Asking Anti-Abortion Demonstrators an Important Question
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=iD97OVJ4PNw

For a discussion of naturally occurring abortions and ancient methods used for aborting fetuses and contraceptions, see this thread on exChristian about this video.

DISCLAIMER: Individuals who are sensitive to "disrespect" for their religion, god, or beliefs may wish not to read that thread.

Here are two more videos I found from an atheist perspective on the topic of sexual ethics and religion:

• The hypocrisy of anti-abortion and abstinence-only policies
  http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=MdS5VAlluqs&feature=related
  
• Religion is the #1 reason against same-sex marriage
  [url=http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=MPfi3pmxLgc&NR=1[/url]http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=MPfi3pmxLgc&NR=1[/url]

I don't know why--maybe it's the evolving software of the internet--but I cannot download the YouTube videos onto this forum as I have been doing. Readers will have to click onto the links to watch the videos.

An atheist asks on Reasonable Faith.org why, if it is right to use lethal force in the defense of an innocent person whose life is in danger, we should not use lethal force against abortion doctors.



My Response

In my opinion, if a fetus really were a person with a full set of human rights, and if all other conditions were equal, I think you would have a case. However, the idea that a fetus is a person is a very new idea and not universally accepted. Not even children have full legal rights as persons. We need to be at least 18 years old to to have full legal rights on all levels. In some cultures, a penis is also a requirement.

I realize you are talking about human rights as opposed to legal rights. If you wish to look at human rights, you need to also take into consideration the rights of the mother. Under what conditions did she become pregnant?

Are we talking about an eleven-year-old girl who was raped by an older brother or cousin? Or a situation where neither child understood what they were doing due to lack of education?

Are we talking about date-rape? Or any other kind of rape?

If we are talking about a situation where a mother is forced or coerced to keep an unwanted pregnancy, what will be the consequences for that child and future generations?

Take into consideration the implications of emotional or physical child abuse. The chances of child abuse are much higher for unwanted children than for children who are wanted. According to the studies of one specialist, abuse tends to be transmitted from one generation to the next for up to ten generations.

People who have not experienced severe rejection of their total selves by their own parents, and all who should have loved and protected them as human beings, cannot imagine the crippling effect it has on a person's capacity to operate as a decent law-abiding human being. There is evidence that the experience in the womb has a lasting impact on the individual's attitude toward him or herself.

I know I was a wanted child, but it seems my mother was disappointed in me early on and I was never able to gain her approval. My next sister was all she could have wished for. The emotional abuse and rejection were severe. However, I have a memory of a time that I believe was pre-birth when all was peace and calm. That memory is what carried me though.

Because of it, I knew there was more to life than what I was getting. It guided me as an adult and convinced me that the pursuit of peace through impossible barriers would pay off in the end. I have not been disappointed.

I shudder to think what would have happened had I not been wanted in the first place. I would likely either be in jail for serious crime against humanity or a suicide statistic. The human psyche can only take so much negativity.

Thus, it is because of the enormous risk of child abuse, and the very serious consequences of child abuse, that I think abortion must be a legal option for unwanted pregnancies, no matter how the pregnancy was acquired. We are talking about future generations; the mother is but one figure in the picture and not a very important one. On the other hand: The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.

I did not specify above but I think first-trimester is a reasonable guideline for abortions. If you let it go into late second-trimester you start getting into seriously blurry areas where the baby could be viable outside the womb.

There have been always been natural miscarriages and still births. It seems humans have always had some guideline re when to call it a fetus to be disposed of as body waste and when to call it a baby requiring a burial. This (requiring a burial) was probably much more important to earlier generations than it is in our day when cremation is a common means of disposing bodies.

Today, when abortion/birth is brought on artificially with the intention to dispose as waste, we call it abortion. When it is brought on artificially with the intention to support life we call it birth. When a child is not wanted, and the mother is clear about this from the beginning, I think the most merciful action for all involved is to end the life of the would-be child.

Life is not necessarily a blessing. Some people do not know the meaning of the term "happy to be alive." An unwanted pregnancy--that will grow into an unwanted child if not terminated--will most likely turn into such a person. Terminating such pregnancies are, in my opinion, mercy killings in the truest sense of the word.

Killing the doctors, on the other hand, is killing indisputable human beings with lives and families and responsibilities in the community, and people who depend on them for their well-being. When you kill an adult doctor you kill much more than a bit of tissue with the potential to grow into an important community figure. You violently rip a hole in the fabric of society--a hole that is not easily fixed. In my part of the country, doctors are in very short supply--there's simply not enough to go around. PLEASE! don't kill any.

When you kill a doctor, you also kill someone's husband, wife, father, son, mother, daughter, friend, neighbour, or whatever role the person plays in someone's family, neighbourhood, and community outside the medical establishment. If the doctor is a parent of young children, you bereave young children of a parent. If the doctor is a pregnant woman (even if the pregnancy is not known to the public), and you wish to call a fetus a person, you kill two "people."

Come to think of it, don't such fetuses have certain rights under the law, as in the case that the father might be able to sue you for manslaughter? So you see, this is a very complicated matter and much deep thought has gone into it. It is important that children are wanted and loved--not just that they are conceived and live.