, weight, that's right: Nearly all women who go through a pregnancy gain weight.

Now, let's add in the fact that the mother and father are now legally responsible for providing for the child until it achieves legal majority. That's not "emotional suffering" of the woman, it's cold hard economic reality. As is the risk of being fired for side-effects of pregnancy, like not being able to handle certain chemicals, or offending the boss's sensibilities by not being married while pregnant--or by being pregnant, but then not keeping the baby. Or there may be a need for bedrest to prevent harm to the mother or future child, which has an even bigger impact on employment.

Finally, pregnancy and childbirth can and do kill women, even in America and the rest of the developed world; even with medical intervention. "Gestational diabetes", a pregnancy-related problem with blood sugar levels, is by no means rare; pre-eclampsia, a condition where the woman's blood pressure and other autonomic nervous functions are overstimulated (presumably by the hormones of the placenta, but I believe that is still not entirely proved) puts the woman at risk of hemorrhage, liver damage or stroke; eclampsia, where the dysfunction caused by the pregnancy does reach the level of major medical problems, kills more women in the developed world than any birth-related issue. (Pre-eclampsia is so dangerous that a woman will be 'induced' to begin labor early, even if it means the child will have to be in NeoNatal ICU.) Postpartum infections can be lethal, painful, or cause sterility.

If you're going to try to base your argument on "what's the greater harm", you should not posit that there will be nothing more than some "emotional suffering" involved in unplanned /unwanted pregnancies.


Added: Please note that I have limited the above discussion to just what happens due to pregnancy and delivery. If the child is nursed, cared for, etc. there is a whole new category of physical and hormonal issues. Then there's the impact on the siblings (if any) the partner (if any) and the public (if the mother cannot or will not provide for the child). For at minimum 18 years. And that's with a healthy child!

 

[Byzantine Magpie]

Wthether by proof or gradual evolution of values, might abortion be one of those things we look back at with horror, and if the possibility that we might look back at that way exists, should we assume a pro-life position, just to be on the safe side?

I think it's trivial to accept the possibility that society's views on abortion may change in 100 years. We could speculate that over the course of a century any of our views might change quite fundamentally.

But how likely is it that we'll get the sort of evidence you're speculating about? Thanks to the studies psychologists have conducted over the years, we have an increasingly accurate idea of how brains and people develop in the time before and after birth, and I don't think there's the slightest suggestion that there's any evidence to support your proposition.

Now there are good cases for applying the precautionary principle, but those cases seem to be where there's at least some evidence on which the precaution is based. Suppose I was to propose, for example, that if the Georgian bigfoots (what the heck is the plural of bigfoot?) exist, aircraft exhaust must be bad for them, therefore we should ban all aircraft movements within 100 miles of the borders of Georgia. In a hundred years time, people might be horrified that anyone ever flew an aircraft anywhere near Georgia.

 

[ponderingturtle]

There are actually some. Most atheist that I know who are against abortion is mostly due to ethical objections to abortion.

They believe it cheapens life and believe there are better ways of birth control than abortion. Funny thing is unlike many theistic excuses, they don't condemn it per se, they just believe it is suboptimal and a failure of a system of sex education. I'm also against abortion partially for this reason but am opposed to those to who seek to limit it. I believe in better sex ed.

The thing is that what you have just said fits into how most supporters of abortion rights view it.

"Safe, legal and rare" is the common phrase.

Or are they trying to remove the legal part?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Keeping population under control by means of abortion is cruel and inhumane. Keeping population in control by widespread starvation, disease and war is far more optimal.

There you go. ^ No religion needed.

you are forgetting the evils of contraception as well.

 

[ponderingturtle]

For me, the strongest argument against abortion isn't on religious grounds at all. It assumes that murder is wrong and then poses the question of when life starts. If we wouldn't consider it to be okay for a mother to kill her 2 year old, her 1 year old or her 2 day old baby, why is killing an unborn baby so different?

So are miscariges then manslaughter?

What abotu miscarriages brought about by actions of the mother?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Shorn of the emotive stuff, there is no good atheist, anti-abortion argument.

When you remove emotional reactions how do you ever determine morality in a secular fashion?

 

[ponderingturtle]

3rd tri I can only see it as a legitimate choice IF the mothers life is at risk.

So if it is a non viable fetus and it is only her health that is at risk, she must still carry it and suffer the consequences?

 

[gumboot]

What?

First of all, how much money did pharmaceutical companies spend on "Viagra"? My understanding is that Pfizer was developing Viagra to treat high blood pressure and angina, and the sexual effects were discovered during clinical trials. It wasn't the result of billions of dollars and years of dedicated research directed at curing erectile dysfunction.

Second, nobody would be happier than me to see an effective male birth control pill, but it's a pretty large challenge to suppress a system that produces millions of sperm continuously as compared to a system that releases one egg a month, and already has a built-in "off switch" that can be exploited.

I find the male aspect of the whole abortion issue perhaps the most interesting and difficult, partly because I am a male, I guess...

It seems to me that a lot of people have contradictory opinions on this, and a male's obligations. Most pro-choice people argue that the male's opinion is irrelevant - it's the woman's body and her choice, and to a degree I agree with that position. However you seldom see them campaigning for a male's right to refuse child support payments for a child they never wanted. The argument then is "If you're going to have sex you have to accept the consequences".

That, to me, smacks of hypocrisy. It seems illogical that the woman is not required to "accept the consequences", but that if the woman chooses to, the man must accept them.

This is particularly of issue because more often than not it's the female that's in control of birth control. And yes, I've know of numerous cases of girls who intentionally interfered with their birth control without their partner's knowledge so they could get pregnant.

It's a sticky situation, because I can't see a solution either way. On the one hand, I'm pro choice, and that respects the woman's right to make the decision herself. Yet on the other hand there's a good argument that an absent parent should still provide something towards the child that they helped create.

Perhaps this could be a pro-life argument then? The law has set a precedent that a male does not have a choice in the matter. Therefore a female should not either, otherwise the law discriminates on grounds of gender.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I find the male aspect of the whole abortion issue perhaps the most interesting and difficult, partly because I am a male, I guess...

It seems to me that a lot of people have contradictory opinions on this, and a male's obligations. Most pro-choice people argue that the male's opinion is irrelevant - it's the woman's body and her choice, and to a degree I agree with that position. However you seldom see them campaigning for a male's right to refuse child support payments for a child they never wanted. The argument then is "If you're going to have sex you have to accept the consequences".

That, to me, smacks of hypocrisy. It seems illogical that the woman is not required to "accept the consequences", but that if the woman chooses to, the man must accept them.

Yes and no. There are inconsistencies in it, but the problem is that it deals with rights over your body and then rights an individual has to have the best enviroment provided for them.

Abortion vs childsupport is a complex issue, and someone has to get screwed, either the child or the father.

This is particularly of issue because more often than not it's the female that's in control of birth control. And yes, I've know of numerous cases of girls who intentionally interfered with their birth control without their partner's knowledge so they could get pregnant.

It's a sticky situation, because I can't see a solution either way. On the one hand, I'm pro choice, and that respects the woman's right to make the decision herself. Yet on the other hand there's a good argument that an absent parent should still provide something towards the child that they helped create.

Perhaps this could be a pro-life argument then? The law has set a precedent that a male does not have a choice in the matter. Therefore a female should not either, otherwise the law discriminates on grounds of gender.

Yes this is a problem but not one that currently has a solution that is better than current one.

If as a man you are truely worred about that, you could always always use condoms and provide them yourself. That way you do not depend on your partner.

Or just engage in non procreative sex