Reference Only
This is an old article and may not correctly reflect the current views of Nullify Abortion. Click here to see how our views have changed and why.
All too often pro-abortion advocates argue we pro-life advocates are “forcing religion” on women. The fallacy here is that if your worldview and moral code is based on religion as opposed to your own personal code of conduct your argument is invalid. That’s wrong.
The Abortion Religion
It’s ironic that abortion supporters use this argument of “stop pushing your religion on me” as a go to weapon against pro-life arguments.
Abortion supporters base their view of when a person becomes a person on arbitrary and ambiguous criteria. Magically, they claim, a baby becomes a human being at 20 weeks—no 21 weeks—no 9 months—Wait, they have it this time, according to MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, life begins when “the parents decide.”
Essentially, they’ve established an abortion-based religion that relies on relativism and not on sound logic or science. Their religion directly contradicts the fact that a baby’s heartbeat can be detected in as little as 2 weeks after conception, brainwaves detected in as little as 40 days, and that preborn babies can learn inside the womb—far from inert lumps of cells.
They reject the fact science has long concluded the beginning of a human begins at conception. Instead, they believe they have the power to make life randomly begin with mere opinion. Talk about a faith-based argument!
I’m all for personal liberty, but if science has determined a human being is a person at conception, what right does the parent have to denying that human being of life? What say does that child get? Why does the mother get to unilaterally pass a death sentence on another human being? If we want to talk about imposing religious beliefs, lets start with the beliefs that deprive innocent children of life.
Defining Religion
According to Wikipedia, religion is,
an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence.
Kenneth Shouler states that people (as cited by the same Wikipedia article),
From their beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, people derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle.
The French sociologist, social psychologist and philosopher David Émile Durkheim (who is regarded as the father of modern sociology), stated in his book The Elementary Forms of Religious Life,
Religion is something eminently social (pg. 10)
And goes on to write,
Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities
Religion is a philosophy people use to determine sociocultural behavior and ethics. For the abortion supporters to claim our opinion is automatically invalid because it differs from their worldview is absurd!
Having no religion or refusing to allow religion to be a part of your decision doesn’t make you unbiased. In fact, it shows you have a bias against centuries of social and cultural norms. You’re saying it’s okay to impose your personal belief system on the lives of individuals incapable of speaking for themselves—denying life and thus the opportunity for them to ever develop their own beliefs—while attempting to censor anyone who disagrees with you.
Ridiculous!
Let’s not forget that recent research argues there is no such thing as a true atheist. In other words, regardless of what label you apply to yourself, there are things you innately believe that when boiled down are nothing more than a form of religion. Religion is as human as making tools.
If anything, religious tradition constructed by society over generations is a far more trustworthy precedent than that of individual personal opinion—especially when said beliefs err on the side of caution and compassion.
America, Land of the Religious
Like it or not, America built upon the Judeo-Christian principles. Many of the early settlers (Pilgrims, Puritans, and more) came to to America to escape religious persecution. The vast majority of the Founding Fathers, were, by their own admission, believers in the Biblical Jesus Christ—the remaining were mostly Deist who held the God of the Bible in high esteem.
John Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and second President of the United States, wrote:
[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Fisher Ames, framer of the First Amendment (see above link for reference), agreed,
Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits . . . it is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers.
American culture and government is based on religion. To say that the majority of Americans must abandon their philosophy of morals and ethics because it’s based on collectively agreed upon principles as opposed to your own personal belief system (read: religion) is ludicrous.
Freedom of Religion
You’re not obligated to believe. The First Amendment guarantees us the right to believe or not believe. But a lack of belief does not grant superior logical or moral high ground.
It’s fascist to bar viewpoints from an important philosophical and moral discussion simply because you disagree with their beliefs. My belief that God creates us as individuals at conception (which agrees with science, mind you) is just as valid, if not more valid, than your personal view that life begins when you decide it does.
I, for one, am not going to have my views silenced simply because they are different from those of another person.
Revised: December 27, 2014
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