I hear this a lot, but even as an atheist I think you're making a bad argument.

Murder is a sin in most (all?) religions. It's also against the law. It's not against the law because it's a sin. It's against the law because it violates another person's rights.

Some people view abortion in the same light. They think you're killing a person and they think that should be illegal.

And, yes, even lots of atheists like me get increasingly uncomfortable with abortions after the first trimester. And it's not because of any religious doctrine.

I think your argument was much better suited for an issue like gay marriage where -- no matter how you look at it -- nobody's rights were being violated, and it was entirely based on religious doctrine and tradition.

> Some people view abortion in the same light. They think you're killing a person and they think that should be illegal.

> And, yes, even lots of atheists like me get increasingly uncomfortable with abortions after the first trimester. And it's not because of any religious doctrine.

I did say that I think abortions after the early stages of pregnancy are a more complicated question.

However, legal personhood and religious personhood are and should remain separate concepts. Even more, the legal question of abortion is not settled even if we accepted that legal personhood begins at fertilization - the interests of the mother, and of society, can still outweigh the rights of that legal person.

And as a religious person, you should be able to separate your personal belief that someone is committing a sin when having an abortion, and ending a life, from the rights and needs of that person. Just like we expect people who hold cows as sacred animals not to seek to stop us from killing and eating cows.

People who want a national no-excuse ban like in Louisiana believe bad health outcomes are God's will, so getting their desired outcome leaves suffering people for dead. We'll hear about how the casualties were "no angels" just like we hear in other situations now.

The desired outcome is to change the culture by making it too dangerous to wait to raise kids or reproduce at all without the resources to medevac to treat a complication.

I think this is beside the point. Most religious folk don't possess some special moral wisdom. When a Christian equates abortion with murder, they're typically parroting a belief they've accepted dogmatically from their preacher or faith community, not stating some organic belief emerging from some lengthy Socratic process. So yes, most (but not all) pro-life folk are imposing their religious beliefs on others.

Of course, one could argue that pro-choice folk are equally susceptible to dogma, but it's not as though they're forcing pro-life folk to have abortions.

> it's not as though they're forcing pro-life folk to have abortions

But some of them are doing exactly that: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/world/europe/abortion-men...

Only a Sith speaks in absolutes. A single anecdote is not comparable to the sweeping restrictions imposed by the pro-life movement.

this strawman argument is not only untrue but incredibly unfair to the point of being overtly offensive

Disagree. According to Pew polling, pro-life folk are more likely to be religious, more likely to be more certain about their belief in God, and are more likely to attend religious services.

Furthermore, more than 50% of pro-life folk identify religion as their greatest source of guidance for deciding right from wrong (compare with less than 20% for pro-choice folk). [1]

So yes, most pro-lifers are driven by their religious beliefs.

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[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-stu...

Interesting, 54% of pro-choice folk say "common sense" is their greatest source of guidance, comparable to 52% of pro-life folk saying religion is theirs (on top of 34% going with common sense).

please, continue to explain why a large group people other than yourself UNIFORMLY think the way they do, based upon self-reported poll results, as though that's a valid means of discerning complex human motivations for a broad group of people (that, once again, does not even include yourself). it must be really nice to be content in your own complex thoughts and motivations while boiling those of a large swath of others down to some chart data.

I didn't read panda-giddiness@ saying it is uniform, just that being pro-life vs pro-choice is highly correlated with being religious and some religions are against abortion.

I'm all for freedom of religion but I personally would rather not have laws that apply to everyone be based on the religious beliefs of a portion of the population which it seems like a good portion of religious people are trying to do.

Separation of church and state please.

Yes, precisely this. Most people are not moral philosophers, so I don't expect them to have a nuanced view of moral problems (this includes people who are pro-choice).

Abortion epitomizes a hard moral problem, and frankly I doubt we'll ever be able to solve moral quandaries the way we can solve differential equations. However, I have zero desire in having the solutions legislated based on some group's religious beliefs.

There are plenty of people who think that sin should be illegal. They just don't post on HN.

It is probably good that they don't, because the entire concept is surprisingly problematic. If you don't think about the implications it seems like a no-brainer, but in fact it causes loads of problems.

