Are there any pro-life atheists out there?

Recently, while browsing through the groups, I came across a Pro-life group. It has only one member-it's founder, and that got me to thinking...Are there any pro-life atheists out there? And being that most, if not all arguments I've heard against abortions are usually religious in nature, what would be the atheists argument(s) against abortion?


Personally, I am pro-choice. I fully support every womans right to choose.

Tags: abortion, groups, pro-life

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Permalink Reply by HotMess on January 13, 2009 at 11:14am
Actually I don't think I answered your question very well the first time: If you don't have a choice about whether or not to abort, then you probably have to kill the baby after it is born any way.
After the baby has been born, though, you do have a few choices; you can "decide to" watch it starve because you have no milk, or you can "decide to" live the life of an outcast and be eaten, die from exposure, or, again, starve; I don't consider those options to be "choices."
I daresay one's decision-making process is determined by the number of choices that person has:
In modern societies first you can choose to terminate or keep the baby, then after it is born, if you can't care for it, you can surrender it to someone who will do so. Occasionally, even in these modern times, a mother isn't aware of these choices, and will kill her baby instead. Why this happens is a huge dissertation for whom the credit goes largely to Blaffer-Hrdy.
This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the practice of human infanticide ... most of the time I will assert that the mother has NO choice.
P.S. That MASH episode details one of the oldest stories of infanticide known to humanity.
Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on January 13, 2009 at 11:24am
Very good reply. Much to think about here.
Permalink Reply by HotMess on January 13, 2009 at 11:29am
Ugh - and that's only the beginning. I have a link on my other desktop, but if you google "Sarah Blaffer-Hrdy"+"infanticide" you will find a published document about some of the aspects of infanticide in apes and humans.
Her book (Mother Nature), though, is just shocking and horrifying, but still essential to the understanding of "natural" motherhood

Found the link:
http://books.google.com/books?id=QKfpoiLReqUC&pg=PT21&lpg=P...
Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on January 13, 2009 at 1:26pm
Thanks, Cowpunk62. A really interesting link.

I was fascinated to read the collection of terms used to describe the various forms of "termination of investment" in forms of human life. Nor is the practice reserved for females. It seems that males, siblings, wider family and community members are also part of the practice of "terminating investment" in a particular developed or undeveloped form of human life.

The concepts of delayed, passive and reduced "termination of investment" bears contemplation.

Delayed termination of investment refers to the delaying the death of the life form to a later stage of development. Thus a fetus which has been brought to term is then killed by neglect, starvation, disease, progressive genetic disorder or something else which requires that the life form be sufficiently developed to be born first.

Partial termination of investment refers to the reduction of physical or emotional care provided to children which are unwanted or beyond the normal caring capacity of a parent or community. This includes the problem of having to spread child care too thinly for the proper physical and emotional development of all the children under the care of one person or of the community.

Passive termination of care is probably self-explanatory. This is where the mother does nothing and lets the child die and/or suffer as a result.
Permalink Reply by Tony Alexander on August 13, 2008 at 9:48pm
I was under the impression that pro-life was a religious inspired concept from the idea that all life is sacred (as says the guy in a skirt in Rome) and therefore a theistic concept. It would be a paradox for an atheist to be pro-life and I assume this is another euphemism for anti-abortion.
Permalink Reply by Prog Rock Girl on February 3, 2010 at 11:52pm
I don't think it's necessarily contradictory. I've come across anti-abortion people of every subculture, not just Christian. I can understand the reasoning behind being anti-abortion, even though I disagree and think it is overly sentimental and unrealistic.
Permalink Reply by LeaT on August 14, 2008 at 8:51am
I don't believe in pro-life. I think there are enough people suffering on this planet we should take care of first before we decide to put anymore people on this earth while still gleefully forgetting about the ones who still got no help.

My consensus being, why improve our overpopulation before we have a stable situation where we really can sustain everyone? I also believe it is every human being's right to choose how to live their lives, and it also of course means accepting your responsibility towards your life as well. When people make the claims saying that an unbirthed child is still its own individual and we have no right to kill it by removing it from the mother's womb, they also forget that it is working in the sense of a parasyte and that the child is certainly not self-aware at this point. Being a part of the woman, the woman has all the right in the world to say she doesn't want it to be a part of her. Not like we can ask the child in the first place whether it wants to live or not.
Permalink Reply by Jim Winkler on August 14, 2008 at 3:05pm
Why use their term "pro-life"? At best they are anti-abortionists. Anti-women's rights. Uterus is government property party. Bat-shit crazy anti-abortionists, anti-population control, etc., etc. Call them what they are.
Permalink Reply by Robin on August 15, 2008 at 6:02pm
the correlation between anti-abortion and christianity or any other religion is very odd, because there are no scriptures in either religion saying anything about abortion whatsoever.

i think most atheists are pro-life simply because they have a better understanding of the issue while theists just follow their leaders as sheep.

i am pro-choice, but i wouldn't strongly disagree with anyone being against abortion, because its definitly a legitimate moral issue.

i think its a lot bigger problem with religious fanatics denying evolution and such which is no longer debatable.
Permalink Reply by Yan Viktor Ivaniya on August 22, 2008 at 3:35am
There was some random guy in my atheist group in college. He showed up only once and he was pro-life. That day we had a discussion/mock-debate about abortion. Pretty much he was trying to convince everyone that life begins at conception and that illegal abortions will decline (which is, pardon my French, is a BS) since people will stop having casual sex and unwanted pregnancies will drop....
pretty much it sounded absurd....
Permalink Reply by Slick Nick on August 22, 2008 at 10:48pm
I suppose I'm pro-life, but I admit that there are more ways to abort a fetus than have a surgeon do it for you. :/
Permalink Reply by Parallax on August 23, 2008 at 12:17pm
Actually I'm pro-life but I wouldn't tell another person what they should do with their own bodies. I'm truly split on this. I can only say that most abortions are not medically necessary and the ones that are (ectopic pregnancies, life threatening pregnancies) have always been performed by doctors who know what they're doing since we had the ability to do it (40's - 50's). It has only been since Roe v Wade that we have used it as a form of birth control legally. There is one other good reason for abortion and that is in the case of unwilling pregnancy as in the case of rape or incest.

I see the type of women that get abortions and the situations that the need arises from and wonder if they have any concept of the true value of life.

If you're an atheist you don't believe that there's a god, but there IS life and life is really important. I would hate to think that any atheist would give up a slavery to god and run right back to a slavery to the state where human life is not important (as what's displayed by our own government with regard to the war).

On the other hand, crime has gone down steadily since about 15 years after Roe v Wade and I don't want people who don't value life to be breeding.

I don't know...grr. I've been struggling with this for a long time. I think the reason for the prolife group is probably because abortion is kind of a symptom of a society cheapening life and the idea of having a baby.

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