[flagged]
> The rhetoric about abortion being the catalyst for the rise of the Religious Right, however, collapses under scrutiny. Evangelicals considered abortion a “Catholic issue” until the late 1970s. In 1968, the flagship evangelical magazine Christianity Today convened a conference with another evangelical organization, Christian Medical Society, to discuss the ethics of abortion. After several days of deliberations, twenty-six evangelical theologians issued a statement acknowledging that they could not agree on any one position, that the ambiguities of the issue allowed for many different approaches. “Whether the performance of an induced abortion is sinful we are not agreed,” the statement read, “but about the necessity of it and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.” The statement cited “individual health, family welfare, and social responsibility” as possible justifications for abortion and allowed for instances when fetal life “may have to be abandoned to maintain full and secure family life.”
And this is a real eye-opener:
> Baptists, in particular, applauded the Roe decision as an appropriate articulation of the line of division between church and state, between personal morality and state regulation of individual behavior. “Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision,” W. Barry Garrett of Baptist Press wrote.
[1] https://religiondispatches.org/the-evangelical-abortion-myth...
What you’re describing is instead an ideological schism within Protestant Christianity. Since Luther, Protestant Christianity had a strong natalist orientation. That’s why abortion was illegal in every US state by 1910. But during the 20th century, mainline protestantism adopted an anti-natalist view out of concerns about overpopulation and the welfare of the poor. That’s the genesis of the modern US abortion debate.
It’s not accurate to say that these patterns reflect views on abortion being “fluid.” Protestantism isn’t centralized—especially denominations like Baptists. Until the mid-20th century, pretty much all the denominations agreed abortion was wrong. Once the anti-natal movement got going, those denominations fractured and people sorted into different ones. For example, the Evangelical Presbyterian church split from what’s now the PCUSA in 1981. Both are “evangelical.” But we apply the “evangelical” label to one and not the other, based on their views on abortion and other issues.
Let's be clear about what was illegal, because the radical definition, 'life begins at fertilization', is a recent innovation[1]:
> Abortion was not always a crime. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, abortion of early pregnancy was legal under common law.[22] Abortions were illegal only after "quickening," the point at which a pregnant woman could feel the movements of the fetus (approximately the fourth month of pregnancy). The common law's attitude toward pregnancy and abortion was based on an understanding of pregnancy and human development as a process rather than an absolute moment. Indeed, the term abortion referred only to the miscarriages of later pregnancies, after quickening.
[1] https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft967n...
See page numbers 18 here
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Also, “life begins at conception,” or at another very early stage, isn’t a Christian innovation. That’s the belief in Shia Islam. Certain Sunni schools also prohibit abortion at any stage. In Thailand, a Buddhist country, abortion was illegal at all stages of pregnancy until 2021.
Same thing in Hinduism: https://indiacurrents.com/a-hindu-view-on-abortion/
Prohibitions against abortion, even at early stages, are common across the world’s belief systems. Perhaps the only thing you could call uncommon is the view that abortion is impermissible even to save the life of the mother. But that’s an uncommon view even within evangelical Christianity.
The answer of course is that abortion rights would win by a healthy margin[1] if the public had any say in the matter.
> Pro-choice sentiment is now the highest Gallup has measured since 1995 when it was 56% -- the only other time it has been at the current level or higher -- while the 39% identifying as "pro-life" is the lowest since 1996.
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/393104/pro-choice-identificatio...
This is a lie ("In Shia Islam, abortion is "forbidden after implantation of the fertilised ovum.", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_abortion). I guess it never occurred to you why even the Sharia countries are not as extreme on abortion as Christian ones.
>Certain Sunni schools also prohibit abortion at any stage.
Obvious lie, ibid.
>Buddhist
Nope, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_abortion
>Same thing in Hinduism
Okay, so this one is not entirely wrong, just mostly wrong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism_and_abortion).
Once again: "life from conception" is a fringe view specific to Catholicism and borrowed by other extremist branches.
Not praying as often as one should is considered immoral too. But "immorality" is not binary, and abortion tends to be quite low on the scale. Especially early abortion, which is specific to one particular branch of Christianity.
>Abortion “rights” arises from a belief system
The same one that got us other human rights, like freedom of speech. It's called humanism. It's different from religions by not being made up.
Also, note the "life from conception" fringe is a relatively recent invention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christian_thought_o.... Protestantism generally kept the old beliefs instead of adapting the new idea.
Conversely, the notion of a “right to abortion” or a “right to bodily autonomy” is for all practical purposes a religious view. It’s a belief about the nature of human society and the value of human life in its various stages.
I'm a strong proponent of the right to freedom of speech (and I'm pro-choice), but we have to be clear about the fact that these are derived from axioms, which are by definition maxims derived from subjective leaps of faith and not evidence-based objectivity.
I think that's Rayiner's point; you can't admonish people deriving philosophical views from the theistic beliefs and value systems they practice when the opposing side of those views are essentially derived from secular/atheistic beliefs and value systems. At some point in the chain of derived arguments and justifications, you arrive at an axiom whose only justification is "because I believe this should be so" or "because my in-group believes this should be so" or "because <authority figure> believes this should be so" — it's still a leap of faith.
"Humanism" is just another subjective belief system, and its adherents are no more immune to the forces of tribalism and faith-based reasoning as adherents of older belief systems.
Humanism is just as made up and non-falsifiable as any religion, and in some cases more so. If you autopsy a dead body, you won’t find either a soul nor any form of “human rights.”
At least religious traditions are often based on practical experience. For example, in Islam it’s considers a moral obligation to get married and have children. Leaving aside any supernatural basis for that moral dictate, it makes sense given that human societies have to raise a lot of kids simply to perpetuate themselves from generation to generation.
But what about the humanist idea that you have no such moral obligation, and that “child free” people are of equal value to society as people doing the labor of perpetuating society—because of some invisible “human dignity” and “right of self actualization.” That’s pulled straight out of thin air.
> But "immorality" is not binary, and abortion tends to be quite low on the scale.
Not true. Most muslim countries, for example, including the one I’m from, have more restrictive abortion laws than any U.S. state. India similarly has a quite restrictive abortion law (not one inherited from the British, but one of their own construction after an extensive process) from 1971 until its Supreme Court intervened in 2022.
To my knowledge, no major culture that isn’t formerly Christian has the western notion of an individual “right” to an abortion. Even in Asian countries that permit abortion, it’s viewed more in terms of a collective policy of reproductive control than an individual right. That fact is completely unsurprising: deciding when life begins is obviously a matter for the government. Only westerners are so pathologically individualistic as to think that social determination should be subject to overruling by individual morality.
The United States government, which is what we’re discussing is absolutely a secular body. The various religions or non-religions of the citizenry are irrelevant, constitutionally.
What the first amendment doesn’t do is exclude moral beliefs rooted in religion from being the basis of public policy. If the government can regulate conduct that kills living things, then it’s immaterial whether any particular legislation is rooted in the moral framework of Christianity or Islam or Feminism. In the American system, all moral frameworks, whether rooted in religion or not, are on equal footing. That’s distinct from secularism, as practiced by France and formerly Turkey, where religious philosophy is singled out and excluded from the public sphere.
Err, no, that's a common misunderstanding.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits government from encouraging or promoting ("establishing") religion in any way.
It's there to forbid the creation of an official state religion (eg: the Church of England being created to replace the Catholic church back in the day).
See:
visit a cemetary and see crosses. listen to language and hear references to "christening", christian names, "this book is the x bible", expletives referencing "jesus christ", christmas, easter, the abundance of churches over any other site of worship.