Can an atheist be pro life?

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Poet said:
The shock that someone would believe that is part of why the incident has stuck with me for nearly 30 years. No, they offered NO other potential response.
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Fair enough, assuming that’s all there was (which I qualify my statement with only because they obviously aren’t here to defend themselves) they may just have been … unkind words.
 
What you say sounds right and logical. However, let me play devil’s advocate for a moment. Might not atheists (some of them, not all) argue that because (human) life is short and does end at physical death, it is even MORE precious than life would be if eternal? If this is the case, then one should not end a life in the womb before a human being has the unique experience of living in the world, because the latter is the only life a human will experience.
 
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A few of them do argue that, but they are in the small minority among atheists and it’s not hard to see why. Between all of the other hardships in life, having a baby when you weren’t planning on having a baby is seen as a burden, hence the prevalent belief that it is acceptable to terminate it. Or perhaps the baby would have had a difficult life since the parents “weren’t ready”. Or even more than that, if the baby was conceived from rape, then the mother shouldn’t feel obligated to carry the person inside of her.

Speaking for myself: I don’t agree with the argument that the shortness of life adds to its preciousness. Having more or less of something doesn’t make it more or less precious. It might be easier to take clean and crisp water for granted if you live in Finland, and you might appreciate it more if you live in the desert, but in either scenario it is just as precious.
 
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Poet said:
In other words, they apparently think Christians are complete rubes whose answer to everything is ‘The Bible told me so.’ 😃
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Some Christians are like that and they do everyone a great disservice.
 
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Dan123 said:
I know plenty of pro-choice people and not one has ever argued that a growing fetus isn’t alive
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A flower is alive.

The main Gulf is.

The “Fetus” IS an actual growing Babe in the Womb and not the Mother’s Body
and to kill it is Murder … — Or not
 
I was responding to a specific point that includes that idea. We’re all on the same page that there’s life.
 
VanitasVanitatum said:
Some Christians are like that and they do everyone a great disservice.
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That, unfortunately, is true. But if those in the meeting really wanted to prepare themselves, they were doing themselves a disservice by believing every Christian is like that.
 
When looking back to the 90’s, probably most of the anti abortion defenders DID answer with because the Bible says so. Arguments on both sides were less thought out and polemical. Much has changed since then and very slowly, anti abortion arguments have sharpened and addressed the secular arguments…and are slowly changing minds.

I’m anti abortion and agnostic. I was anti abortion in the 90’s too and would never have joined in the anti abortion groups back then because they were pretty much all religious and using religious arguments. Things have changed greatly!
 
I’m sorry to hear that was your experience. Mine was with people who were all great believers and devout but they addressed the straight forward facts: this is a human being, abortion is also harmful to women, and there are alternatives. My early experience was with people doing all the volunteering and donating at crisis pregnancy centers.
 
By default -

All Catholics who are obedient to Catholic Teachings are AntiAbortion… ProLife

By definition - they cannot be Pro-Choice.
 
When I was an atheist before reverting to the Catholicism of my youth, I was pro-life.

Perhaps having been adopted (in 1958) has something to do with it.

However, also as a scientist, I found any cut-off point for where life “begins” to be highly arbitrary. The fact remains that the genetic signature of a unique human individual begins a few moments after the ovum is fertilized. Any other point beyond that, is arbitrary. Therefore from that point forward, life deserves protection.

So yes, an atheist can be pro-life, moral, ethical, etc.

The real question that much more interesting is where did the atheist get those ethics from?

I would argue, even if the atheist doesn’t believe them, in very large part from Judeo-Christian religious ethics (at least in our cultures). At least the foundations.
 
OraLabora said:
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The real question that much more interesting is where did the atheist get those ethics from?

I would argue, even if the atheist doesn’t believe them, in very large part from Judeo-Christian religious ethics (at least in our cultures). At least the foundations.
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The natural law could be referenced also.
 
OraLabora said:
I would argue, even if the atheist doesn’t believe them, in very large part from Judeo-Christian religious ethics (at least in our cultures). At least the foundations.
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There are purely secular arguments both for and against abortion. I’ve honestly not seen anyone arguing there isn’t a human life. The question is typically in regards to person-hood, and when and to what degree that impacts the mother’s choices regarding her body. As you said there some inescapable arbitrariness to any point in that timeline.
 
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