Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Log in or create an account to join the discussions on the Atheist Republic forums.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
FREE E-BOOKS
Get the book "Why There Is No God" and one more book for FREE!
Sign up below for the Atheist Republic Newsletter to get the books.
Record Your Message!
Record your voice here for it to be aired on the Atheist Republic Voicemails Podcast.
Send us your views and opinions, your personal stories, messages of support, comments on recent news, or any comments you would like to share about your part of the world.
Note : By clicking record you are allowing us to broadcast your message on any of our platforms.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Links to atheist related books, shirts and movies and other atheism related products are affiliate links.
All proceeds will go to keeping the Atheist Republic website up and running; providing resources, advocacy, community tools and encouragement to atheists all over the world.
Semantics are important, especially concerning this. You say pro-life describes someone who is against abortion (I’ll guess you actually mean someone who thinks is should be made altogether illegal). That phrasing, however, assumes that a zygote IS a life rather than the potential for a life. So, imo, you’re stacking your own deck by using that phrasing. I am calling you out on it.
Exactly. It’s still a semantics issue. For example, the moniker “pro-choice” implies that those against them are anti-choice which is untrue. Those against pro-choice are for women’s choice. They’re simply against one of the many choices available to women. If it pleases you, let’s go with the names,
Anti abortion and
Pro abortion
Coz really both sides are simply choosing a name that sounds better.
That's absurd, you are against women having a choice, who cares if it's only one, and I am dubious about that anyway. Religions are all about telling people how they should behave. Should a woman have the choice to divorce a husband, use contraception, be promiscuous if she chose?
If you believe a deity gave us all free will, why are you trying to take it away here? Secondly pro choice doesn't mean you are pro abortion. I don't want suicide to be a crime, that doesn't mean I am pro suicide. Religious arguments against abortion always tend to polarise and oversimplify the debate.
You also don't appear to have answered the question as to why you think a zygote is a human life, as opposed to the potential for a life? This is a massively important distinction, your church lets not forget consider birth control and masturbation to be supernatural crimes called sin, that will be punished in some afterlife.
I'd also like to know why you believe it is wrong to "ever take a human life"? The biblical deity seems ok with it, and with condoning it , and even instructing humans to do it?
Where do you stand on your deity torturing King David's baby to death in the bible, that doesn't sound like pro life to me.Why is that ok, but a woman terminating a pregnancy when the foetus is still an insentient clump of cells not?
After many years on the pro-life side, I now think Roe v. Wade basically got it right. Up to a point, the woman has dominion over her body. Then, at some point, there is another being's rights to consider.
Isn’t conception when there is another being to consider?
"Isn’t conception when there is another being to consider?"
No, that's absurd.
AJ777,
"Isn’t conception when there is another being to consider?"
One position in the Bible is that every sex act has to result in a pregnancy.
The flip side is that once a child is born then he will be cursed forever for being a bastard. If every sex you have had in your life resulted in a pregnancy how many kids will you have right now?
@AJ777
There is quite a few major problems with that concept that I want to point out to you.
Setting aside there is zero proof of soul/god for the "conception" idea let's look at a few other major problems.
1) When exactly is conception? I think most religious folks say: "when the sperm fertilizes the egg." This is NOT an "instant process" and actually takes several hours. The exchange of DNA to form new is an incredibly complex process, but I think it is fair to say, that if sperm/egg do not count as "another being" then until the very least dna information swap process is complete, I think it is fair to say "another being" is not yet ready to be considered.
Worse still, twins, triplets etc can sometimes take up to 4 days to "happen." When does the soul enter? When is "conception" for that twin or triplet? 4 days after? Is a mother taking the day after pill killing "another being"? And if she waits 2-3 days to do it, she could potentially be killing 2-3-4 or more other "human beings?"
2) If you still consider the moment of conception "another being" (especially if you consider sperm entering the egg that moment of conception,) do you realize 30% to as high as 60% of all "fertilized" eggs never make it to healthy birth? Most are lost before the zygote can attach to the uterine wall or shortly after. Why would a god concept "place" souls or multiple souls only to kill so many of them usually within a few hours later? If god decides life and death and souls and who lives and all that stuff that would make "god" responsible for the unchosen "abortion" of likely 10's of billions of "human beings." Anyone want to hold these god ideas accountable for all the aborted births god decided to do... on a whim?
3) Say a lab technician is working at a busy in-vitro clinic at a busy time, say the person goes insane and fertilizes 1000 eggs in the lab with his sperm. A truly horrific act to be sure. But if all those eggs who mothers donated them to get pregnant, through this procedure, if all these eggs were not to return immediately to the mother's womb, is that murder of 1000+ babies? If a mother refuses to take this egg fertilized by someone they do not wish to fertilize their eggs are they in a sense murdering their own babies? Why or why not?
@Orignal Post by JOC
I am pro life and pro choice. Does that count? I think all human life is precious and innocent especially the the youngest of us and should be protected and sheltered. But I also think it is not anyones decision other than the mother of the baby to decide if a "potential human" rights exceeds the rights to their own body. I also think that abortion should not be available only to the rich. A pregnant mother with access to money (perhaps a rich father,) can easily get an abortion, where all too often a vulnerable mother that does not have access to lots of money cannot and there is absolutely nothing fair about that.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
▮I am an atheist that always likes a good debate
▮Please include @LogicFTW for responses to me
▮Tips on forum use. ▮ A.R. Member since 2016.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
if you can't tell the difference between a few cells and a being that is capable of maintaining it's own life outside the womb, perhaps an elementary biology class would help.
