Abortion Isn’t Just A Religious Issue

I’ve argued for quite some time that abortion is not just a religious issue. Don’t misunderstand – for me – it is first and foremost religious in the sense that I believe God creates every unique human being with dignity and value at conception, and He alone has the authority to give and take life. But that’s not the only argument in favor of being pro-life.

Consider the statements made by David Harsanyi, a self-avowed atheist who practices moral relativism, in a recent opinion piece in the Denver Post in which he states, “…it’s difficult to understand how those who harp about the importance of ’science’ in public policy can draw an arbitrary timeline in the pregnancy, defining when human life is worth saving and when it can be terminated.”

David makes other great points about the strangle line we seem to draw between selective abortion and abortion for convenience. One point I would contend with David about is on making abortion illegal. It may indeed criminalize the procedure, but any righteous society that declares abortion to be the termination of a life absolutely must uphold that it is as illegal as murder.

Now, here are just four non-religious points I’d like to throw in concerning abortion:

• The fetus is made up of entirely separate and distinct DNA from the mother, therefore must be considered as a separate human being, not merely a part of the mother’s body.
• Medical science is constantly finding new ways of sustaining the lives of premature babies born earlier and earlier. At what point do we decide that life is life? We’ll have to keep backing it up to keep up with our medical abilities if our standard is when life can be sustained outside the womb.
• If a woman who is 15 or 20 weeks pregnant was killed in a crime, we would certainly treat the situation differently because of the other life within her womb. Why, then, can she take the life of her own child within the womb?
• I’ve personally counseled multiple women who have had abortions in the past (some as long as thirty years ago) and the trauma to the mother is lifelong in most cases. We can’t get around the existence of our consciences and my heart breaks for any woman who has had an abortion.

There are other side-issues, such as the whole “designer baby” debate, racial issues, and economic arguments. My list could probably go on, but I wanted to emphasize these four to simply state that the procedure itself seems barbaric regardless of your religious stance if you see life in the womb as life in the womb. It’s about life.

Photo Credit: Flickr User ejk