Making sin illegal is just importing the set of rules from a religion into your existing law. If you believe these rules are the direct word from an infallible deity then it calls into question the need for mortal laws at all. If however you think that sins are idiosyncratic to each religion and often even to sects within a religion then you have to allow for the fact that they may have been created by fallible mortal means. If you allow for this, then you have just imported a mortal law in an effort to improve your mortal law. Even worse, religions can have sins like "you are not allowed to worship any other religion", which directly contradicts your existing law and would be extremely divisive regardless.

Imagine if the government made sin illegal, but chose Buddhism for the list of sins? Would you feel ok with this? Or maybe Shinto? How about Satanism? Or even if they did choose Christianity, but settled on Seventh Day Adventists? Separation of church and state is essential for a stable and diverse democracy.

The parent said "that sin" (specifically) not anything categorised as a sin.

I don't think many Christians have problems with killing (I've been told many a time that the whole "thall shall not" thing is problematic when it comes to translation, which sure... the word of god is pretty ambiguous I suppose).

So maybe god said not to kill or not to murder. Ok, the killing thing seems pretty simple, but the Catholic supermajority of the Supreme Court has no problems with the state killing someone, but they won't let a mother do it to her baby, so maybe in that case they think it's a murder, which is almost definitely against Christian doctrine, at least that part of the Old Testament.

I figured since it was so confusing, I'd just ask Jesus since he's God's messenger and he's got a facebook page where I can contact him. He's actually big on the first breath thing - they can just recycle the soul into another host body up until then anyway, but every once in awhile they fuck it up and put a male soul into a female body or vice versa and then that's a whole thing and The Republicans have a problem with that too.

I used to live in an area with lots of very strict Muslims. Nice people, but they wanted nothing to do with alcohol. Wouldn’t sell it. Avoided stores that sold it.

Their religious beliefs absolute affected the legal situation.

We had much stricter rules about when liquor could close, open, etc. Laws against drunk driving were stricter.

There’s no constitutional right to alcohol. But there is separation between church and state.

But the issue wasn’t “church” (or mosque) it was the fact that everyone really hated alcohol and didn’t want their neighbors drinking it.

You're quite correct in observing that the religious issue isn't even relevant to the actual abortion debate. Overturning Roe's viability standard can be justified completely on the basis that it draws the that line on about when the "fetus gets closer to being an actual person" in the wrong place. As the article observes, most of the developed world draws that line around 12-14 weeks, versus closer to 22-24 weeks under Roe.

>It's important to note that whether this is sinful or not completely irrelevant to whether it should be illegal.

Why? There are plenty of legal jurisdictions that have laws influenced by religion. Israel and Saudi Arabia are the 2 countries that come to mind. But Utah also has plenty of laws that are influenced by Mormons- and no one is complaining about the liquor laws there.

If a group of citizens banded together to form a city, and then, collectively passed a law prohibiting people from walking outside after sunset on Friday - is that wrong?

We already have religious groups that have decided that physician-assisted suicide is OK - and it is illegal for Drs to not-perform them.

Why can't Christians form together and make laws to align with their religion?

> If a group of citizens banded together to form a city, and then, collectively passed a law prohibiting people from walking outside after sunset on Friday - is that wrong?

Yes, it is wrong - it infringes basic human rights of that person. Israel and Saudi Arabia are wrong and in violation of obvious human rights for some of their religious laws, as are Iran, India and many other countries.

> Why can't Christians form together and make laws to align with their religion?

No one should be allowed to do so, because it infringes natural human rights.

No it isn't, laws are made for the people.

There is no such thing as natural human rights. It's something that gets redefined by the dominant cultures constantly.

If Christians want to live under Biblical Law, let them. if Muslims want to live under Sharia, let them. If Jews want to live under Jewish Laws, let them.

There absolutely is such a thing as natural human rights. Some are known since ancient times, some have been discovered more recently, and some are probably not well known or understood yet. But there are certain rights that humans and other beings musg have for any society to function well in an objective sense.

Most religions trample on most of the rights that we now understand to be fundamental, so theocraies are something to be despised and feared.

To be very clear: religious belief and practice, as long as it is not imposed on non-believers, is not a problem. The imposition of your religious beliefs on others - theocracy - is the problem.