Of course, you are the same person who can't understand than omniscience and freewill are logically incompatible, so I may have to give you a pass.
As a side note, my wife one had a tubal pregnancy. I'll give you a minute to look it up. Remember, G O O G L E.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Ok, what should we have done in that case?
More questions:
Is that mass of cells now with God? Is it dependent on the beliefs of that mass of cell's parents? Will that mass of cells one day look down to see it's heathen father roasting eternally?
Oh shoot - one more. Is there a little wing in heaven for all of the miscarriages, most of which no one is even aware? I hope it's nice. I'm sure all those masses of cells will enjoy their blissful eternities.
********edited a couple times to add more mockery
I'm looking for pro-life atheists. Are there any?
JoC,
"I'm looking for pro-life atheists. Are there any?"
What will you do if you find some, eat them or have babies with them?
Ask questions.
"I'm looking for pro-life atheists. Are there any?"
I am. (though I once considered myself pro choice, because 'thats what good liberals do'. But after children and grandchildren, I can no longer stomach that concept.
Not so much in the embryonic stage, by the time it's a fetus, it has become basically human. A local hospital has been advertising their advance care capabilities for premature babies, but in the same place, healthy ones at the same state of development are being killed.
The furor over the OKeefe filming of Planned Parenthood (which was recently studied by a Federal Circuit court and ruled as not 'selectively edited') seemed to be about legality. but the glib background conversation was about providing liver tissue, brain tissue etc for research. By that state we are talking a real, developing, living human. To just glibly cut them up because the mother doesn't want the bother is unconscionably wrong.
A while back Doritos(?) had a humorous commercial with an expectant father munching chips right next to his wife's belly causing the baby to rush through the birth. The sleazes at NARAL complained that this 'humanized' the fetus. It IS a freakin human dammit. By the time of birth, a baby already recognizes the sound of its mother's voice. Its humanity is well established.
Recently law in NY state and Virginia would allow abortion right up to the moment of birth. This brutal act is being promoted as 'pro woman' Sheesh. They're PROUD of it.
I'm not complaining about stuff like Plan B or early term, but the 'pro choice' side is going incalculably over the top. Unlike when Bill Clinton called for 'safe, legal, and rare' we now have a move to 'Shout your abortion' to remove any stigma... there is even a childrens' book put out by one of the activist groups (forget which right now) to make the concept comfortable for them. What the hell is our culture coming to?
[In Switzerland it's now illegal to boil a live lobster because it 'has a nervous system', but apparently sucking up a human brain is quite legal]
I'm opposed to abortion, but I think people should be allowed to have them.
I don't think I've ever met a person who liked abortion.
The god of the Old Testament didn't even consider infants younger than 1 month old as having value.
Okay. Why are you opposed to abortion (at least personally)? Why do you think you've never met a person who likes abortion? What is it about it that people don't like?
JoC, I don't think any woman would like to have an abortion.
But if a woman's pregnancy is for whatever reason unwanted, let her decide whether to end it or not.
Why don't you think any woman would like to have an abortion? What is it about it that women don't like about it?
Because it's a medical procedure. Who wants to go through one?
Granted no one wants to have a medical procedure. But say the woman is already pregnant, what then?
@JoC
If a woman has an unwanted pregnancy, then she will have to decide whether to have an abortion or not, even if she finds the prospect of going through such medical procedure undesirable.
JoC, you asked, “What is it about it that women don't like about it?”
Why are you asking a man that question? Do you actually think all women would think the same thing(s)?
"JoC, I don't think any woman would like to have an abortion."
-CHK-C
I was simply restating his position back to him.
Why not research the topic a little yourself. Instead of expecting others to walk you through it.
Do you even know that research shows abortion rates are higher in countries where they are not freely and legally available? As of course are the horrendous complications and deaths from botched abortions.
If you want to reduce abortions there are proven methods that work.
1. Give women and girls free access to proper health care including contraception.
2. Sex education that teaches all the facts, when children reach puberty.
Just those two things alone would hugely reduce abortion rates.
If you want to increase abortion rates then religious based abstinence education has been proven to be the best method.
I have researched on this topic. Thanks.
I am squeamish about abortion. I think people generally would prefer not to have an abortion: they'd prefer that the unwanted fetus never existed in the first place.
Why would you be squeamish about abortion? I get that some people would rather not have the fetus exist at all but what about abortion makes you squeamish as opposed to say a tooth extraction?
I find the people who are opposed to abortion, sententiously labelling themselves as "pro life" sickeningly odious.
Those who don't oppose all abortion are also pro life and nor do they "favour abortion".
They just don't buy into to the asinine religious dogma that will express faux outrage at the "rights" of an insentient blastocyst.
Argh. The term "pro life" is so self-righteous. As if someone who is okay with abortion is "anti life".
I understand that if someone thinks a blastocyst is a person with full rights, they're going to think that abortion is immoral. But I would hope they'd be intelligent and compassionate enough to understand that those who are okay with abortion are not heartless baby-killers, but rather people who value human life and hold different views on what life and rights look like.
There are two distinct aspects to this debate, moral and medical. The problem for me is the moral argument takes the medical discussion out of my stance.
Women have the right to control their bodies. Imagine the uproar if there was any law that controlled a man's body. Especially his precious family jewels.
Pages