Technically, the poster is still correct: there's no such thing as "natural" human rights. Rights do not exist in material reality, they're entirely cultural and thus made up.

Not even the international declaration of human rights is signed by all countries. Rights are not given, they are political and need to be declared and defended, constantly.

If people voluntarily give up their rights in order to feel a sense of belonging with a religion that is their prerogative. It is not fine for those people to attempt to enforce those restrictions on people outside of their religion.

If those people are causing actual harm to the community then it should be brought up through the secular legal process where lawmakers will weigh the harm to the community vs. the harm to personal liberty before deciding if the law is worth it.

My neighbors are observant Jews. They obey lots of rules and check in the uruv before leaving their homes when applicable.

They don’t make me follow their rules. But they are still subject to civil laws.

That is a good point. Maybe America really could use a peaceful separation. There seems to be a large part of the country that would be happy and content to live in a Christian nation.

I mean a lot of America's origins are English's religious rejects. Since before the constitution they probably we pretty happy to be in a Christian nation. There's a reason the 1st amendment is the 1st amendment and not part of the original constitution (some states felt their neighbors were going to force their puritanical believes upon them and so wouldn't ratify the constitution amongst other reasons).

> But Utah also has plenty of laws that are influenced by Mormons- and no one is complaining about the liquor laws there.

You've never talked with people from Utah have you?

Not op nor do I know which laws you are thinking of.

But, while I was in Utah for a ~week I saw plenty of (probably tourist) people be very surprised that there was a big distinction between the bar area and restaurant area of restaurants as those seated in the restaurant area _must_ purchase food if they're having alcohol.

From what I've heard instead of bars you have to go to "member only clubs" to get around the blue laws. I think they shut down liquor sales pretty early in the evening as well. It has been awhile since the subject came up with my relatives from Utah, but mostly because people don't want them to get started. They are also a state with a fair number of dry counties I believe.

Part time Utah resident here: you can only buy liquor/beer/wine > 5% ABV at state owned liquor stores and restaurants/bars draft beer has to be < 5% ABV but for some reason canned beer can be > 5% at restaurants (Makes zero sense to me). I believe there is like a 1 drink limit max per person at a time (maybe just liquor, I forget) and the state owned liquor stores are closed on Sunday too.

> But Utah also has plenty of laws that are influenced by Mormons- and no one is complaining about the liquor laws there.

What are you basing that on because I live there 3 months a year and I assure you I bitch about it nonstop!

Fwiw, I think a lot of people do.

Polling has shown that 72% of the country supports per-trimester restrictions with essentially open access in the 1st, increased restrictions in the 2nd and emergency only in the 3rd.

I know you’re going to ask for a source, but I don’t remember where I saw it.

Yes, my understanding is also that most people actually hold a pretty moderate view on abortion - it should be legal without restrictions up to some gestational age (typically around 10-15 weeks), it may be legal for a longer time in more cases, it should always be legal when it seriously risks the mother's life etc.

I was not claiming I'm making a unique statement or coming up with some novel arguments, I was only arguing against the points of GP.

Without a source, I have to say it sounds like bullshit. Europe mostly only has abortion upto 14 weeks and is a very liberal place.

Europe may be liberal but the parent was certainly talking about USA.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/where-americans-stand-o...

Polls look pretty extremely variable. Some polls show half of Americans are against abortion.

Some polls show that of the Americans that support abortion, support drops after the first trimester.

I'm calling BS on the original op statement that 72% of Americans support abortion.This seems like the shy republican polling problem in 2016 all over again.

> Polls look pretty extremely variable. Some polls show half of Americans are against abortion. > Some polls show that of the Americans that support abortion, support drops after the first trimester.

Those are two separate claims that can easily both be true. A big problem with polls about abortion is that its not actually a well defined term (how many weeks? is mothers life in danger? rape? etc).

> This seems like the shy republican polling problem in 2016 all over again.

Not quite on topic, but polls did not give hilary a 100% chance to win the 2016 election. Polls are extremely good at predicting events (compared to say a literal coin flip) but lower probability events do occur. Go flip a coin a bunch of times and you'll get 2 heads in a row (25% chance! thats even worse than what 538 gave trump [1]).

[1]: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/

> whether this is sinful or not completely irrelevant to whether it should be illegal

Unless your country has an official religion. Making the sins of that specific religion illegal would not not make sense there.

The history that some, including the justices, are reading is a merge of sinful and illegal. One interpretation of the English common law is that it left abortion to the ecclesiastical courts. To use your words, the equation changes at the quickening (first kick), but I don’t think that was noted in the SC opinion.

I think history is even less relevant than religion. This is a question of fundamental human rights, and it should be settled under a modern understanding of human rights, not medieval legal frameworks.

The problem is that when you put this stuff on a timer, someone has to decide what time it is. Why is 10 weeks ok, but 12 weeks not?

People are going to have different opinions, and societal norms and beliefs shape that. If I walked up to you and cut off your head, I’d be arrested and called a savage killer. If I was in the army and called in an artillery strike that fit the rules of engagement and killed 500 people, I might be lauded as a hero.

Abortion is a tough issue as it touches on so many issues. When does a mother’s life outweigh the child’s? When does the child outweigh the mother? When does the mental health of the mother outweigh the life of the child? When does the ability to support the child factor apply? Should a woman be able to use abortion as “free” birth control?

Different people will answer those questions differently based on their beliefs and perspective.

IMO, the rights of the child only exist after it is not wholly dependent on the mother's life to exist (ie. an actual child, not a fetus.) Which means that a dead fetus has no rights, and a fetus that would kill the mother isn't even a person, much less a person with the right to kill the pregnant person.

I’ve had the bad fortune of actually being in situations with these types of scenarios twice.

Personally, I’m pro-choice because I don’t think the law should make these decisions, as they are difficult, situational things that have nuance. I find aspects of abortion horrifying, but I respect that it’s none of my business.

> a fetus that would kill the mother isn't even a person

How would you apply this to Gianna Emanuela? Do you think that she wasn't a person even well past when she was viable?

> It's important to note that whether this is sinful or not completely irrelevant to whether it should be illegal. The fact that so many Christians don't see this obvious fact is frankly disturbing - as is the fact that organizations like the Catholic Church are engaged in trying to push such theocratic ideas.

I agree it has nothing to do with whether it's sinful or not. Basic human rights stand for religious as well as non-religious people. Therefore anyone can push human rights in the way they want, whether they're the Catholic Church or not.

> There are many huge sins that are perfectly legal. For example, eating pork, killing cows, and working on the Sabbath are much worse sins according to their respective religions, and yet they are perfectly legal activities.

Again, the things that are illegal, do not undermine the basic human rights. So, in modern society, eating pork shouldn't lead to death (which doesn't, not even in religious terms) but same goes for working on sabbath. ONLY if you subject yourself to it, and only then, you, personally, waive the human right to live.

> For legal matters, the only thing that matters is balancing the rights of one individual with the rights of everyone else, and with the good of society of large. From all of these points of view, allowing access to early term abortion is a clear net win, even if it infringes on the rights of a kinda sorta potential person (the fetus). As the fetus gets closer to being an actual person, the equation changes.

I think we're on a very bad slope here. The question of whether something is good for society at large is the one the Nazi's followed as well. By that, we should think of the rights of every single individual. Therefore, killing a human is not allowed, unless it's for the inevitable life of another human, there should not be a question what the answer is. Neither as a fetus, nor as an "actual person"

Identity politics and their resulting policies should be avoided at all costs. We should focus on the individual and their rights, and the group, or society if you will, will benefit.

> I think we're on a very bad slope here. The question of whether something is good for society at large is the one the Nazi's followed as well. By that, we should think of the rights of every single individual. Therefore, killing a human is not allowed, unless it's for the inevitable life of another human, there should not be a question what the answer is. Neither as a fetus, nor as an "actual person"

There is virtually no legal decision that does not balance the rights of the individual with those of society. Most clearly, when a law punishes an individual, especially with jail time, that is a way of putting the rights of society before the rights of that individual.

Even more importantly, the question of abortion clearly puts the right of a woman to have the freedom to use her body in conflict with the right of the being growing inside her uterus. There is no way to legislate this without curtailing the rights of one of these beings (even if we don't consider the fetus as a person, non-human beings still have rights under the law of most countries).